When to quit and when not to? In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin talks about 3 kinds of curves: the dip, the cul-de-sac & the cliff. The cul-de-sac is the dead end. Things never get better. Today is exactly as yesterday was. The cul-de-sac is linear and it is a busy job. Examples of cul-de-sacs: Dead-end
Pending emails or going awol. This is seldom a problem for someone who is working within an organisation. Their job mostly revolves around replying to emails and ensuring that nothing gets left un-replied. On the other hand, for a solopreneur, there is no defined deadline and no hierarchical structure to ensure that we keep our
Merely, do the work. Without drama. Without emotion. Merely. The less the drama, the less the emotions involved, the better and more consistent the work is. Resistance uses emotion and drama to distract us from what really matters, and that is to show up as our best self, our most generous self. The drama
Pick a date, any date. It's important to pick a shipping date and make it non-negotiable. It leads to forward motion. It makes you do things because now it is imminent. Without a date, we can keep going without actually shipping anything. As soon as a date is picked, everything changes. The key
Compounding efforts and sunk costs. Compounding takes place, whether we want it or not. If we are spending our time on activities or projects that we don't want to continue, then that's time & effort lost. We are investing in building something we want to eventually throw away. Instead, if we
How to get into the zone when you are feeling overwhelmed and distracted? There are times when we are in the zone, working on things that need to be done. And then, many times, we are out of the zone, overthinking, overwhelmed, distracted, and stressed. What can we do to shift from a distracted state of mind to one where we can get
What am I not doing that I need to do? It's good to have to-do lists. It's even better to tick things off your to-do list. But, what is the one thing that you need to do that's not there on the list or is there but is always left at the end of
Will the real entrepreneur please stand up? Imposter syndrome is okay. Fighting your self-doubt is too. But, if you are an entrepreneur, there is only one question you need to answer: How many sales pitches did you make in the last one week? A runner runs. A writer writes. An entrepreneurs sells. No pitch, no entrepreneur. Simple.
Get into the ring. You can't become a runner without getting tired. You can't become a guitarist without your fingers paining. You can't become a swimmer without getting wet. You can't become a boxer without getting punched. You can't become an entrepreneur without getting
Overcoming perfectionism. Perfectionism is resistance's way of delaying our journey. It gives the illusion that the work is about choosing the perfect project rather than working on the one that's in front of you. What gives this more power is that starting projects is easier and switching projects
Let's not be rational. Rationalisation is what makes procrastination okay. It is what makes self-doubt okay. It is what makes hiding okay. Without rationalisation, shame would take over and we'd act. But instead, we rationalise and choose to explain why we don't.
The minimum viable action step. The minimum viable action step (intentionally singular): What is the one complete action step that can move you towards your goal (again, singular)? It's tempting to try to do many things at the same time and not complete the minimum viable action step on any. We don'
The choice that you don't want to make. As a professional, you make the choice that you need to make, not necessarily the one that you want to. The choice that you want to make is something you earn by doing the work that you need to do. The entitlement felt for making the choice you want without
The skill of focusing on one goal, one project. It's the easiest thing in the world to get distracted, to see the next shiny thing and move towards it, leaving in its wake, your project, your work, and your goal. And it's even more difficult to focus on the important work when you are an
Solving problems. A plumber can't show up and say his work is done until the water starts flowing from the tap. There is no prize for attendance, there is no prize for almost done, there is prize only for effectiveness, for getting it done. The traditional approach to work and
Fear makes us diminish ourselves. When we act out of fear, when the voice of the critic is loud in our head, we become sheepish, we feel like hiding away. We become our most limited self, the one who doesn't want to stand for something, the one who wants to play safe. We
The work that matters. What we do as entrepreneurs is the hard work and emotional labour of tackling ambiguity. It's unlikely that this work can be easily listed on a to-do list. The nature of ambiguity and the emotions associated with the work make it less likely for the mind to list
Calling it a day. As entrepreneurs, there are days when we just can't get the needle to move. We may be distracted, unfocused, tired or stressed. If we were in a job and having a day like that, we might ask our boss to call it a day and come back again
The sprint within the marathon. You rarely see a professional marathon runner doing a sprint while running a marathon. It simply doesn't work. They know that if they sprint, they are highly unlikely to complete the marathon, leave alone win it. But when it comes to our work, we feel tempted to do
Imposter syndrome imposter: a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain. syndrome: a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms. What are the symptoms? We hesitate. We hide. We are hypercritical of ourselves.
Plumbing and non-plumbing work. There are certain tasks that we can get done without facing much emotional resistance. These tasks are equivalent to a plumber doing his/her job. No matter how they are feeling, they know how to fix the pipes so that the water starts flowing. On the other hand, there is
Emotional labour. Emotional labour is when we push against resistance to move forward in our work. It's when we get the work done even when we don't feel like doing it. It can't be seen unlike physical or mental labour but it's critical work
Human doctor... ...or lawyer or teacher or boss or employee. In trying to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, managers, etc. we forget the fact that we are humans serving humans. And as humans, what we seek is connection. The more we can make the people we serve feel seen and heard, the better
The creative process. The creative process is unpredictable, irrational, and chaotic and it involves a lot of hard work, physical, mental and emotional. The creative process is iterative and it takes multiple iterations to make something that works. In the process, there are multiple things that don't. Each failed iteration gives
The simple answer is the most elusive. It comes more from taking away than from adding more. That's why constraints are really helpful for creativity and entrepreneurship. Constraints help us focus by limiting the canvas. Paintings can't be made on an infinite canvas, nor can our project. Choose your boundaries, and your work
