johnmaconline

Contractually, you might get paid for hours or milestones. At least according to the terms and conditions. 

But you’ll get paid much more for value.

(Thank you, Seth)

I’ve written a few proverb lists over the years. Here’s a curation of those, plus some new ones that apply to the professional. No matter where you are, what you do, and what role you have, these are for you. 

1. The same old mistakes form the walls of your prison. New mistakes pave the highway forward.
2. Multitasking is a myth. 
3. You don’t have a time management problem. You have a time priority problem.
4. Avoid hanging out at the corner of bitch and moan. 
5. Be willing to get punched in the face. 
6. The one who gets ahead is the one who takes responsibility. Especially for the failures.
7. Compete.
8. Follow the money, power, and status, but learn to navigate all three without becoming owned by any.
9. Color outside the lines. Walk on the curb. Run with scissors. Not all the time, but sometimes.
10. Creative tension is how great teams get better. Embrace the disagreement.
11. Always assume the other person doesn’t mean harm and that you misunderstood.
12. Consensus does not equal truth.
13. Curiosity and the desire to explore keep you young and make you more valuable.
14. Bring your passion with you. 
15. Value doesn’t necessarily mean hours or KPIs. Be valuable. 
16. Legacy isn’t a name on a building. It’s the effect you’ve had on the people around you.
17. You are a work in progress. So is everyone else. Remember that before casting the first stone.
18. Learning how to recognize, confer, and use status is a superpower.
19. Don’t be snowed by credentials. Respect everyone. 
20. The best method for learning is to teach someone else.
21. Do things that make you feel like an impostor. That feeling means you’re growing.
22. Inspiration shows up more often in the middle of the work than in the middle of the night.
23. It’s OK, maybe encouraged, to geek out on tools.
24. You don’t have to start in the mail room, but pay attention to those who have. Their perspective is likely a magnetic pole to which you should be attracted or repelled.
25. Leave your colleagues feeling, “I want to work with this person.” That’s not the same as, “I’d love to hang out with this person.”
26. Once you learn how work works, you’ll never worry about machines taking your job.
27. Professionals play hurt.
28. Professionals show up when it counts.
29. The leader isn’t necessarily the name in the box at the top of the chart. Be a leader. At the very least, lead yourself.
30. Teach others to do your job.

Stuff you can’t control directly:

If someone else says “yes.”
What politicians decide.
The price of gas.

Stuff you can:

How many conversations you have.
Who you vote for.
What you buy, where you go, how you get there.

It’s important to both recognize and remember what you can control directly.

Not just intellectually, but emotionally.

Although it’s useful to discuss and debate the things over which you have no direct control, it’s not useful to lose sleep over them.

Somehow it all got away.

Have you ever, if even just for a second, stepped out of yourself, out of your existential presence, looked around and realized, “this is not as I planned it” or, “this is not how I imagined it” or, “I don’t think I recognize any of this?”

Yeah, OK, I realize that probably sounds crazy. But if you know, you know.

Somehow it all got away.

It’s jarring. It’s odd. It feels kinda destabilizing. Like vertigo, but in your soul.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s God telling you that it’s not about planning and control and exactly as you pictured it. It’s about sowing and watching it bloom. Once it’s bloomed, to continually reshape, weed, tend, untangle, or retangle.

Maybe the point is to notice and to stay long enough to see what it becomes.

Earth’s current population is ~ 8.2 billion.

Walmart has the highest revenue of all companies on this planet at $681 billion in the last year.

So, each person on the planet spends approximately $83 per year at Walmart. But, of course, we know that’s not true. Even Walmart isn’t for everybody. Not even close.

Perplexity estimates about 600 million shopped at Walmart last year. That’s about 7% of earth’s people. Which means each Walmart shopper spent about $1135 last year.

So what?

You’re not Walmart. You (probably) won’t have 7% of the earth’s population as your customer.

Yet again, though, Walmart doesn’t build its business around the average of 600 million customers. They break it down further.

The average Walmart shopper makes 67 trips per year and the average spend is about $54 per trip. That’s $3618. But they’re still not done. Now they dive into geography and demographics to further understand their customers. They know what a middle-income, older adult in West Virginia will spend versus a lower-income, young mother in southern California.

Your product or service isn’t for everyone.

Who’s it for?

Building a great product or service is a bit like cooking dinner for someone you don’t know.

There are some things you know, however.

They expect it hot.
They desire something delicious.
They (believe they) deserve a great experience.

That’s product design.

They expect it to meet the basic requirements.
They desire it to meet their personal requirements.
They deserve to feel valued, heard, and respected.

If you build a washing machine, your customer expects it to clean the clothes, they desire that the features work as advertised, and they deserve to feel like they received value.

If you’re an airline, your customer expects to arrive at their destination, they desire to sit in the seat they paid for (or upgraded), and deserve to be treated with respect.

Expectations and desires are easy and concrete. Talk to your customers. Survey the market.

But it’s that last one that sets you apart.

Finally, I’m excited about a new car and car company. 

We have a saying in 4TLAS: “Make the right thing to do the easy thing to do.”

One thing I’ve learned in over 30 years of making stuff for people to use is that they generally do the easy thing. We wax eloquent about doing the right thing and doing the hard thing, but mostly we do the easy thing. 

We like it easy.

Therefore, if you want people to behave in a particular way, make it easy to do.

How does this relate to the Slate EV?

Most people don’t care about EV’s. At least not in the way that The News portrays it, or that we might argue about at a serene, rooftop cocktail party or a loud BBQ picnic bash in the infield at Daytona. 

Slate is showing us the very essence of making the right thing to do the easy thing to do. 

EVs will become dominant when they make practical financial sense. 

You go, Slate. 

Smart can be measured.

Test scores. Speed. Memory. Pattern recognition.
Smart is right. Smart is efficient. Smart gets there quickly.

You know the smart ones. 

But wisdom plays a different game.
Wisdom doesn’t rush. It watches. Waits.

Wisdom requires experiences. Wisdom has felt consequences. It doesn’t just answer the question, it asks new ones like, “What happens if we’re right?” and “Do we want to be right?”

Wisdon isn’t always interested in the right answer. 

Smart will build it.
Wise asks if it should be built at all.

Smart wins the argument.
Wise wins the trust.

Smart and wise aren’t the same, but the Venn Diagram shows an intersection. It doesn’t have to be or. It can be and. 

That’s where you want to stand. It takes effort, generosity, empathy, skills, observation, confidence, awareness, and history to stand there.

Not IQ or credentials. 

It depends on where you start and what you mean by “learn how to use.”

If you’re a novice at construction, a hammer will take you less than a minute to learn how to use. Same with the saw. But how long will it take you to learn how to use those tools to build a house or the cabinets for your kitchen?

If you’re a novice at software, GitLab might take you years to learn how to create an automated build pipeline (because what does that even mean?). However, if you’re a pro developer, it will only take you a couple of hours.

Tools help us get from here to somewhere. But context matters. Not every tool needs to be easy for a novice.

Mastery takes context. It takes reps and commitment.

More impotantly it takes intent.

The best tools aren’t magic. They reveal the craft.