I’ve gone back to following my interests: reading books on business, entrepreneurship and psychology. It doesn’t scale. But it is important for me to do what I like because it is the only way I’ll keep this habit going for years.
What follows are my thoughts, highlights and stories from this week.
(1) The success is ours. The failure is mine.
As a leader, my success depends on my team. If they do well, I do well. So when we win, it’s all about them. When we fail, it’s all about me. The buck stops with me.
(2) Everyone loses before they win
If you aren’t willing to suck, you’re never going to get good. Everyone loses before they win. To become great, you gotta be bad for a very long time.
Take the Board of Optimists community I just launched as an example. It’s about using behavioral psychology to follow certain habits to make you measurably more optimistic. It’s got 41 members. Participation is about 10%. Most do not participate. I have no clue whether people would want to follow along. But I am willing to test this in public and lose versus test it in my head and never try.
(3) We all need leaders who see potential in us
Without Steve Jobs, Jony Ive would never have got the opportunity to show what he was capable of.
“Steve unlocked Jony. Steve gave Jony the confidence to bring out his innate design talent and create amazing products.”
We all need leaders who see potential in us and give us the chance to prove it.
In my career, the CEO of EthosData saw potential in me. It unlocked me. I helped build the business till it sold. The current CEO of Ideals sees potential in me. It’s unlocked me. I will build the business till it becomes worth a billion.
What I’ve found is that if you believe in yourself, the right people will believe in you too.
(4) Work is an infinite game
When you play, you can test wild ideas quickly without worrying about failure. In a well designed game, it doesn’t take long to know whether you are winning or losing.
A way to test ideas quickly, spot the promising ones, and ruthlessly drop the rest is essential.
This doesn’t just apply to entrepreneurs. It applies to jobs too.
I am always trying to improve my team’s results by asking the right questions and prompting actions that get them closer to their dream outcomes. I ask better questions and get better results now than I did a year ago. I’ll be better a year from now than I am today, because I see it as an infinite game.
(5) The secret to a happy life is low expectations
Tony Robbins says, “Happiness is where your life meets or exceeds your expectations.”
Charlie Munger put the same idea another way: “The secret to a happy life is low expectations.”
Let me give you two examples.
Imagine you have a million dollars in the bank, money you’ve saved up. But you expected to have 10 million. Chances are you’ll be miserable. Your expectations are GREATER than your reality. You feel scarcity, not abundance.
Now imagine you only expected $500k, and you got to $1 million. Chances are you’re happy. Your expectations are LOWER than your reality. You got way more than you wanted.
The trick is to aim for the sky but still feel like you have it all. Ambition does not have to come at the cost of happiness.
(6) A conversation with myself across time
What would future me thank present me for doing?
I’ve scanned a number of my journals and put them all in one folder. I’m planning to get Claude to read through them. I’m eager to see how my intentions have changed, or stayed the same.
Reading what I wrote years ago, then writing what I think today, is the closest I can get to a conversation with myself across time.
Do you ever go back and read what you wrote?
Harsh
I spent sixteen years helping build a business till it sold. Now I'm helping build something much bigger. I share what I learn on the way, on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and this Sunday Email. Start your mornings with us on the Board of Optimists.
From the time I had a hotmail account and then a yahoo account and then gmail since 1998, most of my thoughts were in the form of emails either to some dear ones or to my associates or to my staff. And then the Orkut, FB, LinkedIn, Insta etc., happened. They carry decades of my writings.
To check on myself after reading your article, I looked at a mail that I wrote to a dear friend some 30 years ago and realize that me and my dear friend were naive, simple and uncomplicated. Now I can say with clarity that we realized that - "This too will pass" as so many of our generationmight have realized and so many generations will in future too.
That's Journaling for me.