Have you ever wished you could go back to high school knowing everything you do now? Well I kinda got to do that…

Recently I was invited back to give a talk at my old high school and share my journey since I left in 2005. The purpose was to impart any “wisdom” I had for some of the older students during Friday assembly.

*Cue the awkward high school picture*

(I’m not sure what was more tragic, my hair, the hairband or those eyebrows…)

I asked on Facebook what people wished they had known back when they were between 16 – 18 years old. I got some great responses from people…

There were a bunch of awesome responses, you can see the whole post here.

3 Myths I believed at School:

Myth: You have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life

Truth: Many of the jobs that exist now didn’t exist 10 years ago. Same as many jobs that exist now won’t exist in 10 years. You don’t need to have everything planned out, life happens, technology changes but as long as you follow your interests while providing value/solving a world problem you’ll be fine.

Myth: My future depended on my GCSE/A-Level exam results

Truth: A few years from now you won’t even remember what you grades were, nor will anyone even care. I missed out on a grade I wanted in my last year at school which meant not getting into my first choice university. At the time I thought it was the end of the world… it wasn’t.

Myth: University was the ONLY choice

Truth: University is not for everyone and if you decide you don’t want to go, you are not a failure. In fact, there are many people who do go to university only to waste time and rack up debt getting an education that won’t serve them in the job market. You do you. If you don’t want to be a doctor, lawyer or profession that requires a degree then it’s optional.

My Journey:

I believed I had to know what my career would be so when I was 16 I decided to be an architect, mainly because I was good at Physics and Art so Architecture just made sense. It was also a “serious career”… so of course my parents would be happy.

Then for the next 10 years I was on the “Architecture train”, never really exploring any other options, partly because I was busy with the constant workload of Architecture school, but mainly because I was scared that if I looked around and found something else I would get “off track” and have to start over.

The timeline of my life:

It was midway through 2012 when I realized that I was in a job that I couldn’t picture doing the rest of my life. When I looked at my bosses who were 20 years my senior and had their own successful firm, I still didn’t want to end up there — and that was the best case scenario.

I felt like I was experiencing a midlife crisis. It was at this point I started looking around at what other people were doing to see how I can pivot my life path:

Five to Thrive

These are the five things I started doing at that turning point in 2012 that led me to where I am now, and I shared these with the young students from my high school so they can get a headstart on them rather than wait 10 years like I did.

1. Find a Mentor

The best way to learn anything is to find someone who’s doing it and learn from them. If there’s something you think you want to do with your life, the best way to figure it out is to work for them and figure it out.

Find that person, bring them value and I would even recommend working for them for free if you have to. You’ll learn if you really want to do that thing, and if not you didn’t waste years at college on it – and if you do, they can probably help you get your foot in the door.

Takeaway: Life experience > university.

2. Never Stop Learning

Before 2012 I didn’t place learning high on my priority list. I had gone through school, gotten those all-important letters after my name and thought that was it. University was complete and I thought I had learned all I needed.

Then in 2012 when I realized I wasn’t experiencing the life I wanted I picked up some books and educated myself on what else was possible. What were successful people doing that I should be doing? It took me 2 years of hustling on the side to begin figuring it out. I even made a commitment to read 22 books before I would allow myself to quit my job.

Takeaway: Life is about the journey, not the destination.

3. Build Good Habits

Successful people are the sum of the habits that they create for themselves. If you create a habit of going to the gym everyday you’re going to be fit, same with if you read for 30 minute everyday you are going to be smarter.

Who do you want to be? What do you need to do everyday to become that person? Start crafting the habits for success in order to level up to the person you want to become. It isn’t easy, but if you do what you’ve always done you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten.

Takeaway: How have your existing habits been working out for you so far?

4. Permission to Fail

Many unsuccessful people quit after failing something once, but really failure is only the beginning of your journey to success as long as you don’t give up.

F.A.I.L = First Attempt In Learning

Each time you fail at something you should reflect, learn how you would do it differently and then try again. You only really fail or lose when you stop trying and stop learning from mistakes.

Before BestSelf Co I’ve had 4 or 5 other business ventures, the majority of which didn’t last but I wouldn’t consider any of them failures as they each taught me something different. Same with my business partner Allen who had some of his own. Had Allen and I never gone through those past “failures” we would not have had the skills to grow BestSelf Co into a seven-figure business in 1 year.

 5. Don’t Afraid to be Different

To have an above-average life you have to do above-average things. Whether it’s getting a job you want or getting into the university you want, you need to stand out from the crowd.

At some point everyone has good grades and people start to blend together, it’s your job to show why you’re different.

I recently went to a startup pitch event in Belgium, there were between 15–20 people pitching their companies, many of them looking for investment. At some point each 2-minute pitch started to blend in with the next, so even being 10% better than another pitch didn’t matter anymore.

That was until one presenter got up and stood out from the crowd, in fact she went out of her way to embrace her difference through her presentation. Part of it was that she was the only female pitching the whole night, which she pointed out as it was this idea that was sparked part of the story of her startup but it resonated with the audience.

I remember once she finished thinking ‘Well that was memorable’, not better, just different. When it came time to vote for the best pitch at the end, the audience voted her as the winner.

Why? She was different. Her company wasn’t necessarily better than the many others, it just stood out and resonated with everyone in the room.

In school we all try to fit in, not wanting to be different and draw attention to ourselves. When I had been back at school, I was the same, to the point where I had a small but semi-successful eBay business when I was 14 that I didn’t tell any of my classmates or school friends because I didn’t want to be considered “weird” or “different”.

Now I realize that there was no reason to be afraid, as once we’re out in the real world it’s these differences that will help you stand out from the crowd. It’s the “weirdo’s” that will create a dent in the universe and change the world — so don’t be afraid to be different.

Cue the famous Apple ad:

Now let me ask you, let me know in the comments what you wish you knew when you were in high school that you know now?

In the past 18 months, BestSelf Co has gone from a 2 person operation of myself and Allen, to a full team of people. In fact, we just celebrated our third team member being with us for over a year.

Between contractors, part-time and full-time people, we have around 16 people who play some role in the team, between customer support, marketing, development, and design.

… Getting there has not been easy.

In this post I’ll cover:

1. How NOT to hire someone
2. How to define a job role
3. How to create an automated application process that only brings qualified candidates (and saves you tons of time and energy)
4. The system we used for hiring that finally worked!
5. The tools we use that make boring paperwork easy

1. How NOT to Hire Someone

We hired our first key person in March of 2016, and the second shortly after.

At the time we were two months into running our online store after having completed our Kickstarter campaign and fulfillment. It was just Allen and myself trying to do everything, our bandwidth was maxed out and we were desperate to find people to help us lighten the load. As a result, we were reactive with our hiring and didn’t set ourselves or them up for being successful in the role.

Unfortunately, these first two people we brought on are no longer with us.

It’s not you, it’s me

It wasn’t that they weren’t good people, it’s just that we didn’t do a good job with the hiring or training them. A big issue was that we hadn’t clearly defined the role or who the person was we were looking for when we posted the job.

When we were hiring we were in growth mode and needed people fast — this speed came back to hurt us later.

When you hire someone and don’t make the time to train them properly, the wheels will almost always start to come off. It’s imperative that you give people all the tools they need to succeed in their role. It’s not the fault of the person you hire for “not doing their job properly”, as the leader you did not do your job when hiring.

The biggest position we had an issue with at BestSelf Co was hiring for our operations position because we were in a situation where we didn’t know what we didn’t know. As a company with multiple international warehouses selling and shipping physical products we only had a small idea of what we needed and were still learning as we went.

We thought we were looking for someone great with creating systems who was highly organized. However, there’s a whole other set of skills this person needed which included experience with handling a physical product business, inventory and everything that goes along with that. We kept trying to hire entrepreneurs we knew when the position required someone with an experience in logistics.

This key aspect was what we were missing with the first two hires for our Operations role. One of my regrets from 2016 (you can read in my annual review was this issue with hiring.)

Hire Slow. Fire Fast.

A book that both Allen and I read before hiring again was ‘Who: The Method For Hiring’, I would highly recommend to anyone trying to grow a team. It walked us through how to find and interview key candidates. Between that and Noah Kagan Hiring Process we’ve brought on 7 key people since going through this hiring process who have been nothing short of incredible.

Here’s what the process looks like:

Since applying this methodology to our hiring process we’ve built an amazing team. Here are the core members (note: we have multiple contractors for separate roles):

Our Hiring Process

Now you see the dangers of hiring too quickly or hiring the wrong people I want to share with you the process we use to bring people onto our team.

1. Defining the job

The first step is to define for yourself what exactly you are looking for. Who would be the perfect candidate for this role? The first failure point when hiring is not being crystal clear about what you really want the person you hire to accomplish.

Some questions you should be asking:

• What day-to-day tasks will they do?
• What experience would you like them to have?
• What programs or skills must they have to be successful?
• What does success look like for them?
• How many hours do you expect them to work?
• What personality type would fit well with your internal culture?
• What personality type would match this role? (Hint: an introvert would not fit in a sales role longterm)
• What can you offer them?

2. Create the job posting

You don’t need to get fancy with your job posting, we used a simple google doc to lay out exactly who we’re looking for. We even created a template to make it faster for each new hire as many of the company information stays the same.

Contents of job posting:

1. Fun opening
2. Background on our company
3. What this new hire will need to do
4. Skills/Software knowledge they need
5. Who they need to be (characteristics you’re looking for)
6. Perks you offer
7. Details of what they need to do to apply

3. Create application process

The goal of the application process is to collect as many qualified people as possible. Don’t worry about having to go through a ton of applicants, there’s a way to automate your process to quickly filter out anyone who can’t follow basic instructions – this will save you a TON of time weeding out people that are a bad fit.

Create the instructions to apply

Here’s an example of ours:

Set up a canned response

This is for those who apply and get through to the next round of the hiring process. If you want to know more about Canned Responses, check out this tutorial.
Here’s what our canned response looks like:

Create filters for your emails

You’ll want to create filters within your email to automatically sort through the applications. This way you can have the people that followed your instructions sent through to the next stage and the rest will be filtered out. This stage is to get rid of people with bad attention to detail such as forgetting to include a link you asked for. For more info on creating filters, check here.

Here’s an example of what our filters look like:

Create a questionnaire form

The link to this questionnaire form will be in the canned response that those who get through stage 1 receive. This form can be created in Google forms, however, we like Typeform because they are sexy AF.

For the questionnaire content, the point of the survey is to get some insights into how the person thinks so ask questions that will make people give extensive answers and real-life scenarios. You should customize the questions depending on the job the person is applying for. For example, a marketing assistant would be given different questions than someone applying for a design position.

Here’s an example of a questionnaire we sent out for a ‘Product Ninja’ position. We ended up hiring 2 people from here!

Test the application process

Make sure your automation for the application process is all working prior to posting the job anywhere, this way you’ll know nothings broken — otherwise some bad applicants may filter in, or even worse, some great applicants may fall through the cracks.

5. Generate a flow of applicants

Now you want to get as many eyes on your job posting as possible so you can collect as many qualified applicants as possible. We used Ziprecruiter to post job ads on a ton of different sites, it’s super easy and takes a lot of the manual work out of the process. Other sources for generating a flow of great applicants are:

• Referrals from business network
• Referrals from personal network
• Hire external recruiter
• Your customer list (we found 2 people from here!)

Since we have a pretty extensive personal network of people that know good people we posted on our personal Facebook pages and offered between a $500 and $1000 referral if someone sent a candidate our way that we ended up hiring.

Here was one of those such posts:

Why the picture? We want as many people to see the post as possible, to do this we wanted to make it more interesting and fun (also Facebook algorithm tends to like pictures).

No lie, I’ve been 2–3 versions of this picture for each time we’ve posted, see:

6. Review Applicants

Once you start collecting applicants you can go into the survey and review the answers, from here you can score them on a 1-5 scale based on what you thought. At this point you want to set up quick 15 minute interviews with all the 5’s (and the 4’s if you feel like it makes sense). For positions like designers, I weigh their portfolio above their answers to our questionnaire so you can use your own judgement with this.

7. Interview Applicants

The interviewing is a four-part process, we got it from ‘Who: The Method For Hiring’ which I would highly recommend you pick up. This process can go fast or slowly, for some we’ve hired it’s been over the course of several months and for

The 4-Part interviewing process can go fast or slowly, for some we’ve hired it’s been over the course of several months and for others it went much quicker. The point is to ensure you vet and find the right person because a bad hire will cost you in the long run.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. The screening interview
2. The Who interview
3. The focused interview
4. The reference interview

For the initial screening interview here’s the 4 questions we would ask:

1. What are your career goals?
2. What are you really good at or interested in doing professionally?
3. What are you not good at or not interested in doing professionally?
4. Who were you last 5 bosses and how will they each rate your performance on a 1-10 scale when we talk to them?

I’m not going to go into outlining each part in detail, just pick up this book where they’ll outline the purpose and outcome for each as well as provide the questions.

8. Hire someone

Tools we use to make hiring easy:

Gusto – For payroll and filing appropriate taxes

Track1099 – For contractors, ensuring you have the paperwork you need at the end of the year

Bill.com – For automating ACH Payments and invoice payments easy

Hope you found this useful and can use it for growing your team!

I made it another year! This will be my 4th annual review, and you can read 2016, 2015 and 2014 if you’re curious. I do these as a way to stop, process and reflect the previous year to figure out what went well, what didn’t and how best to move forward in 2018.

Disclaimer: I write reviews mainly for myself to learn from, to show people what’s possible in a year and also to hopefully help people learn from my mistakes.

Spoiler alert: 2017 was the hardest year of my life

This review will probably be my most in-depth and revealing as it was a hectic year. In fact, typically I discuss the things that went well before what didn’t go well… but much of the year was shaped by the unexpected.

This post is divided into sections:

• Travel
• What didn’t go as planned in 2017?
• What went well in 2017?
• My Hit List (favorite books, movies, products, etc.)
• Goals from 2017 review
• Big Learnings
• What’s my plan for 2018?

Travel:

2017 was very busy on the travel front, I calculated between business and personal travel I was away from home for 140 days last year, approximately 36% of my whole year!

That was over double what I traveled in 2016!

I visited 3 new countries, Australia, Fiji, Thailand.

• Australia — Jan 2017 (10 days)
• Palm Beach, FL — Jan 2017 (7 days)
• Poconos, PA — Feb 2017 (3 days)
• Powder Mountain, UT — March 2017 (6 days)
• Europe trip — April 2017 (17 days)
  • Ireland (10 days)
  • Belgium (3 days)
  • Barcelona (4 days)
• FiDi, NY – May/June 2017 (19 days)
• Austin, TX — June 2017 ~ DC Talk (5 days)
• Boulder, CO — July 2017 (5 days)
• Ireland— July 2017 (10 days)
• Austin, TX — August 2017 (4 days)
• Nashville, TN — August 2017 (4 days)
• Boulder, CO — August 2017 (5 days)
• Denver, CO — August 2017 (7 Days)
• Fiji — Sept 2017 (9 days)
• Austin, TX  — Sept 2017 (4 days)
• Key West, FL  — Oct 2017 (5 days)
• Austin, TX — Dec 2017 (4 days)
• Thailand — Dec 2017 (16 days)

What didn’t go as planned:

2017 was a rollercoaster year, experiencing high-highs to low-lows, from one day to the next.

A perfect anecdote for this was the day I’d found out we’d won the Build a Bigger Business competition.

It was the 9th of August, and I was having coffee with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while, the conversation was emotional for me as we discussed my recent breakup (more on that shortly). Right then my phone started ringing, and the screen showed it was a caller from Canada. Typically I’d let calls go to voicemail, but I don’t get many calls from Canada, so I picked up.

It was Harley Finklestein, COO of Shopify, telling me that we’d won the contest and would be going to Fiji next month. I went quickly from tears of sadness to ecstatic!

Like I said, from low lows to high highs.

Divorce

After 7.5 years together (4 of them married), my husband Keith and I separated, and have since gotten divorced.

As you might imagine, this was a significant drain on my emotional and mental wellbeing. Despite it being reasonably amicable (as far as what I’d believe divorce typically goes), it was the most challenging experience of my life.

At first, I was in denial, pretending everything was normal because I didn’t want to be perceived as a failure (because that’s how I felt.)

It took a while for it to sink in as I was traveling a lot around the time of the breakup. I did this as when I was away I could easily compartmentalize everything, essentially making my problems ‘out of sight, out of mind’. It was particularly when I was back in New York that I’d have to face everything, which I did between all of my trips. In retrospect, it wasn’t a smart way to handle it as I’d lose any progress I’d make with every trip and felt like I was starting over when I got back.

I don’t think I understood the grieving process until I was deep in it.

When I was home in New York, everything would sink in, and I fell into a mild depression — there were many days where I didn’t even want to get out of bed. It was a considerable burden personally and also slipped into my professional life as I felt unable to perform at the same level, both for myself or my team. I wasn’t able to be creative, and it felt like all my energy was being used for merely maintaining.

I realized after sharing experiences with others who’ve been through it that it’s all part of the grieving process, and the only way out is through it.

Don’t judge your blooper reel by everyone else’s highlight reel

The irony was that if you were to judge by social media my life looked like it was beyond incredible. It only occurred to me whenever I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in a while, and they said “You’re doing amazing!” how warped social media was.That’s when the saying, “Don’t judge your blooper reel by everyone else’s highlight reel” became real for me.

Burn Out

After five years of entrepreneurship, I finally hit burn out.

Between the travel, working and my personal life in disarray I ended the year feeling mentally and physically exhausted. In fact, I was at a conference in Austin in December when I had to fly home a day early due to feeling mentally wrecked. I didn’t feel like I could show up another day and put on the same facade.

The advantages of running a remote team were that I could work from anywhere. The disadvantage was that I had done just that, worked from everywhere and never felt present as my mind was always thinking about work — for five years.

As the holidays approached I had people asking me what my plans were now that I was “alone”. As it was my first holiday season single, I wanted to skip the family stuff and go away on my own to regroup and refresh. So I did.

I booked a solo retreat in Thailand, and it was the best present I’ve ever given myself.

What went well:

1. Business growth + Team

We grew our team significantly over the past year. We went from a 6 person team at the beginning of 2017 to 13 people strong by the end of the year!

Growing the team has been the most challenging yet rewarding thing I did in 2017. I love investing in our people and seeing them grow as people as we simultaneously grow the business. I can’t wait to do more of it this year!

We completed two team retreats where we bring everyone together for team-building, planning, and fun.

We implemented a reading program.

Our mission is to help people become their Best Self, and that starts with creating a company culture that allows for the same personal development. We got this idea from our friend Jeff of World Wide Cyclery who does it with his team. 

2. Shopify Build a BIGGER Business 2017

In 2016 we won the Build a Business Competition, I wrote about the experience here.

Then in 2017 Shopify announced a new competition, the Build a BIGGER Business competition with Tony Robbins, which is for not new businesses but existing businesses that have scaled and grown.

We ended up winning the second year in a row (the only company to ever do that!). As part of the prize, we got to ring the NYSE opening bell again! So we got to experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity twice!

As part of the prize we got a 3 day New York experience, private jet flight, a trip to Fiji to stay at Tony Robbin’s private resort for a week and then mentorship from Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, Daymond John, Marie Forleo, Tobi Lütke, Jon Steinberg, Debbie Sterling, Harley Finklestein and Tom Farley.

3. New apartment + new hobbies

At 30 years old I’d never lived by myself before, I’d gone from flatmates to living with Keith so living alone was an adjustment.

I moved into my new apartment in Long Island City (LIC) in June 2017. LIC is one stop from Manhattan (about 5 minutes) and is by the water with great views of Manhattan. It’s a two bedroom apartment with one bedroom being used as a home office.

My first guests and dear friends, Katya and Roel of Space Refinery, helped me making the place feel more like home. This is what we did in a day:

I moved across the street from a climbing gym which I joined shortly after moving and have been going an average of 2 times a week since September. It’s a great workout and a great spot to meet people outside of my usual circle.

4. Retreat in Thailand

When I hit burn out, I booked myself a personal retreat in Thailand.

I set an out of office for my email (first time ever!), I deleted Facebook, Twitter, News, Email from my phone and brought only fiction or mindset books with me. I didn’t want to think about work, so I forbid myself from reading any business books.

It was the first time in 5 years since I got into entrepreneurship that I 100% unplugged from work and felt truly relaxed. I used the time to focus on myself and even bought some artist materials to get back to being creative again. This was a quick watercolor on the beach and was the most relaxing 30 mins I’d had in years:

I used the time in Thailand to do a complete detox. I completed an 8 day cleanse, which meant not eating and giving my body a much-needed rest to repair itself. I took a month off drinking and followed a vegetarian diet — it was the most healthy holiday I’ve ever had and as I said, the best gift I could have given myself after the year I had.

I met a lovely bunch of people who were also traveling solo, and we enjoyed a lovely Christmas Day together, on the beach, in the water and eating delicious, healthy food. It was incredible.

My Hit List:

A collection of my favorite “stuff” from the year, in no particular order.

Best Books:

• A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle
• The Four Agreements – Miguel Ruiz
• Principles – Ray Dalio
• How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big – Scott Adams
• Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

Best TV Shows:

• The Handmaids Tale
• Game of Thrones
• Black Mirror
• Big Little Lies
• Ozarks

Best Movies:

• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Wind River
• Lady Bird
• Wonder
• Icarus

Best Products:

1. SONOS
My SONOS speakers were my Christmas gift to myself – they are incredible. I first experienced them when I traveled to Belgium last year, and my friends had them all over their apartment.

I picked up speakers for my office, my bedroom, bathroom and the living room. It’s sick!

2. Briggs & Riley Carry On
I’d never invested in great luggage before and always felt like I’d arrive, and everything would be a mess. Then my friend showed me her luggage and wouldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was. When she showed me the space to hang clothes, that it was expandable, separate sections… I was convinced.

I love this bag – I’ve had this luggage for only six months, and it’s been well worth it. The best part is how much you can carry and still have it as a carry-on.

3. 2017 iMac 4.2ghz 64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

Taking advice from my friend Bryan who said:

“If you were a lumberjack, would you buy the cheapest axe they make? No. You’d buy the best, take care of it and keep it sharp. Same goes for your computer. Don’t go cheap here. It is your tool.”

I upgraded to a desktop computer this year (still use a laptop when I travel), was a hefty investment but not one regret.

4. Anker PowerCore 10000 Portable Charger

I barely leave the house without this thing, it’s fantastic. If you have an iPhone you know how quickly those batteries die – this charger will keep your fuel up. Highly recommend.

5. Gravity Blanket

I’m a serial early-adopter for cool ideas, and also always see products that improve my life as an investment — so I preordered this sometime last year from only a Facebook ad. I received it a few weeks ago, and I’m digging it.

My heat was broken when I returned from Thailand (when it was 6°F outside), and I think this blanket saved me.

Goals from 2017 Review:

When I review my goals for 2017 that I wrote in last years post I see I was woefully off target in some of them. Although in all fairness, when I wrote my goals for 2017 I hadn’t expected the turbulence in my personal life so I won’t be too hard on myself.

Work:

1. $X million revenue goal
2. 2 Retreats with the team
3. Speak at 3 events

Workout:

1. 3 x workouts a week
2. 2 x Obstacle courses/or races (didn’t do any this year)

Personal:

1. Write a fiction book
2. Get my driving license
3. Plan a weekend trip away every quarter  (need to specify ‘relaxing weekend away’ for next time)

My 2017 work goals were on track. However, my personal and workout goals took the backburner. I would usually be embarrassed by publicly missing my goals, however considering the year I had I feel like I had a good reason for taking a different path. This year I’ll be prioritizing my personal and health goals.

I’ll be getting my license in Q1 this year so I’m not making it a goal, it’s just happening!

Big Learnings:

1. Schedule time for creativity & new things

Less time on travel and consuming content, more time on creation!

Whether it was design or fun experiments, I used to be much more creative than I have been the past 18 months. As I’ve gotten caught up in business and entrepreneurship, this has taken a backseat and has caused me to not enjoy life or work as much. It only occurred to me when I was in Thailand and was painting and sketching for fun. There was no agenda for myself or for anyone else; it was just for me.

2018 = Create more than I consume

2. Relentless Focus & saying NO

I have a hard time saying no to people that ask for my time, especially as I have a tendency to want to help people — so if I get asked to meet for lunch or coffee, I often say yes. This leaves me feeling stretched thin as I’m prioritizing other people’s agenda over my own.

I’ve realized that the people who want to meet often do so because they appreciate the cool stuff I’ve done, therefore if I stop doing the focused work that got me here, then I am no longer the same person that they wanted to meet in the first place.

2018 = Relentless focus on what I want to do, achieve, have.

3. Less Travel, More Work

This goes along with relentless focus. Travel throws me off my routine, and the start/stopping is disruptive to my work, my team and life. I’m going to be much more picky about what events I choose to go to in 2018, so I can hit every milestone I’m aiming for this year. It’s also important that I scale the creative side of the BestSelf Co team so that it’s not dependent on me, that was a big issue with the travel this year.

My goals for 2018:

Work:

1. Scale the product team to work without me
2. Speak at five events
3. Visit China – factory visit & Canton Fair

Health:

1. Bike 1000 miles
2. 3 x Obstacle courses/or races (signed up for one so far)
3. Follow vegetarian diet 4 days per week. Limit alcohol to a maximum of 3 times per week (typ 1-2).

Personal:

1. Do something creative 2X Weekly (drawing, painting, writing)
2. Write and publish a short story
3. Unplug for 2 weeks during the year and explore a new place

Comment below and tell me what a goal or commitment you’re making in 2018 – I want to know!

Hiring the right people is hard, as detailed in my struggles when building our team.

Once you hire the work isn’t over as now you need to create or breed a culture that supports the people so they can do their best work.

Creating a remote culture is even harder as there’s a lack of an everyday tangible connection to the team.

As co-founder of BestSelf Co, a young bootstrapped company we knew that we weren’t going to be able to contend with other big companies on salaries, benefits or cool office space when we were building out our team.

Given this, how do you motivate people to do their best work?

You make work more than just collecting a paycheck.

Feeling aligned with a company’s values, mission and philosophy is one of the top reasons employees love where they work. It’s also a primary reason that consumers feel they have a relationship with brands.

Given that I’ve never worked at a remote company, nor at a company with a great culture, it was difficult to understand what that could even look like so I started doing some research.

A company famous for their company culture is Zappos. I would highly recommend reading ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose’ by Tony Hsieh which had a big impact when creating ours at BestSelf Co.

I learned that one of the first steps to creating a cohesive culture within your team is to first define what your core values are. However, knowing we should do it and actually taking the time to do it are two different things.

After winning the Shopify Build a BIGGER Business competition in 2017 we were given the opportunity to spend time in Fiji with Joe Gebbia in, co-founder of AirBnB. Our big takeaway from our time with him was to sit down and define our core values — before we left the island.

It’s easy as a founder to push things like this to the side when you’re growing because it doesn’t seem like a high priority. However, had we done this process earlier we’d have saved ourselves a lot of heartache, specifically with our hiring process.

Some examples of companies with core values:

All these companies have very clear and defined core values.

Our process

When Allen and I sat down to define our core values we shared our personal values that we knew had been crucial when starting and growing the company thus far.

Then we looked to our team to see what core ideas and methodologies had already been floating around.

When Zappos created their core values in 2005 they asked their team to share their own personal values, which they combined and compared against the team. This is the email they sent out:

Our team was 8–10 people whenever we sat down to define our core values. While we didn’t follow the same structure as Zappos with having them share their values, we instead took the key employees (the one’s we’d love to clone) and defined the values that made them great.

This exercise was challenging in that after completing it we could see a few team members that did not share our core values, which made for some hard choices to be made.

Had we completed this exercise earlier and known our core values it would have been much more clear who was the right fit (and who wasn’t) during the hiring process.

After some massaging and consideration, here’s what our core values looks like now:

1. Default to Action

Make decisions, take initiative and solve problems. A little less conversation, a little more action.

Allen and I have always defaulted to action. It’s the reason we initially became accountability partners, and why I asked him to be my partner on our first Amazon business — because I knew I could count on him to get shit done.

2. Assume Positive Intent

We give each other the benefit of the doubt always whether it’s a teammate, vendor or a customer. Always assume that people are doing the best with what they’ve got.

We give people the benefit of the doubt at all times. We believe the world would be a much kinder place if more people did this as when we assume negative intent we get angry and frustrated. By assuming the opposite automatically we can be better listeners and be more effective in our communication. With a remote team, this is especially important.

3. Absolute Ownership

Everyone has a stake in the success of the company and should be passionate about growth opportunities. Act like owners.

I got this concept from ‘Extreme Ownership’ by Jocko Willink, a former Navy SEAL who shares the idea that the team believes in the “why,” understands the “why,” and then pursues the “what.”

This begins at the top with the leader but flows down to the rest of the team who should “own it all.”

4. Thrive in Discomfort

We believe the status quo is soul-sucking. We focus on continuous learning and personal development so we’re better than yesterday but not as good as tomorrow.

All growth comes from discomfort, and since I’ve made it a point to step outside my comfort zone my life has changed for the better.

We want our team to constantly work on improving themselves while working with us so they also can become their Best Self. We do this through investing in them through conferences, an internal reading program and setting an example for them of stepping outside our comfort zone.

For example, I signed up for a Spartan race with 5 days notice this month and signed up for a 40-mile bike race earlier this year (before even owning a bike) to force myself outside of my comfort zone.

5. Best is our standard

Constantly work to raise your standards in every area of life and the universe will meet you there.

We believe that how you do anything is how you do everything and whether it’s in your personal life or within BestSelf Co we always aim to do our best. By doing our best we’ll consistently raise our standards and others will raise theirs to meet us.

Weekly implementation:

To ensure the Core Values are not just meaningless statements that we created once and never look back on we have established weekly accountability.

Each week we do a round robin and ask the team to choose one team member and an action they completed in the past week that demonstrates one of our core values.

At our BestSelf Unlocked event, we did a short segment on core values in which we had our team present one core value in pairs, and what each meant to them.

Share your values!

Does your company have a set of core values established? If so, how were they created and implemented on?

I’d love to hear all your thoughts in the comments!

Success and economic growth lies not in good products or services but in the quality of the experience you provide.

I recently delivered at Keynote at Seva (formerly Convertkit) Craft and Commerce conference about starting a growing and global brand through crafting a Product Experience.

I believe we’re at a point in history where selling experiences have eclipsed the creation of products.

Had an absolute blast at Craft and Commerce this weekend. It was a privilege to be asked to speak on the same stage as @caseyneistat @patflynn @nathanbarry @artofvisuals @paleochef and so many incredible people. Loved connecting with old friends and new ❤️ – I created this talk very recently around how to create experiences using a 3 step framework. It was my first time doing it and I really enjoyed sharing some of the weird stuff I’ve been fascinated by this past few years. . Thanks you for having me @convertkit /Seva! #craftcommerce #entrepreneur #craftandcommerce

A post shared by Cathryn lavery (@cathryn_lavery) on Jul 2, 2018 at 5:18pm PDT

Back when I was in architecture school I did my masters thesis on experiential architecture — a study on how spaces can make you feel differently. As I’ve transitioned into entrepreneurship, I’ve found myself fascinated with how to create experiences and transformations through product. In this post I’ll be sharing the framework I use when designing an experience, — whether you sell physical products, services or digital products, your goal should not be to only sell products — but to create an experience for your customers.

The success of any product lies not solely on usability, but in its meaning in the lives of its users.

We launched BestSelf Co in 2015 with a single product on Kickstarter, the SELF Journal.

Since then we’ve grown from an idea to remote team shipping products globally, we won the Shopify Build a Business competition in 2016 and went on to win the Shopify Build a BIGGER business competition in 2017.

All of this started with us figuring out how to create an experience for our customers.

What is an Experience?

“The awareness of the psychological effects elicited by the interaction with a product, including the degree to which our senses are stimulated, the meanings and values we attach to the product, and the feelings and emotions that are elicited” – Schifferstein and Hekkert, 2008

An experience is the customer journey from beginning to end, from the physical activities to the emotions felt.

There’s a vast gap between selling a commodity and selling an experience, but the riches lie in filling this gap.

Think about Starbucks and how they took a commodity like coffee and created an experience around it.

When Howard Schultz created Starbucks, his goal was to create a unique experience to separate themselves from other coffee shops.

It was to be the third place, between home and work. A place that provides comfortable chairs, chill music, the internet — and coffee.

From the beginning he wanted it to feel like a continental coffeehouse.

When places like Dunkin Donuts used the term Small, Medium and Large, Starbucks had Tall, Grande, and Venti as well as well as fancy sounding drinks like Caffè Americano, Caffè Misto, and Macchiato.

When Starbucks made the experience feel different to us, we stopped using the prices at chains like Dunkin’ Donuts as an anchor, but instead were open to the new anchor that Starbucks created.

This meant they could charge more than other places serving just coffee.

I mean think about it, how much fancier you feel ordering a grande americano than a medium coffee? For a lot of people, enough to pay an extra dollar at least.

That, to a great extent, is the genesis of how Starbucks rose to the top and distinguished itself — by creating its own experience.

55% of consumers would pay more for a better experience. – Defaqto Research, 2011

The experience economy has and will continue to change the way we design and deliver products.

Then there’s Apple…

Apple is probably one of the most famous companies for its product experience — because, for them, nothing is too small to be considered. A company where simple actions are created to include moments of delight.

(A small example would be the simple act of emptying your trash on a Mac as compared to a Windows. If you’ve done either you know it feels different.)

Then there’s the physical aspect of their products and the packaging.

You know that feeling when you purchase a new Apple product?

The unboxing experience is second to none.

In fact, many of us (me included) have a hard time disposing of the boxes afterward and so our closets look a little like this:

So now I know what you might be thinking, Apple sells cool products and has an almost unlimited budget which makes the experience more accessible to create.

But what about Harry’s?

They sell razors, AKA the most boring thing in the world.

Like, imagine meeting someone at a party and them saying “I work for a razor company” you’d be like cool (read: boring) and make an exit to refill your drink.

But someone says they work for Harry’s? You would probably ask a million questions about this awesome brand (maybe including how you can also get a job there.)

— this is the result of creating an experience.

…So how do we go about creating an experience?

The 3 Acts of Product Experience

Creating experience should be considered in the same way you write a play. It is a three-part act with a beginning, a middle and an end.

1. Beginning: Visceral

This is your immediate natural reaction to the product, the form, the design, feel, texture, color.

When you see a product or visit a website you have a visceral reaction to it, this is natural and not something you can typically control.

Examples:

• Allure of color texture
• User interface design
• Website design & imagery
• Senses; how can you engage them?

2. Middle: Behavioral

This is the more cut and dry part, consider visceral as the form, the behavioral as the function.

What is your physical response to it?
How do you act?
Do you understand it? Is it functional?
Does it satisfy your needs?

Examples:

• User experience — is it clear what action should be taken?
• Ease of use — do you need a manual to turn it on?
• Support — is it needed?

3. End: Reflective

The more ‘woo woo’ area of the experience, but what really makes it unique.

How did it engage your associations and memories?
Did it trigger feelings of surprise, delight, and trust?
Can you tell a story around it?
Does it appeal to your self-image?

Examples:

• Memory of experience
• Emotional associations
• Self-expression

What we did:

When we started BestSelf Co, we knew that customer experience was key for our success and so we mapped the customer journey in detail for each of these three parts. We laid out both how we wanted people to feel at each step and how to make ourselves unique.

We knew the key was not in creating something brand new, but creating an experience that felt new.

ACT I – VISCERAL

Positioning:

Not a day planner – a 13-week framework to achieve your goal.

Like Starbucks separates themselves with using grande rather than medium, we would use the term goal framework rather than day planner to create a new anchor in your mind.

We believed that people would place more importance on achieving a goal than planning their day — this would make them more invested in the outcome.

Packaging

When designing the SELF Journal, we knew we wanted to create a similar experience to Apple from the moment our product arrived at a customers door to opening the package.

Some questions we asked:

• How can we build anticipation before the SELF Journal box is opened?
• How do we create an experience to remember?
• Can we tell a story through the packaging?

Our mission was to design a beautiful box that people would keep, but we didn’t want it stored in the back of a closet somewhere gathering dust, it should still serve a purpose.

The SELF Journal chronicles your goals and serves as a physical representation of your achievements. These goals should be celebrated and put on display, which is why we designed the box the way we did.

We even got down to the packaging tape on the outside box.

We didn’t have the budget for a custom box when we started; this is a great way to create a unique branded experience with a low budget.

Funny story we’ve had a customer tell us they saw a box in their apartment building that someone else ordered with this tape and ended up checking up the site and buying from us.

ACT II – BEHAVIORAL

It was important to us that it was clear how to be successful with this product — it’s important to ensure your customer or client knows what success looks like.

To do this we knew that we had to create content and resources to help people find success with the tool so that they would continue to come back to us.

Some things we did:

Quickstart Guides

Created quick-start guides on how to complete journal based on frequently asked questions we received.

Community

Built up a community of people who are trying to achieve their goals through the SELF Journal. It is an extremely engaged community and has become an incredible resource for us for customer interactions, feedback, and ideas for future products.

It’s currently at over 31,000 members!

ACT III – REFLECTIVE

The reflective part of the journey came from a culmination of the steps we took during visceral and the behavioral stages that left people feeling generally delighted and knowing what they needed to do next.

It appealed to their self image of feeling motivated as they were working towards something bigger. To motivate people further we worked to create engaging challenges to keep them accountable and moving forward.

Challenges

We knew how important it was to have our customers create a habit of completing the journal each day, so we created a challenge to encourage them.

The challenge became essentially like a rebate system, and if they used the product every day for 30 days, we would give them a $10 Amazon gift card.

To be eligible, they would take a picture of their journal and either tag us on social media or put it in the group.

Outcome:

• Incredible group engagement
• Incentivized habit creation
• TONS of user-generated content for us

Physical Vs Digital — Bridging the gap

If you sell digital products or intangible services, consider how you can create a physical connection with an otherwise intangible product.

People’s perception of value is much greater when they have something in their hands which they can hold.

A great example of someone doing this well was Appsumo. A few years ago I bought an online course from them in 2013, and about a week after my purchase I received a small Moleskine notebook in the mail.

It was simple, yet incredible and memorable — and cost them less than $10.

They created a physical connection to an otherwise intangible digital product and in doing so engaged me after the sale.

Now’s the time to take action. You know the different elements that make up an experience — now you need to take the knowledge and craft it into your own journey.

Download the Product Experience Template: Click here to Download your Bonus

Questions to provoke thought:

• How can you build anticipation before your product/service is delivered?
• How do you want the person to feel buying/opening it?
• How do you create an experience to remember?
• What does the initial visceral reaction look like?
• For physical products, can you tell a story through the packaging?
• For digital products, is there a way to bridge the gap between digital and physical to give customers a tangible feeling?
• What does success look like with your product and how can you ensure that happens?
• Does your customer know what the success of your product or service looks like?
• What are fun ways to drive engagement?

How to Create Your Own Product Experience

Creating an experience for your customers will produce great results, because it will separate you from your competition, promote customer loyalty and solify your brand.

My recommendation:

1. Storyboard your existing customer journey
2. Categorize the journey into visceral, behavioral and reflective
3. Spot the gaps of where you’re not taking advantage of the opportunity to stand out.

When you do, share the results with me. I’d love to see how a few small tweaks affect your business.

Comment below with some people or companies you’ve had an incredible experience with, I’m looking for more examples for the case study I’m working on. 

Every year for the past 4 years I've done an annual review where I reflect on my year.

In business it's typical to do an end of year review, or an annual shareholders meeting where you reflect on your year to assess where you’re at.

The only way to improve is to know past behavior, record what happened and know your next steps.

I believe we should have a structure to do this for our personal lives… so I'm sharing my personal system today:

My first video I'm sharing my annual review system which is the questions I ask at the end of every year to figure out:

• What went well
• What sucked
• Relationships (who have I been spending time with?)
• Experiences (is my bucket list getting smaller)
• Favorites

Download your worksheet here

If you've gotten to the end of another year feeling like you ran out of time but thinking ‘2019 year will be different’. I think this exercise is for you.

“If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten” — Tony Robbins

1. Block off 60 mins of your time in your calendar
2. Plan the time/place you’re going to do this (I recommend somewhere outside your usual working space so you don’t get distracted)
3. Turn off your phone and focus

It’s the 5th year of doing this Annual Review for myself. If you haven’t done this or don’t know where to start I shared my structure here.

If you’re interested you can read my past reviews, 2014, 2015 2016 and 2017.

What went well

1. New Friendships

Upon reflection, I realize 2018 was the year of creating my own independent life, something I started in 2017 after my divorce but developed more last year.

I met a crew that would become my closest friends, we started climbing together and friendships grew from there. James & Cara moved into my apartment building so life pretty much became like a Friends episode.

Takeaway: Make more friends outside entrepreneurship circles

2. Moving to Austin in November 2018

Left NYC and moved to Austin, Texas. It’s only been a few months but I love it. I was feeling stagnant and now I feel much more creative, probably due to a more quiet environment and having more space / less clutter.

Takeaway: Change your environment, change your life!

3. Speaking

My goal for 2018 was to speak at 3 events last year and I spoke at 5!

Between Brand Builder Summit, Content & Commerce (Convertkit conference) and several other smaller events last year I surpassed my goal.

This helped me develop my storytelling and public speaking skills; something I plan to work on more in 2019 as I learn to become more comfortable on stage.

4. Love & Women’s March

I met my girlfriend Emily right before 2018 Women’s March in NYC, we found a connection over painting signs. We met, fell in love… long story short; as of Dec 1st we now live together in Austin!

The story behind the sign was that last year my friend and I were trying to come up with ideas of what to put on the sign for the march a few days later, but we were concerned that within just a few days the news would be redundant… because hello crazy news cycle 2018. Alas, that became the idea behind the sign, very meta.

My goal was to create something witty/funny that would make people smile and maybe even make it onto one of those blogs of the best signs… and lo and behold, I got into the New Yorker!

5. Getting a Driving License & Tesla

Once I moved out of New York City I knew I'd have to learn how to drive and get a car. At 32 this was the biggest purchase I ever made… and as of January 8th I have a drivers license (which was one of my 2018 goals). The only reason I purchased it prior to having a license is because of the $7,500 tax credit that was going to expire at the end of the year, which was great motivation to get my drivers license ASAP.

6. China Trip — Canton Fair & Factory visit

One of my goals this year was to attend the Canton fair in China and also visit our factory in ShenZen. I did this in April of this year and it was an incredible experience, not only as an entrepreneur but having never been to Asia before, travelling alone in a place that was so culturally different was an entirely new experience and definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone.

Best Decisions:

1. Moving to Austin
2. Hiring a Product Manager
3. Hiring an Executive Assistant
4. Coming out to the world 

What didn’t go well

1. Reactive proactive

My life during May – July was very reactive and stressful in both my personal and work life. With BestSelf Co we hit some cash flow issues during this time due to incorrect inventory forecasting, a bloated team and some other bad internal decisions we’d made.

During this time I also experienced some turbulence in personal relationships which made me more reactive than proactive and resulted in me causing hurt to people I cared about.

Takeaway: Take time for thought and reflection before reacting and regretting later.

2. Lay Offs

We ended up reducing a few team members for cashflow reasons and also we’d gotten bloated. Suddenly projects that we used to do with less people were turning into longer projects that were less efficient and less successful. Letting team members go was one of the most difficult things we’d done to date, however it was definitely the best move for the team and the business.

3. Co-Founder Tension

Business partnership is much like a marriage, and some years can be harder than others — especially when personal circumstances change for either partner. This has been the case for myself and Allen throughout some of 2017 and 2018. Communication issues between us suffered in 2017 when I was going through my divorce and mentally was checked out while I dealt with that. Then in 2018 after having his first baby Allen did the same thing and I struggled with doing the day-to-day for both of us. This led to some tension between us as the weight shifted over time.

It came to a conclusion at the beginning of 2019 when we addressed these issues and got on the same page regarding responsibilities moving forward. We also have a developmental coach (I call him a marriage counsellor for founders) that helped us get there — shoutout to Reggie!

4. Broken Collarbone

A week after moving to Austin, TX from NYC I had signed up for SumoRide, a 50M charity bike ride put together by my friend Noah Kagan. A short 10 miles into the ride I came off my bike and broke my collarbone — not fun.

Travel

This year I made an effort not to over-exert myself with travel, realizing from 2017 that too many back-to-back conferences or trips left me feeling depleted. That helped me understand my limits this year so I didn't have that.

Jan — Waterloo / Toronto / Quebec — Shopify Plus talk & wedding
April — China
April — Japan
June — Craft & Commerce, Convertkit Conference in Boise Idaho
July — Los Angeles CA
Aug — Austin, Brand Builder Summit
Sept — Salt Lake City x 2 (Mastermind Talks & Baby Bathwater) & Austin
Nov — Austin move, Indiana for Thanksgiving & 2 visits to NYC (post-Austin move)
Dec — Home to Belfast for 2 weeks!

My Faves of the Year!

Best books

• American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road — Nick Bilton
• The Obstacle is the Way — (reread) Ryan Holiday
• Atomic Habits – James Clear
• Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
• Conspiracy – Ryan Holiday
• 12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Manson

Best purchases

• DJI Spark Drone
• Fancy barista espresso machine (paid itself off within 2 months)
• Tesla
• Herman Miller Eames lounge chair
• Ring Wi-Fi Enabled Video Doorbell
• Apple Watch

Favorite Tools

• Notion: Incredible tool for managing life & business (video coming soon!)
• Brain.Fm: Great music for focused work
• Superhuman: Great for managing email
• Loom: For video & screen recording
• Bear: Great app for writing; seamlessly syncs with iPad, phone and laptop
• Typeform: Surveys/questionnaires that looks good
• Ludus: Creativity for Slides

2019 System for Setting Goals:

I shared my system for how I take my big goals and create a system to achieve them. Check it out here:

2019 Goals:

Work:
– 10,000 subscribers on LittleMight
– Grow BestSelf Co by 40% (Revenue X)

Health:
– Bike 1100 Miles (track on Strava)
– 4 Races (1 per quarter)

Life:
– 1 Weekend unplugged per quarter
– Speak at 6 events
– Learn to play the Piano

Success System:

I use the 13-Week roadmap to create a system for myself wherein I break down my goals into daily / weekly and monthly systems to achieve my goals. Goals are the result of consistent action over time.

Daily Habits:

• Write 500 Words — 7X
• 20 min cardio — 5X
• 20 mins reading — 6X
• 10 mins meditation — 7X
• 20 mins dog training — 4X
• Weights — 3X
• Piano practice — 3X

Weekly Habits

• Publish video and corresponding blog post — 1X
• Weekly Action Plan system (read about here)
• Plan lunch w/ friend
• Date night
• Meal prep & planning
• 21 Miles Bike Ride

Monthly

• Host a dinner/fun event
• 2 Accountability Meetings

That's it for now!

What are your goals for 2019? Have you got a system to ensure you reach them?

Do you ever struggle with focusing on your big picture plans because you’re caught up in the day-to-day of email, Slack notifications and constant daily distractions?

Today I’m going to be sharing how I crafted my environment to save me from myself so I could get into Deep Work mode.

The 3 things you’ll learn in this post or video:

✅ What is Deep Work and why is it important?

✅ Understanding your Core Value and the actions or tasks associated

✅ The Action Steps you can take to make Deep Work a Habit

LittleMight on YouTube:

What is “Deep Work”?

One of the most important books I ever read was Deep Work, highly recommended to everyone — check out my book notes here.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It is a skill that allows you to master difficult things at speed and get better at what you do.

Trends in offices today with open plan designs, constant email threads, and meetings often decrease the ability for you to get into deep work.

Back in my architecture days, I worked in an open plan office where there was always a phone ringing, you were expected to be responsive to your email and you weren’t allowed to listen to your own music. For me, this was a nightmare when it came to getting deep work done as I find myself easily distracted in such environments.

These constant distractions, as well as your phone and social media, are destroyers of depth.

Quality of work = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

If you’re trying to learn a complex new skill with your Facebook feed open, you’re firing too many circuits simultaneously and haphazardly to isolate the group of neurons you want to strengthen

With so much knowledge at our fingertips and our access to technology, those that win are those who can maintain focus and the ability to get into Deep Work.

If you’re committed to deep work, now’s the time to figure out how to implement your own philosophy to get it done.

There are a few different modes of deep work:

Monastic: Isolating yourself for large blocks of uninterrupted time on the scale of weeks or even months.

Bimodal: Splitting your weeks and months into the deep and shallow

Rhythmic: Splitting your time into the deep and shallow on a day-by-day basis

For this example, I’m going to talk about rhythmic deep work, wherein I time-block my days between deep and shallow work.

1. Understand your core value

This is not a motivational message; what I mean by understanding your value is a true understanding of what your most important skill is.

What are you being paid to do?

For example:

• Copywriter ➡️Writing compelling copy
• UX Designer ➡️Designing amazing user experiences
• Quarterback ➡️Throwing ball 🏈
• Marketing ➡️Getting more customers
• Carpenter  ➡️Carve & make things out of wood

You get the picture.

While these jobs also have other responsibilities and tasks that go alongside it like checking email or slack notifications; the core value you should be giving, in the end, is clear.

So now, what is YOUR value?

What task or action do you do that drives the most value?

For myself, I realize I have two roles, and they are almost opposite as far as where the value is.

I work as a CEO for BestSelf Co a growing 8-figure revenue business and also work with product team on new ideas, products and creative marketing ideas. Not to mention creating content for this blog and my YouTube channel.

2. Designing your Environment for Deep Work

J.K. Rowling struggled with focusing on writing the final Harry Potter due to constant distractions at home so she booked herself into a 5-star luxury hotel in her hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland. She knew by shelling out the money and committing herself to a quiet distraction-free zone, she would be more likely to sit down to write – and she did. That one day turned into a six-month stint working from the Balmoral hotel with a daily commitment to writing the book.

“There came a day where the window cleaner came, the kids were at home, the dogs were barking and I could not work and this light bulb went on over my head and I thought, I can throw money at this problem. I can now solve this problem. I can go to a quiet place so I came to this hotel because it's a beautiful hotel, […] and I ended up finishing the last of the Harry Potter books in this hotel.” 

- J.K. Rowling

My Environment

Environments have been proven to shape human behavior on both a macro and micro scale. Creativity is a big part of my role, yet my environment didn’t reflect this.

Compare what you’d expect a designer/creator/artist desk to look like compared with the CEO of a company. Completely different!

…Yet I was expecting to complete both jobs in the same environment.

When I moved to Austin I realized that I had felt creatively blocked in New York and that was because I had not set aside a space to give myself creative freedom nor a place to get into deep work.

My desk had become a place where email, slack notifications and the day-to-day would keep me constantly busy but not productive on my big vision ideas.

While I could give myself time in the morning to get into deep work before I turned my computer on, I wondered, what if I had a completely different space for deep work instead? Somewhere where there was no confusion about why I was there, I didn’t need to readjust each time I sat down.

What if I had 2 desks? One for creativity and another for everything else.

My rule book:

My creative desk was for brainstorming, writing, sketching writing, and getting into deep work. I wouldn’t do calls or meetings from there, even if I wanted to, it would just be a space for me and doing deep work.

1. Every weekday I spend the first 2-3 hours of my day at my creative desk when my energy tank is feeling full and before my meetings or calls start.

2. No calls or meetings

3. No phone / texting / social media / slack

4. Only technology allowed was my iPad Pro which is where I like to write as it provides less distraction than my laptop

You would be amazed at how much more free the mind becomes when you take screens away and give yourself some space. Since I did this one thing I have been more creative in the two months since I moved here than I have in the previous 10 months in New York — and it’s been much more enjoyable also.

So I did it. This is what my creative zone looks like:

What skill is most valuable to you and can you create or carve a space somewhere so you can work solely on it?

I understand that not all of us can have 2 desks in their home.

In fact, this space doesn’t even have to be in your home, it’s just making the conscious decision to craft somewhere that makes you go into whatever mode you need.

My friend Frank does this with coffee shops, he lists his most important tasks for the day and then he executes for 2-3 hours. When he walks through those doors and gets his coffee he knows what he’s there for and is much less likely to procrastinate.

J.K. Rowling struggled with writing the final Harry Potter book so she booked herself into an expensive hotel in her home town. She knew by shelling out the money and committing herself to she would be more likely to sit down to write — and she did. That one day turned into a few weeks at the same hotel with a daily commitment to writing the book.

If you create a habit of doing a certain type of skill or task in a certain place, your brain will automatically start conditioning itself to work faster and better as you won’t be constantly trying to switch from one task to another.

If you’re a creative, how can you have a space the gives you as much headspace to create as possible?

Action Steps:

1. Write down your core value and the tasks/actions associated with this
2. What are the secondary tasks (for example email, slack etc)
3. How can you create a deep work zone so you’re focused on the important core value tasks?
4. Craft out time and space for your core value and ensure your environment supports the task rather than being friction.

Do you ever struggle coming up with new ideas and you think, “Oh, I'm just not the type of person that can come up with good ideas consistently”?

Maybe you look at a friend or a coworker and they're constantly coming up with things and you're thinking, “Why can't I do that?” Well, today, I want to let you in on a little secret.

These geniuses we see, it often one thing in disguise.

In this video, you're gonna learn:

✅What that one thing is that you need to be stuff and come up with great ideas.

✅A system that you can put in place to make coming up with ideas not something that you do in the shower once in a week, but something that you can do consistently every single day

✅I will leave you today with a challenge of 10 daily prompts that you can use to come up with a new idea every single day.

Read more »

A few weeks ago I rented my Tesla Model 3 on Turo on a 1-Day rental. I'll share exactly how it works, how much money I made and why I'll never do it again.

If you've never heard of it, Turo is like AirBnB but for your car, well I should say it's probably more for your sexy car. No one is going on there to rent a (insert crap car of choice here).

Spoiler: My car is fine. This post is about being transparent about everything that goes into renting the car so you know all time and costs associated.

Background

I purchased a Tesla Model 3 in Dec 2018; at 31 it's my first car and biggest personal purchase ever  —  I didn't even have a driving license when I got it.

Story behind it here.

I had the car in my possession a month before I’d even gotten a driving license for the first time (that’s what happens when you live in New York, no driving required).

FAQ: Why did I buy before I even had my license?

I knew I was going to get one and I wanted that sweet $7,500 tax credit before it disappeared on Dec 31st 2018. I was impatient for my license but the Austin DMV was booked out for 6 weeks on drive tests so I wasn’t able to get my license quickly enough.

Why Turo?

I’m an entrepreneur and I like the idea of creating an asset out of liabilities so I wanted to experiment with the idea of renting the car out on Turo when I didn’t need it. Since I work from home and live pretty close to everything I could do fine without a car for a few days a month which would cover the car payment.

When I researched I saw that my Tesla Model 3 could pick up anywhere from $129 – $311 for a day. Pretty cool.

They seemed to have legit insurance so if anything happened they would cover it.

1. Sign up for Turo (get $25 credit if you use this link)
2. Create your car listing
3. Select your insurance choice
4. Set calendar availability & pricing (if you want to do custom)

Here’s my listing:

https://turo.com/rentals/cars/tx/austin/tesla-model-3/570658

You’ll see I have 1 Five Star review for the grand whopping one time it’s been rented out.

I chose Turo Premium insurance as I wasn’t willing to take any chances for an extra 10%, this meant I collected 65% of rental cost. Here's what the insurance looks like:

My first booking

My first booking came in it at 2 am and asked that the be car dropped off at 10 am that same day (8 hours later) about 20 min away. It was pretty darn inconvenient.

Due to it being too short notice for me I had to cancel it. Usually, a cancellation costs you $50 fee but due to it being my first time I didn't get charged.

Action: Updated my settings to require a 24-hour notice period for bookings and didn't allow for instant bookings that required drop-off somewhere else.

When I got my next booking I had a few days notice so that was do-able.

Car Preparation

The Catmobile was going on her first big trip! How exciting that it would be starting to pay her own way in life…

To prep the car for the trip I had to charge to 200+ miles. I don’t have a charger at my apartment building so I either charge at a Tesla SuperCharger it (and work from my car which I weirdly enjoy) or there’s a spot 2 min away I can charge for free and just leave the car there for a few hours.

Unfortunately, due to Austin being overtaken by SXSW that week my usual spot was closed off and the supercharger didn’t seem worth it as it’s 15 min away and I wanted to enjoy SXSW.

Time & Costs Associated with Rental

Charging — 30 mins

Between dropping the car off to charge and picking it up later it took around 30 mins and cost $8.30.

Car wash — 30 mins

I wanted the car looking pretty so I decided to get it washed for my booking. Due to the Tesla needing to be hand washed (the chemicals in the machines can damage the paint) I got a year membership for unlimited car washes at a local Austin spot. It can be expensive otherwise at around $45 per wash.

My membership is $450 a year, I average 2-3 washes per month = $18.75 per wash

Pick up & Tesla instruction — 40 mins

Unlike most regular cars, if you've never specifically driven a Tesla then you need a walkthrough on how to drive it. This makes it a higher touch rental that most cars don’t require.

The guy who’d booked the car had never driven one before and wanted to test drive it before he purchased his own. This meant taking 40 mins to explain the car to him, self-driving features and how to charge etc.

Pre-Trip Photo’s — 5 mins

Prior to pick-up, I needed to photograph the vehicle so there was a record of the car prior to them taking it for insurance purposes.

Post-Trip Photo’s & Drop off — 10 mins

At drop-off, I’m also required to take photo’s to document the condition of the car.

Final Numbers

Here’s an overview of the trip:

Earnings: $151

Turo Fee’s & insurance: – $52.85

Expenses: – $27.05 (for car wash & charging)

Total: +$71.10

Wow.
All that for $71.10.

Unseen costs associated

Peace of mind

One thing I hadn’t considered before I rented it out was how much mindshare it would take, just planning the car wash, charging and Tesla coaching took up valuable space in my brain and day — and the car hadn’t even been picked up yet!

Once it was picked up I would occasionally find myself checking the Tesla app to see where it was. The great thing about Tesla is you can see everything that’s going on with the car within their app, from where it’s parked to if it’s driving and how fast etc.

Side note: What’s the helicopter parent equivalent for your relationship with your car?

Wear & Tear

Wear and tear is damage that naturally occurs with regular use and is a form of depreciation. While the car came back in relatively the same condition that it left in, with 81 miles more on the odometer there is an unseen cost associated with allowing your vehicle to be rented out.

The standard setting on Turo is 200 miles per day included, while you can change it they don’t recommend it. According to AAA an electric car depreciates 3.68 cents per mile, so at the daily rate that’s $7.36 of depreciation per day.

Final Thoughts

My first Turo booking couldn't have gone better as far as what the platform is supposed to be used for. The guy was super friendly and brought the car back pristine and with the same amount of charge he left with.

That should be great, right?

Once I did an audit of the resources that went into the booking I realized I had actually lost money.

Earning $71.10 for two hours of my time is $35.50 per hour.

Not to mention all the unseen costs associated that I mentioned above. I can 100% guarantee a significantly higher ROI if I took that time and put it into my work and business.

Renting my car on Turo is not going to move the needle in my life, and in fact is a net-negative on my time.

There is an opportunity cost to everything we do. If you go to see a movie, that's 2 hours you're choosing to spend on something rather than something else.

Some costs are worth it for the payoff, some are not and this varies from one person to the next. The important thing is to understand what we're willing to put up with.

This is why it's likely the first and last time I'll be renting my Tesla on Turo.

(I also realized I don't want strangers driving my car.)

Opportunity for other Tesla owners or buyers

Tesla have recently changed their business model and decided to close down their dealerships which will make it more difficult to test drive a Tesla before buying.

You have 7 days to return a Tesla if you have never test driven it before so Turo is going to be a great place to go test one out while still being able to return the car. Whether you’re looking to rent or host, it’s a good place to try.

The post I’ll never rent my Tesla Model 3 on Turo again. Here’s Why. appeared first on Little Might.