Jun

1

Pains that heal and those that don’t.

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In life, some problems can be solved by throwing money at the problem (e.g. growing pains in scaling up (or down) operations in your fledgling tech startup? invest in cloud computing). However, there are certainly some problems that cannot be solved even with deep pockets (e.g. Microsoft can’t for all its might and power build a Google-killer).

I’m reminded of this money-can-help vs. no-money-can-help problem in this series of Paulo Coelho’s Reflections of the Warrior of the Light. Some sufferings can heal. Some cannot. Pick wisely what you wish to suffer.

A warrior of the light never acts in a cowardly fashion.

Fight may be an excellent art of defense, but it cannot be used when fear is great. When in doubt, the warrior prefers to risk defeat and then cure his wounds - because he knows that if he runs away, he is giving his aggressor more power than he deserves.

He can cure physical suffering, but will be persecuted forever for any spiritual weakness.

Faced with difficult and painful moments, the warrior faces unfavorable circumstances with heroism, resignation and courage.

May

25

100% odds

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Being a computer scientist and math nerd, I like numbers. I like stats. I like probability, and I like to calculate risks. However, life is not so simple such that everything can be nicely fit into a mathematical equation that would compute and balance (although I wish!)

I think that’s the main reason techies don’t cope very well with uncertainty and when things are ambiguous. Anything that don’t fit the cookie cutter mould is shied away from. However, as an entrepreneur, one *must* thrive in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, watching out for land mines and charging ahead into the unknown. I saw this quote on YC/Hacker News today and loved it.

100% of people who succeeded tried. 100% of people who did not try failed.

May

1

Innovation lessons from Pixar

Filed Under changing the world, entrepreneurship, failure, fear, google, innovation, people i like, perseverance, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

The McKinsey Quarterly has a really interesting piece on innovation at Pixar–the company who brought you Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille. Keep in mind that Pixar was purchased by the Walt Disney Company from Steve Jobs, the turn around artist and saviour of Apple (Apple Computer, who brought you the iPod), whose company in turn have Eric Schmidt (the CEO of a small little company despised by the behemoth Microsoft) on their board of directors.

Google and Apple are both well known for being innovators in their respective core markets, and suffice to say that they both share some innovation DNA from the top–and Pixar, through its relationship with Steve Jobs would probably have benefited from some of the common DNA between the two. Here are some of the highlights of this article, in which Oscar-winning director Brad Bird was asked about how he managed innovation.

The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. There was a point during the making of The Incredibles where we had a company meeting. We have them about twice a year, and anybody can bring up concerns. Somebody raised their hand and said, “Is The Incredibles too ambitious?” Ed Catmull said, “I don’t know” and looked over at me. I just said, “No! If there’s one studio that needs to be doing stuff that is ‘too ambitious,’ it’s this one. You guys have had nothing but success. What do you do with it? You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

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Apr

13

What a week (or weeks ..)

Filed Under execution, failure, fear, goal setting, perseverance, quotes, things to ponder about, things to remind myself | 2 Comments

Wow, this is the longest lull in my blog since a long time. I have been sooooo busy. I know I’m always busy, but this week was my worse ever.

This past week has just been absolutely surreal for me. Been hit with so many things, in so many dimensions of my life that I’m just sitting here trying to figure out where I am right now. This week is also one where I had really high ups, and also extremely low downs. Standard deviation? Off the charts!

Seems like every time I double down and set my sights on something important, stuff just gets in the way to stop me short. Life has a funny way of messing with me like that. Everything I have ever wanted, I’ve always had to put up a fight for, and .. pay the price. Life has just never has been a walk in the park for me. This week I got slammed with so much madness, even from all the people I care about who cares for me.

Anyways. I can’t stop moving, I have to keep moving to stay alive. Keep my eye on the prize, and off all attractive distractions.

In fact, the more push back I get from seemingly random curve balls that life throws at me .. just gets me even more riled up and want to double down more on my commitment to executing my plans. All is fair in love and war. Life’s a game and I choose to play–even if given the option to observe and not participate. I know I will prevail, because I gots strategy. I recoup, plan, and execute. Bring on the problems!

A warrior of the light studies very carefully the position he wishes to conquer. However difficult his objective may be, there is always a way to overcome the obstacles. He verifies the alternative routes, sharpens his sword, and seeks to fill his heart with the perseverance necessary to face the challenge. But, as he advances, the warrior realizes there are difficulties he had not foreseen at the outset. If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never move from his position; he sees that a little madness is needed for the next step. The warrior uses a little madness. Because - in war and in love - one cannot foresee everything.

On a more positive note .. earlier this year I made a resolution to put myself out there and open myself up to the possibility of getting hurt. No pain no gains. Looks like I can mark that off my checklist now! That was fun. Fill ‘er up again!

A person can stand for the rest of his days facing one of the many doors he should go through, but he must understand that he has only truly lived up to that point. He may continue to breathe, walk, sleep and eat - but with less and less pleasure, because he is already spiritually dead and does not know it. Until one day when, as well as his spiritual death, physical death appears; at that moment God will ask: “what did you do with your life?” We must all answer this question, and woe betide those who answer: “I remained standing at the door.”

Thank you, Dr. Randy Pausch.

-If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

-We can’t change the cards we’re dealt, just how we play the hand.

-Brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop people who don’t want it badly enough.

Apr

8

Lessons from the Warrior of the Light

Filed Under changing the world, entrepreneurship, execution, failure, fear, goal setting, passion, perseverance, quotes, regular reads, self improvement, startup, strategy, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

I’m definitely a fan of Paulo Coelho, the renowned Brazillian author. He has a unique way of teaching the lessons in life that he has learned through storytelling.

A few lessons from the Warrior of the Light.

Using one’s own madness

A warrior of the light studies very carefully the position he wishes to conquer.

However difficult his objective may be, there is always a way to overcome the obstacles. He verifies the alternative routes, sharpens his sword, and seeks to fill his heart with the perseverance necessary to face the challenge.

But, as he advances, the warrior realizes there are difficulties he had not foreseen at the outset.

If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never move from his position; he sees that a little madness is needed for the next step.

The warrior uses a little madness. Because - in war and in love - one cannot foresee everything.

Life is such that if you wait to gather 100% of every single detail before you can make a decision, others would have surpassed you. If you waited for the fog to clear, then what you see is what everyone else will also see. Given the perfect picture, anyone sane would make the same correct, best choice. This is exactly how *not* to beat the market.

CEOs often make decisions with incomplete data–and that takes a little madness. It’s about making decisions with the best information possible available at that time. Standing still through inaction is waiting to fail–and I’ll fail from action than inaction.

So when do you put yourself out there and wear your heart on your sleeve?
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Mar

18

The best thing I read today

Filed Under career, failure, fear, passion, perseverance, product management, quotes, self improvement, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

Question: Describe your job in one sentence.
Answer: The art of prospering between a rock and a hard place.

That reminds me of a quote:

There are really only two ways to approach life - as victim or as gallant fighter - and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don’t decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.
– Merle Shain

Which reminds of awesome book I read titled “The Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore–which I highly recommend. (Thanks for the recommendation, Becks!)

You can at any moment, take flight on new wings into an unprecedented life making a choice for vitality, for living fully, for LIFE spelled in capital letters. It is, however, an expensive journey. You pay by giving up the familiar, comfortable, everyday ways of living and thinking that are the wages and rewards of going with the flow of your programming.

The willingness to feel fear and keep going forward distinguishes the living from the merely breathing. In fact, it is not just the so-called negative emotions that are uncomfortable. When you choose to live fully, your palate of experiences, thoughts, emotions, and possibilities expands. This leads you onto new ground in other areas of your life as well. And, folks, all that newness swirling around just ain’t comfortable.

The question is not whether to take risks, but which ones to take. The peril of being reasonable is that you will miss all the fun. It’s not enough to cautiously edge your way towards the cliff. Learn to revel in taking risks for the sake of your soul. Every choice you make gives birth instantly to certain risks as surely as your shadow follows you.

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Mar

16

Failure quotes roundup!

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Time for another quotes roundup! These are things I wish to remind myself and hope to never forget:

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
–Winston Churchill

Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.
–William M. Winans

Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
–Ralph Ellison

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
–Mohandas K. Gandhi

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody.
–Herbert B. Swope

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and “mangled mind” leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
–Elizabeth Drew

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.
–Elaine Maxwell

The deepest human defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become.
–Ashley Montagu

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
–Anais Nin

Feb

25

Fear of the defeats they will meet on the path

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Anyone who fights for their dream, suffers far more when it doesn’t work out, because they cannot fall back on the old excuse: “Oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway.” They do want it and know that they have staked everything on it and that the path of the Personal Legend is no easier than any other path, except that their whole heart is in this journey. Then, the warrior of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in his favour, even though he may not understand how.
– Paolo Coelho

Feb

24

Spending alone time, battling my vices

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It’s just after noon on Sunday. I woke up early today (I’ve began for the past few weeks now to not sleep in on weekends) because I have a lot of things to do. Some of the things I have to do, I don’t feel like doing, but I know I have to do. However, I catch myself slacking of a bit, not fully focusing on the task that requires my to concentrate deeply (like writing this blog now!) Gahh!!! And I know this is a self-defeating behavior. Which is why I am putting this up here.

This is my blog, and when I first began writing, I wrote that among other things, I wanted this to be a place for me to collect my thoughts and help me think. Sometimes something as simple writing things down help me focus and collect my thoughts, viewing things from a different perspective better.

Writing forces me to concentrate on what I am thinking about, in one consecutive single-user thought process (no round-robin time quantas need to be assigned). The positive byproduct of this is that I focus more on the topic I am thinking about, and during the writing process, I may discover something flawed about what I had originally intended to write and correct my course before proceeding. Likewise, I may also discover something that I did not originally think about (perhaps an important subtopic to expand upon).

I’ve spent all morning, and haven’t been as productive as I have wanted to. I’m moving, but I’m just not moving frickin fast enough. I realize that distraction, my self-induced ADD, my inability to focus, my tendency for procrastination (because I don’t want to do this!), is a major impediment to my success in everything I do, and will be in anything I do, if I don’t manage this. I am battling this vice of mine, and I know I will win.

I am reminded of what Dave Lorenzo, a business coach, wrote:

We have all heard the expression, “It don’t come easy” in reference to success. This is the truth. Although success may appear to happen in an effortless fashion, someone somewhere worked very diligently behind the scenes to ensure optimal results. You must prepare your mind for the difficult tasks that lay ahead of you as you drive your way toward success. Just as a world-class athlete spends years training his body to take the punishment of intense competition, you must train your mind for the battles you will face on the road to making your goals a reality. Your mental training regime involves challenging yourself with completing increasingly difficult tasks that require you to be alone.

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Feb

17

At which mile do most people quit in a marathon?

Filed Under execution, failure, goal setting, perseverance, things to remind myself | 2 Comments

In a 26-mile marathon (or 41.8 km), at which mile do most people (statistically) quit? Probably at the mile where life is the most difficult, right? Let’s say, about the last few miles in the marathon?

Most runners don’t quit during the 26th mile because they have a vision of where they are going. They see the end in sight so they keep striving for it. Sure they are physically exhausted but their vision fuels them and tells them to keep going to reach their destination.

Most runners quit a marathon at the 20th mile because this is when they lose sight of their vision. This is when they are both physically exhausted and mentally drained. This is when runners feel they have come so far and yet still have so far to go. This is when their goal fades away and their mental power dissipates. Where there is no vision the people perish.

Aaah, the power of mind over body.

After all, there will be days when our bodies say no and we need our mind to say yes. There will be times when it seems that everything in life conspires to sabotage our goals and dreams. And there will be weeks or even months when we feel like we are hitting the 20th mile. The answer is to maintain your vision and focus on it. Keep your vision alive and it will keep you alive. Don’t give up. Keep striving towards the vision planted in your mind and heart

“90% of the game is half mental.” -Yogi Berra

Original post.

Feb

3

Steve Jurvetson: Failure is the magic sauce

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Failure is the magic sauce in entrepreneurship, it’s the magic sauce in innovation.

In the venture business, we look at thousands of business plans every month. The majority of them will fail, the majority of them will go out of business, but its the few that succeed that really change the world.

And you have to be prepared for that, as an entrepreneur, that on average, you’re going to fail. And not to take that too deeply, to realize that that’s okay, and luckily at least in America, there’s a culture that welcomes that; that says its okay to fail, especially in an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Embracing failure and failing early enough are positive aspirational goals. As venture capitalists, we often argue that we should often fail early enough to learn about new industries and learn to do what we do.

From an interview with Steve Jurvetson

Dec

9

Putting up with grief

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Retired Stanford business professor James G. March asserts that “short-term reality is an insult to the vision. You have to be self-delusional to create change - it’s a useful craziness guided and founded on your clear identity and knowing what you must do.” What lessons in leadership can be learned from Don Quixote? According to March, “We live in a world that emphasizes realistic expectations and clear successes. Quixote had neither. But through failure after failure, he persists in his vision and his commitment. He persists because he knows who he is.” Builders are not only willing but indeed determined to put up with the grief that results from pursuing their dreams.

The above was from a book review on Amazon. Some powerful stuff. I had to take a few moments after reading that just to fully absorb it.

Dec

9

What is your coping mechanism for bad news?

Filed Under failure, passion, perseverance, quotes, self improvement, things to ponder about, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

Today, I watched the 2007 keynote from TechCrunch40 where Mike Moritz interviewed tech heavyweights Marc Andreessen (of Netscape, Ning, Opsware fame), Chad Hurley (of Youtube fame), and David Filo (of Yahoo! fame).

Marc Andreesen has a point on being CEO, that it’s not a job cut out for everyone.

CEO job is an unrelenting stream of bad news. If it’s a international big company, then you get bad news from all over the world. The key is to be able to listen to and absorb all that news, then filter and act on it; not letting it get to you emotionally.

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Dec

1

When you’re at the very bottom, you can only go up

Filed Under backpacking europe, failure, fear, people i like, perseverance, quotes, self improvement, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

I read this comment below today by Pistolette and have many times thought of the same thing. To digress, the blog post where I read this comment is a great one — I’ll write up on that in a separate post.

It’s been two years since Hurricane Katrina desrtoyed the homes of my entire family, but now we are more successful financially, mentally, and career-wise than we were before. I suppose its like the saying goes “it’s only when you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.” After a few days of moping around we quickly regrouped and simply felt happy to be alive. Every day since then I have lived strongly in the present, and have an awareness of things around me that I did not have before. We lost most of our fears, and learned to enjoy life through experiences rather than material things. Perhaps a record-breaking hurricane seems like an extreme case of happenstance, but I think it still qualifies. I see many people around me trying to endure life here (in New Orleans) with the same old attitudes and they are suffering so much. I choose to see the positive things the storm brought here, and as a result I am “lucky”.

Don’t you sometimes get tired of defending all that you have accumulated in life? Ironically, sometimes it’s the things that you have amassed that now holds you back from otherwise going in a much different direction than you would like to; effectively becoming “baggage”.

Recently when I was backpacking Europe alone, I met this shopkeeper lady in the beautiful city of Nürnberg, Germany. She used to be a school teacher, she was old(er), but very upbeat, positive, and energetic. We had more than a superficial “tourist to shopkeeper-that-sells-to-tourists” talk. Turns out, I found out that she had recently been through some difficult times and as a result lost almost everything, including her house and her significant other.

She smiled as she said to me enthusiastically, “I have lost everything, and now I can only WIN!” (now imagine that, in a thick German accent)

We bonded with a short conversation about life in general, after just 5 minutes. I guess we hit it off really quick. Her name is Christina, and I’ll never forget her (I hope I don’t). She was shy in front of the camera but I insisted that I wouldn’t leave without a picture. So here it is, and I’m showing it although I look like an idiot (my eyes are closed)

Picture 023

To go off slightly on a tangent, Christina’s store is one of those makeshift ones. It was among a few others set up on a broad pedestrian-only bridge. Here’s a scene from the bridge, across from her little store. Pretty, huh?

Picture 107

Nov

28

Failure quotes roundup

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As many have noticed, I collect quotes and live by them.

Many are afraid of failure, myself included. That’s why I take comfort in these quotes. May they inspire you and change your outlook on failure like they have done to me!

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.
–Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Failure is an event, never a person.
–William D. Brown, Welcome Stress!

The only time you don’t fail is the last time you try anything - and it works.
–William Strong

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
–Thomas Edison

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Sep

23

Inadvertently choosing to be the status quo

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Some of you have the intellectual capacity to cut through complexity but are indecisive or afraid of being wrong. Can you wait until all the facts are in and the picture is clearer? Here’s the rub: You make a bet even when you don’t make a bet! That is, by not choosing to do anything different, you are choosing the status quo.
– Ram Charan

I’ve written much on this blog about change, about learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable, about not fearing fear, about not fearing failure, and about not settling for mediocrity and not defending the status quo. That quote above pretty much nailed all of the things I’ve written about, the qualities I strive for (or against) — but heavens forbid I become but do not see (so for the people who do know me, please do tell me when I am blindsided).

I am reminded of a blog post I just recently read about an interview with Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Citigroup’s global wealth management. She talks about how a CEO often at times must make decision with imperfect information. At first, that may not sound like the right thing to do. Shouldn’t one wait until one has all the information?

Now that I think about it, if everyone had perfect information — then the best choice would probably be so obvious, and everyone would place their bet on the obvious best choice. Hence, making the best choice _would_ by definition, be the choice of the status quo. Status quo to me is pretty much mediocrity.

If you’re like everyone else, then you’re just an average person, the mediocre. So how do you break out of the pack and stand out? By beating the status quo. And to obtain results better than the average everybody else, it makes sense that one has to risk some uncertainty, for example, by making decisions with imperfect information. The adage, no pain no gain is true. Risk is proportional to reward. You risk nothing, you get nothing.

The quote above struck a chord inside of me, because after reading it, I start to realize that I have been just that person Ram Charan spoke of. I delay on taking an action for want of a more complete picture — and I implicitly without realizing it made the decision of NOT taking an action. Not actively taking an action is the easy way out for lazy cop-outs, and because inaction requires NO effort, it is usually the preferred choice of the status quo.

For my absolute hate of taking the mediocre path — I will now remind myself to the best of my ability, to be more proactive in making decisions, avoiding inaction, in spite of imperfect information. I’m not talking about taking blind chances of course, I need to practice more in making educated guesses, weighing risk vs. reward, including the cost of inaction. I will not always win, but the more I practice making decisions with imperfect information, I’ll be able to draw from a repertoire of previous choice, and gradually improve my batting average.

If I don’t start making decisions when faced with imperfect information, then I would have implicitly doomed myself to mediocrity. This is a wake up call for me. I need to rack up some failures while I’m still young — it’s something best taken cared of early in life so that you can move on.

Sep

19

Roadtrip Nation

Filed Under execution, failure, fear, goal setting, passion, self improvement, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

I just discovered this thing called Roadtrip Nation today, and it’s actually pretty cool — a bunch of kids going around the country interviewing successful people and learning from them.

Key takeaways from just these four video clips,

  • You have to be prepared to die trying (as 50 cent would say, “get rich or die trying”)
  • You have to be OK with failing
  • Be true to yourself, find your passion. You may not see the immediate impact, so it’s a matter of staying focused, searching inside of yourself, and believing in yourself that you can do it
  • Leaps of faith and terrifying, but you have got to leap
  • Ask yourself what is the worse that could happen — more often than not your world will not come to an end like you thought it would
  • Worrying about the future won’t help. Find your calling, and just do it. Don’t overanalyze.
  • Use your time to make mistakes while you are young, the world is your oyster. The key is to learn from your previous successes and mistakes, and taking those experiences to your next challenge
  • Make the most with what you have, you are ultimately accountable for your own success

Plenty of good ol’ advice from all these video clips. Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury to watch them all at the moment, I got a tonne of stuff to wrap up before my upcoming backpacking trip to Europe

Sep

16

Veracity — being honest with yourself

Filed Under failure, fear, quotes, self improvement, stanford, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

I was reading an article published by MarcumSmith and in it, I learned a word that I have not previously known about but whose meaning I am familiar with.

Veracity is the English word for the Latin term veritas, which means truth. But why not just say the word truth if that’s what they meant by choosing it to describe what they found? Truth essentially refers to facts or reality; it implies accuracy and honesty. Veracity, however, differs slightly; veracity is the habitual pursuit of, and adherence to, truth.

Veracity differs from truth in action, not in value. So why is veracity so important—who doesn’t want the truth? It’s not that people don’t want the truth, but what portion we want is occasionally a different story. What part wouldn’t we want? The part that’s hard to hear. What fraction of the truth wouldn’t we want to address? The portion that’s hard to say.

There is a point and time in almost every important business discussion where we might be curiously exploring or intensely debating, and stumble upon brutal facts. If openness and progress are the outcome of humility, and innovation is the aim of curiosity, then veracity is the light that exposes the truth hidden in the shadows of habits and comfort zones.

Admitting your own failures and shortcomings are difficult sometimes. Veracity means to be honest with yourself, acknowledging weakness so that you can move on to address them. I _do_ want people to tell me the part they think would be hard to me to hear. I _do_ want to know the truth that is hard for me to swallow. Why? Because I believe in The Stockdale Paradox, as written by Jim Collins:

Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties; and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Enough said. Sweeping the dirt under the rug doesn’t mean that the dirt is gone.

Sep

16

Continuously make conscious tough choices

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The world can shape you if you let it. To have a sense of yourself as you live, you must make conscious choices. Sometimes the choices are really hard, and you make a lot of mistakes.
– John Donahoe, President of eBay Marketplaces

Aug

14

Don’t wish the ride was smoother and keep smiling

Filed Under business, career, failure, fear, passion, quotes, self improvement, things to remind myself, uncategorized, values | Leave a Comment

Corollary to the quote I posted yesterday, a Google search for that quote yielded this page with a priceless story and timeless advice:

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting a man who, despite a severe speech impediment, had become the top salesman at his company. It was such an unlikely story that I asked him how he’d done it. He joked, “with a lot of bruises and scars.” He went on to say, “Not surprisingly, the road was terribly tough for me. I was awful in the beginning — and it lit a fire under me. It made me work harder than everyone else. I resented it then, but I’ve come to realize it was a blessing in disguise.”

Consider this:

In life, it’s the rough patches that build your strength and character. They test you. They make you dig deeper, think harder, and risk more. Use them to your advantage. Don’t play the victim. Get up and get creative. It’s what you do when the going gets tough that defines you.

Try this:

When you hit a rough patch:
1. Don’t wish the ride was smoother - it’s not supposed to be.
2. Use the challenge to get smarter.
3. Tackle one thing at a time - don’t overwhelm yourself.
4. Keep smiling throughout.

Question: How have you used rough seas to your advantage?

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