Question to become a luck magnet:

Are you embracing your Pattern Interrupts?

A few weeks ago, I got together for a mentorship chat with a young woman looking for some career and life advice.

As she was telling me about her current professional track—the audit team at a big firm—I was subconsciously filling in the details of who she was, her interests, path, and focus.

This is natural, we all do this to fill in the blanks and make sense of the world and our interactions.

I probably thought I had a pretty good sense of who she was, until I asked about what gave her energy outside of work:

"I do stand-up comedy on the weekends."

Consider my mental model completely shattered. A member of an audit team at a big firm—a noble, but very safe, path—who does one of the most terrifying things in the world (stand-up comedy) for fun?!

Suddenly, I found myself leaning in, fascinated, wanting to learn more and help.

This was what I like to call a Pattern Interrupt: It was something unique that interrupted the pattern I was forming in my mind about her.

In life, you're often told to mask or hide your Pattern Interrupts. You're told to blend in, to fit in, to go with the crowd. But that is the worst advice I can imagine.

On the contrary, you should lean into your Pattern Interrupts:

The same things that make you "weird" as a kid are what will make you successful as an adult. Your unique blend of interests, hobbies, and eccentricities attract lucky events into your life. People will seek you out. You become a magnet for interesting opportunities.

But that can only happen if you embrace those Pattern Interrupts. If you let them shine, wear them as a badge of honor, rather than something to be hidden away.

What are your Pattern Interrupts? How can you embrace them fully?

Quote on the power of the small:

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world." - Malala

Never underestimate the power of tiny actions.

A small stone thrown into a lake can create a ripples that expand for ages.

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Framework on the power of cliffhangers:

Zeigarnik Effect

American novelist Ernest Hemingway was famous for following a unique practice when it came to his daily writing:

He would always stop writing at a very interesting moment in the work.

This seems counterintuitive—one would assume that continuing your flow through these interesting moments is more effective—but Hemingway had discovered something of note:

By leaving the writing with these cliffhanger moments, he found it easier to come back to the work and create that continued forward momentum. He felt more motivated and excited to sit back down and continue the writing.

As it turns out, Hemingway was onto something scientifically:

A psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik conducted a series of experiments in the 1920s that found that interrupted or incomplete tasks were remembered better than completed ones.

In one of the experiments, 138 children were asked to go through simple tasks, like puzzles and math problems. Half of the participants were allowed to complete the tasks, while half were stopped midway through. Participants were twice as likely to remember the incomplete tasks than the complete ones.

The Zeigarnik Effect is the aptly-named psychological phenomenon that describes this tendency to remember the unfinished or interrupted tasks better than the completed ones.

This research—and Hemingway's strategy—might suggest there is value in leaving certain pieces of work strategically unfinished to make it easier to come back and continue during the next sitting.

However, there is also research to suggest that unfinished tasks have a tendency to mentally bleed out into leisure time, creating a psychological weight that impacts enjoyment.

The key is identifying the type of work where creating a "Hemingway cliffhanger" might be effective, rather than burdensome.

A few areas where I have found value in strategically unfinished work:

• Creative work that requires creative momentum. The Hemingway special.
• Processing certain admin tasks, where momentum "feels good" and it's not urgent enough to create anxiety if it doesn't get done today.
• Brainstorming new ideas.

Think about how you might be able to experiment with these cliffhangers in your own professional life. I'd love to hear how it works for you!

Powerful story on doing hard things:

This is one of my all-time favorites:

"Would it not be more tranquil and serene to be a gardener and tend the plants?" the student asked.

The teacher replied:

"Tending the garden is a relaxing pastime, but it does not prepare one for the inevitable battles of life. It is easy to be calm in a serene setting.

To be calm and serene when under attack is much more difficult; therefore, I tell you it is far better to be a warrior tending his garden than to be a gardener at war."

Do hard things. Because life is hard—and when we embrace voluntary struggle, we’re better equipped for the involuntary struggle that inevitably comes.

It's better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war.

Interesting idea I came across:

I recently read ​this story​ about using a password to change your life:

It was 2011 and I was stuck in middle of a pretty bad depression due to my divorce...One day I walk into the office, and my computer screen showed me the following message:

"Your password has expired. Click ‘Change password’ to change your password."

As the input field with the pulsating cursor was waiting for me to type a password — something I’d use many times during every day — I remembered a tip I heard from my former boss.

And I decided: I’m gonna use a password to change my life.

My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be victim of my recent break up, and that I’m strong enough to do something about it.

My password became: "Forgive@h3r"

I had to type this statement several times a day...In my mind, I went with the mantra that I didn’t type a password. In my mind, I wrote "Forgive her" every day, for one month. That simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife. That constant reminder that I should forgive her led me to accept the way things happened at the end of my marriage, and embrace a new way of dealing with the depression that I was drowning into.

In the following days, my mood improved drastically. By the end of the second week, I noticed that this password became less powerful, and it started to lose its effect. A quick refresh of this "mantra" helped me. I thought to myself "I forgive her" as I typed it, every time. The healing effect of it came back almost immediately.

This is a neat idea for using an overlooked part of your day to cement a behavior or mindset change.

It doesn't have to be a password (with cybersecurity being such a problem these days). It could just be some repetitive part of your day that sparks you to repeat some mantra.

Example: Each time you wash your hands, you say "I'm going to do what I need to do today."

It could be a regular reminder of your transformation into the type of person you want to become. Try it and let me know what you think.