Over all this book is a bunch of simple proverbs relating exactly the problems I will face my entire career as long as I stay in the field I'm in.
Takeaways:
Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or service. You have to believe in something. You need to have a backbone. You need to know what you’re willing to fight for. And then you need to show the world.
When you don’t know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable. But when you stand for something, decisions are obvious.
And we always keep features to a minimum. Boxing ourselves in this way prevents us from creating bloated products.
Remember, fashion fades away. When you focus on permanent features, you’re in bed with things that never go out of style
The business world is littered with dead documents that do nothing but waste people’s time. Reports no one reads, diagrams no one looks at, and specs that never resemble the finished product. These things take forever to make but only seconds to forget.
The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement.
A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things
That’s why you want to get to something real right away. That’s when you get true understanding. It’s like when we read about characters in a book—we each picture them differently in our heads. But when we actually see people, we all know exactly what they look like.
Is this actually useful? Are you making something useful or just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness.
You don’t need to make it a formal process, but don’t let it slide, either.
Also, don’t be timid about your conclusions. Sometimes abandoning what you’re working on is the right move, even if you’ve already put in a lot of effort. Don’t throw good time after bad work.
And just as REM is when the real sleep magic happens, the alone zone is where the real productivity magic happens.
Your alone zone doesn’t have to be in the wee hours, though. You can set up a rule at work that half the day is set aside for alone time.
Or instead of casual Fridays, try no-talk Thursdays. Just make sure this period is unbroken in order to avoid productivity-zapping interruptions. And go all the way with it. A successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, e-mail, and meetings. Just shut up and get to work. You’ll be surprised how much more you get done.
Your day is under siege by interruptions. It’s on you to fight back.
Momentum fuels motivation.
A lot of times it’s better to be a quitter than a hero.
Yet some people still develop a masochistic sense of honor about sleep deprivation. They even brag about how tired they are. Don’t be impressed. It’ll come back to bite them in the ass.
Start making smaller to-do lists too. Long lists collect dust. When’s the last time you finished a long list of things? You might have knocked off the first few, but chances are you eventually abandoned it (or blindly checked off items that weren’t really done properly).
And a quick suggestion about prioritization: Don’t prioritize with numbers or labels. Do that and you’ll almost always end up with a ton of really high-priority things. That’s not really prioritizing.
Sometimes copying can be part of the learning process, this sort of imitation can be a helpful tool on the path to discovering your own voice.
Unfortunately, copying in the business arena is usually more nefarious.
And that means it’s tempting to try to build a business by being a copycat.
That’s a formula for failure, though. The problem with this sort of copying is it skips understanding—and understanding is how you
The copy is a faux finish. It delivers no substance, no understanding, and nothing to base future decisions on.
Plus, if you’re a copycat, you can never keep up. You’re always in a passive position. You never lead; you always follow. You give birth to something that’s already behind the times—just a knockoff, an inferior version of the original. That’s no way to live.
Be influenced, but don’t steal.
If you’re successful, people will try to copy what you do. It’s just a fact of life. But there’s a great way to protect yourself from copycats: Make you part of your product or service.
Pour yourself into your product and everything around your product too: how you sell it, how you support it, how you explain it, and how you deliver it. Competitors can never copy the you in your product.
Don’t confuse enthusiasm with priority.
Welcome obscurity.
Obscurity helps protect your ego and preserve your confidence.
Now’s the time to take risks without worrying about embarrassing yourself.
But you can afford to teach, and that’s something they’ll never do, because big companies are obsessed with secrecy.
Everything at those places has to get filtered through a lawyer and go through layers of red tape.
Teaching is your chance to outmaneuver them.
There’s a beauty to imperfection. This is the essence of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi values character and uniqueness over a shiny facade. It teaches that cracks and scratches in things should be embraced.
Do it yourself first Never hire anyone to do a job until you’ve tried to do it yourself first. That way, you’ll understand the nature of the work. You’ll know what a job well done looks like.
You may feel out of your element at times. You might even feel like you suck. That’s all right. You can hire your way out of that feeling or you can learn your way out of it. Try learning first. What you give up in initial execution will be repaid many times over by the wisdom you gain.
Plus, you should want to be intimately involved in all aspects of your business.
Hire when it hurts Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.
Always ask yourself: What if we don’t hire anyone? Is that extra work that’s burdening us really necessary?
Forget about formal education I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. —MARK TWAIN
Hire great writers If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn’t matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off.
That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate.
Own your bad news When something goes wrong, someone is going to tell the story. You’ll be better off if it’s you. Otherwise, you create an opportunity for rumors, hearsay, and false information to spread.
People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public, and responsive during a crisis. Don’t hide behind spin or try to keep your bad news on the down low.
Here are some tips on how you can own the story: The message should come from the top. The highest-ranking person available should take control in a forceful way.
Also, remember that negative reactions are almost always louder and more passionate than positive ones. In fact, you may hear only negative voices even when the majority of your customers are happy about a change. Make sure you don’t foolishly backpedal on a necessary but controversial decision.
So when people complain, let things simmer for a while. Let them know you’re listening. Show them you’re aware of what they’re saying. Let them know you understand their discontent. But explain that you’re going to let it go for a while and see what happens. You’ll probably find that people will adjust eventually. They may even wind up liking the change more than the old way, once they get used to it.