adversity: in for the long haul

when things get shitty, i never leave; i take the lead.  i view any form of challenge/adversity as character-building.

so it's usually essential that teams i work with have faced adversity and came out on top over and over again.  this makes it far more likely that people won't bail when the going gets tough.

on being: selfish

i probably already have a rant about this, but at some point, i considered cutting all the selfish folk out of my life.

it's irritating and frustrating to be around people who only look out for themselves, to be among a constantly bickering and competing cohort.  but truth be told, it's a necessity.  we all need to be a little bit selfish, because nobody else has our best interests in mind - maybe with the rare exception of where our best interest may coincide with their best interest.  selfishness and competition - not at the dire cost of others - are healthy.  it makes us stronger, fitter - better suited for darwinian survival.

but something always trumps selfishness: collaboration.

the purpose of life

is simply to exist.  anything beyond that is simply a bonus.

to laugh, to love, to breathe, to see, to think, to cry, to hurt, to learn, to fail, to teach, to create, to taste, to fear, to enjoy, to hear, to win, to lose.

the difference

between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs:

one of them will figure it out

What if...

- yes, another one - we think of people as atoms and we chart them on a periodic table stratified according to organizational behavioral traits?

these so called atoms have so called electronegativities (i.e. personalities) and other traits that we could analytically forecast reactivity with other atoms.

suddenly, team optimization and lower divorce rates.

more lessons from catan

i just lost a game because the other player was horrible at risk assessment.

i thought it was just a fluke so i went to check out his stats.  11% win rate.

not a fluke.  the guy is consistent in his poor risk management.

i immediately added him to my block list.

the lesson is that you never want a weak link on your team or even as an opponent.  why add liabilities to your team?

leef

as one of my goals for this year is to be more candid at the risk of being blunt, anyone (in the tech startup space) who thought my digital receipt startup was just about digital receipts is dumb potentially beyond the extent of thinking that mcdonalds is simply a fast food franchise.

it was meant to be a billion dollar marketing analytics company.

think about it, consumer purchasing data.

ad conversion rates based on browsing hardly tops 5%.

now compare facebook likes vs. browsing history (cookie data) vs. purchase history.

we know #2 is worth well into the 12 figures (yes, that's billions, and hundreds of them) and #1 is rapidly proving its worth.

so who's doing #3?  your move.