The Circle of Safety

Organizations succeed over the long term in both good and bad times when people share values and feel valued. Teams with deep levels of trust can easily act in the best interest of the collective. Being accountable means we share credit and ownership for everything that exists in our business – the good, bad and ugly. When something is bad or ugly, we agree to take responsibility as a team and work together to fix it.

Organizations that achieve the greatest success share an important trait. They all have a firm Circle of Safety in place – a culture in which the leaders look out for the long-term greater good of the organization, even if that means putting their own self-interests aside. This is why they are willing to push hard and take risks.

From: blog.eosworldwide.com/blog/circ…

“perennial sellers”

In business, the majority of profits are derived from products and services that are not new. It’s the “perennial sellers” – the ones that need very little ongoing investment of sales and marketing that drive the majority of margin. Yet our culture is obsessed with the new releases and headlines-worthy things.

From > brentweaver.co/what-i-le…

Better vs. Unique

”…Lots of people talk about getting better at something – but better is not sustainable – and there is always someone who will figure out how to do something even better. As Denise Lee Yohn, author of Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies, noted, you don’t want to strive for better, you want to strive to be unique! Unique is unstoppable …”

Brand + Culture = Results

(Taken from Vernes Insights scalingup.com/weekly-in…)

The "I’m-not-biased bias"

An strong bias is the “I’m-not-biased bias”, where people tend to believe they have fewer biases than the average other. But you can’t judge whether you’re biased, because when it comes to yourself, you’re the most biased judge of all. And the more objective people think they are, the more they discriminate, because they don’t realize how vulnerable they are to bias.

Excerpt from: getpocket.com/explore/i…

Just because you see does not mean you observe. The difference between seeing and observing is fundamental to many aspects of life. Observation is more than simply seeing something, but rather a mental process involving both visual and thought.

“Calcified” thinking: state of mind where ideas have become so hardened that they are no longer of any use.

The quest for Balance

Few things I learned in life son. That magic is in finding Balance, one of them:

Save a lot - Balance - Spend all that you earn

Eat super healthy  - Balance - A great aged red beef steak 

Wasted with drugs - Balance - Chemical tools

A glass of red wine, Rioja - Balance - A bottle per night

Toyota Prius - Balance - Audi A8

Read a lot - Balance - Trek all surrounding mountains

Play golf - Balance - Visit the mall every saturday

Hyper-Growth business - Balance - Brick&Mortar business

Hustle like Gary Waynerchuck - Balance - Wake up 11am on Saturdays

A mansion - Balance - An average flat in Madrid

British weather - Balance - Living in Cordoba, Spain

Eat a Pizza Hut pizza - Balance - Cook your own Neapolitan pizza at home

Have 10 close friends - Balance - That only friend from the neighbourhood

One picture of your face in every two Instagrams - Balance - Pictures of your cat

Writing a piece like this so far - Balance - Writing for others

Cooking a great authentic neapolitan pizza (Update 2)

My quest to cook a great neapolitan pizza is progressing:

- Dough iteration 5: still not happy with it, testing more fermentation. 62% hydratation. 

- Owen: what an updgrade the Gozney Roccbox is! Cooking in less than two minutes

- Tomato sauce: using San Marzano D.O.P.

- Mozzarella: week point, still need to get something better.

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Sahil Lavingia is building a startup on his own terms.

DIL Sahil Lavingia banner

Interesting read, some takeaways stolen from a co-worker:

- *Flexible work* is more important than remote work, Profit sharing is better than equity

- He tries to *hire engineers on a part time basis* so they can have a life outside of the company "I’m trying to make an explicit case to amazing engineers: You can work for Gumroad for 20 hours a week and make $100k a year. Or you can work at Facebook for 60 hours a week and make $250k a year. Would you rather make $100k less a year but get 40 extra hours per week?"

- the VC road is toxic because it *creates an artificial time based thinking* ("by X date next year I need to be at X point")

- being psycho about goals is just as bad as not having goals at all. They should serve as motivation, but not dictate your life. You should think a few steps ahead, but at the end of the day, *no plan survives contact with the enemy*.

- With OKRs, at the start *you want structure because you don’t know what you’re doing*. When you start figuring stuff you, you realize you don’t need a lot of extra stuff. It can be loosely defined.

And:

- Profit sharing with contractors?

- Systems, not goals (Again)

- The value of Twitter

http://cofounder.life/day-in-the-life-sahil-lavingia/

This Tradition is Why Okinawan People Live Longer, Better

In small neighborhoods across Okinawa, friends “meet for a common purpose” (sometimes daily and sometimes a couple days a week) to gossip, experience life, and to share advice and even financial assistance when needed. They call these groups their moai. 

Truly interesting concept for those who had experienced a type of mastermind group experience. Like the one I had at EO chapter in Madrid or the one I am building with some peers, my moai, my foro.