Tag: learning

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Something I’ve Learned, In A Sentence, From Each Brand I’ve Worked For

Here is the list

  • AllHipHop – How to write on my own, turn it in, and receive critique.
  • HiphopDX – My first interviews, stronger writing, fact-based stories, pitching.
  • The Gamer Studio – staff management, hiring, firing, and a bunch of stuff in between.
  • DTCC – Stakeholder management – whoa this was a rough lesson over six years.
  • altMBA coach – When to push and when to pull a team without being the “boss.”
  • Arcade School – Education technology and the beginning of pricing.
  • Cofound Harlem – Engaging with politicians and  early entrepreneurs
  • Philosophie – Design design design.
  • Datalogue – ****
  • Informed – In progress

Thinking about and writing this has been oddly humbling. One thing that I’ve noticed is that the more I’ve gotten to know the less I realize I do.

19-year-old Adam running a gaming site had all the answers. 31-year-old Adam managing the product of a very successful SaaS product knows almost nothing.

So – much more to learn then :-).

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Learning is a War of Attrition 

Show up every day

Decide your day with intention.

Once you have, show up.

Everyday.

Our biggest war is with our ego.

And we fight. We fight against the expectations that we “obviously deserve.”

And the minute you decide to show up, it is a war you fight.

Be careful.

We think it’s “easier said than done.”

This war is one of attrition. Each day wears on you, and ego wins when you quit.

Don’t beat yourself up. You’ll often lose this war. You won’t, however, become a prisoner of the ego unless you completely submit.

So, do your best to sustain your energy. The longer you hang in there, the more territory (lessons) you acquire that prepare you for the next “war.”

The goal is growth.

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The Lesson, Not The Experience.

Well, That Was Bad

I bungled a presentation in front of the senior leadership that I sweated over and ultimately got wrong. It affected my work over the next week and threw me into a depression.

Lesson: Always know the game rules before playing.

True story. I tried to pitch something that was a slam dunk and realized I wasn’t prepared for the moment. That initiative took two more years and I failed to show my potential.

When we learn lessons, they often come with some experience. Sometimes it’s awful, but you get to take the lesson with you.

Don’t make the mistake of taking the experience with you.

If you aren’t careful, you risk becoming the experience instead of becoming yourself.

Your self is dynamic, resilient, antifragile.

Your experience is static, spiritless, fragile. 

This is a major difference between being a leader and being bitter. The leader just takes the lesson.

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Teach What You Know, You Will Be Better For It

Sometimes an over-inflated ego strikes us in ways we don’t expect.

An example:

One of my biggest battles with my ego happens when I learn something interesting, stuff that is “off book,” something that makes me special. I usually assume the people around me won’t get it, won’t understand it, and won’t want to hear it.

I keep it to myself. Then I pay for it.

It costs me in two ways:

  • Externally, through not teaching – I lose the chance to transform and promote change. I miss sharpening the skills I just invested time in learning. I don’t work with the material in a different way, building my own lessons through pushing them from my prism.
  • Internally, by not respecting the people around me – It becomes another way to build a wall, exclude, and “specialize” myself. It becomes tougher to get along with them because I start chiding them from something they didn’t even cause. They are THEM and I and those who went through it are US.

When we refuse to give people the chance to engage with what we know, we’re the ones who lose out.

 

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Forgive Yourself First.

No one is better at criticizing yourself than you are.

Who else knows where all the buried bodies are? You are the only person that knows every secret you’ve held, every person you’ve wronged, and all the mistakes you’ve made. All those phony apologies, well, you know those too.

When it comes to all the mistakes you’ve made you are a bona fide expert.  It holds you back, because you can’t get better without giving yourself permission first.

That is where it starts. Punishment comes from all sides, even from our own head. We have to decide to turn off the valve of self-destruction and decide to stop adding on to the pain. Only then can the process of healing begin.

There is a concept in money management where when you get your paycheck you stop and pay yourself first. You do this because often with money, we forget to take the time to think about ourselves. You take the time to worry about the urgent and not the future.

We treat ourselves that way. In self management, you have to start with forgiving yourself first, because we don’t think about the future, we think about the urgent.

So, give yourself the chance to get better.

Start with yourself and forgive.

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Good Stuff Builds On Good Stuff – Growth Principle

Writing every day is a chore.

As much fun as it is to get this out of my head, some days I sit down, and I can’t get this blog post going. There is a fear associated with this. Every time I write an excellent post, one that people like, there is always another one that doesn’t get the love I want it to or sits there hanging in the wind.

This uncertainty builds fear that follows me writing this stuff. Sometimes it isn’t fun, and sometimes, it even gets scary.

But I know that through writing every post, I get the chance to write again tomorrow, and each post helps me do better than I did before.

The momentum helps

Every time I write, I feel like I am working out.  And like working out, going to the gym, whether it is a lucky day or not, at least keeps you in shape. There is no downside to cranking out a blog post every day. I get better with showing up.

This place helps me define my thinking. This has spread to other parts of my life, like my social networks. If you look at my Instagram, book reviews. Those were born from writing about books here, in a small way, not a big way. My LinkedIn has leadership posts, that came from the blog, and gave me the confidence to tell better stories to connect. My YouTube is a video blog. I didn’t know how to shoot video, but writing here gave them ability to synthesize ideas to put them on video.

Growth matter

Your brain isn’t a thing that grows based on what school you went to or who your parents are. It becomes better, like any other muscle, by using it. You use it by doing things or thinking deeply about the world around you. Neither of these things is passive, and both, when applied, take a ton of brain muscle to do.

Every day I post here, its growth. The material, good and bad, allow me to work longer and do better. It gives me a scratch pad, a place to learn something different.  Good content builds on good content. It’s the gym, and it gives me the opportunity to turn in better and better work.

 

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Flipping Porn Passwords Or A Young Entrepreneurs Foray Into Sales

Whoops

I committed a crime when I was younger.I think the statute of limitations is up? I hope so, or else this is the dumbest thing I ever did.(And I have done a lot of dumb things).

What I did, well, is in the title. But, before I get into the story, I want to say how much I like to sell things. The hustle is fun. Building things is fun. Learning how to make that thing into something that someone wants to spend cold hard cash on, is also fun.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to do that when I was younger. I sold services, I built websites, I tried to flip candy. I always had a job (which I hated) but the job was more of a way to finance my fun. The fun was either the regular kid stuff, or trying to build something.

All of that came to a head in college, when I was just bored in a dorm room.

A Free Room!!!

When I was a second semester freshman, I caught a break. The person who I split a room with dropped out. If you ever lived in a dorm, you understand how exciting this is.

YOUR OWN ROOM!!!!

That leads to all types of opportunity to bring friends over, have the “spot”(which me and my roommate did last semester – that leads to a ton of benefits, but that’s another story for another post),or just have great privacy.

I eschewed all of that, and decided to turn my empty room into a storefront.

I turned my room into the general store(getting into sales)

I went to the local Wal-Mart, picked up as much general “college kid stuff”. The usual suspects: ramen noodles, school supplies, blank CD’s (should let you know the statute is probably up) and put a sign outside my door.

I was doing business, and it was alright. 50 cents here, a dollar there. I made up my investment and I got to learn how to sell stuff. The concept worked, but now it was time to take some risks.

Bootlegs and Passwords

I realized that I had enough stuff to keep a normal business. Now it was time to work on getting the part that made me special.

But first, a quick aside.

I am a normally curious character. When I don’t have money, or when  I don’t want to spend it, I look for ways around. When I turned 14, that landed me straight into the illegal forum culture. It gave me access to almost any game, password or piece of software I wanted.

I was lucky too, as my parents were one of the first in the area with DSL. JACKPOT. I was in, and all it took was a few hours and I had anything I wanted (when everyone had 56k modems, being able to keep a constant connection and not tie up the phone line…as well as get almost 30kb a second was a godsend).

Back to weird

I knew I had this knowledge, a college internet that no one learned how to lock down (good luck trying this today) and a bunch of empty CD’s I bought.  This was an easy thing to put together. It was college, and people needed Microsoft word. They didn’t have 100 dollars, but they certainly had 10.

Time to hustle.

Getting people up to speed all over campus made a few dollars, and word started to spread that I was the guy to see. Made for easy money, and I learned a bunch of business principles I didn’t learn with physical goods. Stuff like digital returns, real customer service and guarantees  . I realized how easy it was for software, but what about the passwords I had?

College Freshmen are lonely (sales opportunity)

Well that isn’t hard to find out, every coming of age movie points to it. I never thought about it so much, being a lonely college freshman.

I didn’t think outside the box, I had other things to do. I had a booming business to run, new friends, and classes I barely attended. The sales were calling.

But one night, I decided to test something.

I always had my price list outside my door. I decided to put down, in small print, porn passwords, just to see if anyone would bite.  And they did.

Slowly but surely, they came by, asking about passwords. Dead of night or when they had other business (Hey man…i’d love some ramen noodles … … … … and one of those passwords) . I knew they had a short shelf life (we are talking a few days, although sometimes you got lucky) and a recurring base of customers (subscriptions!!!) .  They were also a great bartering tool (guess who didn’t have to worry about the RA for ANYTHING)

All good things come to an end

I was in a good place. Product was moving, and of course, I still had the normal general store out the room. Business was good and sales were high.

The only thing I had to worry about was the dean of residence snooping, or one of his agents. I always got word when he would arrive, so I would take off the paper and straighten my room (He was a strict guy, and every once in a while he would inspect).

One day he dropped in, and I had no notice. He saw the paper, and in one fell swoop, went from asking questions (luckily my supply was low so I just lied and said I just got started as an experiment) and threatened expulsion (again he was strict) but the RA went to bat for me and lied (he told him “he’s a business major and thought it would be interesting” when he knew I was in Computer Science)

I got away with just a screaming, but, I knew I was a marked man. I had to let the business go.

Great lessons

I remember this story far more than any class I took in college because I learned more through executing than reading theory (this experience led me pick up a few business classes).  Executing, and learning things like customer service, returns, marketing, subscriptions, and launching new products served me well as I went on to other ventures. I got better at sales.

I still love the idea of selling. Getting my hands dirty, and working out the kinks. I think it’s a way to learn, and I think dealing with the risk gets you an interesting story.

So, as long as the statute is up, enjoy and share this one 🙂 .

 

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Scarcity is comfortable, thats why we choose it.

This is a hard pill to swallow

We grew up being told one day we could all “be president” but as soon as that speech was over, given reminders to get “realistic”.

What the term “realistic” hides is scarcity. Scarcity is telling us not to reach so far, not to stand out, not to make too much of a ruckus.

I hate it, and I feel we kill our inner self every time we use it. The question is why do we do it?  I think we do it because its comfortable, we decide to live with the “get realistic” ideals of scarcity because its easier to keep yourself trapped then to risk your ego by going out on your own.

The reason I hate it so much is because I am as guilty of it as anyone I know.

Abundance vs scarcity

When we are younger, we learn to hold on to what we have. It isn’t a problem to keep a hold of something. In fact, it’s seen at as a way to win through life. Keep your head down, keep what you have, when its safe, get more.

That’s scarcity.

Taking the next step, trusting your skill, knowing the world has more. Learning to get involved, to count, to matter.

That’s Abundance.

Failure comes in both directions, but you have to ask yourself, which failure sounds more interesting?

But we are comfortable with scarcity

We begin to blame everything and everyone for that fear, but truthfully, its our own demons. Our communities are comfortable with the idea, so saying things like “it pays the bills” or “its a job” makes perfect sense to people.

But, greatness, and understanding scratches that itch. That doesn’t come with being safe. We have to try for more, get uncomfortable with it.

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In 2016, Get To Love Keeping In Touch With The Nudge

I love the quick nudge

Learning how to keep in touch was paramount for me in 2015. I learned how to take a relationship and support it. I’ve met some friends that who inspire me to work.

The easiest way to support that is the quick nudge. Its simple, a text, a quick email, a short tweet. Its low risk, spares the ego, and it holds no forced response.

Best of all, it takes very little time to do. Take advantage of a slow minute and email someone who you are thinking about them.

It holds another tremendous benefit

It makes people feel better. People rarely get emails that hold nothing but well wishes. A thank you note or text brightens my day every time it happens. It also brightens up the day of anyone else I ask. I’ve never heard of anyone that hates a nice check-in.

Building a relationship, getting closer through the quick nudge opens up the opportunity to help. People feel more comfortable in confiding in people who take an interest, and it provides you the opportunity to become a better listener.

You get the chance to bring value to people who aren’t expecting it.

This is critical for leaders. But there is something that stops us from doing this when we could.

Turn your ego off

Ego gets us every time because it expects us to get the upper hand. By extending an unrequited gesture, ego starts to panic. You won’t win every time you do this, there is a chance it goes unanswered, you get nothing, and the ego calls you a loser.

That is a scary thing. Who wants to feel underwhelmed? But the key here isn’t that you get the single action back, it’s about building the muscle to do it often. If it becomes a part of your skill set, youve acquired something that most people’s egos stop them from getting, and that leaves you ahead of the game. Keep in touch.

Note: As with all things extremes get you in trouble. Don’t harass. A simple note does wonders but a stack of them becomes a nuisance. 

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5 Books I Recommend To End 2015

I read a lot

As the video points out, I’ve read almost 100 books this year.  Like anything else that you do creatively, there are good, bad and ugly.

In the spirit of the time of year, I will spare you the bad and ugly, and present just the good. There is a lot of books that I haven’t captured here that are wonderful.  Take a look at my Goodreads account and tweet me and I’ll give you a review on the book, or follow my Instagram account, where I leave book reviews to get an idea if a book will work for you.

First, I give the honorable mentions, a quick look at 5 books that I find tremendous and are surefire hits on my reread list. Then the top 5 books that changed my perspective.

Honorable Mention Books

Art of Learning Josh Waitzkin [Recommended by Tim Ferriss] – Critical guide to learning how to master any skill. Thinking of doing something new in 2016, pick this one up first.

Decisive Dan Heath & Chip Heath [Recommended by Shane Parrish]  – Learn how to make decisions, and make them well.

Freedom From The Known Jiddu Krishnamurti [Recommended by Zo Williams] – In order to learn about something new, completely new, you have to get comfortable with the idea that you don’t know.  All of this starts with self. This is a great primer.

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Ryan Holiday [ Recommended by Jason Mowatt]  – While freedom from the known is a great way to pick up the big picture – This one is a fantastic primer on how to deal with the here and now. A catalyst for some experimentation I am doing (don’t worry, I will share the results of course)

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future Peter Thiel  [Recommended by James Altucher] – Concepts concepts concepts. This is a go to book for anyone looking to build something that matters. If you’ve ever asked for my opinion on your idea, chances are one of my questions comes from this book.

 

Top 5 Books- no particular order, all must reads.

Antifragile Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Recommended by Shane Parrish] – Great books change the path of your life, I think this one did for me.  Antifragile discusses the idea of antifragility or, the idea of friction improving something, as opposed to things that are fragile, where friction destroys it. This book is full of wisdom, delivered in Nassim’s trademark brash style. At first, I considered it to effect just my financial decisions, until I realized that this idea is something that all decisions should go through, eventually slowing down and stopping my idea of getting an MBA.

You Can’t Make Me Angry Paul O. [ Recommended by Maria Popova ] – When I first bought this book, I thought it looked awful. The outside is that cheap laminate that bad workplace materials use  and the design is terrible. But, I bought it after looking at Brain Pickings and Daring Greatly(the next book) did a ton for me. I am glad I did. This book, in plain English, forces you to take a look at your anger, and understand the control you cede by letting that anger run rampant. I changed how I dealt with my emotions after reading this, and become a much happier person.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead Brene Brown [Recommended by Maria Popova] As soon as I read this, I bought her entire bibliography. This book is that powerful. Brene Brown connects all the lessons such as dealing with vulnerability, how shame hurts in every situation, and beating ourselves leads no where with personal stories(where she leaves it out there) and anecdotes backed by tremendous research. By practicing what she preached in a book where she didn’t have to, she changed my life for the better. This book is the catalyst for improving my relationships everywhere in my life.

Prometheus Rising Robert Anton Wilson [Recommended by Zo Williams] – Mysticism always seemed a little woowoo to me. I just believed in science(rationalization), and as a kid, I turned my back on religion when I noticed what it did to people. So, when I got this book recommendation, I let it sit on the shelf and did what I usually do when I procrastinate – head to YouTube. After listening to Robert Anton Wilson on YouTube for a few clips, I realized the depth of his intelligence and started reading. He lays out an incredibly insightful book regarding the world of the spiritual, and more importantly, he gives you the ammunition to question, not just what you know but what he says. This book is full of experiments (some are time-consuming, I read this months ago and I still work through them) and humor. It also got me to realize that complete rationalization is a religion itself. Before picking this up, I thought all that stuff was mumbo jumbo – now I recognize that I don’t know – which is the greatest gift of all.

Becoming Richard Pryor  Scott Saul[Recommended by Reddit] – Richard Pryor is one of my favorite comedians. It often amazes me that as a kid born after his prime, I can still look back on his routines and laugh. I fancy myself a Pryorphile – I pick up everything I can on him.   So, when I got this book from a Reddit secret Santa I know I had to read it.  This book goes into great detail, covering stretches of his life that are rarely talked about (his childhood) or stuff of legend (His Berkeley time)  where most programs and books are happy to just scan over.The result is a masterful book, soul crushing and inspiring all at the same time, toeing a great line painting Pryor as a person turned an awful childhood into something the world enjoyed, but never quite shaking that self-destructive behavior around the people closest to him. Any fan of comedy should pick this up, but stretch before you do (It’s the biggest book on this list).

 

The giving season is finishing up

But don’t neglect yourself. Reading is compound knowledge that compounds. All ten are worth your time.  Take some time to expand your abilities by sitting down with a great book, and if you need any more recommendations, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @TheHonorableAT and lets talk.

 

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