Overcoming discouragement?

Very rarely, I happen to get discouraged. It just happened to me last week, and it didn't last long, just a few hours. I know it’s a normal feeling and that’s how I manage it. I realize that moments of discouragement are normal for most of us, even when they occur rarely. 

When it happens to me, I don’t try to deny it, I just acknowledge it since it’s in me, and take advantage of that moment to turn this seemingly negative experience into an opportunity to constructively regain a sense of purpose and motivation. I would say that the toughest part of this process is to acknowledge and validate that feeling, even more so for men than for women. 

I try to just observe the feeling, reminding myself that it won’t last long and that it’s pretty usual. It doesn't mean I've failed or that my efforts are worthless, I simply try to ask myself what put me in that mental state? Was it a setback, a piece of news, a feeling of being stuck, or something else? In my case, it never fails, it's always falling short from executing correctly, under-performing or being beaten by someone else. Both perfectionism and competitiveness at work! 

Understanding all this helps me address the root cause of my problems or just gain clarity and place the event into proper perspective within the grand scheme of things. If there’s something I can learn out of discouragement, it’s to draw the lessons that will benefit me and move quickly away from it. Since for me, this happens quite rarely, these strategies have been working fine. 

I hope they’ll help too if you try them!

Keeping the pipeline filled up!

Having constantly something to do, everyday, like advancing or bringing to fruition a project starts by first placing it into our “task pipeline”. If we fail to do so, we’ll end up with nothing to do, and even worse, nothing ready when we absolutely need it. Momentum doesn't just come from motivation—it’s built by habit, structure, and clarity. 

The “task pipeline” concept is powerful, and it requires us to think systemically. Let’s explore how it should work. As much as possible, I try to plan ahead and avoid letting projects or tasks pile up, without my deciding on them and dropping them into my pipeline. I avoid procrastinating and don’t let the seed of an idea or a project idle for too long outside of the fertile and resilient environment that my pipeline is. It begins with placing only tasks that belong there and need this nurturing space. 

That filtering process takes into consideration the task’s impact, urgency, and alignment with our broader goals. It’s not much different than tending a veggie garden like I do. In addition, we must review these projects regularly and update them, based upon ideas, opportunities, surprises and unexpected changes. Using a system, either digitally or on paper is also critical to track what’s inside our pipeline. Its contents must also be broken into progressive “mini victories” instead of vague goals like “just finish the project”. 

This way it can turn into a much more detailed plan that is reviewed and iterated frequently. Pipelines stagnate when we forget and stop refining them. We must end each week with a short reflection: What moved forward? What stalled? What shifted in priority? This practice gives some life and rhythm to our strategy. Of course, we must leave room for the unforeseen, as an overly rigid pipeline can blow up when bad surprises show up along the way. Let’s remember to build slack or “open blocks” into our days to absorb unexpected tasks or spontaneous creativity. 

Good luck with creating and maintaining your own “task pipelines” if you haven’t already done so!

My major regret?

When I ask myself or when someone asks me that question, I generally answer: “I’ve no regret whatsoever”, which, let’s face it, isn’t totally true. Still, I won’t get about what I regret at this point, as I prefer to minimize it. 

This said, last Sunday, as we were walking by the Mormon Church, my heart went for all these people that were spoiling their free time worshiping a man-made, highly doubtful and irrational deity. I was thinking they’d benefit more from going mountain-biking, fishing, golfing or skiing in winter. 

Then, my thoughts shifted to my life and that’s when I realized all the skiing and other fun I missed because of my church attendance while I was a kid. How much better a skier would I have been in my youth had it not been for my church attendance, with the promise of perhaps having made the French ski team and not having to perform my boring 16 month of compulsory military service, etc, etc. 

Right, my Catholic upbringing was a royal waste of my precious time and I do regret that I was forced by my parents, my local culture and tradition to have to attend catechism, go to church and serve as an altar boy as much as I have, do my confirmation, communion and the like instead of going skiing or roaming the mountain by foot in the off season! 

Do I mention all the fear that my religious experience brought to me and all the guilt it let seep into my mind, screwing up most of my life, as it’s only now, at the end of my life, that I begin to see things more clearly. Yes, a tragic waste of time and a major regret of mine!

When Time isn’t on my side!

We’re long time subscribers to Time magazine and over the years we kept our subscription current by renewing regularly. This year, we’ll receive the weekly publication through this coming August. 

Yet, I’ve been bombarded with letters and emails pushing me to renew since the beginning of the year, efforts I find excessive and really annoying. 

The renewal for our yearly subscription is only $34.75 for 44 issues, amount that I find to be quite reasonable, but when I go to the magazine’s website, Time.com, it lists the cost of subscriptions at $19 for one year and $34 for two, which make not much sense for anyone who masters basic arithmetic. 

That’s why just for the sake of principle and lack of logic, I will let our subscription lapse and start a new one, a week later, for half the price and for two years. I wonder what the individual in charge of subscription was thinking? 

It’s quite probable that this particular person has stopped thinking long ago…

Are domestic robots coming sooner? (part two)

As a born optimist, and barring a major worldwide financial catastrophe or nuclear conflict, I believe that Artificial Intelligence will transform our lives very fast, far quicker than specialists predict as it can learn from itself and act on the same principles of accrued interests, but at much higher, I should say lighting speed. 

There’s also a huge confluence forming between AI, receding birth rates in developed countries, a challenging labor market (workers availability, cost of labor), quality control, trust or lack-thereof. All these trends will be pushing society and boosting investments towards automatizing menial tasks as soon as technologically (not humanly anymore) possible. 

Through careful observation of how to accomplish tasks, it will become possible to design tools (robots) that can accomplish all kinds of predictable or observable tasks much better, probably faster and certainly more consistently than if they were done by humans. At any rate, if it doesn't come from America, it's problably going to emerge in China and well ahead of schedule!

When you see what Google has done with Waymo, I’m convinced that with growing economic incentives and an unstoppable AI, it will take far less time than most “experts” still think, before robots become fully part of our daily lives! 

Has the robot made the beds yet? (part one)

When I think about future trends, I see a convergence between the availability, the cost of menial help and the strides made by Artificial Intelligence (AI), so I’m thinking it’s only a matter of a few years (within a decade, I believe) before we had domestic robots performing household shores from making beds to cleaning the house and cooking us meals. 

That’s not quite what the expert says, but like me, they’ve been wrong many times, so let’s read what they’re saying… While its generally admitted that the dream of a robotic housekeeper is inching closer—experts don’t believe it’s quite ready yet to fold our laundry. Here's what they tell it might take and when we could hope to see it. 

First, advanced robotics hardware robots must still be perfected to physically handle a variety of tasks, like gripping delicate objects, navigating cluttered spaces, and adapting to unpredictable environments. This means better sensors, dexterity, and mobility. Further, these robots will need to understand context like we can. For example, knowing not to put a cat in the washing machine or how to respond to a spill while cooking. 

This kind of intuitive reasoning is still a major challenge according to what I hear. Some say that AI systems that learn from videos of humans doing tasks, like peeling potatoes or watering plants, will be able to adapt what their camera see into robotic actions. I’m told that companies like Toyota and Google are actively developing these models. When and if that technology works, it needs to be affordable and socially accepted. Privacy concerns, reliability, and cost are said to be big hurdles, but frankly I’ve got my doubts about it. 

My sources indicate that within the next 5 years we might see more specialized robots—like vacuums, mops, and maybe grocery delivery bots. In fact these already exist and we would see improvements creep up rapidly. Within 10 years, around 40% of household chores could be automated, especially repetitive tasks like cleaning and shopping. 

Robots might assist with cooking or organizing, but don’t expect complex care-giving to be possible. Within 15 years, would be the time when fully autonomous, general-purpose household robots would become a reality. The ones that can do laundry, cook meals, and adapt to our preferences would still be decades away. 

I don’t quite agree with that timeline, and tomorrow, I will attempt to explain why these delays might be cut in two. Stay tuned…

A super-moral businessman-statesman

Under Biden, the US economy was pretty good, but this started to drastically change with Trump. With his focus on social issues like canceling Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI), going after antisemitism for no good reason, harassing trans and other non-conforming ‘sexes’, our born-businessman has wandered and let the economy down. 

Just consider this: Trump’s election has not been good economic news, so far, in spite of the suggestions that the man is a “seasoned deal-maker”. His on, off, and on again tariffs, are creating deep and lasting incertitude in the business community, leading the United States dollar to have its worst first six months of the year since 1973, as Donald Trump's economic policies have prompted global investors to sell their greenback holdings, threatening the currency's “safe-haven” status. 

The wealth loss sustained by the US and the result of that uncertainty, as between November 1, 2024 (just before the election) to date, the US dollar has plunged 7.5% against the Euro. Causing its current $29.18 trillion GDP to lose $2.19 trillion in world value! This policy of widespread tariffs will continue to be a net negative for the US economy, leading to higher costs for consumers (inflation), reduced overall consumption, and a dampening of business and investor confidence due to increased uncertainty in trade policy. 

Next, a promised deportation of millions of undocumented individuals will be an economic shock characterized by a significant reduction in labor supply, lost consumer demand, decreased tax revenues, and widespread price increases, ultimately leading to a contraction in GDP and a lower standard of living for many Americans. 
Economic models on similar scales of deportation often project billions or even trillions of dollars, that haven’t yet been accounted for, in lost GDP over time. 

Finally, the significant reversal of climate change policy by the Trump and his fellow MAGA Republicans will likely have cascading negative effects, from increasing domestic environmental and health challenges to severely complicating and potentially derailing the global effort to combat climate change, leading to more severe and widespread climate impacts worldwide and more financial cost to humanity!