The Easy Thing About Easy Things.

Gabrielle Gatta
6 min readMay 13, 2020

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Not everything needs to be hard.

“Life doesn’t have to be hard. Few know this. Most people think they need to fight and struggle. Not so. You can let life unfold. The secret is to focus on what you want, do what you can to make it happen, and trust the process. Yes, life can be hard. But it can also be easy. The difference is how you look at what is happening to you. The choice is yours.” — Unknown

As Ben Horowitz powerfully captures in “the struggle” and the The Hard Things About Hard Things, there are undoubtedly things that are downright hard as an entrepreneur and often aren’t openly discussed in regards to building a company. But there are also things that are easy and should not be over-complicated.

Working at the intersection of science and technology, at Prime Movers Lab we’re fortunate enough to work with incredibly brilliant and passionate entrepreneurs. Like all of us humans in ‘earth school’ though, they too can “sweat the small stuff” or get stuck in “analysis paralysis” on areas of the business that simply don’t move the needle in regards to the tremendous impact they’re looking to have on the world.

Below are some recurring themes that have come up in our weekly coaching calls with our inspired founders as well as those we’ve all had the privilege of working with and alongside over the years.

I view these as low hanging fruit, easy habits that if adopted will dramatically accelerate your effectiveness and output on a daily basis. Hopefully they’ll resonate with you as they have with our entrepreneurs, selves and team at large.

‘Know your outcome’ for everything you do and every minute you choose to spend (and ensure everyone at your company knows their outcomes too)

  1. Create an outcome-oriented culture (work smart not hard)
  2. Focus 95% on the solution and only 5% on the problem
  3. Focus on what you can control, not what you can’t

Don’t hesitate to ask for help and delegate (multiply yourself)

  1. And remember that ‘done is better than perfect’ or your way
  2. This has been incredibly challenging for me personally as I was raised to be self-sufficient, but as an entrepreneur you simply can’t do it all. So, delegating is a true entrepreneurial super power!
  3. As a place to start, have the person watch you do it once while they’re able to ask any questions and take detailed notes, then you subsequently watch them do it once and clarify any missteps, and then they’ll be good to do it on their own!

Find ways to help everyone you interact with

  1. Aim to add more value to everyone you connect with regardless of their role or what they can do for you. The more value you add, the more you learn and the faster you grow.

Take notes

  1. And follow-up on action items/deliverables immediately
  2. Review ‘action items’ at end of calls/meetings to ensure everyone is aware of their roles and outcomes
  3. Zoom also has a transcript feature you can enable if you’re better served being 100% present rather than taking notes. You can then share these transcripts/notes with your broader team or leadership team members.

Ask for feedback from everyone you can

  1. Know thyself (the known knowns and the unknown unknowns)
  2. Get support / coaching to uncover your blind spots
  3. The best entrepreneurs drop their ego and never stop growing, they’re humbled by the process of leading and know that they can learn from everyone and every situation.

“Don’t fall in love with your product or service, fall in love with your ideal customer” (from Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery seminar)

  1. Focus on your ideal customer, not your product or service. A brilliant idea is one thing, but if no one wants to pay for it, it’s not worth pursuing. Focus on what your ideal customer(s) want, not what you want.

Remember to fail faster, the more ‘nos’ you get the closer you get to a ‘yes’ and similarly the more decisions you make, the faster you learn and get closer to your desired outcomes

  1. Don’t get stuck in “analysis paralysis”
  2. The faster you are to customers/clients the faster you are to feedback and iterating/improvement

Use email, don’t let email use you

  1. Start fresh and have a goal of ‘inbox zero’
  2. Avoid using your inbox as a storage place or reminder list
  3. Respond asap, even if just to say “I see this and will respond more thoroughly by the end of day. Thank you for your patience.”
  4. Execute, don’t wait. Turn each email into an action item or delegate and move on.

Take 100% responsibility, always

  1. Don’t blame it on your team, economy, funding, etc…
  2. You are the leader and must lead with absolute certainty and responsibility.

Routine and Rituals, schedule it! “If you talk about it, it’s a dream, if you envision it, it’s possible, but if you schedule it, it’s real.” — Tony Robbins. Things to schedule;

Starting your day with ‘‘light, breath and movement’ first thing

  1. Light = open the curtains and/or get outside
  2. Breath = breath work like Wim Hoff (9 mins), the Navy SEAL’s box breathing technique, or simply closing your eyes and noticing your breath for 10–20 counts
  3. Movement = move in whatever way feels good for you, but do it first thing, otherwise life tends to get in the way and more excuses pile up as the day goes on

Date night/morning/day/etc.

  1. Plan a night your partner would enjoy and alternate weeks for who plans the connection time together (night, morning, whenever!)
  2. It doesn’t have to be night, you could get someone to watch the kids for a morning workout together and connect during that time too. Sometimes it’s better than night, when you’re both potentially exhausted.

Connecting with family/friends

  1. Ideally with those that will celebrate you no matter what and who raise your energy (not decrease, as covered in ‘misery loves company part I and II’)

Quarterly planning (personal and professional)

  1. Time dedicated to working ON your business or life and not simply IN it (and the day-to-day reactionary momentum)

Whatever else is meaningful to you, schedule it!

Communication (via video, email, in-person, etc.)

  1. Know your outcome for the communication, always
  2. Have an agenda for calls/meetings and share before conversation starts, to ensure you’re both/all on the same page of what’s to be covered
  3. Clarify and verify, don’t leave anything unanswered or unclear. Communication is a chain reaction, so make sure you hand off information fully as well as receive information completely.

Refuel your tank, you can’t serve your company, investors or customers on an empty tank

  1. Sleep ideally 6–8 hrs (time needed varies by person and whether you’re practicing yoga nidra or other mind/body repair practices)
  2. If you are under-resourced as a leader you won’t be able to be resourceful for your team.
  3. Any decision made or action taken in a state of struggle or un-resourcefulness, will result in further struggle or un-resourcefulness.
  4. Along these same lines, eat healthy whole foods (ideally consuming 70% vegetables) and stay hydrated!
  5. How you do anything is how you do everything”, don’t sacrifice health for success. Your team needs you at your peak and they’re following your lead here too!

These are some easy habits and rituals that have greatly served us and our founders. As a CEO or leader in any area of your life, you want to make sure you’re conscious and being proactive in the everyday, not succumbing to momentum or reactionary behaviors. You must take control of your own schedule and state. In doing so, you will create more time for yourself not less. With more energy and focus, success will be easier in life and business however you define success. And don’t forget, “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.” So, be present to the everyday “grind”, make the most of it and enjoy the journey. You’ll get there eventually and when you do, it’ll be all the more sweeter if you smiled and enjoyed it along the way; the easy stuff and the hard stuff too.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in seed-stage companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation and computing.

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