Personal

  • Best reads of 2024

    With 2024 coming to an end, I like to do a look back and reflect on the year about to pass before starting to think about the year ahead. I read some great books in 2024. Below I’ve listed some of the highlights, in no particular order.

    • Snowball, by Alice Shroeder.

    I love business biographies. This year I read ones on Michael Dell, Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia’s founder), Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett. The Buffett one was my favourite. He has a carefully crafted public image and I thought this book did a good job of providing a more balanced overview of his life. He is a unique individual with a fascinating story.  

    • War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.

    Last year I decided I wanted to tackle one famous piece of literature a year and started in 2024 with War and Peace. “Tackle” is the right word since it’s a long and dense read. I ended up enjoying it more than I expected. What I found fascinating, is how consistent the themes in human nature are. I kept thinking, here I am reading a novel written by a Russian author in the 1860’s and the humour, interpersonal conflict, familial and marriage dynamics, are unbelievably relatable. With the breakthroughs in AI and so much discussion on the acceleration of technological change, I took some comfort from being reminded that while technology changes humans remain largely the same.

    • War of Kings, Brandon Sanderson.

    If you’re a fan of nerdy, fantasy novels, the Sanderson series is very good. A definite ‘page-turner’ and super enjoyable. This felt like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones level quality.

    • Far from the tree, by Andrew Solomon.

    I read fewer books on parenting than I expected to with Henry being born this year. One book I did read and recommend, was Far From the Tree, which covers the topic of how families accommodate children with physical, mental, and social disabilities and differences. It was pretty eye-opening and empathy building.

  • Learning Styles

    I recall being taught the concept of learning styles at some point in school. The idea is everyone has a certain learning style that works best for them. The four main learning styles are visual (images, charts, diagrams), auditory (spoken information, podcasts, discussions), reading/writing (engaging with text-based input, writing notes, working with written instructions), and kinesthetic (hands-on experience, physical activity). They aren’t intended to be mutually exclusive and ideally can be combined for best effect.

    When I first learned of the concept, I don’t recall identifying strongly with any style. But in the past few years, I’ve come to really appreciate how much better I learn and retain new information when there’s a visual component. It seems so simple it’s kind of silly, but it’s a pronounced difference for me. If someone can SHOW me something, or draw it, or share a visual, it helps immensely.

    I started to become more aware of it when I was working 5 days a week in the office. Amin and I spent a lot of time chatting through things in each other’s offices and we both had whiteboards on our walls. Amin is a natural teacher and I came to realize how helpful it was for him to draw things on the whiteboard as we were discussing. Having moved to an almost entirely distributed work environment, I’ve had to adjust accordingly. Now, I find I’ll often ask someone to share their screen so I can actually SEE what they are talking about. And if I have any significant planning work, or need to come up the curve on a technical or complex topic, it’s essential I can draw it out or see it in front of me.

    I did a bit of googling on the concept as part of writing this post and there’s a lot of criticism of the Learning Styles concept. Apparently, it might be pseudo-science and the empirical evidence is lacking. I didn’t dig deep enough to validate one way or another nor do I necessarily care. I’ve learned for myself, finding ways to incorporate visuals into conversations has made a meaningful difference and being aware of it has real value to me.

  • Ode to Dog

    Julia, Henry, and I returned to Calgary at the end of last week after a ten-day stint in Toronto and Halifax. Coming home was satisfying for many reasons, and none more important than to see our three-year old Bernedoodle, Frankie. I grew up with family dogs – a Lab named Maisie and a mini goldendoodle named Molly – and always expected at some point we’d add a dog to our family. But I always saw that as a longer-term plan; ideally, we would have kids and bring a dog into the picture once they were older. Fortunately, Julia persuaded (forced) me to join the COVID trend and choose one earlier than I likely would have otherwise. I’m so grateful she did.

    If I reflect on changes that have positively influenced my life in the past few years, finding Frankie is top of that list. In many ways, dog relationships are simple; they love you unconditionally. Their needs are relatively straightforward: play, exercise, food, treats, affection. You always know where you stand with a dog. Yet, their personalities are incredibly nuanced and varied. They can be loving, funny, sad, playful, anxious. Sometimes they can be assholes. Within an hour of getting home and seeing Frankie on Friday, she ate the sandwich off my desk while I went to get a glass of water. And she was very pleased about it.

    For how fun they are, they are also a serious obligation. We travel often and rarely with her because I refuse to put her in a plane cargo hold. That means consistently finding someone to take care of her. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a great group of close friends who willingly take her. People often say it takes a village to raise a child and I think that’s sort of true with a dog as well, at least it has been in our case.

    Frankie is such an important part of my life I can’t imagine living without a dog ever again.