Bread and Butter
NOTE: These insights and short stories represent chronicles from my travel diary. I have gathered such insights over the years through conversations with complete strangers during my travels to Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. Some of them experienced and successful in their careers and some still struggling. These very individuals went on to become friends, colleagues, clients, and vendors of mine. Given the fact that a lot of the people were from a Middle Eastern background, you will probably notice a general theme.
In many ways, these topics helped me shape my own opinions about the world. It took me some time to organize them in sections in order to make it easy for the reader to follow. With the help of a friend, I finally came to the conclusion that it should be segregated in the following sections: 1) By The Sunny Sidewalks of Istanbul, 2) Bread and Butter
Work Ethic
To do any type of work really well, you have to be completely obsessed about it. And you have to build an aggressive attitude to pursue that obsession.
We should always remind ourselves that the price of inaction is almost always higher than the price for taking action.
You do things, you make mistakes, you figure out, you fix it. You move on.
I got fired a few times before I started working on things that matter to me. I am very grateful. Those events knocked the wind out of my lungs and forced me to think about what is important…to me.
Whether you want to work on a grand vision or you want to build your own business, you have to completely own it. You have to love it, you have to be good at it. Most importantly you have to keep in mind, that it might not work out. Your effort has to be 100% genuine and only then shall failure seem insignificant.
If you are successful, you will inevitably be prone to fame, money, and arrogance. That is probably nature’s way of redistributing wealth by making you less humble and therefore less open to people and opportunities. But in order to build value, you must remind yourself why is it that you started that journey in the first place, and what value are you generating to give to the people consistently.
Opportunity
I constantly remind myself and my fellow co-workers to not allocate any resources in pursuit of something where there is no clear merit. Instead, use such limited resources to double down on finding those opportunities who are dying to find you i.e. where there is a burning need.
Innovation
When talking about innovation, try to keep yourself out of convention.
For example, every new year, if you are hiring new people, no existing employee should be in a position to say that this is how something was done in the past and this is how you are expected to do it.
Culture is one of the hardest things to scale. But you know what’s harder? Innovation. And fostering an innovative attitude.
New people should be able to come in every day ready to challenge, critique and outdo what was done yesterday.
Convention kills innovation.
Recruiting
If you have to micromanage all the way, you are probably not recruiting the right people and it may reflect poorly on your hiring practices. The following steps might seem like an oversimplification but it’s critical in finding and retaining the right people.
You first meet them in person and ask them these three questions:
- What do you currently do?
- What are you really good at?
- What would you like to do with what you are really good at?
The interview process continues long after the person is already hired. It’s as much as you learning from them as much as it’s them learning from you.
Leadership
As leaders, it is important that we practice the act of listening. Listening to those fragile ideas. That being said, it is also important that those ideas be voiced and that voice needs to be raised if necessary.
And we as part of this culture must embrace this act of fighting for the best ideas. And we must fight hard to not make mediocrity a part of us.
Giving voice to people serves as a double-edged sword; 1) Fosters idea generation and 2) Encourages accountability among peers.
