1. Sometimes . . . not getting what you want opens the door to getting what you need. P 65
2. “Integrity is the only path where you will never get lost.” P 65
3. ~even though great scientists never believe they can state “this is the truth,” they still seek the truth more passionately than all others. P 66
4. Life will go faster than you know. It will be tempting to live a life that impresses others. But this is the wrong path. The right path is to know that life is short, every day is a gift, and you have certain gifts. Happiness is about understanding that the gift of life should be honored every day by offering your gifts to the world. Don’t let yourself define what matters by the dogma of other people’s thoughts. And even more important, don’t let the thoughts of self-doubt and chattering self-criticism in your own mind slow you down. You will likely be your own worst critic. Be kind to yourself in your own mind. Let your mind show you the same kindness that you aspire to show others. P 66
5. The best advice I have seen comes from people who don’t try to tell me the answer . . . instead they give me a new approach to thinking about the question so that I can solve it better on my own. The best advice is more like, “I can’t answer your question, but this might be a good way for you to think about it.” Everyone has their own journey. People who offer great advice understand that their goal is to help someone on their unique journey. People who offer bad advice are trying to relive their old glories. P 66
6. Your time is limited, so it’s best to spend it with people who will make you feel like you made the most of your gift of today. P 67
7. When I feel overwhelmed or unfocused), I step back . . . and slow down . . . and ask the five whys. And when I am done, I also ask if I am afraid of something but too afraid to admit it.
We are drawn to the simplicity of jumping to conclusions. We are all ignorant in some way all of the time. So, I have come to learn that what we need are methods to counteract our ignorance.
The five whys is a good way of slowing down and improving decision quality. The most important thing is that it lets me get into a mental space about “what” is going right or wrong rather than “who” is right or wrong.
If I am by myself, I write the five whys on paper. If I am in a group, I write the questions down one at a time on a whiteboard:
Q: Why did we miss our $1M sales target this quarter?
A: We made fewer sales calls than planned.
Q: Why did we make fewer sales calls than planned?
A: We had fewer leads to work this month.
Q: Why did we have fewer leads this month?
A: We sent fewer email outreaches than planned.
Q: Why did we send fewer outreach emails than planned?
A: We were short-staffed.
Q: Why were we short-staffed?
A: We didn’t plan around the fact that two people were on vacation.
I find it is better to be focused on honoring the discovery of the truth rather than determining who is to blame.
Going very slow in this exercise is helpful, because it can cause people to turn off their “lizard brains” and fight-or-flight instincts and shift their thinking to their rational brains and problem-solving.
In general, whenever I feel things are moving too quickly, I find the right instinct is almost always to slow down and get my thoughts back in order. It ends up speeding things up because we get better decisions and more alignment of everyone on the team.
Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right. P 67-68
http://floodgate.com/mike-maples-jr/
https://medium.com/@m2jr
MIKE MAPLES JR. is a partner at Floodgate, a venture capital firm that specializes in micro-cap investments in startups. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and named one of Fortune magazine’s “8 Rising Stars.” Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent). Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce.
2. “Integrity is the only path where you will never get lost.” P 65
3. ~even though great scientists never believe they can state “this is the truth,” they still seek the truth more passionately than all others. P 66
4. Life will go faster than you know. It will be tempting to live a life that impresses others. But this is the wrong path. The right path is to know that life is short, every day is a gift, and you have certain gifts. Happiness is about understanding that the gift of life should be honored every day by offering your gifts to the world. Don’t let yourself define what matters by the dogma of other people’s thoughts. And even more important, don’t let the thoughts of self-doubt and chattering self-criticism in your own mind slow you down. You will likely be your own worst critic. Be kind to yourself in your own mind. Let your mind show you the same kindness that you aspire to show others. P 66
5. The best advice I have seen comes from people who don’t try to tell me the answer . . . instead they give me a new approach to thinking about the question so that I can solve it better on my own. The best advice is more like, “I can’t answer your question, but this might be a good way for you to think about it.” Everyone has their own journey. People who offer great advice understand that their goal is to help someone on their unique journey. People who offer bad advice are trying to relive their old glories. P 66
6. Your time is limited, so it’s best to spend it with people who will make you feel like you made the most of your gift of today. P 67
7. When I feel overwhelmed or unfocused), I step back . . . and slow down . . . and ask the five whys. And when I am done, I also ask if I am afraid of something but too afraid to admit it.
We are drawn to the simplicity of jumping to conclusions. We are all ignorant in some way all of the time. So, I have come to learn that what we need are methods to counteract our ignorance.
The five whys is a good way of slowing down and improving decision quality. The most important thing is that it lets me get into a mental space about “what” is going right or wrong rather than “who” is right or wrong.
If I am by myself, I write the five whys on paper. If I am in a group, I write the questions down one at a time on a whiteboard:
Q: Why did we miss our $1M sales target this quarter?
A: We made fewer sales calls than planned.
Q: Why did we make fewer sales calls than planned?
A: We had fewer leads to work this month.
Q: Why did we have fewer leads this month?
A: We sent fewer email outreaches than planned.
Q: Why did we send fewer outreach emails than planned?
A: We were short-staffed.
Q: Why were we short-staffed?
A: We didn’t plan around the fact that two people were on vacation.
I find it is better to be focused on honoring the discovery of the truth rather than determining who is to blame.
Going very slow in this exercise is helpful, because it can cause people to turn off their “lizard brains” and fight-or-flight instincts and shift their thinking to their rational brains and problem-solving.
In general, whenever I feel things are moving too quickly, I find the right instinct is almost always to slow down and get my thoughts back in order. It ends up speeding things up because we get better decisions and more alignment of everyone on the team.
Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right. P 67-68
http://floodgate.com/mike-maples-jr/
https://medium.com/@m2jr
MIKE MAPLES JR. is a partner at Floodgate, a venture capital firm that specializes in micro-cap investments in startups. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and named one of Fortune magazine’s “8 Rising Stars.” Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent). Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce.
Reference
Ferriss, Timothy. Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World (P. 64). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
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