A Thought is a Thought is a Thought

My thoughts on Ben Milne’s talk.

Thanks to Ben Milne for giving the talk at Entrefest, I had a lot of notes and thoughts that I wanted to share. I want to see if there are others that responded they same way that I did. I’m going to go through my notes point by point as I wrote them down during his talk. I’d love to hear you thought.

1) Be Pissed Off/Love Enough to Do Something About It.

In my own limited experience, I have had the privilege to work on a few projects that I really really loved what I was doing. They were very fulfilling and I was excited to get out of bed in the morning just to work on it. I have never had the opportunity to work on a problem that really pissed me off. Is there a problem that I could solve that keeps me awake at night? Does that problem affect others or is it just me? What about you?

2) Don’t Put Years into Your Life Chasing a Falsehood. Don’t Do That, Ask Hard Questions

This is deep. I believe Ben was talking about chasing a bad idea in the business world. but when I think of falsehoods, I think of limiting beliefs. The belief that you can’t do something, the belief that you’re not good enough, the belief that you need X or Y before you change or do something. If I face these questions can I answer that I haven’t been effected by any limiting beliefs. There are things that I held myself back from doing because I didn’t think I knew how to do them and wrote them off as an impossibility. I have a tendency to want to be sure before I start something that I know I will be able to finish it. If not, “The market wasn’t right.”, “It was a great learning experience but it’s not my thing.” This is a really hard thing to do but think about what your limiting beliefs are and how they have held you back. What are they?

3) Take a Copy of a Copy and Put Different Things Together

I’m sitting in a coffeeshop as I think about this. There are a lot of things in here that you could put together. Many of them would be an epic disaster if you put them together and tried to sell them. The key is looking at all of these things, being able to disregard what won’t work, and finding the one that will. How can you apply that to software, products, or services?

4) Appreciate the Small Wins

I have heard this a lot lately. Startups can go a very long time without a big win and sometimes its hard to celebrate them. Ben mentioned something about calling people out on not accepting a win/happiness. I can relate to this as someone who has a hard time accepting wins and wanting to push harder/further. I need to remind myself that it is important to say thank you and appreciate the little wins. How do you appreciate your wins?

5) Ideas are Worthless. They Become Valuable When You Do Something About It

“Someone had the same idea and did something with it? Shame on you for not sharing your gifts with the world.” I can’t count the number of ideas that I have had that I never did anything with. I remember the ones that someone else did something with. I spent months discussing and putting together a website for students to sell their textbooks to each other with a small fee. I didn’t really push it and let it die. Several months later I saw another startup do it. Even though the going was slow for a few months they eventually succeeded in creating sustainable business. Fear and lack of consistent effort are the death of ideas. At different points in time, I have found myself counting the number of reasons why something won’t work instead of asking myself, how. How can it work? How can I pull this off? What would I have to do, and finally is it worth it?

6) Faith and Belief Doesn’t Pay the Mortgage

Doing your own thing isn’t always the best thing for your bank account in the beginning. It can be worth it in the long run but having faith that it will work out doesn’t pay the bills. It can really suck when you have faith in what you’re working on but it is hurting your bank account. Making sacrifices to chase something that to the outside looks like a dream is hard. In the end I believe it is worth it if you’re doing what you believe in.

7) Death by Comparison

Social media is a highlight reel that makes it easy for you to compare what your doing to the highlights of others. If things aren’t going well this can make it hard. It’s easy believe that everyone else’s lives are full of travel, excitement, and good times. You don’t see the behind the scenes. I have to remind myself not to compare anything I’m doing to anyone else because it does me or anyone else any good.

8) A Unit is a Unit. Appreciate Where you Spend Yours

Time is limited. Where am I spending most of mine? Am I spending on things that will get me where I want to end up? Is it spend on the people and things that matter the most?

9) Measure Things in Small Units and Judge Them in Constellations

Results are the sum of all the small things you did over time to get there. It is hard to look at something you spend a day on and see where it will get you a year from now. That is how I have to look at things, if I don’t want to get frustrated by small failures. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

10) Help People in Need

I do my best to help people in need. Even when people don’t ask for it. If you know me very well there is a high probability that I have attempted to connect you with someone that I think would be a mutually beneficial relationship. I don’t do it for any selfish reason except for that I enjoy connecting a couple dots and seeing what happens.

11) Read and Write as Much as You Speak

I need to cut down on the speaking part. I would like to hear what other people have to say more often. Reading and writing is very therapeutic. If you don’t do it yet, give it a shot. Helps me to find clarity.

12) Buy Ridiculous Books and Read Them

The older the books the better. I’ve found that older books have tons of nuggets in them and from unexpected places. One was Think and Grow Rich. If you haven’t read it, check it out. Or just pick out a random book, movie, or song. You never know what will come out of it.

13) Make a Decision, Don’t Be Afraid to Be Wrong

The theme of Entrefest was this for me. Just do something. It’s better to make a decision or action that turns out to be wrong. You will learn way more from the decision than thinking about decisions. I have struggled with this regularly. It is difficult to do but I learn the most from the times where I am wrong. Give it a shot, you never know what will happen.

14) Be Careful What You Do With Your Rage

There is nothing that can make you look like more of an idiot than using your rage the wrong way. I use mine to motivate me to work longer/harder. I’ve seen people lose opportunities and relationships because of rage. I use walks or exercise to get rid of frustration before it builds up. What do you do to prevent emotion from building up?

15) Judge People for Who They Are and Not Who You Want them to Be

This is a hard thing to do. I want to see what people could be and do. A lot of the time, this doesn’t turn out well. It ends up with being disappointed and frustrated. I have to realize that I can’t control what actions people take and it is up to them to write their own story.

16) Ask Questions You Can’t Google

What kind of questions are you not able to Google? Hard questions. Questions that are on the fringe. Innovative questions. Something like how can I pull x off? I’m not going to lie, this is hard for me to think of questions I can’t Google, other than how can I put stuff together that has never been put together.

17) What You Build and the Value of What You Build Will Effect Everything

What I build is going to effect my life and everyone who uses it. What kind of effect do I want to have? What do I want to work on that I will be proud of tomorrow? 1 year? 5 or 10? What can I build that I will be proud of the effect it has on people? If I can’t answer that question, should I work on it?

18) Decisions are your Responsibility

My decisions are my responsibility. No matter how afraid of the results I am, my decisions are my own. It can be terrifying to do something that you don’t know what the results will be and to take ownership of that is not easy. However, every time I make a decision and own it I learn and grow more then I could’ve expected. Give it a shot, you might be surprised.

19) We Are in More Control Then We Give Ourselves Credit for

It is my responsibility that I didn’t work hard enough on my last project to get it off the ground and it is my job to own it. Not only to own it, but to learn from it. I am in control in what I learn and do to prepare me for my current project or my next one. It is my responsibility that I didn’t start sooner or didn’t teach myself to develop earlier. The real question is what am I going to do now to prepare me for the future?

20) Your Values Cannot Be Negotiable and Don’t Forget What You Stand for

Whatever it is you believe it cannot be for sale. You have to stick to your values no matter what happens. I refuse to do something that I believe will hurt someone for no reason. To me, that is not negotiable. There are a few others that I won’t change. What other ones are out there?

Want to say thanks again to Ben Milne for giving the talk. I took a lot away from it and I hope you did too.

Thanks!