douchebag idol

They say: “never meet your heroes.” Why? If your idol is a total douchebag, you’re going to feel completely devastated and you’ll be left with more questions than answers.

What if engaging in intellectually fulfilling conversation with your idol doesn’t work out. Maybe watching sand run through an hourglass proves to be a more stimulating activity than talking with them.

It’s your idol’s good right to be a total douchebag. It’s not your right to expect them not to be.

If you meet your idol — deliberately or accidentally — see how you can provide value for them. Perhaps, your idol will create value for you one day. Don’t count on it, though.

Get rid of the emotional layer of worship when running into your idol and get to work.

idle downtime

As if that ever happens. Idle downtime as an entrepreneur doesn’t come around very often, but we’re usually ill-prepared when it does.

Idle time and downtime aren’t the same. Idle time in software, for instance, means something scheduled to happen in the future, for the time being, is just sitting there waiting. On the other hand, downtime occurs when, due to failure or an outage, what has to happen, can’t happen.

How does that reflect on people? Idle time for an entrepreneur could imply waiting for a customer to comment on an offer made. Downtime could mean the email server is down, rendering the entrepreneur virtually incapable of performing that particular task.

“You have to make time.” A platitude thrown around that is sure to upset people working day and night. However, idle – and downtime is something that, perhaps due to force majeure, happens to us.

The tricky part is that entrepreneurs should artificially induce it when it doesn’t happen (enough). Idle downtime is an outstanding opportunity to take a step back from day-to-day business and look ahead. Without the opportunity, we are stuck in the daily routine and easily lose track of the strategic roadmap. 

Next time downtime manifests itself, grab the opportunity, get to the (fictive) chopper, and check on the strategy from a helicopter view.

you’re on

Tons of suffocating pressure rest on our shoulders nowadays. Personally and professionally. It’s like a full-time job not to go unnoticed. How do you stand out from a crowd in which everybody wants to stand out?

Getting your voice heard, or read, is not a zero-sum game. One star doesn’t shine brighter because it steals light from the other stars. There is plenty of limelight to go around. Cutting through the noise is a matter of authenticity and uniqueness.

Generic content creation is relatively easy. Already today, machines can do so quite well. New businesses starting out could either spend a lot of time and money strategizing on determining their tone of voice or use the tone of voice they already have.

Your shared worldview and ideals brought you together, and surely they will tie the content nicely together. How is that for a tone of voice. Disclaimer: if writing and creating content isn’t your strong suit or generally perceived as unpleasant, get an editor. Scratch that. Stephen King once said: “to write is human, to edit is divine.” So, look for an editor either way.

Your (start-up) tone of voice is a collection of voices already present, inherently authentic and unique. Let them seep through by combining – and surfacing them.

we accept emotion here

The only available currency at the very beginning of starting a new business is “emotion.” What’s bad about it, buying a loaf of bread with it probably won’t work. The good thing is that the value is relative and virtually infinite.

Looking for potential co-founders, initially, there will be very little to offer them. Shared ideas and vision can serve as a starting point towards motivating one another. The potential of the yet to be invented products and services could account for something down the road. However, nothing tangible. Time to fire up the “emotion” money printing machine.

Similar to actual money, “emotion” coins have a heads – and tails side as well. One side is the good side, a plethora of pleasant, stimulating, and honest emotions. The flipside is the exact opposite, bad vibes, betrayal, ungratefulness.

As a (co-)founder, you print the actual “emotion” money. You determine the inflation and deflation. More importantly, you choose the type of emotions, good or bad. Do right by people, value and appreciate them, and success may eventually manifest itself. If you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for a letdown.

pop-up ego

After years of training, trying to keep your ego in check, you think you’ve nailed it. You’ve become a calmer person and stopped taking everything personal. Difficult to measure the intangible ego, but you feel confident in saying your ego is tiny. Even contemplating the chance, you got rid of your ego altogether.

Until a situation presents itself where suddenly the ego pops up as if it never left. Hello, darkness, my old friend. Like some commercial real estate that’s been vacant for the longest time and almost overnight, a retailer decides to set up (a pop-up) shop. It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s at play. The adrenaline you feel when somebody in traffic breaks unexpectedly and a collision seems imminent. The visceral reaction that lets an adrenaline shot ring out in your body. The sequel to your life: “the ego returns”. This time it’s back with a vengeance.

The trick isn’t to try to suppress the ego. The trick is to actively look for more ego evoking situations to train responses better.

zig-zag

En route to a specific goal, one (hopefully) encounters several challenges. If not, something probably went wrong with defining the goal initially. Michelangelo allegedly said: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

While aiming high, reaching a goal can be excruciatingly demanding, like sailing directly upwind into a twelve Beaufort storm. Enduring so much friction in the process, barely advancing or making any progress at all.

Sailing straight into the wind is impossible. To reach a destination that lies directly upwind, vessels have to zig-zag in order to get there. This method is called beating.

Roadblocks pop up, and setbacks happen. Walk a tightrope, jump through a burning hoop, make loopings if you must. Be creative in chasing a goal, and never lose track of the destination. Reaching goals is rarely straightforward and requires lots of zig-zagging either way. Don’t give up when inevitable detours manifest themselves.

decrease dimensionality

Problem-solving requires understanding dimensionality. Problems in our mind aren’t bound to physical space, meaning that they rarely have but one dimension. A single dimension would be the least required parameters to define a (part of a) problem.

Identify both the characteristics and the number of all the different dimensions present in a particular problem. Once identified, the next step is to reduce the dimensionality as much as possible.

Occam’s razor states: “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” In other words, the simplest answer is the best answer. Simple answers are easier to falsify, which increases their likelihood of being correct.

With multiple, sometimes interlaced dimensions, finding a starting point is challenging. Untangle all dimensions one by one. This way, clarity is created. We can reintroduce complexity where necessary along the way.

totally understand

When confronted with a seemingly sincere: “I totally understand,” after filing a customer support ticket with a particular company, we feel like we’ve found an ally. They get me! It sure is nice to feel understood. We feel empowered when we’re able to convince someone to go along in our train of thought and have them rally behind our cause. Suddenly, the problem at hand doesn’t seem that bad. A customer support agent’s ability to fully grasp what a customer is going through and subsequently relay that feeling relies heavily on their empathic ability.

Letting customers know that they are understood can be tricky. For instance, through a text-based conversation, the sincerity of the customer support agent becomes harder to gauge. The more (sensory) input the conversation provides, the easier it becomes.

Recruit and select customer support agents with tons of empathy and continuously train them to become even more empathic. Have them experience real-life situations that may occur with your customers.

Totally understanding the customer doesn’t mean completely agreeing with everything the customer thinks about your company. There is a fine line between siding with the customer and siding against the company. Tread carefully.

decision fear

After considering all options for two possible solutions for a challenge. With an extensive pro’s and contra’s list prepared. Having combed through numerous reviews. Involving people to weigh in on the decision… You find yourself still stuck in analysis paralysis, scared to make the wrong choice.

Sometimes the anxiety is more legitimate than other times. Figuring out what to have for dinner or deciding which market to enter next are two completely different things, with entirely different consequences.

Going about (big) decisions diligently is usually a smart approach. Too diligent, however, slows down the process tremendously. If possible, in case of uncertainty, choose both options. Evaluate them shortly after and cancel one out.

make haste slowly

For the last couple of decades, humanity should have enabled itself to work less instead of more. As time progresses, people can reduce or eliminate the need to reinvent the proverbial wheel. Setting us up for something that is often referred to as the “innovation dividend.”

On the one hand, there is mindfulness, a trend that keeps gaining popularity. On the other hand, the pressure to perform is presumably still on the rise. Do these two balance each other out? They could.

Calm the hell down quickly! One of the key elements in mindfulness is to be completely aware. To be fully present in the moment. In business, as in leisure, the balance between speed and thoroughness is vital. Fly through your work, and recklessness may cause errors to creep in. Short term delivery goals may be met, but the chance of missing long term goals increases. Rushing work may hinder (seeing) the long term vision.

Achieving “flow,” a state of mind in which people are totally involved, is such a blessing. Losing track of time during work makes it feel like play.

Double down on those moments. Perform like there is no tomorrow but enjoy it thoroughly while you’re at it.