All in Entrepreneurship
One of the hardest things to get your head around when you’ve decided to create something new, is that no one has the answer to what you need to do.
How your offering should be designed, what it should do, how it should be priced - all of this is up for debate. There may be comparables out there - models that you can compare to and get ideas from, and they can offer a guide, a few suggestions along the path.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast take on the idea of Work From Home (WFH) and how it's changed many of our views so significantly this year. That said, I also think the idea that it's here to stay is overrated.
The ability to be present is, it seems to me, a talent. It’s a hard skill to develop and hone.
I don’t know if that’s the case for you, but it’s certainly been the case for me, something I’ve personally struggled with over the years.
Part of this is a tendency to take on multiple priorities. Part of this is a tendency to obsess over a situation or a task, to let it absorb me entirely.
If we look at who we are today, we’re really an amalgamation of the experiences we’ve gone through and the lessons we’ve taken from those experiences - lessons that have, over time, become ingrained in us.
I think of it a bit like a mental ‘patchwork quilt’ that’s been sown together over time. In some areas, the work is seamless and the colors and patterns flow naturally together. In others, though, depending on who’s done the stitching, it’s less elegant and the resulting work is jarring and ill-fitting.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast discusses how the pandemic has reset the equilibrium of what we thought was our "physical-virtual" balance, for good reason. This is likely to endure well after the pandemic is over.
In my last post, I talked about the Signal-to-Noise ratio and its applicability to our personal and professional lives - how we need to be able to look past the noise that we hear to the core signals, so that we can interpret and react to a situation appropriately.
There’s a related idea that Seth Godin highlighted in one of his recent posts that speaks to the idea of confidence versus volume. And that is, that we sometimes conflate the two - implicitly, when it’s coming from others, or explicitly, when we’re the ones doling it out.
The Signal-to-noise ratio measures the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. It’s commonly used in science and engineering applications but, of course, it has as much application in our professional and personal worlds, metaphorically speaking anyway.
When someone close to us emotionally recounts a personal situation and demands that we get involved and do something about it - and we do.
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's podcast discusses how we need to adjust our mindset when we think about the idea of progress. It's important to be optimistic, but that also means recognizing that the path forward will have stumbles and setbacks as well.
The fact of the matter is that my most productive periods have come when I’ve been immersed in my work and not the idea of it.
What does that mean?
This month's podcast closes out the year with my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic that's absorbed all of us this year. I'll share my perspectives on how I've assessed this impact and how I interpret its impact going forward.
Today's episode ask the inevitable question of what we can compare this situation to. Of course, there's no easy answer, so I suggest the one thing we can do to maintain some sense of control: act.
To become a Yokozuna (or Grand Champion) in Sumo Wrestling, there are, broadly, two sets of criteria that have to be met.
The first relates - as we might expect - to power and and skill, specifically performance in recent tournaments with a standard of two consecutive championships as an Ozeki (or an equivalent performance). This is reasonably objective, quantifiable criteria, one that is reasonably objectively measurable.
This month's podcasts discusses the idea of happiness. It's such an important ideal and the next few podcasts talk about how we define it, grapple and fight for it, and ultimately, continue to pursue it.
Today's episode closes the month on a philosophical note - the idea that happiness is like Inbox Zero - it is elusive, we will never permanently achieve it, but we shouldn't stop striving for it.
I was doing an Interval workout on the treadmill recently, following along with an online trainer (i.e. where you alternate bursts of high intensity effort with periods of lower effort).
At one point, having just completed a particularly intense interval, the trainer announced, “Well, that was a tough one. And we get to do that two more times!”
It was a curious choice of words. We get to do that two more times. Not we have to, or we need to. We get to.
This month's podcasts discusses the idea of happiness. It's such an important ideal and the next few podcasts talk about how we define it, grapple and fight for it, and ultimately, continue to pursue it.
In today's episode, I share two thoughts on happiness. The first is about the path to happiness and that it starts with kindness - to ourselves. The second is what happy people are actually like i.e. they aren't assholes.
Diving into something new can be daunting.
We don’t know ‘the ropes’ - what exactly to do, what constitutes success, whether we have what it takes, or whether we’ll even get “there”. Despite our interest and our passion, we get nervous, especially when the results are in any way public.
One of my favorite quotes is “Own your outcomes”, and speaks to the need for us to take ownership for whatever happens to us.
It doesn’t mean we can control whatever happens to us, because many times we can’t. Things happen, whether we like it or not.
But what we can do is take ownership for our situations, stop complaining or commiserating, and control how we respond. In other words, run the problem and don't let the problem run you.
An uptick in responsibility is the natural accompaniment of career advancement. This can come in many forms - managing more people, greater accountability for specific results, etc.
And the natural accompaniment to that increased responsibility is increased stress (at least if you take your role seriously).
Which isn’t, of course, a bad thing.
One of the hardest things to get our heads around is this idea of culture, and specifically, cultural fit, in terms of people we work with.
We’re well versed in assessing technical capabilities and the “how” we do the work that we do. You need to have these specific qualifications or you need to show those particular process skills, or you need to demonstrate that you’ve delivered on that defined platform in your prior experiences. All defined, all measurable, all tangible.
I like to think I’m a pretty rational guy. That I consider the pros and cons when making decisions. It’s been drilled into me - through college, business school and then consulting - specifically, the need to be balanced, thoughtful and to consider all aspects before deciding on a path. Nothing controversial or unique about that. I’m sure we all think and behave the same way.
But that rationality belies a reality of making decisions that all of us also grapple with: the role of intuition.
I think it’s ingrained in us, this desire to get things done by ourselves. In many ways, it’s a compulsion, and the bigger, more complex the issue, the stronger the desire to go it alone.
It might be an issue of strategy or one of people; a difficult relationship or a complex initiative. When we’re in its ‘throes’, we absorb ourselves in, well, ourselves.
