Good motivational video from Mark Manson.
Manson critiques the common productivity and personal development advice to explain what you really need to achieve insane success.
1. Have a contrarian idea.
2. Be correct about that idea.
3. Execute on it massively.
via @mattragland.com
Dickie Bush and Khe Hy debate the value of intense effort on your business.
“I am a fan of hustle culture. The truth is, most people should be doing way more. Worst case, you go too hard & have short-term burnout—but at least you found your limits. Best case, that short period of volume & intensity completely changes your life’s trajectory. Win-win.”
Big Idea: If you want to be exceptional at anything, you need to put in an exceptional effort. Front loading that effort in the beginning can pay off for years to come.
Don’t let the title of this post fool you. It sounds hyperbolic, but there is some great advice from a blogger that gets more than 10k visitors a day. Not only has Nat Eliason created a popular blog, he has earned more than $220k this year from his course on using the note-taking tool Roam Research, and he has a multi-million dollar SEO agency born out of his blog. You never know what opportunities will arise out of a good blog post.
Here is a post suggesting that less that 1% of members of IndieHackers make more than $2k per month in revenue. While the validity of that data can be questioned, it is likely that most people haven’t started a business yet.
CJ Casciotta has a related article on the “Squarespace Fallacy,“ which is the misleading promise that “A beautiful website can turn your idea into a reality.” New entrepreneurs spend so much time on superficial things like designing logos, printing business cards, designing a website, and not enough on hustling to get customers.
CJ writes,
“In reality, a beautiful website, the perfect domain, or copy that’s “tweaked-to-death” do little if nothing to turn your business into a reality. There is no magic cloud poof that happens once you “go live.”
Check out the Doopool article above if you need more convincing. 4 days to create a MVP and doing cold outreach to generate sales is what is needed to grow a business.
Brendan Cahill summarizes some of the key advice from author and entrepreneur Derek Sivers. Derek Sivers is famous for creating and selling CDBaby for $22m, a company that helped indie musicians sell their music. There is some good advice on the importance of execution, deciding what to focus on, narrowing your target audience, etc. Check out the videos at the bottom of the post for some of Derek’s popular talks. Also interesting is Brendan’s strategy of writing about famous leaders to get attention. This Derek Sivers post brought 11k visitors from Hacker News. Sometimes it’s good to step back and think about the strategy behind what people are creating and not just the content itself.
Srinivas Rao interviews author Michael Neill on the Unmistakable Podcast. This is an inspiring message that is very different from a lot of personal development advice. Here are some of my highlights:
Good advice here. I love the way the video was edited to make it much more engaging than the typical online interview.
What is World Class? – Robbie Crabtree
“Here’s the truth—it’s pretty damn obvious when you see someone who’s world class. Think back to when Lebron James was playing in high school. When he was in 11th grade, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the headline: “The Chosen One.” James was so entertaining, ESPN broadcasted his high school games.”
“You don’t have to be world-class to succeed in startups. You do need to learn from the world-class founders and become great. Great founders build massive companies. “
Helsinki Bus Theory: The Proven Path to Creating Unique and Meaningful Work
James Clear on what it takes to get good at your craft.
“By staying on the bus, you give yourself time to re-work and revise until you produce something unique, inspiring, and great. It’s only by staying on board that mastery reveals itself. Show up enough times to get the average ideas out of the way and every now and then genius will reveal itself.”
“Average college students learn ideas once. The best college students re-learn ideas over and over. Average employees write emails once. Elite novelists re-write chapters again and again. Average fitness enthusiasts mindlessly follow the same workout routine each week. The best athletes actively critique each repetition and constantly improve their technique. It is the revision that matters most.”
Bonus Idea: Creating distinct names for your ideas (e.g. “Helsinki Bus Theory”)is a very powerful way to get them to spread.
How To Begin (with Michael Bungay Stanier)
“Today’s guest has accomplished a lot of big things. He’s a Rhodes Scholar, successful consultant, author of the international best-selling book The Coaching Habit, and also the author of the new book How To Begin. In this episode, he shares a practical, step-by-step method for moving your big ideas forward.”
Highlights:
• Michael’s team works in 6 weeks intervals with a two-week break to evaluate and recalibrate.
• It takes about 5 years to do a big idea. How many big ideas do you have in your life?
• Most people give up too soon, rather than hang on too long.
