Be Vulnerable

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

Guest Post by Brad Feld.

We are told that leaders must be strong. They must be confident. They must be unflinching. They must hide their fear. They must never blink. They cannot be soft in any way.

Bullshit.

Last night, after my first public talk on the new book that Amy and I just released titled Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur, a woman came up to me afterwards and gave me two pieces of feedback. The first was that I expressed incredible vulnerability in my talk. She thanked me for that. She then suggested that I hadn’t done a good job of weaving the notion of vulnerability into the importance of the dynamics of the relationship that Amy and I have.

She was absolutely correct on both fronts. Amy and I allow ourselves to be very vulnerable with each other. We aren't afraid of each other and – by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable – we are more direct, honest, and clear about what is on our minds. It works both ways – we are more able to hear the other person, and more able to offer feedback in a constructive way, because we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

But it doesn't stop there. I’m allow myself to be very vulnerable with my partners Seth, Jason, and Ryan. And they allow themselves to be vulnerable with me and each other. We embrace the notion of “brutal honesty” with each other – we say things as we see them, as we believe them, and as directly as we can to each other – while at the same time recognizing that the other person is open to any feedback, in any tone, in any way. Notably, we are each vulnerable to each other, which makes our communication much more powerful and effective.

I try to be bidirectionally vulnerable with every entrepreneur I work with. I try my hardest, but when I hurt someone, I want to hear why. When I let someone down, I want to hear why. When I am struggling, I talk openly about it. When I've failed, I listen to why. And I hope that every entrepreneur I work with feels the same way, or whatever their version of “being vulnerable” is.

I’m vulnerable to the broader community I engage with. I’m open about my struggles – personally and professionally. I’m not bashful about being wrong, and owning it. And, when I get feedback, my ears are always open. Sure, I get plenty of random criticism from nameless, faceless people. That used to annoy me – now I just put them in the bucked of “anonymous coward” and delete it from my brain. If they can offer me the feedback directly, in their own voice, with their own identity, I’m open to it. I’ll let myself be vulnerable in that context. But I draw the line at random, anonymous attacks, especially ad hominem ones.

The great leaders I know are vulnerable. Maybe not to everyone, maybe not all the time, and maybe not in all contexts. But the allow themselves to be, simply, themselves. Human. They allow others in. They know they can be wrong. They know they can fail. And they know they can improve. Vulnerable.

That’s part of being a great leader. And a great partner – business or personal. And it opens you up to be a greater human. Thanks to the person who reminded me of that last night.

Brad is one of the managing directors at Foundry Group, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage software / Internet companies throughout the United States. He is also the co-founder of TechStars, a mentor-driven accelerator, author of several books and blogs, and a marathon runner. Read more.

Throw Your Life a Curve

Guest post by Whitney Johnson

Our view of the world is powered by personal algorithms: observing how all of the component pieces (and people) that make up our personal social system interact, and looking for patterns to predict what will happen next. When systems behave linearly and react immediately, we tend to be fairly accurate with our forecasts. This is why toddlers love discovering light switches: cause and effect are immediate. The child flips the switch, and on goes the light. But our predictive power plummets when there is a time delay or non-linearity, as in the case of a CEO who delivers better-than-expected earnings only to wonder at a drop in the stock price.

Enter my co-author, MIT-trained strategist and engineer Juan Carlos Méndez-García, who consults with both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. According to Méndez-García, one of the best models for making sense of a non-linear world is the S-curve, the model we have used to understand the diffusion of disruptive innovations, and which he and I speculate can be used to understand personal disruption — the necessary pivots in our own career paths.

In complex systems like a business (or a brain), cause and effect may not always be as clear as the relationship between the light switch and the light bulb. There are time-delayed and time-dependent relationships in which huge effort may yield little in the near-term, or in which high output today may be the result of actions taken a long time ago. The S-curve decodes these systems by providing signposts along a path that, while frequently trod, is not always evident. Our hypothesis is that those who can successfully navigate, even harness, the successive cycles of learning and maxing out that resemble the S-curve will thrive in this era of personal disruption.

Let's do a quick review. According to the theory of the diffusion of innovations — an attempt to understand how, why and at what rate ideas and technology spread throughout cultures — diffusion or adoption is relatively slow at the outset until a tipping point is reached. Then you enter hypergrowth, which typically happens somewhere between 10-15% of market penetration. Saturation is reached at 90%+.

With Facebook for example, assuming an estimated market opportunity of one billion, it took roughly 4 years to reach penetration of 10%. Once Facebook reached a critical mass of a hundred million users, hypergrowth kicked in due to the network effect (i.e. friends and family were now on Facebook), as well as virality (email updates, photo albums for friends of friends, etc.). Though we could quibble, depending on our inputs, over when Facebook will reach saturation, there is no question the rate of growth has begun to slow and is now limited, if for no other reason, by the number of people who can access the service. (Here's some more on Méndez-García's Facebook and S-curve math.)

One anecdotal example of how the S-curve model can help us better predict the future is the experience of golfer Dan McLaughlin. Never having played 18 holes of golf, in April 2010, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer to pursue a goal of becoming a top professional golfer through 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. During the first 18 months, improvement was slow as McLaughlin first practiced his putting, chipping, and his drive. Then, as he began to put the various pieces together, improvement accelerated, consistent with hypergrowth behavior. While he didn't track how quickly his handicap decreased, making it impossible for us to build an S-curve, 28 months into the project, he has surpassed 91% of the 26 million golfers who register a handicap with the US Golf Association (USGA) database. Not surprisingly, his rate of improvement (if measured as handicap) is now slowing as he faces competition from the top 10% amateur golfers.

Just as understanding the S-curve can keep discouragement at bay as we build new knowledge, it can also help us understand why ennui kicks in once we reach the plateau. As we approach mastery, our learning rate decelerates, and while the ability to do something automatically implies competence, it also means our brains are now producing less of the feel-good neurotransmitters — the thrill ride is over.

As our learning crests, should we fail to jump to new curves, we may actually precipitate our own decline. That doesn't necessarily mean a financial downfall, but our emotional and social well-being will take a hit. Saul Kaplan, Chief Catalyst at Business Innovation Factory, shares: "My life has been about searching for the steep learning curve because that's where I do my best work. When I do my best work, money and stature have always followed." Or paraphrasing James Allworth, "Steve Jobs solved the innovator's dilemma because his focus was never on profit, but better and better products." Forget the plateau of profits: seek and scale a learning curve.

The S-curve mental model makes a compelling case for personal disruption. We may be quite adept at doing the math around our future when things are linear, but neither business nor life is linear, and ultimately what our brain needs, even requires, is the dopamine of the unpredictable. More importantly, as we inhabit an increasingly zig-zag world, the best curve you can throw the competition is your ability to leap from one learning curve to the next.

This post was co-authored with Juan Carlos Mendez-Garcia, managing director of 8020world. Born in Colombia, he has lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Juan Carlos holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, a Masters in Systems Engineering and Bachelors on Electrical Engineering.

Images copyright 2012 Juan C. Mendez and Whitney Johnson. All rights reserved.

More blog posts by Whitney Johnson
More on: Career planning, Disruptive innovation, Managing yourself

WHITNEY JOHNSON
Whitney Johnson is a co-founder of Rose Park Advisors, Clayton Christensen's investment firm, and the author of Dare-Dream-Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream (Bibliomotion, 2012). Ms. Johnson is available for speaking and consulting. Follow her on twitter at @johnsonwhitney.

What I Learned About Goals From Building a Toy Wagon

I am the youngest of 4 siblings so most of my childhood was spent trying to prove to my sister and two brothers that I can do things on my own. I had the fortune of growing up with middle-class parents in which my Dad had his own service business and my stay-at-home mom worked at her fine craft of sewing window coverings for her customers. My Dad and Papa taught me how to work a hammer, screwdriver, wrench, etc., so in most cases I am a pretty good handyman. I enjoy working with my hands but at times I don't read instructions well and tend to go about building or assembling things on my own.

Read the instructions.

As a kid, I was great at tearing stuff apart but not so great at putting it all back together, which in turn required me to ask for help. This great skill and art of "handyman-ship" progressed right into fatherhood. I remember my first son getting a Radio Flyer wagon. This classic unit came with the typical "some assembly required" printed on the box. So this great handyman headed off with his 12 drawer toolbox to build a simple toy vehicle. To me it was a no-brainer, 10 minutes...15 minutes tops, to get the job done. I mean how hard was it to assemble 2 axles, 2 sets of wheels, carriage and a pull handle. Instructions...are you kidding me?  I'm pretty good at visualizing how things should be put together. So this baby was done in no time flat and ready to ride.

Now came the time to test the fine looking machine out. My son was pumped, he hopped in and off we went down the street. Things were rolling along nicely. It was easy to pull with its nice big wheels but as we headed down the street all of a sudden it began riding a little rough and my son soon became worried that this ultimate street machine was not as stable as he had thought. As I looked back I saw that the wheels had some wobble in them. WHAT!? How could this be? This thing was brand new! I mean this fine handyman put it together -- how can there be anything wrong? So off we went back to the shop to see what was wrong.

Test and you might wobble but adjust accordingly.

As we began to inspect the wagon I realized that the wheel caps were making the wheels wobble. Maybe I needed to take a quick glance at the instructions. I reviewed the step-by-step instructions and realized that the 4 washers, that for some reason were unused and leftover, and the requirements of using a flat surface and piece of wood to install the wheels must be followed to ensure the wheels were installed on straight. Great, now I had to take the wheel caps off and re-assemble. Pulling the wheel caps off was not an easy job because once in place they tended to be clamped there for good. I made an attempt to remove them but 3 out of 4 became unsalvageable. So now what? I am somewhat of a perfectionist so I needed to get new wheel caps. Off I went to the store and explained to one of the store clerks my dilemma, in which he chuckled and said, "Didn't you read the instructions?" Embarrassingly I admitted that, no, I had not, and he took me to the backroom of the store where they assemble bikes and toys. He looked at me, smiled, handed me 3 new wheel caps and said, "Here, now go back and read the instructions step-by-step". I smile (red-faced) and said, "Yes of course".

Reaching you goals might take longer than you think BUT
don't give up!

So what turned out to be a 10-15 minute job was now close to 2-hours. Lesson learned... well for this project anyway.  From then on my other two sons had great Radio Flyer wagons done and assembled in 15 minutes flat. No problem.

As I reflect on 2012 and what was accomplished, there were some goals that got "assembled" well and there were others that wobbled and required some additional instruction and reassembly. At times this is just the way I think and learn or some would call it "learning the hard way".  As I plan my goals for 2013, I really try to visualize what the end result will look like. How I am going to get there? What instructions and help will be required?  Setting goals are great but what's most important to be successful is assembling the proper instructions. I tend not to over analyze things. In fact, I like to look at ways to make them simpler. As mentioned in my previous blog, our goals in life require a process, a series of steps. How we get there requires instruction and some assembly to get it done.

Don't over analyze, keep it simple, reward yourself for the experience knowing the next time will be much easier.

At Mentor+ME, we are here to serve you. If you are looking for help, advice or guidance in career planning/development, business startup or an area of self-improvement, we want to be your connection and resource. Jump on board with us and make 2013 your best year ever!

Don't go it alone.

3 different ways to tell a good story.

I love to listen to people's personal stories. A good story is something that defines who we are. It makes us memorable. We all have experienced something in our life that makes a lasting impression. If you understand how to talk about yourself, it's a opening for you to connect to others in a meaningful way. It's a way that you can be used to help others that might be going through similar things. 

Here a 3 different ways you can tell your story.

1. The Challenge. You overcame an obstacle to get where you wanted to go.

2. The Eureka. An idea that came to you that changed everything.

3. The Connection. A time when you met someone or a group that had similar skills and experiences that helped you get where you wanted to go.

For me sharing those meaningful experiences with someone that might need help makes life more rewarding.

What's your story? Everyone has one so don't keep it to yourself. Share something you have learned in your life it just might help someone. 

Join in our I AM Forum at Mentorplus.me

Take the leap and sore

Photo courtesy of the Johnston boys.

One thing I love about being a dad is watching my boys grow and discover new things. Unless it's going to put them in critical danger I always let them try and do things that are out of the ordinary. Often times when travelling, we discuss new ways of doing things, inventing a new product, starting a business or coming up with a different way to make something work better.

I always encourage them to dream, ask questions and if it makes sense just do it. So off they go and sometimes they fail and sometimes they succeed.

Discovery is a great journey. Whether it's finding a new job, starting a business or wanting to try something out of your comfort zone.

At Mentorplus.me we want to help people achieve their highest potential by giving them actionable advice. Don't be afraid to seek out someone to help you explore, dream and discover. Then take the leap and sore!

See you soon... ;)

My DNA

I have learned so much over the past little while about generations and how one can influence the other.  I believe to achieve happiness and success, our professional and personal life must be aligned to reach our highest potential. There are so many people all over the world in a career, job training, business or startup crisis that they need to be given hope and help. We must find the most simple and easiest ways to get people connected with the help and expertise they need to be successful.

Melanie Pinola from LifeHacker states in her artice "Don’t Do What You Love. Do What You Are."
"You've no doubt heard this career advice before: "Do what you love." Brazen Careerist founder Penelope Trunk calls this simple and idealistic advice absurd. Instead of trying to figure out what you love most and then find the perfect matching career, do what you are, based on your strengths and personality."

For me, I have a genuine passion to serve others, a desire to make things work above the status quo, and a conviction is that simpler is better. It's in my DNA.

What's in your DNA in order to achieve your highest potential?