Daniel Kahneman is amazing
He changed the world of behavioral finance
Here are 10 things I learned from his book Thinking Fast and Slow as a way to say thank you:
This is the youngest billionaire you've never heard of.
At 19, he dropped out of college.
Today? Nvidia, Meta, and the US government can't survive without him.
Here's how a teenager built a company the entire world depends on:
About 5% of my coworkers were top performers. They crushed it inside and outside of the office.
Most were millionaires, and I took notes.
I studied what they did.
They all had the same 12 characteristics that made them wildly successful people.
Demonstrate. Don’t Dictate.
As a founder or leader, your actions set the tone.
• Embody integrity, empathy, and a strong work ethic
• Model the behaviors and attitudes you want to see in your team
As the leader goes, so goes the team.
“It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis…that you will grow to be like them. Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite.”
— Epictetus
To adjust quickly to daylight savings, get up at your usual (clock) time & get 10-45min of exercise, ideally outside & facing the sun (if it’s out/rising/even if cloudy). The combined effects of bright light and exercise have a synergistic effect on circadian clock shifts.
Tolerance for divergence is essential for creativity.
Creating something new is hard when anything that looks a little different is automatically disregarded.
This goes for organizations, people, books, and everything else.
The right path in life feels like you are playing a game: you level up, you travel around, you learn new rules, you upgrade your skills, you get stronger, smarter, wealthier, you encounter challenges you cannot solve alone, you connect with the people you need, you make progress.
Read what you're curious about.
A lifelong interest in truth, reality, and knowledge will lead you down so many paths that you should rarely need to force yourself to read something.
If you aren't excited about what's on the next page, find a new book.
Some things are a benefit no matter what level you operate at:
- Having a bias-to-action
- Maintaining a solid reputation
- Being a solid communicator
- Being crystal clear on your vision
There are dispositions & traits that not only get you places - they keep you there.
Skills we should start learning in childhood:
1. How to be ok with disappointment.
2. How to be with someone who is crying or upset without try to fix it.
3. How to say “no, I’m not interested” or “don’t do that” without over-explaining or apologizing.
4. How to show genuine curiosity and interest in others.
5. How to live your life based on what’s aligned with your values and gifts— not the approval of others.
6. How to be resilient after heartbreak, rejection, and suffering.
7. How to be kind to yourself after making mistakes (the bigger, the more kind).
8. How to rest and take breaks guilt free.
Product Management is not about:
- Asking customers about the requirements.
- Writing detailed specifications.
- Creating prototypes and wireframes.
- Assigning tasks to developers.
- Verifying and accepting the work of others.
- Obsessing over velocity, deadlines, and roadmaps.
- Mastering Scrum or any other framework to perfection.
- Acting like the CEO of the product.
Anyone can do that.
It’s about:
- Understanding customer's problems, needs, and desires.
- Understanding the market and the business in depth.
- Collaborating closely with engineers and designers.
- Identifying opportunities, finding solutions, and tackling the risks together.
- Marrying customer goals and business goals.
- Influencing others to work toward the common goal.
- Being humble (it's ok not to be the smartest person in the room).
- Experimenting to validate assumptions.
- Leading without authority.
- Turning chaos into clarity.
Start with these questions:
- Why are we building this thing?
- Why are we building it now?
- For whom are we building it?
- What's the unique value of our product?
- How is it aligned with the company's vision?
- How is it aligned with the business strategy?
- What does success look like? How can we measure it?
- What are the customer needs/jobs (functional, emotional, social)?
- How will it affect our customers and users?
- How will it create value for the business?
- Can we buy it instead of building it?
- How can we make sure that our customers would love it?
- Will our customers know how to use it?
- Can our business support it (e.g., legal, finances)?
- Is it feasible? Can we build it with the existing technology?
- How can we bring it to the market?
- Do we have the required channels?
- Should we do it at all? Are there any ethical considerations?
- What are the riskiest assumptions? How can we validate them?
- What does the data tell us?
- How can we get maximum validating learning with minimum effort?
- What else can go wrong?
Be curious. Learn and experiment. Question solutions and push back on things handled down.
Remember that product management is about creating a "product customers love, yet also works for our business" (Marty Cagan, Inspired), not about pleasing stakeholders.
After 9 years, I'm still learning daily, and I do not know everything, but I can give you my perspective on any questions you have.
Drop them below.
At a recent event, I got asked for my best pieces of career advice.
Here are the 10 pieces of advice I shared:
(things I wish I knew at 22)
1. Build a reputation for reliability.
You can get pretty damn far by just being someone that people can count on to show up and do the work. Being reliable is entirely free.
2. Be the person who can figure it out.
Early on, you'll be given a lot of tasks you have no idea how to complete. There's nothing more valuable than someone who can just figure it out. Do some work, ask key questions, get it done. People will fight over you.
3. Work hard first (and smart later).
It's trendy to say that working smart is all that matters. Wrong. If you want to accomplish anything significant, you have to work hard. Work hard early—take pride in it. Then you can start to build leverage to work smart.
4. Build storytelling skills.
World-changing CEOs aren't the smartest in their orgs. They are exceptional at: (1) Aggregating data and (2) Communicating it simply & effectively. Data in, story out. Build that skill and you'll always be valuable.
5. "Swallow the frog" for your boss.
This is one of the greatest "hacks" to get ahead early in your career. Observe your boss, figure out what they hate doing, learn to do it, and take it off their plate. Easy win.
6. Be a "yes" person early in your career.
Saying "yes" expands your luck surface area. It may mean you're a bit overwhelmed at times, but the benefits from the increased luck outweigh the downsides of feeling stretched.
7. Wake up early and work out.
When you wake up early and work out, you do a hard thing to start your day that sets the tone. You start to self-identify as a winner. That has ripple effects all across your life. There's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out.
8. Dive through cracked doors.
I recently had an experience to bring this to life: A young guy saw on my story that I was at a coffee shop working. He messaged me asking if he could come by and ask a question. I said ok. He got there an hour later and we hit it off. Turns out he lived far away and made it work. I'd always bet on people with that kind of energy. If someone cracks open a door that may present an opportunity, dive through it.
9. Show up early, stay late.
Showing up early and staying late is a free way to materially increase your luck surface area. The most interesting side conversations come up before meetings start or after they end. When you're in the room, you're more likely to get pulled into a follow-up call, coffee, or discussion. It pays off handsomely in the long run.
10. Do the "old fashioned" things well.
Look people in the eye, do what you say you'll do, be early, practice good posture, have a confident handshake. It sounds silly, but these things are all free and will never go out of style.
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Embrace those 10 pieces of advice and you'll stand out and be on the right track.
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