Author: Fabrizio

Valuating

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Buzz is a misleading distraction.

More than 9 out of 10 venture capitalists think that unicorns (startups worth more than $1bn in the private market) are overvalued, no matter if they have one in their portfolio or not. Lyft‘s and Uber‘s stocks have lost respectively 43% and 28% of their value since they went public last spring. WeWork (and its investors) thought the company was three or four times more valuable than the higher point public investors would consider for its stock.

Buzz is misleading, because it generally focuses on one single thing. You always get what you reward, and so if all investors care about is valuation, the company can get to a high valuation (at least in the private market). And it is distracting, because it takes focus away from things that are more important when building an organisation that impacts millions of lives. Things such as the company culture, the business fundamentals, the effect of the product or service on society at large.

Companies can be built without raising money, without a pitch deck, and without a title in the front page of the financial newspaper.

It all depends on what you want to achieve in the long term.

A run and some learnings

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I went for a run today, and after few kilometres I began to feel low on energy. I kept going for a while, then I had to slow down and continue walking to recover. I did that three or four times, with running segments ever shorter and walking segments ever longer. I was feeling depleted, as if I had no energy, and particularly the parts uphill were almost painful. I was not proud of myself, to be honest.

When home, I checked my tracking app and, to my complete surprise, I had been faster than I had ever been before. A lot faster. On the same track, I had cut my personal best by more than 7 minutes, and I had kept a pace that was way higher than I am used to, with peaks that I had not reached ever before.

That was probably the reason why I was feeling so tired and low on energy. Without any particular intention, without even noticing it, I was overdoing it.

Three key take aways.

First, you need to allocate flexibility and space in your practice to slow down when you feel tired, stressed, sick or simply down.

Second, we are very poor judges of our own performance, being kinder to ourselves and more receptive to the signals we get (from our body, from the environment, from people around us) is most likely a good idea.

Third, as we are very fallible when it comes to judging ourselves, we need to have clear ways to measure what we are doing, free from bias and narratives.

Intentional

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It’s quite challenging to appreciate the impact of our actions on others. Mainly because it takes time to manifest, and we are often too focused on what is happening in the moment.

But on the other end, it is delusional to believe that our actions have no impact. We do not operate in a vacuum, and when we say something, behave in a certain way, choose one option over another, people around us will make a mental note and work on some type of reaction.

The more intentional you are about what you choose to do (and not to do), the more likely the influence on others will be the one you want to have. Unsurprisingly, it all start with awareness.

A road way longer

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When we set our mind onto something, it is particularly challenging to accept we might have to wait and bleed to get it done.

We see it so vividly in our mind, we know that it would be a great thing, we can’t wait for others to see its benefits as well, and we are sure that the best way is to actually just let us go ahead however we prefer. No restraints, no questions, no doubts.

Of course, ideas are easy while execution is when stuff gets real. I wonder if it is perhaps our fear of failing that makes us so convinced what we want to do is the greatest thing ever thought. This way it is much easier to simply give up, blame the others and a challenging work environment, simply continue coming up with new ways to not commit.

Doing requires consistency.

It also means taking a road way longer than the one you had imagined. As we walk it, we just have to make sure we are in a mindset that adds rather than one that subtracts. It is a challenging act of balance, and the only way to end with something more than when you started (versus nothing at all).

Selfish and harmful

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For a very long time, when somebody would pay me a compliment I was going to diminish it.

Either I was going to switch the attention on the indefinite number of things that were still far from worthy of a compliment (in my work, in my deliverables, in myself, in the world), or I was just going to play down the importance of what I did with reference to the bigger picture (this is not going to help us achieve what we want anyway!).

Somehow, I now realize this is a selfish and harmful thing to do.

It does not give resolution to the person paying the compliment, therefore fostering a culture that is not incline to doing so. And it tends to increase self-expectations, setting yourself up for continuous disappointment.

“Thank you!” is a great way to reply to a compliment.

There will always be ample time later to think about what is still missing and to consider the value of the compliment for your broader story.