《The Start-up of You》书摘

《The Start-up of You》书摘

2017/11/27

2019/7/21

1 All Humans Are Entrepreneurs

The principles of Silicon Valley are theprinciples in this book. Take intelligent and bold risks to accomplishsomething great. Build a network of alliances to help you with intelligence,resources, and collective action. Pivot to breakout opportunity.

Thereare real skills involves in becoming the entrepreneur of your own life.  In the following chapters, we’ll introducehow to:

Develop your competitive advantage in the market by combing three puzzle pieces: your assets, your aspirations, and the market realities.

Use ABZ Planning to formulate a Plan A based on your competitive advantages, andthen iterate and adapt that plan based on feedback and lessons learned.

Build real, lasting relationshipsand deploy these relationships into a powerful professional network.

Find and create opportunities for yourselfby tapping networks, being resourceful, and staying in motion.

Accurately appraise and take on intelligentrisks as you pursue professional opportunities.

Tap network intelligencefrom the people you know for the insight that allows you to findbetter opportunities and make better career decisions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2 Develop a Competitive Advantage

Your competitive advantage is formed by theinterplay of three different, ever-changing forces: your assets, your aspirations/values,and the market realities, i.e., the supply and demand for what you offer themarketplace relative to the competition. The best direction has you pursuing worthy aspirations, using yourassets, while navigating the market realities.

Assets are what you have right now.

Soft assets are things you can’t tradedirectly for money. They’re the intangible contributors to career success: theknowledge and information in your brain; professional connections and the trustyou’ve built up with them; skills you’ve mastered; your reputation and personalbrand; your strengths (things that come easily to you).

Hard assets are what you’d typically liston a balance sheet: the cash in your wallet; the stocks you own; physicalpossessions like your desk and laptop. These matter because when you have aneconomic cushion, you can more aggressively make moves that entail downsidefinancial risk.

A competitive edge emerges when you combinedifferent skills, experiences, and connections. Your asset mix is not fixed. You can strengthen it by investing inyourself- that’s what this book is about.

Aspirations and values are the secondconsideration. Aspirations include your deepest wishes, ideas, goals, andvision of the future, regardless of the state of the external world or yourexisting asset mix. This piece of the puzzle includes your core values, orwhat's important to you in life, be it knowledge, autonomy, money, integrity,power, and so on. You may not be able to achieve all your aspirations or builda life that incorporates all your values. And they will certainly change overtime. But you should at least orient yourself in the direction of a pole star,even if it changes.  Later in yourcareer, you may have more specific, thought-out aspiration. My pole star is todesign and build human ecosystems using entrepreneurship, technology, andfinance.

Your skills, and experiences and other softassets- no matter how special you think they are- won’t give you an edge unlessthey meet the needs of a paying market. And keep in mind that the “market” is not an abstract thing.  It contains of the people who make decisionsthat affect you and whose needs you must serve: your boss, your coworkers, yourclients, your direct reports, and others. Entrepreneurs spend vast amounts of energy trying to figure out whatcustomers will pay for.

Studying the market realities doesn’t haveto be a limiting, negative exercise. There are always industries, places, people, and companies withmomentum. Put yourself in a position to ride these waves.  The Chinese economy, the politician CoryBooker, environmentally friendly consumer products: each is a big wave. Beingin a position to ride them- making the market realities work for you as opposedto against you – is key to achieving breakout professional success.

All Advantages Are Local: Pick a Hill Has Less Competition

The most obvious way to improve yourcompetitive advantage is to strengthen and diversify your asset mix- forexample, learn new skills. That’s certainly smart. But it’s equally effectiveto place yourself in a market niche where your existing assets shine brighterthan the competition’s.

3 Plan to Adapt

The successful ones do both.  They are flexibly persistent: they startcompanies that are true to their values and vision, yet they remain flexibleenough to adapt. They are obsessed with customer feedback, yet they also knowwhen not to listen to their customers.

ABZ Planning

Plan A is what your are doing right now.It’s your current implementation of your competitive advantage. Within a Plan Ayou make minor adjustments as you learn; you iterate regularly. Plan B is whatyou pivot to when you need to change either your goal or the route for gettingthere. Plan Z is the fallback position: your lifeboat. The certainty of Plan Zis what allows you to take on uncertainty and risk in your Plans A and B.

Make Plans Based on Your Competitive Advantage

Career plan should leverage your assets,set you in the direction of your aspirations and account for the market realties.

Prioritize Learning

Learning by Doing

Whatever the situations, actions, notplans, generate lessons that help you test your hypotheses against reality.Actions help you discover where you want to go and how to get there.

Make Reversible, Small Bets

Iterate bit by bit, learn experience byexperience. Start with a trial period. Keep your day job.

Think Two Steps Ahead

At the same time, though, don’t do theopposite and think ahead too far in the future. Again, you will change, theworld will change, the competition will change. It’s why Plan C, Plan D, orPlan E are not part of this framework. The best thing to do is to think andplan two steps ahead. A good Plan A is one that offer flexibility to pivot to arange of possible Plan B’s; similarly, a good first step generate a largenumber of possible follow-on second steps.

Maintain an Identity Separate

from Specific Employers

Start a personal blog and begin developinga public reputation and public portfolio of work that’s not tied to youremployer.

Plan A: Almost Ready, Aim, Fire,Aim, Fire, Aim, Fire

Plan B: Pivot as You Learn

Pivoting isn’t throwing a dart on the mapand then going there. It’s changing direction or changing your path to getsomewhere based on what you’ve learned along the way. Once you’ve pivoted andare on a new track, that becomes your new Plan A.

When to Pivot: To Pursue Upsideor Avoid Downside

Where to Pivot: To an AdjacentNiche, Something Different But Related

How to Pivot: Start It on the Side

Start learning a skill during the eveningsand weekends. Start building relationships with people who work in an adjacentindustry. Start a side counseling practice.

Set aside one day a week or month or evenevery few months to work on something that could be part of your Plan B. If youhave a business idea you want to pursue, a skill you want to learn, arelationship you want to form, or some other curiosity or aspiration, start onit as a side project and see where it goes. At a minimum, just start talking topeople. Take a day and arrange five coffee meetings with people who work in aadjacent industry.

Plan Z: Jump On Your Lifeboat and Regroup

With a Plan Z, you’ll at least know you cantolerate failure.  When I started myfirst company, my father offered up an extra room in his house in the event itdidn't work out- living there and finding a job somewhere else to earn money was my Plan Z.

4 It takes a network

World-class professionals build networks to help them navigate the

world. No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy,if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.

Quite simply, if you want to accelerateyour career, you need the help and support of others.  What you are doing- what you

should be doing – is establishing a diverse team of allies and advisors with

whom you grow over time.

People develop the technologies, write themission statements, andstand behind the corporate logos and abstractions.  People are the source of key

resources, opportunities, information, and the like.

Behavior and beliefs are contagious: youeasily “catch” the emotional state of your friends, imitate their actions, andabsorb their values as your own.  The fastest way to change

yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.

Business schools rarely teachrelationship-building skills.  It’s allabout me, me, me, me.  Why do we rarely talk about the friends, allies, and colleagues who make us who we are.

In actuality, Franklin’s networks and relationships were a huge part of his life, and played a huge part in his success.  Indeed, if you study the life of any notable person, you’ll find that the main character operates within a web of support.

Then there are those you know solely in aprofessional context.  These include colleagues,industry acquaintances, customers, allies, business advisors, and serviceproviders like your accountant or lawyer. Shared business goals and professional interests bring

you together.  While most people have a small circle of close friends, they maintain a large circle of these valued acquaintances and colleague.

Relationship builders, on the other hand,try to help other people first.  Relationship builders prioritize

high-quality relationships over a large number of connections.  Relationship builders start by understandinghow their existing relationships constitute a social network, and they meet newpeople through they already know.

The first is seeing the world from theother person’s perspective.  Discoveringwhat people want.

The second requirement is thinking abouthow you can help and collaborate with the other person rather than thinkingabout what you can get from him or her. Searching for shared interests, askingquestions of the other person, and forging common ground.

The best way to engage new people is viathe people you already know.  So if youwant to build a strong network that will help you move ahead in your career,it's vital to first take stock of the connections you already have.

The first is professional allies.  Many people can maintain atmost eight to ten strong professional alliances at any given point in time.  The second type of relationship we’ll coveris weaker ties and acquaintances.

With an ally, you don’t keep score, youjust try to invest in the alliance as much as possible.

These “volleys of communications andcooperation” build trust. Trust, writes David Brooks, is “habitual reciprocitythat becomes coated by emotion.  It growswhen two people… slowly learn they can rely upon each other. Soon members of atrusting relations become willing to not only cooperate with each other butsacrifice for each other.”  In otherwords, as the score keeping becomes less and less formal and as the expectationfor reciprocal exchange stretches over a longer and longer period, arelationship goes from being an exchange partnership to being a true alliance.

Weak ties, these are folks you meet atconferences, old classmates, coworkers in other divisions, or just interestingpeople with interesting ideas who you come upon in day-to-day life.  Weak ties can uniquely serve as bridges toother worlds and thus can pass on information or opportunities you have notheard before.  Weak ties in and ofthemselves are not especially valuable; what is valuable is the breadth andreach of your network.

The best (and sometimes only) way: via anintroduction from some you know who in turn knows the person you want to reach.  Working within my trusted extended networkallows me to move quickly when sifting through deals.  Anytime you want to meet a new person in yourextended network, ask for an introduction. …But you do have to ask – directly and specifically – and you need topresent a compelling reason why the introduction makes sense.

The best professional network is bothnarrow/deep (strong connections) and wide/shallow (bridge ties).

What matters are your alliances, thestrength and diversity of your trust connections, the freshness of theinformation flowing through your network, the breadth of your weak ties, and theease with which you can reach your second- or third-degree connections.

Relationships are living, breathing things.Feed, nurture, and care about them: they grow. Neglect them: they die.  This goes for any type of relationship on anylevel of intimacy.  The best way tostrengthen a relationship is to jump-start the long term process ofgive-and-take.  Do something for anotherperson.  Help him or her.

First you must know the person.  Finally, once you understand his needs,challenges, and desires, think about how you can offer him a small gift.  Inexpensive yet thoughtful is best.  The secret behind stellar small gifts is thatit’s something you can uniquely provide.

A good way to help people is to introducethem to people and experiences they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.

Only if you’re top of mind –

only if you’re at the top of her inbox or news feed.

You’ve probably heard a lot of the commonadvice on this front.  Here are somenonobvious things to keep in mind.

You’re probably not nagging.

Try to add value.

If you’re worries about seeming too personal, couch yourstaying-in-touch as a  mass action.

One lunch is worth dozens of emails.

Social media.Social media is particularly great for staying in touch passively.

Set up an “Interesting People” Fund

He knew he would someday move back to starta company.  He did not want his  local network to become stale.  He set aside time and money in advance tokeep his network up-to-date.  Upon moving to Seattle, he declared that seven thousand dollars of his savings would be “California Money”.

If you want to build a relationship withsomeone of higher status, know that you are supposed to be accommodating.  Think about the power imbalance affects yourexpected social behavior.  A little bitof conscientiousness in this department goes a long way.

NavigateStatus Dynamics When Dealing with Powerful People

A person’s status depends on thecircumstances and on who’s around.

The business world is rife with powerjostling, gamesmanship, and status signaling, like it or not.  It’s especially important to understand thesedynamics when you work with people more powerful than you.

5 Pursue Breakout Opportunities

For a young lawyer, an opportunity couldmean being assigned to work with the smartest partner in the firm.

It’s up to you- with the help of yournetwork- to go out and find and develop professional opportunities for yourself.

Likewise, in order to accomplish somethingsignificant in your career, you need to focus on finding and capitalizing on thosegreat career opportunities: the opportunities that will extend your competitiveadvantage and accelerate your Plan A to Plan B.

There are always breakout projects,connections, specific experiences, and yes, strokes of luck- that lead tounusually rapid career growth.

If you’re looking for an opportunity,you’re really looking for people. If you’re evaluating an opportunity, you’rereally evaluating people.  If you’retrying to marshal resources to go after an opportunity, you’re really trying toenlist the support and involvement of other people. A company doesn’t offer youa job, people do.

Organizing a Saturday brunch with a dozenex-coworkers from your previous company only offers upside.

Be Resilient: When the Naysayers Are Loud, Turn Up the Music

When you have no resources, you createthem. When you have no choice but to fight, you fight hard. When you have nochoice but to create, you create. If you want to find out how resourceful youcan be, shrink your budget. Move your deadlines up. See how you cope. This maymake you more resilient to actual hardships that inevitably rise.

6 Take Intelligent Risks

By introducing regular volatility into yourcareer, you make surprise survivable. You gain the “ability to absorb shocks gracefully.”

7 Who You Know Is What You Know

A search engine can’t introduce you to thenetworks that dish breakout opportunities. But, your network can.

Your network is an indispensable source ofintelligence because people offer private observations and impressions thatwould never appear in a public place like the Wall Street Journal or even yourcompany newsletter.  Only a coworker canclue you in to your boss’s idiosyncratic preferences. Only a friend working inanother organization can tell you about an as-yet-unannouced job position beingcreated there.

Second, people offer personalized,contextualized advice.  Friends andacquaintances know your interests and can tailor their information and adviceaccordingly.

Third, people can filter information you getfrom other sources. People can tell you which books to read; which parts of thearticle are important.

Finally, many people simply think betterthoughts when in dialogue with others. Two (or more) well-coordinated brainsbeat one every time.

Achieving Network Literacy

Today even search literacy is notenough.  The bigger advantage is gainedby network literacy: knowing how to conceptualize, access, and benefit from theinformation flowing through your social network.

In the next month:

Become a go-to person for other people inyour network on certain topics. Make known to your connections your interestsand skills by writing blog posts and emails, or setting up discussion groups.When people come to you for intelligence, you are simultaneously acquiringintelligence from them.

Conclusion

Invest in yourself, invest in your network,and invest in society.  When you investin all three, you have the best shot at reaching your highest professionalpotential.