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#1💡Have a Beginner’s Mind
🧠 Develop a “beginners mind”.
What does that mean? Embrace lifelong learning.
The more you learn, the more you learn how little you know. Do not fear the unknown. Dive in and embrace it.
Two things I am learning right now:
Building and scaling a starting from 0 to 1. Constant altitude switching (macro strategy to micro operational tasks) and context switching (product, business development partnerships, hiring, media/PR, voice of the customer, etc.).
Web3 and NFTs. I own NFTs in two specific projects/communities that I am VERY bullish on (LMK if you want to hear more).
#2💡Writing > PowerPoint
Narrative Writing > PowerPoint Decks.
📝 One superpower I developed at Amazon was effective document/narrative writing.
IMO, startups who adopt a writing culture will have an advantage.
Below is one takeaway from former Amazon VPs who joined startups.
Lesson #10: An easy model for startups to be inspired by and adopt from Amazon is the document/narrative writing culture. You cannot fake prose. The 6-pager is an unsung hero of Amazon mechanisms. Writing a rigorous press release document is hard but well worth it because you are able to proactively identify unspecified customer features that lead to churn in the long-run.
“The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation. Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a powerpoint presentation, some type of slide show. In our view you get very little information, you get bullet points. This is easy for the presenter, but difficult for the audience. And so instead, all of our meetings are structured around a 6 page narrative memo....If you have a traditional powerpoint presentation, executives interrupt. If you read the whole 6 page memo, on page 2 you have a question but on on page 4 that question is answered.” — Jeff Bezos.
↪️ Click here to read all takeaways — Amazon to Startups: Lessons from 4 Former Amazon VPs
#3💡Little Details, Big Impact
Small details create moments of serendipity.
I photographed the image from the Virginia Mason Birth Center in Seattle (my wife and I had our first baby on February 28, 2022 — a longer post for the future!).
Anyways, I LOVE the sweet image of the flower. It made me smile. I had to tell my wife and nurses and it all made us smile. 🌻 😊
A sweet moment I will remember.
Details matters.
#4💡Alien Contact…Flipped
Makes sense to me. Why would intelligent life elsewhere want to engage with a species that can be seen as a virus? 🤔
Bonus Content: Two other posts to check out.
P.S. forward this to a friend to inspire them.
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“Fly High, Burn Bright, Be Curious.”