Happy Wednesday Friends,
In today’s episode I wanted to breakdown a book that I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time.
Context
I have been told by ten people in the last three months that The Almanack of Naval Ravikant was one of the most impactful reads for them in 2023. I typically don’t hit ‘Add to Cart’ this quickly on a book but having the reinforcement from these individuals had me sprinting to get a copy.
The things I took away from this book are going to change my life for days, weeks and years to come.
It’s not because there was one thing that I took away. It’s because as I kept reading, more thought provoking statements continued to hit me square in the face.
I’m going to share the pieces that I found were the most impactful to help me grow my personal brand.
Specificially:
- How playing long term games with long term people (matters most)
- How the process of questioning a decision always leads to the answer of ‘No’
- How the greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself
Let’s get into it.
How playing long term games with long term people (matters most)
Did you know that 70% of businesses fail within 10 years?
Building a business is hard and so is finding the right person (or people) to build it with. The new era of the one person business is alive and well. Some call this solopreneurship and others call it a sole proprietorship. What I can tell you is that it’s about the people you surround yourself with that makes you who you are.
Here’s how I think about playing long term games in my life (with Naval’s influence):
- Leveraging compound interest (in more than USD)
- Realizing that intentions don’t matter – actions do
- Finding more work that feels like play
Leveraging compound interest (in more than USD)
My son is 8 years old and putting $1,000 into his Roth IRA for the next 30 years will turn into $x,xxx,xxx.
“A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” – Simon Sinek
I believe the same compounding will benefit you in life not just in your wallet.
Here’s how:
Trust: This is THE most important trait to me when working with others in this world. It will take years to build up TRUE trust with another human. Some will argue with me on this but I believe it truly takes years (if not decades) to build real trust with someone. The opposite is true to breaking trust which takes minutes of years work. Focus on building trust and keeping it.
Reputation: When someone says your name – what do they think? The thoughts that run through their mind are your reputation. By building up years of work into how you follow through on your word and what you do in tough situations – that’s what people remember. Focus on being strong and remember that your actions are remembered – for following through on what you say you’re going to do.
Relationships: We are a collection of interactions with others. Relationships are a collection of actions (or inactions) that build that relationship. These will build into trust (or lack thereof). The decisions you make in your life are how memories are formed and relationships are built. Relationships start with interactions. Interactions start by building up the confidence to speak with those around you. Design your life to build relationships that matter to you.
Realizing that intentions don’t matter – actions do
Have you ever heard someone say ‘Keep your Say / Do Ratio high?’
This is another way of saying – follow through on what you say you’re going to do. If you’re someone that always says YES but somehow ends up either falling short or not doing it at all – that will come back at you in a negative way. The goal of what you’re doing (and building) should be to only say Yes to things that you can truly follow through on. As you grow into your career (and life), you’ll find plenty of things to say yes too and it will become increasingly difficult to say no to things you’d like to do.
Focus on finding things that you can help you refine your intentions in life that will allow you to have clarity on what to say Yes (and No) to.
Here are the three things I’ve found that allow me to focus on actions (more than words):
Define your life goals (and vision): One thing that’s helped me a great deal is defining what I actually want out of life. What am I doing on this earth? What is my purpose? What was I truly meant to accomplish? By really sitting with these questions and thinking about my core purpose – it allows me to think about what I can say yes to and what I really should say no to. Life is a long and windy road and it’s important to know that the destination may change. Defining and refining what I’m on this planet to accomplish helps me get grounded and establish how I want to act with others around me.
Build your community: Once you’ve define your life goals (and vision), it’s important to find a community that can support you in this. It may take time and it may be difficult to find but you can if you search long enough. I’ve had different iterations of what this looks like but when you proactively go out and try to find those that have the same life goals and align to that with you, it becomes extremely powerful. For me, that has become what I’m calling the Church of Sauna. I’ve found a group of men that I connect with on a monthly basis in a men’s group meetup and throughout the month some of us meet at a community sauna. It’s important to find what can bring you peace and align to what you want to build in this life. You only get one so make it count.
Eat the Frog: Another way of saying this is: Do that 1 big task first at the start of the day. Your mental energy is best in the morning and you’ll be able to accomplish more (while having more confidence) if you just get it done early in the day. If you let things sit or you keep pushing them to the next day’s task list – you’ll end up with a massive (and overwhelming) list of things to do. Build this into your daily rhythum to accomplish more in your life.
Once you’ve been able to do this, focusing on the work you’re doing will become easier and less stressful.
Let’s get into more about why that is…
Finding more work that feels like play
Are you one of those people that looks forward to Friday so you can get to the weekend?
I was at Starbucks last Friday and the barista said something along the lines of: “Happy Friday! Aren’t you glad the weekend is coming up?”. In my mind I was thinking about the fact that I love what I do. Weekdays and weekends blend together for me. I’m always thinking about this newsletter, writing content or coming up with new ideas that will resonate with my audience (or my clients).
It’s surprising to me that so many people have this thought in their mind that we need to work on weekdays to live for the weekends.
I don’t see it that way anymore.
Here’s how I think about work (to make it play):
Define your ideal work week: Sometimes I think about having a four hour morning routine, go straight to lunch and then a 2-3 hour run before the kids are coming home from school where I can play with them for the rest of the afternoon (and someone else is cooking dinner). That’s not reality and not something that I’d want to have on a daily basis. It sounds nice (for a day or two) but it would get boring after a while. So, the real question is – what does your week really look like? Map out the days into time blocks of what you want to do and accomplish on each day of that week.
In order to really do that, you need to break your schedule into monthly and quarterly goals.
The way to do this is quite simple (if you follow this framework): 1. Start with your quarterly goals 1. Write down what you want to accomplish in all areas of your life (personal and professional) 2. Stack rank them in order of importance 3. Cross of the bottom 50% 4. Break them into monthly goals and define the tasks 5. Place your tasks into those define weekly time buckets you’ve built
The first few times doing this will be a new habit. Habits are hard to change (or add to) so take your time and be kind to yourself. I’ve combined a few things I’ve learned from others to get to this framework but it works well for me.
Try it and reply to this email to let me know what you think.
Create the Niche of You: I talk about this in great detail in the Activate LinkedIn course I created. Go take that course if you want a much more detailed instructional guide to do this. The purpose of doing this (in this context) is that you need to understand who you are, what you care about and how you can leverage your network, knowledge and experience into something meaningful (that’s also more fun than work). By creating the Niche of You, you’ll be able to clearly articulate who you are, what you stand for and be confident in your life mission.
Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to go out and find what is more play than work to you.
Finding your dream job (that feels like play): Look, I’m not going to sit here and say that you need to find something that feels like your favorite activity when you go on vacation. You could say: “Hey Andrew – play feels like going to Mexico and kite surfing, hanging by the pool and drinking margaritas”. Sure, that’s true but how long will you be able to sustain that. Would you become a professional kite surfer?
Really think about this. Could you truly sit on the beach for weeks, months and years without working on anything?
I would argue that if you’re reading this newsletter that you’re not going to survive doing that for more than a few weeks (possibly a month).
After that, you’re going to get bored and want to stimulate your mind.
So, I ask you again: “What activity do you enjoy doing that others don’t want to do (or don’t have the skill / time for)?”
For me, it’s become writing. Digital writing and helping others design, build and activate their LinkedIn profile.
I love the entire process. It’s a puzzle and a challenging one for each new client that needs help.
It feels like work to them but play to me.
Find your game.
Here’s what you should do next:
- Understand who’s in your life today that are your long term people. Lean into those relationships and remove those that are bringing you down. The less you have distracting you, the more focused you’ll become to reach those long term goals with long term people.
- Be aware. Next time you say ‘Yes’ to doing something – find a way to keep track of it for yourself. Write it down in a checklist, put it on the calendar or set a reminder in your phone. Do something to keep your ‘Say Do Ratio’ high. Over time it will become clearer how important this really is in your life.
- Figure out the Niche of You and how to design a work life that feels like play. Even if this starts off as a side project, that you’re working on while at a full time job – do it. You’ll find that will compound into something meaningful if you stick to it.
I’ll leave you with this:
Building compound interest in your life while following through on everything you’ve said you’d do will lead you to a fun work life balance. It will take time and energy to be confident and comfortable with this new approach.
But as Nike says: ‘Just Do It’
Until next week friends.
Have fun.
Andrew
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
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