Archives January 2021

It is hard. And so inefficient.

Even if fear may be a force that moves you (such as fear of loosing your job, or not having enough to provide one’s family), there is a moment in time where you must leave that fear aside and start executing from a positive mindset.

You could even come and go from fear to positive: fear triggers & positive implements, but you must not stay in fear mode.

The thing about your brain in fear is that it won’t perform at it’s best.

It will reduce your option, narrowing them to a form of fight, freeze or flee.

But today’s world is tackled with creativity, empathy, lateral thought, pattern recognition, large amounts of data processing to mention a few.

And all those skills will hardly be accessible to you from fear.

Tesla is allowed to sell tequila. You know you would buy if it wasn’t sold out.

And he can do crazy shit too. He can sell flamethrowers. Sold out too.

And if SpaceX came out with fashion products, I would be the first in line to get an astronaut jacket.

Just as Seth Godin can sell seminars and like BMW can sell headphones, once you build a community strong enough around a brand, you are allowed to offer almost anything.

As long as it doesn’t goes against your core values and brand promise, your brand evangelists will make sure your new offer is a new need.

1: The inner world: You owe only to yourself.

2: The social reality: You try to be in a certain position in relation to others.

3: The spiritual sphere: You are part of all and you should try to do your part.

Master the first one and the second one will be less determinant.

Self discipline and commitment. Introspection and self respect. That’s for the inner world.

The second one depends deeply on your wants and goals.

It might work or it might fail. Be empathetic to understand what is needed to be able to produce something worthy for someone else.

The third realm is still a mystery for most of us. For me is yet to be discovered how will I fit in all that there is.

It is ironic but it does exist.

People that truly, really love you, they don’t want to see you hurt.

And they, unaware of the second order damage, try to convince you that you should not risk yourself to failure and shame.

And out of love you listen to them.

“Yeah, probably you are right. I could get burned.” And you put your wings away.

It takes a lot of effort and candor to be able to tell those you love and love you most: “Thanks, and because I honor your love, I have to do this”.

Compliance was designed into our society because it made sense.

It made sense 100 years ago.

When only a few were educated and could understand a system enough to organize those uneducated inside the system, just as if they were cogs.

Today, anyone trying to make someone else comply, or trying to comply themselves, is completely wrong because the industrial and social systems have changed.

It is a matter of survival.

If you are in school and that is the way they are teaching you, you won’t make it out there. The world will eat you alive.

And if you are in a job and they try to force you to comply, run as fast as you can, that company might as well call itself the titanic, it won’t survive.

If you are the founder and you are trying to make people follow your orders blindly, well, now you understand why people just can’t be loyal to you.

Now you should rebel against that kind of compliance, not because it is unfair (and it is), but because it is in your best interest not to behave that way.

Is all you have and all you’ll ever have.

Fill with hard work your days to fulfill the promise you made to yourself.

That is the formula.

And it is not about senseless hustle. It is about meaningful work. All day, everyday.

It means caring enough to devote yourself to keep showing up to that own assumed responsibility.

Fulfill that promise you made to yourself.

And if you haven’t promised yourself anything yet, well, there you go.

When I see a 90% discount on anything I immediately assume the real price is the 10%.

Two things happen when this kind of pricing is used:

1. The perceived value of the item is deroded automatically.
2. If you try to charge anything superior to 10% the client will get mad, storm out of the door (or webpage) and accuse you of trying to rip her off.

So be cautious. There is no turning back once you start using the huge bargain tactic.

And then you commit yourself to live with your choice.

Then choice-supportive bias will kick in.

It will drive you to think that your choice is the best choice you could have ever taken. But deep inside of you, you know you just blew it, didn’t you?

And still you won’t change your choice. Even further, now you like it.

It is OK when we talk about an ice cream flavor, or the color of the shirt you are wearing today. But when we talk, for example, about your career or your spouse, things are more serious.

Also consider this: whenever we decide not to act upon anything we should, we are accepting it.

It will leave you standing in a lonely reality.

If you develop a very deep attachment to anything (an opinion, a field of study, a credo, a politic view, a sports team…etcetera) you will find, eventually, that no one seems to really understand you.

Since our brains filter most of the data received, any piece of information that contradicts your belief will be left out. Even if it is true.

Then your brain will create your reality with the minuscule percentage of data that made it through, reinforcing that narrative.

That will deepen the gap between you and the actual world.

If you were driving a car, would you like to actually see the road or would you rather look at a beautiful painting in the windshield, blocking your view?

Whenever we have a recurrent choice and we can label the outcome as being better or worse, we are talking about skills.

You can eat garbage, or you can eat nurturing food. Eating is a skill.

You can get up and exercise, or you can binge watch series the next 3 hours. Being fit is a skill.

You can remain an average performer, or you can learn, practice and improve your results. Being better at being better is a skill.