Now it’s become very apparent to me how little time we spend thinking about what really matters. And by little time I mean zero time. Have you thought about what matters most to you? Who are you? Who do you want to become? What you want to accomplish, and why?

Many of us are in the pursuit to advance in our careers, achieve ambitious goals, or make more money, so that we can feel safe, successful and accomplished.

The problem with avoiding these questions is that we use dreams as a proxy for what we assume to be an accomplishment.

That's why we need to know what are we trying to optimize.

But what is optimization?

op·ti·mi·za·tion: the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource.

We know we have limited time, so have optimize for something. We need to choose wisely how we allocate these valuable resources in the most effective way.

Every time you make a choice, there is a trade-off to consider. We need to figure out, what is the opportunity cost.

As Derek Sivers says "Whatever you decide, you need to optimize for that goal, and be willing to let go of the others. You can’t diffuse our energy, trying to do a little bit of everything, or you’ll always be in conflict with yourself."

You have to think what you are gaining as well as what you may be giving up, for example:

• Entrepreneurs wish more stability, employees want more freedom
• When single we want a partner, when in a relationship we want to be single
• A workaholic parent who is frustrated because his/her relationship with his/her children is getting worse

As Thomas Sowell said “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs”

With each decision you are making a statement about you value the most. Your decisions about allocating your time, energy, and focus ultimately shape your life’s strategy.

The allocation of your choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended.

Optimizing for the wrong metric

All bad decisions and regretful choices in life arise from optimizing for the wrong metric.

Have you thought for a moment what success looks like,  how you are going to know you're successful?  It having a car, a big house or the number of likes on Instagram.

All these are bad metrics. Unfulfillment arises from using metrics chosen by others as proxies for personal success. Social norms are powerful.

So you need to personally define your own metrics. Choosing the right metric is going to have a big impact on everything.

In your life, how are you going to measure your success?

Optimizing for immediate gratification

That the trap many people fall into is to allocate their time to whoever screams loudest, and their talent to whatever offers them the fastest reward.

In the book “How will you measure your life”, Clayton Christensen observed that many of his classmates, despite many accomplishments, were clearly unhappy with their lives.

I ask myself, why they are unhappy? what did they did wrong? They were just in the pursuit of their dreams and ambitions.  

Clayton Christensen discovered that “the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.”

His classmates focused on immediate gratification over long-term outcomes. They unconsciously didn't took in consideration the second-order effect of their actions and caused unintended consequences.

Clayton Christensen said “People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers”

You neglect your relationships, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating but in the long-term can affect. If you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad.

In your life, are you optimizing for immediate gratification? Or Have you take in consideration the second order effect of your actions?

Optimizing with marginal thinking

We sometimes get caught in this trap of “small white lies,” “just one drink,” and so on. This is was called “marginal thinking”. This thinking leads Blockbuster to bankruptcy. It can be dangerous in our personal life.

Marginal cost is a concept from economics and it defined as the cost of producing one more unit of a given good.

We know that every decision has a cost. The marginal cost of doing something “just this once” always seems to be negligible, but the full cost will typically be much higher.

Becoming aware of this thinking is the first step to being critical of it, and avoiding it, when you catch yourself thinking about marginal costs.

Christensen says, “100% of the time is easier than 98% of the time.”

But each of those decisions can roll up into a much bigger picture, turning you into the kind of the person you never wanted to be.

In first days of January I remember going to work out and saw a lot of people would come in. Everyone wanted to get fit motivated by their new Year's Resolutions and to prepare for carnival. After the carnival ended fewer people came every day, until half the year everyone was gone.

It was easy for people to start a new habit but it was very hard to be consistent. They were motivated to go just for a few months and they stopped.

What they don't realize is they stopped the compounding effect. As James Clear said "Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement."

Compounding works when tiny gains accumulate over a period of time. As Naval said "All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest".

If you skip doing a habit for while, and come back again the compound effect has to start over.

“The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” - Munger

Consistency is valuable because in every compounding game, you win if you focus on accumulating tiny gains over time.

It is like a game, where you gain points if you show up everyday and by the third day you have accumulated 15 points. If you miss twice, you are back to zero.

Why is so hard to build consistency? Because we’re focused on the outcome rather than the process. And sometimes we feel lazy and unmotivated, sometimes life happens and we get interrupted, sometimes we get afraid or worried that what we’re doing isn’t worthwhile so we stopped the compounding effect unnecessarily.

Once you are focus on the process, your progress is your motivator.

There's a lot of research that indicates both greater levels of life satisfaction, and higher levels of positive emotions when striving for goals. The association was larger when successful goal pursuit was defined as goal progress, instead of goal attainment.

What it means is, we're happy when we seek progress, not results.

How build consistency?

Aim for progress, and start measuring your progress on a daily basis. As James Clear says "It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse."

Measuring help us become aware. The things we are aware about are the things we improve. It also helps us stay motivated, because we know we are improving.

When measuring we need to focus on what we can control. It is important to focus on outputs than the outcome. Because all your results are delayed.

To keep track of your progress, one simple and effective thing you can do is use a habit tracker. Having a tracker will help you keep accountable and motivated, even when it was hard.

Using visual measures are satisfying and rewarding, because it provides clear evidence of progress. The goal is to keep showing up and "never break the chain".

This was the strategy of Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most successful comedians of all‐time. What is most impressive about Seinfeld's career isn't the awards, the earnings, or the special moments — it's the remarkable consistency of it all.

Seinfeld was asked in a interview if he had “any tips for a young comic." He said:

"Get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

Seinfeld didn't say a single thing about results. He simply focused on “not breaking the chain.”

"Never break the chain" is a powerful mantra because the more you keep compounding progress, the sooner you'll be getting results.

When you inevitably miss a routine, be compassionate with yourself. Learn to not judge yourself or feel guilty when you make a mistake, and get back on track as quickly as possible. As James Clear likes to say, never miss twice.

All You Need to Know

To wrap up, here are the important points:

Build habits that keep compounding. As Albert Einstein said "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world". Your habits compound by being consistent.

Focus on accumulating tiny gains and never interrupt the compounding effect unnecessarily.

Build consistency by measuring your progress. Using a habit tracker is effective because will keep accountable and motivated.

]]>https://isaac-blog.herokuapp.com/side-project/Ghost__Post__5f0a3b24f7dc7c001e981ee6Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:16:11 GMT

Have you ever gotten a feeling when nagging idea out of your head or constantly had ideas but never started any? Maybe because of fear of failure or fear of being judged.

In school, we were taught that failing and making mistakes was bad. This habit has to lead to have no innovation.

The reasons why in Silicon Valley is happening a lot of innovation, it is because:

• Failure is tolerated.
• They have created an environment where experimentation and ambition are the norms.

So if we want to bring this thinking to Latam, we need to enable people trying more things. Starting a side project might be the beginning.

A side project is an experiment. It allow us to leverage our creativity for exploration and fun.

The most impactful companies have begun as a side project, driven by curiosity and experimentation.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Uber, Product Hunt, Unsplash, Pinterest, GrowthHackers, Groupon, Trello, AppSumo, Etsy, Hubspot, Gmail, Buffer… The list goes on and on.

These companies were just hobbies. They didn't take big risks. They took small bets and had payoff asymmetrically.

“What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years”— Chris Dixon

They started often inspired with a strong desire to solve a personal problem or explore a space they’re deeply passionate about.

These intrinsic qualities make the journey more fun, motivating to pursue long-term and it allows serendipity to take over.

Side projects bring three best concepts all in the same place:

• Low-risk/High reward: Side projects don’t have to provide you with a living, so can take a "risk" and try new things, experiment and fail.
• Low-pressure: They don’t have a strict deadline. It don't need to be perfect. There's no boss you need to answer, there is no time pressure. You can ship it in own timeline.
• Labor of Love: You work on it because you are passionate and spend time on it because you really want to.

Many work projects lack two—if not all three–of these elements. That's when we feel unfulfilled.

So how to start?

Small chunks

Pick one project and do whatever you have to do to ship it. Break it down into the smallest tasks possible.

If you can put out an MVP on a weekend, that’s great. Let it be imperfect.

Build momentum

Set small goals. Small wins will compound.

We underestimate the power of progress. By keeping track of your progress you are less likely to lose motivation. It’s about moving forward every day on something.

Have Fun

In contrast if you are running a business inevitably generates pressure and anxiety. People need to be paid. You need to perform. There is pressure to succeed.

Not so with your side project. It isn’t keeping you afloat; if it fails, no one will drown.

And nothing is as important, as crucial, to creativity as play.

Side projects don't have any expectations or compromises. You don't need to know anything. It’s a pressure-free playing field.

By not taking things so seriously, you let the chip fall in place. Success becomes a byproduct of you having fun and working on something you care.

Be the owner

When you are the owner, you don't need to ask for permission. You only do it because you truly want to work on it.

"When you feel real ownership for a project, you become more confident in your decisions"  - Tobias van Schneider

If you don't have the right idea, That's okay. You just need to get started. Start with whatever crazy idea, but you don't know it until you launch it.

10 friends

Share it with 10 friends. You don't need a millions of users. You just need ten people, that's it. They can be in the real world, over Zoom, whatever. Distant cousins or friends.

These 10 friends are your base. Your core. You'll be using them as motivational fuel over the next few weeks. By maximizing the amount of interaction you have with them, you'll make sure they really care about what you're building.

Be adaptable

If you want a different result, you have to change your experiment a little. Each experiment will teach you something. The faster you adapt, the greater the chances of creating something that people would love.

"The number one predictor of success for a very young startup: rate of iteration." - Sam Altman

If you experiment with an idea and it doesn't work, you should change things or move on to a new idea.

All You Need to Know

Whether you want build a company, live from your passion, focus on:

• Small chunks
• Build momentum
• Have Fun
• Be the owner
• 10 friends
• Be adaptable

Side projects might be one of the best investments you could do.  If you are going to dedicate your time and your life to something, better be on something that you care and be really passionate about.

Assets are very valuable because if we focus on creating them they can produce returns indefinitely in the future.

If we want to create assets we have to go from consumer to creator. To become creators we have to be owners and take responsibility.

Creators use resources to create assets, then acquire more and grow them. The main resource you have is time. It uses it to create other types of tangible and intangible assets.

Today, intangible assets exceed the value of tangible assets by a factor of five to one. Creators spend their time creating intellectual capital. Intellectual capital is not quantifiable, but its value is indisputable.

If we want to become creators we have to create 2D assets that are:

• Your knowledge
• Your communication
• Your relationships
• Your reputation

Specific knowledge is the most valuable intellectual capital. By learning valuable skills and combining them, you can create your own monopoly. And that will help you create valuable relationships and alliances.

If you communicate your ideas effectively you can create value for your audience. And that audience will become your asset.

Also if you start to develop your habits, those can become your potential assets. For example:

• Learn to program → Create a startup
• Learn to write → Create an audience
• Train 3 times a week → Have good health

You must first begin to take ownership and responsibility for your actions that can become your assets or losses.

If you constantly start thinking about assets, you will be focused and can spend time on the really important things.

We live in a century where the quality of our decisions is increasingly important since each decision has “leverage”.

The leverage concept is a fundamental mental model that helps us create disproportionate advantages. Being able to create more results, with less effort.

The essence of this concept is to find the angle which will make everything easier by lifting it in a specific way.

The term leverage comes from the Proto-Indo-European ‘legwh’ which describes something light, agile, or easy. It also comes from the Latin word ‘levare’ which means “not heavy”. But the word absorbed in 14th century English from Old French, where ‘levier’ which referred to lifting something.

In life we have a lot of problems, but have to find ways to solve it in a clever way.

When facing a hard problem ask yourself where the leverage lies. Because that point can make a big difference.

Leverage points provide ideas to build new solutions. Identifying  the leverage points helps us to:

• Develop a greater awareness of those things that can cause difficulties before there are obvious signs of trouble
• Find out what is causing difficulties
• Use our resources effectively.
• Create new courses of action

If we find leverage we can take small, well-focused actions that can produce significant and lasting improvements.

“It is easier to conquer than to manage. With enough influence, one finger could turn the world over. ”- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

By observing problems and looking for ways to “leverage” in different situations, we can completely change the rules of the game.

The most important resource that we have to create leverage is time. So how we spend our time will depend on the leverage we could create.

We can leverage our time to invest it creating:

• Skills (specific knowledge leverage)
• Creating business relationships (partnership leverage)
• Reputation (brand leverage)
• Raising capital (capital leverage)
• Hiring employees (labor leverage)
• Reading (knowledge leverage)

If you spend your time creating yourself.  The combination of leverages will make you an asset.

Leverage grows responsibly and taking risks. We create leverage by chasing asymmetric opportunities (where the advantage is unlimited and the disadvantage is almost negligible).

When you start a business, you are creating a replica of yourself. The result is to create an asset, which can create unlimited leverage.

The job of the entrepreneurs is to design vehicles that create leverage. They build machines that turn  labor, capital, and products that creates financial and time leverage.

Software and media create leverage because it creates robots that work for you while you sleep.

We can find leverage in  negotiations by being:

• Able to walk away, because having options is leverage
• Becoming irreplaceable
• Knowing the numbers

If we are not looking at where to create leverage, we are losing time and missing opportunities that could help us turn upside down the problems.

This was the question posed by physical mathematician Eric Weinstein, trying to describe the concept of high agency.

High agency is about being unstoppable and creating your own reality. It is the ability to get things done, regardless of the circumstances. These unusual personality types are considered irreverent and committed.

If maybe you are on the verge of a new life, maybe things did not turn out as you expected and you are thinking about quitting, you will want to know how Austen Allred went from living in her car and having to sell 200 tickets in 24 hours to survive founding LambdaSchool, a of the most important education startups in the world.

One morning Austen goes out to exercise, she realizes that her car has broken down and has to be towed away.

At that time the tow truck driver offered to let him stay at his house, but he didn't even have enough money to pay for the trailer, let alone the repair, the combination of the two was going to cost him $ 600 that he didn't have.

Asusten realizes that there was a soccer game, and in the past he had sold tickets to earn extra money, so he thought about trying again.

He started mailing and calling everyone who had tickets online, and he convinced a guy who had an extra 200 tickets to send them to him, sell them, and give him half.

After all said and done, he returned to his car with a wad of $ 1,500 in his pocket. Enough to send half to the original ticket owner, pay the mechanic and tow truck driver, and went to Subway (an absolute luxury at the time).

And that's how he barely managed to stay in Silicon Valley to fight another day.

This is the definition of a High agency person. At times in life we all end up on the brink of failure sometimes. But there is always a way. Even when there seems to be no way out.

We see these high agency vs low agency behaviors everywhere.

High agency are recognized, as they are:

• Capable of creating your reality
• They know they have control over their history
• They either find the way or else create their own
• They believe they can shape the world
• They believe more in their own agency (what is in their control), and do not care about conventional thinking or the opinions of other people
• They are dreamers with ambitious and bold imaginations about the future.
• They take initiative and move on
• They take responsibility. They stand up and own the plan and the result
• They tend not to follow the rules, the realities, that apply to others (as a behavioral trait, which can be seen as antisocial, or if it happens to change the world, it can earn them the label of "visionary")
• They prefer to ask for forgiveness, than permission
• They are always on the attack
• They ask a lot of questions
• They believe that if they have a vision and work ethic, much of life was malleable
• They are willing to endure rejection, shame, uncertainty, fear, or failure

Steve Jobs simplifies this concept when he said:

“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”  

Since he realized that it was possible to create his own reality. This thinking allowed him to create the most successful products ever.

Also Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, use this question to identify High agency:

"If you was stuck in a third world prison and had to call one person to try and bust you out of there - who would you call?"

Instead, the low agency behavior is reflected, since they are:

• Very passive (do not take action)
• They never question
• Accept the story they are given
• Delegate their decisions and thinking
• They are always complaining
• They are always indecisive
• They always overthink things

High Agency is possibly the most valuable personality trait you can cultivate.

High Agency is not innate. It is learned, practiced and developed with habits, iteration by iteration. And each share will be a vote for the type of person you want to become.

When in doubt, ask yourself, what would Austen Allred do?

• Question everything (your life and reality)
• Think how to bend reality and do it
• Never delegate your decision-making and thinking

Referencias: Eric Weinstein  y George Mack.