Places

When the mind wanders, it takes you to wonderful places, average places, horrible places. Places that do not exist. Places that often determine your joy or sorrow.

The only thing that is real, though, is the here and now. What you are doing in this moment, the context you have around you, the possibility for you to decide to change the activity and the context. And your mood.

A wandering mind can take you places, but train the capacity to come back to reality at will.

It’s a muscle that can be strengthened.

Inquisitive

Every flaw you see in the world.

Every error message for any software, every bug that gets reported, every overly bureaucratic process, every mistake that gets you infuriated.

It is the product of the work of somebody.

And of course, sometimes it was a poor job, sometimes you simply have to go and fix things. But other times instead – most of the times – there are reasons why things work in a certain way and a person who is proud for having found a way to create something that was not there before.

If we are able to step out of our anger and take an inquisitive approach, we might save time and relationships. And we might make it so that the next time, that person, will be even more motivated to take the initiative.

Incremental

It’s difficult for any content creator to accept that people – some people, most people – don’t want to hear from them. Just as it is difficult for a founder to accept that customers – some customers, most customers – don’t want to do business with them.

It really is nothing personal. We are all overwhelmed by constant busyness, plus not everything is for everybody.

Of course, the only way to overcome this is to make what you do indispensable for 1, 10, 50, 1000, 10000 people. It’s incremental, and it starts from just a few. If you think at 1000000 from day 1, you have lost already.

Walls

We only see our side of the story.

That’s why when we go to someone with something that’s important for us, that becomes urgent.

That’s why when we read through an email we only notice the parts that confirm what we already know.

That’s why when we find new evidence we are sure that’s the one that will convince everybody.

And that’s also why we should be extremely careful when giving judgements, passing sentences, and building walls.

The target is to be convinced (of your values, your purpose, your views) and open (to other perspectives and versions) at the same time.

Can you do that?

Capability and capacity

There are two things you can consider when building a team.

  1. What are the things that we are not doing because the people in the team do not have the skills to do them?
  2. What are the things that we are not doing because the people in the team do not have the time to do them?

In the first case, you are looking to build the capabilities of the team. That is fairly typical for small teams, or teams that need to grow into unexplored territories.

In the second case, you are looking to build the capacity of the team. That is fairly typical of large teams, or teams that need to scale fast.

The problem is when small teams hire for capacity, and therefore do not get the type of knowledge and expertise they would need. Or when large teams hire for capabilities, and therefore get the type of knowledge and expertise they don’t need.

Be aware where you stand and what you are hiring for.