When you prioritize process, you become flexible in where you are headed—you focus on the inputs and stop worrying about the outputs. Just keep laying one brick at a time—forward progress is all that matters. -Sahil Bloom, Adopt a Process Orientation,Twitter Continue reading Prioritize process, not outcomes
A critical part of being an effective executive is making the right decision at tough times. Peter Thiel has said that a CEO is largely judged by making the right call about 4 times a year. Doing so without having all the information you need is intellectually bankrupt. Peter Thiel, Lessons from Keith Rabois Continue reading Most of your time should be spent gathering information
Most executives are entirely reactive to requests for their time and typically let anyone in the organization put meetings wherever they want on the calendar. You should instead view your calendar as something you proactively manage and design. Each Sunday afternoon, write down your top 3 priorities for the week and design your calendar to spend 80%+ of your time on those priorities. You can leave some “leftover” time on your calendar to fill with the reactive requests. You need to constantly check back in every week to not let yourself slip into a reactive mode and perform calendar audits … Continue reading Don’t slip into reactive mode -> determine your top 3 priorities for the week and spend 80%+ of your time on those
So first things first, is this what you want to do? You think it’s a good product/idea, but you don’t think the business economics are great Ask yourself Are those true? Or just stories I’m telling myself If I don’t know, what work can I do to get the info? If it’s not true, then how do I replace those beliefs with more true beliefs? If it is true, then what am I going to do about it? -All Access Pass, Shaan Puri Continue reading Project selection is king
We usually advise startups to pick a growth rate they think they can hit, and then just try to hit it every week. The key word here is “just.” If they decide to grow at 7% a week and they hit that number, they’re successful for that week. There’s nothing more they need to do. But if they don’t hit it, they’ve failed in the only thing that mattered, and should be correspondingly alarmed. Programmers will recognize what we’re doing here. We’re turning starting a startup into an optimization problem. And anyone who has tried optimizing code knows how wonderfully … Continue reading Focus on growth, growth alone
“At this point, I was worth 125$/hour. Then I made the decision, if there’s anything I’ve been doing with my time, that could be done by spending less than 125$ an hour, then I’d be an idiot by doing it. If I enjoy it, it’s a different story, but if I’m not, it’s just stupid. So I paired that kind of idea, what kind of value would I place on my time? Even if I paid a premium, if I paid someone 75$ an hour for someone to mow my lawn, it would be worth it. Most people don’t value … Continue reading How much is your time really worth?
You can’t penny pinch your way to wealth You can spend your life however you want. But if you want to get rich, it has to be your top priority. It has to come before anything else, which means you can’t penny-pinch. This is what people don’t understand. My aspirational rate was $5,000/hr Fast-forward to your wealthy self and pick an intermediate hourly rate. Before I had any real money and you could hire me, I set an aspirational rate of $5,000 an hour. Of course, I still ended up doing stupid things like arguing with the electrician or returning … Continue reading Set your hourly rate at a 1000$ an hour
Asking what leads to success is misleading. You can’t copy success because there’s a million different factors (combination of luck, timing, context, etc.). Instead you should ask: “What are the keys to failure?” Because those are always the same. There are 3 things that will kill any company if in excess: Money Plans Technology Alibaba had that internal motto: “No money, no plan, no technology”. Money Money makes people stupid. When problems arise, the first instinct becomes “throw money at it” instead of attacking it with creativity. And this works sometimes. But it becomes this crutch that you can never … Continue reading Excess of money, plans or technology will lead any business to failure
In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks – when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the bills – then you have less time for freedom. -Atomic Habits, p.46 Continue reading Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it.
Roadmap to Billions 