Calculus of IT - Season 2 Episode 6.3 - Reflecting on Reflection Time

Every now and again Mike and I like to step aside and discuss some of the external impacts on being an IT Leader (and also just being a human trying to keep one's shit together in this day and age.)

Next week, we will be back to dive into the rest of the season. We will start with some heavy-duty stuff in episodes 7 and 8, so before we get there, we wanted to take a moment to discuss the importance of reflection, particularly for IT Leaders. It's fair to say that Mike and I each have some overlapping methods for reflective time but also manage to squeeze it in in our own ways.  We hope that you can take away some inspiration for creating your own reflection time.

Enjoy the moment, don't stress too much about the global dumpster fire, and we will be back next week.

Transcript

Jort 3 - Final - Audion Only

Theme: [00:00:00] In a world where signals bloom, we compute our dreams in rooms, data streams and bite balloons, algorithms make us swoon. The calculus of I. T. Without you, autonomy. The calculus of I. T. We value what's on the way, through the code we weave our faith, in the data sees we escape, zeros, ones that can't obey, we control it, it's innate.

Yo. Yo, yo. Mike's in the bathroom. I am in the barn. 

Nate McBride: It's interesting, like, it looks like the bathroom.[00:01:00] 

Mike Crispin: But this is actually my bedroom. And here's the funny thing. Like you see this window behind me. This is the only head space in the whole room. So this, this is like where I bump my head every morning. And uh, Is that 

Nate McBride: some kind of support mechanism? Or could you just knock it out? Like why is that there? 

Mike Crispin: Uh, it's there to bring the cold air in.

To trap the cold air and let it fall on my head. 

Nate McBride: It's a cold air. It's a cold air vertice. 

Mike Crispin: Yes. It's an, it's a non insulated quandary. 

Nate McBride: Cold air 

Mike Crispin: pocket. That's good. I bet it looks cool though. Hey, it's 1850s architecture. That's what we're talking about here. It's, it's, it's vintage. This is a vintage room.

Nate McBride: It's 

Mike Crispin: very 

Nate McBride: vintage. Is your, is your [00:02:00] iPad or whatever it is you're on, on a bouncy pillow right now? Yeah, I'm on the bed right now.

It's okay. It doesn't matter. No one watches it on YouTube anyway. I'm gonna 

Mike Crispin: hold it still so I don't bounce too much. 

Nate McBride: You can't move at all for the next, the rest of this episode. You have to sit still. All right, I'm sitting still. You can only blink and move your mouth. I will only blink and move my mouth.

So we're a little bit short on time tonight only because um, I was at a thing for CIOs earlier. And it went long, uh, or than I hoped. So yeah, we're, what we're going to do is we're going to just chat a bit tonight. And then next week I'm going to put out, um, one of our jorts, [00:03:00] which, um, is one of my favorites.

And then the week after that week of, uh, St. Patty's day week, we will. Resume with episode seven. Yes. Sounds good. But, um, Hey, so before we get into anything, I heard that you got a new plus one in your department. Congrats. Yes, thank 

Mike Crispin: you. Thank you. Very exciting. Um, an an IT experience manager. I love it.

Fantastic guy. And it's just a, it's, it's, it's a great team. It XM IT TXM and it's just a great fit. So we are, uh, we're having fun. We're, we've got the IT row now we're creating the IT nexus. I had to use it. So we're gonna, you guys, did you guys get matching tattoos yet? Not yet, but that's what we're going with.

We're going with Nexus across the board. And I don't know if it's because I have the, um, [00:04:00] but who's the, who's the Tyrell from Blade Runner? I have his glasses, I think. So we're going to go with Nexus and the theme, no replicants created yet. Okay. But the next test them, I know that way they're right around the corner.

We'll have them, we'll have them by next year, refilling the, maybe could bring in, help us carry the cold brew in or something. 

Nate McBride: You got to give them a purpose. If you give the replicant a purpose, it's going to be happy. It doesn't need to know why it just needs a purpose to do a thing. That's right. It 

Mike Crispin: needs purpose that will continue to aspire to greatness.

If you give it a purpose, that's deep, hence the nexus influence, does the nexus have a purpose? It's the connection, the cross functional [00:05:00] connection. Does it synergize Mike? There's quite synergy as much as there is outreach and glue and synthesis. 

Nate McBride: And synthesis and tubing alignment of alignment of ideas, 

Mike Crispin: tubing and alignment, philosophies, and ideas.

Nate McBride: I'm wondering if we could do an entire full episode, just using PowerPoint marketing tropes. Yes, 

Mike Crispin: it's great when you get through a presentation, that's one of the things that I, I learned once, uh, years ago, I was, I, I thought I had this great presentation ready to go and I was, it was going up to the executive team and presenting on really our IT strategy, and it was right after a.

You know, some big changes in the company, [00:06:00] so it was a great time to talk about how things were going to change. So I got 30 minutes in when I was ready to ask questions, you know, I'm sorry, I'm bouncing still. Um, but, uh, asking questions and asking for questions. And one of the people said, you know, I really like your philosophy.

But can we go back through what you're going to do?

And I said, let's go back to slide two, because it's a list of things that we're going to do, but it was so much, I think. Kind of like big picture talking, cause it was a time of a lot of change that had to be reeled back into the tactics, you know, it was all like, what are your tactics? It's a great philosophy.

We love it. What, what, what, what are you, what's the steps? What are the tasks? Like, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Let's go back to slide two. We'll go, we'll [00:07:00] talk more deeply about those. From five, for five, 10 minutes. And it was great. I mean, that's probably all I had to do is go through those five to 10 minutes and it would've been be, it would've been better probably tasks, tactics and strategies.

Mike, 

Nate McBride: TTS 

Mike Crispin: gotta gotta have the tactics, um, 

Nate McBride: because you can't do the, the tasks without 

Mike Crispin: tactics. That was great. Well, that, that, that leadership team was, you know, I, I was always, I think. Concerned that I would get too technical with things because that's just how I'm wired. And so I tried to keep it more high level, strategic, you know, milestones, that type of stuff.

And I got an enormous amount of technical questions. And I don't know if they were just trying to throw me off. Or, but they were really interested in the technology and I was like, okay, well, we can talk about some of those things as well. And that's what we were back to slide two. And can I use that at home?

No, no, that's not what we're talking about. It was great. No, [00:08:00] that was a great meeting, but I learned like you need the right balance of your philosophy, your strategy, your vision and your action. And uh, 

Nate McBride: Bye. Bye. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah. 

Nate McBride: So there's some more. You just put all the words in one thing there. Well 

Mike Crispin: done. Yes. I got a dot matrix printout to put across our room for that philosophy strategy and vision.

That's happy birthday, Mikey 

Nate McBride: balloons. It took you like two weeks to program that with ASCII art. Yes. It was all ASCII art.

All right. Um, so what's on your mind? 

Mike Crispin: Well, one of the things, uh, definitely been thinking a lot about is. Just the process in which I reflect on things and certainly take time for myself. [00:09:00] I mean, especially in this, this new role, kind of starting a new team. And I've been there for two years and I don't think I took enough time.

Yeah. It's amazing. Almost two years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's going to be a year and a half, right? I think technically, geez, I can't even keep track anymore. That's why I need to reflect more. Um, I didn't do that a lot in prior roles. I was always heads down trying to drive things forward. And I don't think I took enough time to not only think about myself, but How my team, I think I spent a lot of time about how my team was doing, but how our strategy needed to change.

I never had time to reflect on things and what was working, what didn't. Now, where I was, was I burned out? Was I, did I have enough energy to persist and to be productive? Um, And then also in those times of reflection, it's, it's, I lost touch with the marketplace and [00:10:00] technology and the things that I was passionate about.

And I found myself weaving around and office politics and all that stuff that really, when you get, I think to a medium sized company is sometimes hard to, to navigate or small, small, small or large company. Um, so taking those, that time away to do something that you like to do where you can think. Um, and clear, clear, clear the clear the subconscious a little bit or clear your clear your conscious, I should say, the subconscious is always being cleaned out, I think, but, um, yeah, 

Nate McBride: I think, I think to a large part of what you're talking about is.

I mean, it kind of touches on the season overall, but it's our ability to stop and do that introspective, um, that I, what I just do, um, apply itself to the organization in a way that I [00:11:00] wanted, or was it something that I did because I'm heads down going? Yeah. Like, the thing that I just did, was it the best thing?

And I, I don't know if it was a habit I've always had or a habit I developed over time, but I try to spend as much time as possible. Um, and it's actually a, it's actually more of a curse now than a blessing, but spend as much time as possible second guessing myself on, on every single thing that I do. I really don't have, I don't have a mirror.

Um, to do that. I do have a brilliant number one who works for me, but she doesn't, she's so busy. She doesn't have the time to listen to and hear about the things that I've done. So a lot of time it's like, um, okay, I'm going to do this thing. Because it's, I've done all the research that I think I need to do.

I've, I've made the decisions. I'm going to do this thing. And then I'm immediately going to go into reflection mode. And [00:12:00] probably sometimes over reflect, which is to say the next morning, I'll come into the office and say, ah, I shouldn't have done that. Or what if I had done it a different way? Would it be better?

And I don't set up myself to say, I'm just going to do this and then see what happens and let it ride for a while, which is something that maybe we would have done a long time ago, but now because of the flexibility afforded to me, I'm saying Let me set this up and try it for one hour and see how it goes.

Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't awesome. Okay. I gotta, I gotta redo it again. Um, overall, I think adding in reflection time. However you want to do it is key like I I use running I know that you're you spend a lot of time on the bike and you run to When I run I will chew over problems big [00:13:00] problem processing time to yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and I will I don't run with headphones. I don't either in my own brain Yeah, for two or three hours or however long or six hours or however long I'm out and I'm like, okay, that thing that really pissed me off or that thing that I just don't understand, like, let me, let me turn that box around over and over and look at every single side.

Like maybe the other person was right and I was wrong. Let me look at that from their perspective, you know? Yeah. But that's more of a, I would call maybe deeper reflection moment or time when I'm able to just chew it apart and I can't go back to my office because I'm, I'm running, like, I can't go and resolve it.

I have to think about it versus say, deploying something in the enterprise and then immediately reflecting on it and then resisting the temptation to go back and change it. [00:14:00] 

Mike Crispin: That's right. Cause you're away from, you're away from the keyboard. You're, you're, you're out in a completely different headspace.

In which you can even micro reflect on pieces of different things and drill into them. Yeah. And I feel like you in most for some reason when you're in, whether it's exercise or you're sitting on a train, when you're in motion. There's something that I don't even know how to explain it helps you to remember and process that for me personally helps me to remember and process those things.

Something about moving. the actual physical act of moving through space creates like this ability for me to focus better internally. Yeah. I think I should say, um, and often think about. It's when I'm talking about kind of the end of the day [00:15:00] type reflection, like if I'm, if I, if it is, I'm riding a bike or like, I don't feel like when I'm riding the bike in stationary, like the Peloton that I'm thinking as much or as clearly.

Or as efficiently as I am when I'm running. So like there's this motion and changing of setting that creates like this churn and thinking about a lot of times what I reflect on is. Am I still learning stuff? And how can I learn more stuff? With, with And be able to apply it, uh, consistently when I'm learning that's new, that's effective, that can help that.

I don't pack that away somewhere. And then I, what's fresh, I try and apply as much as I can as quickly as I can within reason. But that usually happens during, during running or, or if I'm sitting on a bus or a train, but if I'm stationary and if, you know, from physical [00:16:00] exercise perspective, um, that's a whole different, that's like a blackout.

Situation like I'm not thinking of anything, um, or like weight training or whatever this, but moving is huge. Um, like sometimes I feel like some of the best time thinking is on an airplane weird, but like that's when I can think or when I'm on a train, like I said, or bus or just sitting in traffic in a car.

It's so weird for me. That's when I'll reflect there's a lot is when I'm, but I have to be in motion, which is a weird thing. 

Nate McBride: Well, I'll tell you something funny about this reflecting now that, now that you're talking about it, you know, one thing that's been happening to me and I wouldn't, I would go back a couple of years now for sure, at least two years, possibly even back to the COVID time is that, and maybe, maybe if I think about this a lot more, I'll be able to put it together, but there was something that happened where I [00:17:00] would wake up at three 30 or in the morning, And I've always been an early riser.

4. 30 is when my alarm goes off. And I'd wake up and I'd be thinking about a presentation or a deck that I wanted to make because it was related to a point I wanted to get across to somebody. Case in point. This morning 3. 45. Just on my own, no alarm. And I was thinking about a deck that I'm going to be giving in a few weeks to the whole company on, um, NotebookLM.

And in my dream, or in my state as I was coming out of REM or whatever state I was coming out of, I was laughing to myself in my dream of like, wouldn't it be funny If I made the background of every slide like the Super Mario Bros. World 1 1, like the mushrooms, you know, and the trees. And so, and I woke up around 3.

45 and I had this thought, but also in my dream I imagined the [00:18:00] entire deck. Like I saw the whole deck, right? And this is crazy because I went downstairs and I started the coffee machine and I grabbed my phone and I went into Google keep and I made a note of all the slides and what I would have on them.

And when I came in my office today, I made that deck and it made perfect, it makes perfect sense. Like I'm going to deliver this deck on the 19th to my company. Sure. But I dreamed about it. Now, if I was just going through my day, and you said, Nate, sit down and make a deck, I'd have to like make notes and spend a lot of time thinking about it.

But this just, this came, this just came to me. And it happens a lot where I will be woken, usually very early in the morning. By a problem I know I have to solve and I'll have the answer and it's, it's kind of crazy how many times I've woken up at this, you know, between three and four in the [00:19:00] morning with just the answer.

Like my brain, my brain is churning through it in its own sort of time. And during the REM sleep, like it's, it's prioritizing it. It's kind of sad actually, cause I'm not dreaming about fun things. Hey. 

Mike Crispin: It's it's well, you know, that's, but that's debatable, right? I mean, you are extremely passionate and excited by these things.

It's what you like to do. So that is a good, I mean, subconsciously, there's so many things that get worked out in your subconscious. It's such a mystery. I'm so obsessed with this dreams. And, and I do, I think that there's a lot that happens there that we don't understand. And sometimes the most amazing things get processed.

Like I think of song ideas and all sorts of things that just come up. And sometimes I'll wake up and have to just write something down, um, and just, and then I go, then I'll, I have [00:20:00] to write it down. I won't be able to go back to sleep. So that's one of the ways I like, see, like, I'll write it down. So I wake up and it'll trigger this, you know, this memory.

And I usually have a, um, it's usually my phone, which I shouldn't use, but I'll just grab it. And, uh, it's like, okay, you gotta put it back down now. You can't. Don't open anything else for your notebook. Yeah, that's the problem with that. Put it back. Um, cause, yeah, still a little like. Notebook, like a regular notebook and I always lose the pen.

So I, um, just do that. 

Nate McBride: I think to the, to the point of running, so I, I deliberately use running and I can't do so much as lifting because I'm focusing on like not killing myself, but when it comes to running and, and when, if I'm doing, um, schema. Uh, at the mountains. Yeah. It's, it's very quiet. It's just me.

No big deal. Oh, so awesome. And I, I, I [00:21:00] specifically use that time to tackle problems. Mm-hmm . Like, I don't, my subconscious is gonna do what it's gonna do, but when I have these moments of Nate time, I am gonna say, okay, listen, I got, there's this thing that's been bugging the shit outta me, or I have this thing coming up.

I have a, or a big problem to solve. I'm gonna devote this time to thinking about it and. I literally can do that. And I might get like, like every now and then, like some song snippet will come into my head and I'll have to sing through the lyrics. I don't know if you know this trick or not, but when you get like an earmoth, if, if you're just on repeat in your head, like a chorus, if you just sing it out loud, it actually goes away.

Uh, or at least it does for me anyway, those will pop in and I'm just like, Oh, God damn it. You know, shot to the heart. You're to blame. You give love a bad name over and over. Okay. It's gone now back to my thinking. Um, That's that's some of the best time and the problem with that is [00:22:00] as I think I already said once but I'll do these thoughts and I'll start to get answers and so I have to stop my activity and open my phone and start recording them and keep I do a lot of voice voice notes and keep now, um, because I'll be running and say, holy shit.

And I got to record it like what the thought I just had. Um, a lot of these manifest themselves into things that work into. Yeah. Podcast episodes into things I'm going to write on my own. Um, yeah, I mean that reflects in time and I think it's very easy not to have it. It's very easy to say, I'm just too busy right now 

Mike Crispin: to think about 

Nate McBride: things.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. You may not have a choice to me. That's the thing. There's so many things going on in everyone's lives. It's like, how can you make the time and, and, and to do it. And it just made a, the reason I brought it up is it just made a [00:23:00] big, it made a big difference for me. I think it's helping me currently this role.

We're getting a lot done. We're, we're doing, um, Yeah, we're doing a number of our projects for kind of wrapping up and putting the process in place, just kind of doing and getting things done. Yeah. Um, this year, I mean, kind of the joking around about the nexus is a real thing. It's like, okay, it's going to start being, it's, it's more of an, uh, assertive cross functional leadership effort to make more happen quickly and to just.

To do more and stop, uh, waiting or, or trying to get everyone aligned and just get more things done efficiently. And I think that that's, it's all in prioritization of work versus play versus [00:24:00] reflection time. And when you go to work, you're like, okay, it's time to go. Whereas I think if you're trying to do everything and you don't have time to reflect.

You get, you get in overwhelmed when you get to work and you don't have the energy or you don't care as much sometimes, um, or are you scared? And, you know, I think it's important. It's just so much food for your brain. The good food for your brain is reflection, um, in doing, doing what you can to, and some people meditate and they get a huge, I do not do that, but I know some that do that's changed their lives.

Um, but really working on your brain as a, however you decide to do it is something I never knew the power of that and how it can change your. Your headspace and how you get things done and [00:25:00] how you reflect on other points of view and, 

Nate McBride: and I wonder if sometimes the fact that I, the days that perhaps I'm just too busy and then I wake up in the morning, having had these dreams about work, that's when my brain's like, okay, well, you didn't give me any time today to think.

So I'm going to use this time now to process that problem that you're, you're obsessing about. I mean, I, I can't go to bed without any baggage. Like I'm going to go to bed with problems every single night until I quit this job. I could quit this industry. So every single night I go to bed and I have 10 things I want to think about and do, but they're all being put off till the next day.

Yep. And I think sometimes my brain's like, okay, well, listen. I'm going to think about this on your behalf. I'm going to sort of do this for you and give you some answers. And literally just yesterday afternoon before I [00:26:00] left work, I don't know, 6. 30pm, I sent a note to the whole company on Slack saying we're going to have notebook LM training on 3.

19 at Pizza and Learn. And on the whole drive home, I don't remember a single fucking foot of that drive. But for 40 minutes, all I thought about was what would I say in this presentation? Well, what would be my key points? Get home. Um, we went out to dinner, come home, go to bed, but I never stopped thinking about it, but it was just there.

Like it was, the seed was planted. My brain was like, ha ha, he's asleep. Let's do it. 

Mike Crispin: And you're, you're in motion, motion on that drive home. And it's just lock in. I mean, you pay, that's the thing you were paying attention to driving obviously and whatnot, but your mind it's out of that's that's that's autopilot.

And your brain's working and you're producing these ideas and these, the [00:27:00] slides and the steps for your training. And you're able to process that and hold it because then you'll hold it. You won't have you to write it down. You'll remember that. And like you said, you went to bed and your subconscious, some, in some respects to the rest.

I was thinking of like the, the only time I had before was the. That the, um, just staring at the wall in the shower in the morning and just like, just gazing like into like, and that's when my mind would, would do a lot of it's working. And when I started to run and find other ways to disconnect, um, I was like, how can I take that?

What, what I would do kind of just staring at the wall and morph that into a, what's the word I'm looking for? Just a more enhanced version of that. Sure. And. I think adding that to the motion piece is, uh, [00:28:00] in the time because the time reflect and your body get feeling better. It's, it, it brings a lot of things together, but I think a lot of people, maybe the only five minutes or 10 minutes they have a day is when they're in the shower and that, and if that's, that's where you are, it's trying to find your, uh, your time.

To be, be kind of be quiet or to get away, it's easier said than done. It really is. If you've got a lot of different things going on, it can be a real luxury. And I totally understand that. So it's, are there ways to do it and prioritize it? That's, I think it's hard to say. I think it's very difficult for some, maybe not really possible with their schedule and their responsibilities, but if you can find the way to prioritize the time and reflect.

It's [00:29:00] just, it's hugely, hugely valuable for you and your team, your family and everyone else too. Um, I think that's why meditation has gotten so popular and all the apps and the app store and everything around that is, I think that's a way to be at peace without the exercise as much and just work on your brain.

So you can find time to reflect. It's a good thing. And we just keep doing that. And I think we reflect a lot. I'm trying to put together the podcast or trying to put out the decks or work on extracurricular activities. Um, but I'll go back real briefly to just making sure you're thinking about what you're learning.

Cause that, that's, that's the starting point of processing the things that you can promote, promote change and help you be better, better person, better leader, et cetera. 

Nate McBride: So. [00:30:00] I love this. I mean, it's To me, I'm going to think about this some more now. I mean, not to be ironic about it, but I mean, ultimately, am I truly, am I just fooling myself into believing that I'm giving myself the time to think, or am I truly doing it?

I know I do it when I run, but I don't run every day. And what do I do on the days I'm not running to give myself a little bit of time to reflect and instead of beating myself over the head over some deck I made or something, I think there's a moment of reflection that I should be consciously applying and not just to the thing I just did, but to, to everything overall.

Um, I think this is, it's a good, I think, I think IT leaders, I agree with you, they could benefit from this. Um, so all good 

Mike Crispin: things, all good things, all good 

Nate McBride: things. Yes. All right. Well, um, thank you for bringing that up and we'll [00:31:00] talk about it. We'll, we'll, we'll come back in on the, uh, I think it's the 19th.

We'll come back and we'll reflect on, um, well, how I'll presented my deck that day. So we can talk about my notebook LM presentation to the company. Yeah. The now infamous deck that we've talked about. But, uh, we'll meet that night. We'll resume the podcast, the episode seven. We have a very, very big topic to get through next.

Sounds great. I mean, it's, it's big. I think it's going to take at least at least two episodes to get through, but, um, we'll tackle that refreshed. Yes. I'm ready to go. All right. Make sure you're nice 

Mike Crispin: tan. You need to get back some sun. 

Nate McBride: Uh, I think, I believe, I believe there's plenty of sun to be shared in Belize.

I'm looking forward to it. Um, I don't, I'll, I'll, I'll be lying if I said I was thinking about you every day while I'll be there, but maybe I'll think about you from time to time or send [00:32:00] you a funny picture of myself, um, drunk on a beach. And uh. That's another thing that's good for you is the sun. Sun is good.

Vitamin D, baby. It's very good for you. So, I'll be there. We're gonna release one of our other shorts next week, but I'll be there. And when I get back, we'll be refreshed for St. Patty's Day. Maybe we'll go get some black and tans. Yeah, that sounds good. We'll have the shirts out. I'm, I got the idea done. I just gotta get them posted, and we gotta get the shirts.

But Anyway, have a good all next week. Enjoy your new hire. Thank you. Experience gets developed the way you want it to do, and I'll see you in a bit. Sounds good, Nate. Thank you. 

Theme: [00:33:00] Enjoy Calculus of IT, we value autonomy The calculus of IT, we value autonomy Through the cyberpaths we glide In the

circuits we confide No restraints, no need to hide In the The system we reside through[00:34:00] 

the code we weave our fate in the data sees we skate zeros ones that can't debate we control it it's in a binary whispers in the night flashing screens that [00:35:00] glow so bright in the matrix we take flight Oh We value. Calculus of I. T.