Reading Time: < 1 minIf you’re five years old and you spend a few hours hand-making a Christmas present for your mom, she’ll appreciate it simply due to the effort that you put into it. The same can be true when it comes to fitness, where your effort directly affects your outcome. When it comes to business, though, effort […]
Business
Familiarity helps you to discern
Reading Time: 2 minI mentioned yesterday that as your expertise grows, the options that you see tend to shrink. Instead of viewing all possible options for a given situation, you’re able to quickly narrow down to the most likely. Related is your ability, primarily in your area of expertise, to notice small changes that others might miss. A […]
What is your service really worth?
Reading Time: < 1 minLast year I shared the idea of “perceived value”, as that’s really what matters in a business transaction. You certainly need to provide actual value, but it’s how your customer perceives it that really matters. In a TEDx talk, Casey Brown shared a similar story about charging what she’s worth. She had the same conclusion […]
What is the real goal?
Reading Time: < 1 minGoal setting is essential to help move forward in a meaningful way, whether we’re talking about health, business, or any other skill you want to develop. A key to it, though, is to understand the true underlying goal. For example, a goal might be for your business to finally reach a million dollars in annual […]
Don’t wait to be told
Reading Time: < 1 minI recently finished reading John Miller’s excellent (and rather short) book QBQ (The Question Behind the Question). The focus of the book is about taking responsibility rather than handing out blame, even when blame feels like it might be more appropriate. One piece of taking responsibility is choosing to push things forward without waiting for […]
Determine the conditions to quit before you start
Reading Time: 2 minPerseverance is a wonderful trait to have. If you can fight through obstacles to reach your goal, that’s an amazing thing to do. At times, though, people will keep pushing at a dead end, and end up wasting time that could be put toward other ventures instead. The difference can be very hard to spot […]
What is a “personal invitation”?
Reading Time: 2 minA few weeks ago, a buddy of mine sent me a text inviting me to a trivia night with him. That was a personal invitation. Before that, a friend reached out inviting me to play a round of golf with him. That was a personal invitation. More and more, though, I’m getting emails that are […]
Reason Respecting
Reading Time: < 1 minThe mental model of Reason Respecting, sometimes known as “Because Why”, is the idea that giving reasons behind requests make people much more likely to succeed at the task you’ve given them. There are a few good examples of this, some of which almost seem counter-intuitive. The 1977 Copy Machine Study is a great example. […]
Incentives
Reading Time: < 1 minSome of the mental models that I’ve been sharing can be a bit difficult to understand, but that’s not the case here. People can be motivated by incentives, and choosing the right reward can bring huge benefits. Charlie Munger has a great example of this with FedEx: As he explains, the integrity of the FedEx […]
First Principles Thinking
Reading Time: 2 minFirst Principles Thinking is a mental model that encourages you to boil down questions and ideas to their most basic form, and then go from there. An example from Elon Musk (shared by Catherine Clifford on CNBC) explains his take on it: Musk used the cost of batteries as an example. “People would say, ‘Historically […]