Winning as a company may seem like a complex concept, but in reality, it is extremely simple on the surface. It only gets complex once you’re a couple of layers in. Hear me out.

Writing this as a reminder for myself.

Doing the ‘right thing’ is almost never celebrated with approval and cheers.

It helps to remember that this is a timeless fact. Below is a 2,000 year old text that describes it well.

When faced with a difficult decision, it is usually not the lack of conviction that make you clench and slow down on taking the action, but rather the subconscious thoughts of the consequences.

We are social animals. Inside of every one of us is a little desire to be a people-pleaser. When we make tough decisions that we believe in but others may not understand, we may get ‘punished’ with judgement, criticism, or resistance.

This text from Seneca’s letter #29 helps me remember that popular approval shall not be craved, and tough decisions will almost always not be applauded.

We all know this smart person (often an engineer) that speaks extremely bluntly, sometimes saying things that might be socially considered as harsh/awkward.

I started thinking about this recently.

I work much better with such people.

At times, I tend to say things myself that people tell me were too harsh or direct. I don’t get it. I usually think that they’re normal fair things to say, because they’re true, disregarding what feelings/emotions hearing them may trigger for the listener.

I’ve realized that my engineer and scientific friends do the same. And I think I’ve realized why they do it.

As an engineer, you’re often faced with technical problems that you have to agonize in untangling some logic to solve them.

I have this tendency to assume that everyone has the same capabilities as me.

I’ve been called out on it a few times.

“If I can do it, why can’t you?” I tend to think…

I got criticized for assuming that everyone can.

I’ve recently heard this statement in a podcast:

What if everybody tomorrow became a scientist or an engineer?…And don’t tell me people can’t do it, because they can. That’s just the tyranny of soft expectations, that’s just you looking down on somebody else. They can do it, they just need to be educated.

Naval Ravikant

I loved the term. The tyranny of soft expectations.

I’m writing this for the young managers that haven’t received an MBA in management, but need to manage a team regardless.

I work with a lot of kind and agreeable people, that are also ambitious and want to get things done.

The problem with being agreeable at times is that when someone gets in the way, the agreeable person would let them do so for longer than necessary, because they generally don’t like conflict and would like to avoid it at any cost.

That causes all sorts of problems and unintended consequences.

Here’s why you should fire, and fire fast:

Figuratively, or literally?

I’ve always thought that this statement is a figurative one: staying hungry means not getting satisfied and always aiming for more (ambition not greed). That is a recipe for continuous growth.

However, I’ve recently stumbled upon a video for the one and only Andrew Tate saying how one should stay hungry as one’s body operates at its peak performance when it’s in ‘hunting mode’, and operates in a rather lazy mode when it is full and lethargic.

He says:

You should be hungry all of the time. Your body is designed to perform at best while you are hungry because you’re supposed to be hunting for food. If you’re full of food, you’re going to be lazy and lethargic.

I’ve never thought of it that way – but I see the merit in that argument. Such an interesting insight. It is true that when I fast, opposite to what you expect happens: I perform better and stay more focused.

It is such a challenge though to go against our animalistic instinct. The voice in our head tells us to fill that gap in our stomach whenever it’s created. The best thing we can do however in the age of abundance is to fight that thought and stay hungry, in order to optimize for a healthier, happier life.

p.s. I’m not ashamed of liking what this man has to say 🙂 he’s a controversial figure, but spits facts a lot of the time. This is one of them (video here)

The best position you can be in in a negotiation is if you don’t mind if the deal doesn’t go through.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t care. You do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be wasting your time negotiating.

You want the deal to go through. But if it doesn’t, you’re not in a terrible position.

Any time you care too much about a deal going through, you’re in a compromising position.

You would be driven by emotions and fear subconsciously.

Never enter into a negotiation if you’re not comfortable walking away.

Of course, you won’t always have this privilege. In the early beginnings you’ll need to pay your dues.

The problem with this is the following:

1. Desire: you want something badly, and fear losing it
   • You must learn to lower your desires. Practice stoicism. Do a fear setting exercise (what’s the worst that could happen?).
2. Need: you need the deal to go through
   • Reassess your position: if you need something to go through, you’re not in a good place
   • in a business context, if you’re serving a great product/service, then you pretty much don’t need anything other than your customers paying you for such product/service (assuming it’s financially sound)
   • in a personal context, it’s a lot more complicated, since most people in this day and age don’t own their freedom. If you’re financially free, you don’t need anything. If you’re not, then needs definitely kick in. This post is more catered towards business negotiations, but you can apply it anywhere

As a business, it’s somewhat easy (yet very hard) to not need the outcome of a deal/negotiation to go through.

Beyond the most basic negotiation between you and your customer to pay X price, you own your freedom. You win that former negotiation when you provide your customer with a much better product or service than what they can get elsewhere (better, faster, cheaper). Of course, this is way easier said than done.

You do this once, and then everything else should gradually become easier: you enter into negotiations not worried to walk away.

Did you know that you have to tear a muscle in order to grow it?

Yes, your muscles only become stronger and grow when you challenge them with weights or intensity that they previously have not experienced.

Your muscle fibers literally get torn. If you keep tearing them without any time to heal, you injure them. But if you let them heal, they grow.

I find there to be amazing correlation between physical growth and mental growth.

We often derive analogies from our physical world, and understand complex concepts through them.

Mental growth for example is a process that you cannot see. It is therefore more difficult to understand.

But drawing on the muscle analogy has been a quite successful approach for me to explain to people around me why they should look at their struggles positively. If you’re struggling, it might mean that you’re growing.

Here’s how muscles grow:

• your muscles get torn / challenged
• a period of rest / healing must take place
• nutrition consumption and absorption

If you miss one of these, your muscles will most likely not grow. Challenging muscles alone is not enough. Challenging them and resting without nutrients to support the recovery process won’t get you much growth. Only by doing a bit of those 3 things do you grow.

Here’s how minds grow:

• you’re mentally torn / challenged
• a period of rest / healing must take place
• information consumption and absorption

Similarly, you need all 3 in order to grow.

Rest / healing is often a period of either doing nothing (rest/meditation) or doing ‘mindless tasks’ (i.e. don’t need thinking like walking, washing dishes, etc…)

Information consumption and absorption is often done through journaling, conversation, or even meditation/thinking in the rest/healing step.

If you miss one of these, then unfortunately, your suffering may go to waste.

Think about this next time you’re in a rut, mentally challenged, or stressed.

I’m blessed to be surrounded by amazing people.

I noticed a confusing trait of a group of people I work with:

They work extremely well with me, but they seemingly severely underperform with others.

That’s not to say that I’m a magician that brings out the best of them (the opposite is also true with other groups that I don’t work well with, different people work well with different people)

The group I’m talking about though usually don’t shine in traditional professional settings, so I thought I’d highlight this.

These people are absolute gems though when they’re in their zone. Their potential is unleashed, and they’re hungry. They come across as these underdogs that very much appreciate being listened to, since most companies/leaders wouldn’t.

They often share these 2 traits:

• Introverted
• Agreeable

It almost sounds like these 2 traits would cripple you from thriving in the workplace.

How would you engage and be heard if you get drained from social interactions and engaging in debates?

I think there’s so much potential in such people.

Here’s the thing: most workplaces would marginalize these personalities

They would reward the loudest, most disagreeable voice

Disagreeable people seem more confident because they’re willing to put a half baked opinion out there and not shy away from disagreeing and defending it. If they’re also extroverted, they’d have no issues doing this all week long.

Agreeable introverts on the other hand would accept ‘defeat’ and walk away, simply because they’re not comfortable engaging in such debates. They find them very uncomfortable and not worthy.

The best people I’ve ever worked with would sometimes not voice their opinions until they’re asked to.

But you know what happens when you ask them? Magical things.

Those who don’t speak often have the most to say.

Let that sink in.

In an extreme example, with one of the best engineers I’ve worked with, I developed this rule that I shared with people who came to work with him in the future:

If you want to talk to this guy, you have to get comfortable with awkward silence. You need to ask a question and then stop talking for 60 seconds. Just shut up. Once he feels comfortable, he will talk. And boy, will he have good things to say…

I’ve also worked with people who don’t get this. They don’t work well with these people at all.

I’m writing this as a reference for me to share with them in the future.

Stop talking. Truly, genuinely listen. Only then you’d be able to get them to open up to you. And believe me, that is extremely valuable..

Otherwise, these people will never really ‘talk’ to you, and you’d be losing out on a great resource.

Everything is a spectrum

We’re biased to think in binary terms:

– good or bad
– fast or slow
– kind or rude
– tidy or messy
– pretty or ugly

reality is not binary

reality is a spectrum

I started thinking of good or bad as 0 to 100 instead of 0 to 1

that has helped me understand things better and explain them much better

instead of saying ‘this is slow, I want it to be fast’, I started saying:

if slow was 0, and fast was 100, we’d probably be at a 10. I want us to be at a 20

Saying it this way changed the game.