Maximizing Your and Your

Team's Effectiveness / Resiliency

 Maximizing Your and Your
Team's Effectiveness / Resiliency
How To Win
1. You’re an athlete.

2. Startups are the Olympics.

3. Novice athletes make repeated mistakes.

4. I want to help you avoid them.

1. You’re an athlete.

2. Startups are the Olympics.

3. Novice athletes make repeated mistakes.

4. I want to help you avoid them.

1. You’re an athlete.

2. Startups are the Olympics.

3. Novice athletes make repeated mistakes.

4. I want to help you avoid them.

1. You’re an athlete.

2. Startups are the Olympics.

3. Novice athletes make repeated mistakes.

4. I want to help you avoid them.

Recurring theme:

You’re working hard

instead of working
smart
Recurring theme:

You’re working hard

instead of working
smart
“I will be in the office all the
time.”
“I’ll be the last one out today.”
Input != Output
Nobody wants to work for a tired
idiot who is sleeping at the office.
Hard

Smart
Hard

Bad

Smart
Also bad

Hard

Smart
 Gold

Hard

Smart
 Why does this happen?

• Founders want to win the approval of the pack.

• First time founders often never reported to a leader they respect.

• Don’t have a mental model for what leadership looks like.

• Do the wrong things as a result.

Practically speaking, what
does this mean?
 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
Sleep: the ultimate nootropic.
(it just takes 8 hours to apply)
 Sleep
• Don’t be ashamed to sleep 8-9 hours. Whatever you need.

• Optimize your sleep environment: sleep mask, humidifier, etc.

sleeplikethedead.com

• Be frugal with all other personal expenses, spend lavishly on this one.

• Avoid using an alarm clock at least half the week.

• 0.3mg melatonin can be helpful to reset cycle.

 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
 Food
• Garbage food impairs your judgement.

• You’re letting the entire team down if you can’t function properly.

• Important to be eating whatever you consider healthy. Feel good about

your choices.

• Setup the environment for success — remove all junk food from the office.

• Drink 100oz of water daily.

 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
Exercise: probably a good idea
 Exercise

• Start simple: spend as much time outdoors as possible (if you can).

• Your competition is probably doing cardio 4x times a week. You should

too!

• Running takes little time, has tremendous benefits and can be a team
activity.

• But how to do it consistently?

 How To Fall In Love

• Don’t overdo it. You need to create an experience you’ll enjoy. Start by
running 1 mile, not 10.

• Celebrate success. Give yourself a dopamine hit to remember for the

next time you’ll want to run. Tell friends you did it.

• Surround yourself with motivation. Befriend other people who run. Sign
up for a running event. Tell people about it.
 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
 How To Win
• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Mind Food

• Mind Software

• Mind Hacks

• Leadership
 Mind Food

• Feed your mind like you feed your body.

• Sabbath. Spend one day a week unworking as hard as possible. Your

goal is to recover as much as you can.

• Don’t over optimize which book you read, instead focus on reading
anything long-form.

• Sign out of Twitter, Instagram, whatever.

Mind Software
Shift from playing
first person
To third person
 Less “I’m angry”,
more “I’m experiencing anger”
 Mind Software

• Build the habit of “stepping out of the frame”, experience emotions in the
3rd person.

• Useful when things don’t go well.

• Useful when working through your own insecurities (“that person

disagreed with me, he made me look dumb”).

• Meditation helps achieve this.

 Mind Hacks
• v1 goal: spend as much of your day in Flow as possible.

• v2 goal: have the team spend their entire day in Flow.

• The key is to launch and iterate:

• What time of day is best for meetings?

• What music makes you particularly productive?

• Is X a good fit for project Y? Will they enjoy it?

 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development

Stage 1: Impulsive mind

Stage 2:  Imperial mind

Stage 3: Socialized mind

Stage 4: Self-Authoring mind

Stage 5:  Self-Transforming mind

Stage 2: Imperial Mind
 Stage 2: Imperial Mind
• Most children, some adults.

• Selfish. Heavy emphasis on your own needs and agendas.

• Transactional. View people as a means to get their own needs met, as

opposed to a shared internal experience (how we feel about each other).

• Unable to see the other side. The other view is just unreachable.

• Leadership failure: Hard to motivate people over the long term.

Stage 3: Socialized Mind
 Stage 3: Socialized Mind
• Most adults.

• Able to “see the other side”, but a little bit too much.

• Expends most of their mental energy on the the social view.

• Social narrative (“they think I’ll look stupid”) becomes the internal
experience (“I’m a moron”).

• Sense of self is derived from others.

• Leadership failure: Hard to have a truly independent view at this phase.

Stage 4: Self Authoring Mind
 Stage 4: Self Authoring Mind
• Some adults.

• Not driven by social affirmation.

• Has a consistent, independent frame of mind.

• Knows what their values and morals are.

• Takes responsibility for their own inner states and emotions (“I am feeling
angry because you violated a value I hold dearly”).

• Leadership failure: Good for early stage startups, bad for scale. Hard to
learn from people.
Stage 5: Self Transforming Mind
Stage 5: Self Transforming Mind
• Very few adults.

• No longer held prisoner by their own identity.

• Not tied to particular identities or roles. Constantly re-created through the exploration
of one’s identities and roles and further honed through interactions with others.

• Genuinely willing to learn from others.

• Thinks in systems (“this is happening because the incentives are set up that way”).

• Can hold multiple thoughts and ideologies at once.

• Best suited for managing a strong executive team or a product at scale.

 How To Evolve?

• Just knowing the concepts can help.

• Time.

• Stop asking questions you aren’t interested in. Try to ask the most
interesting question you can of others.

• Ask yourself: “What information would it take for me to change my mind?”

 How To Win

• Sleep

• Food

• Exercise

• Mind

• Leadership
 Closing Thoughts
• Consider yourself an athlete. Optimize yourself for peak performance.

• The competition is well rested, eating healthy and in good shape. Be there
yourself.

• Switch to 3rd party camera mode.

• The particulars of any hack don’t matter; instead focus on constant

introspection and testing.

• Become genuinely curious of others.

• Play Infinite Games.