The Weekly Minute - Feb. 10, 2023
This week’s post aims to provide you with some interesting insights I read in the past few days on brand, culture, and business leadership. Hope you enjoy!
What I’ve Read This Week
The Quick Wins Paradox (via Harvard Business Review)
New leaders often seek quick wins to prove themselves, but this can lead to traps that prevent them from benefiting from their achievements. A study of 5,400 new leaders found that those who struggled focused too much on details, jumped to conclusions and others.
On the other hand, those who were successful had strong focus on results and excellent change-management skills, such as communicating a clear vision and developing constructive relationships. These collective quick wins established credibility and prepared them to lead their teams to more difficult victories.
The 3% Rule (within SatPost)
Virgil Abloh's 3% Rule states that one can slightly alter an existing product or idea by 3% to create something new, as the human brain seeks both familiarity and novelty.
Abloh further explains how this rule can be applied to different practices and fields, such as packaging, marketing, and even a single sneaker with Nike, executed 50 different ways. The 3% Rule allows for exposure to new ideas without pushing one's comfort zone to the brink.
The Nike example dives into the recent Tiffany and Co. x Nike partnership. “On the one hand, LVMH-owned Tiffany took a $100 shoe and changed the color of a check then quadrupled the price. On the other hand, there’s actually not a lot of room to maneuver when you have two such iconic brands.”
One Quote
Bill Ackman on success, via Farnam Street:
“I’ve always had this view that success is not a straight line up. If you read the stories of successful people, almost every successful person has had to deal with some degree of hardship, whether that hardship is personal hardship, health-related hardship, or a business issue. I’ve always had the view that how successful you are is really a function of how you deal with failure. If you deal with failure well and you persist, you have a high probability of being successful.”
One Framework
The Surfer Mentality (h/t Sahil Bloom)
The Surfer Mentality is a powerful metaphor for life, urging us to savor the present moment, carefully select which waves to take, and be patient and ready for the incoming waves. It also encourages us to take risks, and to be flexible and agile in the face of difficulty.
With five key concepts to embrace our inner surfer, we can use this mentality to live more mindfully and joyfully. For instance, we can learn to be mindful of our thoughts as they come and go, just like the waves. We can also practice gratitude and appreciation, as each wave brings us closer to our goals. By staying in tune with our intuition, we can choose the right waves to take, and stay focused and committed to our pursuits. We can also learn to be courageous and take risks, for the rewards and satisfaction that come with it. Lastly, we can hone our resilience and be prepared to face any challenge that comes our way, just like a surfer riding the waves of life. By embodying the Surfer Mentality, we can make the most of our journey and enjoy the ride.
From Sahil Bloom, here are 5 ideas you should steal...
Enjoy Your Next Wave: The next time you find yourself riding a positive wave, enjoy it! Don't worry about how long it will last, when it will end, or whether you will ever ride such a beautiful wave again. Just slow down and appreciate where you are in the present. Trust that there will be more waves in the future.
Be Strategic About Positioning: There's a tendency to passively wait between waves—but there's so much you can do in those liminal moments to set yourself up for a better ride. Think about your positioning and how you can make tweaks or changes that will put you in an advantageous spot when a wave does come.
Pass on More Waves: When you're young, you want to ride every single wave. But when you catch the first wave that comes your way, you may miss the better one that came right after it. Learn to pass on more waves and wait for the right one.
Always Get in the Surf: There's nothing good that happens sitting on the shore. Even if it's scary, get in the water.
Be Like Water: When you get crushed by a wave, don't resist the water, try to be like the water. With grief in particular, it's ok to just be and experience it rather than trying to fight it. Let it come over you and trust that it will diminish with time.
One Misc. Thought
Google Calendar, but it shows the cost of the meeting.
Google Calendar, but it shows the cost of the meeting pic.twitter.com/czRuyb4rPJ
— gaut (@0xgaut) February 1, 2023
Parting Thought
Enjoy the Super Bowl this weekend!! That means the game, the commercials — and Rihanna! Who you got?
I think I’m on the Chiefs, a slight underdog this weekend. Hard to bet against Patrick Mahomes.
