What will Ai do?

The hype and fear surrounding artificial intelligence (Ai) is truly something to behold. Right now, the main thing we know about Ai is it will be used to deceive. It is a future that is already happening. We all know about deep fakes and voice cloning, and all that jazz. And it is a real problem. Strong caution is obviously warranted.

Another future that has already happened, full of humorous irony, is Ai taking on an increasing share of the job of computer programming, with the obvious irony being that computer programmers created Ai, which is now reducing the need for computer programmers.

Last time we discussed the skill of mentalization, and it is definitely an important skill. Building off that idea, one compelling possibility is Ai’s ability to help you and i develop our mentalization skills. In other words, it does seem to be the case that Ai can help you to better understand yourself. As an example, i have attached a recent interaction i had with Microsoft’s CoPilot.

What Would Jesus Do?

I trust you have heard the question “What would Jesus do?” It is often relayed as the acronym WWJD, and I think it has a great idea. Today I am going to explain the most important, yet hidden, meaning of the question. To do that we will take a brief journey into the world of psychology.

Nowadays there is an awareness of the importance of an ability called empathy. A simple definition of empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” and I agree it is an important skill. That said, there exists a larger and more valuable ability called mentalization.

In the 1990s in England, two psychologists named Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman created a treatment modality called mentalization based therapy. A simple definition of mentalization is “the ability to understand one's own and others' mental states.” Better yet, here is Peter Fonagy himself to define mentalization.

Hopefully you can see how the question “What would Jesus do?” is excellent practice, helping you develop the ability to mentalize. But, of course, the question can be used with any person.

I will use myself as an example. In addition to Jesus, when making an important decision, I often ask myself what Peter Drucker, or Warren Buffett, or Liah Greenfeld, or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would do. And as the last three posts on this blog should have made clear, I sometimes even ask myself “What would Gary Vaynerchuk do?”

Yes empathy is important, but mentalization is even better. Mentalization is an important part of both effectiveness and entrepreneurship. So as a friendly piece of advice, I recommend you study your mentors and customers until you are able to think, feel and act the way they do.

Gary Vee is human, too

I am a long time student of Gary Vaynerchuk and felt compelled to comment. On a recent live stream, Gary told a caller to stop overthinking the name she was planning for her LLC. The advice is sound, but Gary missed some important context.

If you are a student of GV, you know one of the main things he teaches is the importance of branding. And because branding can be so valuable, it is completely understandable that people overthink what to name their LLC. The solution is two fold, and the first solution Gary did explain on the live stream.

The first part of the solution is to understand something called DBA, or "Doing Business As." If you aren't familiar with DBA, it means you can operate a business under a name that has nothing to do with the name of the LLC which owns said business. Gary gave a personal example where one of his LLCs is named "Attention At Scale," which isn't the name of any of the companies he runs.

But, unfortunately Gary overlooked a second and more important lesson. Before I explain, I will note this oversight is completely understandable in light of the fact that his live stream interactions are necessarily short. Had Gary had a more lengthy conversation with the lady, he surely would have explained the second part of the solution. The second part is very simply this, as a general rule, less developed entrepreneurs wildly overestimate the importance of their company's name.

Again, this mistake is perfectly understandable because of the importance of brand. I look back with amusement (and a bit of embarrassment) at the way I too overthought the name of a company. And again, Gary's story sheds some useful light on the subject. Apparently, Gary's dad's (Sasha) small business was doing about $4M in annual sales when Gary joined. Doing $4M in sales certainly qualifies Sasha's business as a success, and yet the name of the company wasn't great for branding. The name was "Shoppers Discount Liquors."

Here is the moral of the story, today that same company is called "Wine Library" and is doing on the order of $60M per year. But don't get it twisted, the name of the company wasn't the main cause of its increased success. The real cause of success was delivering long-term value to its customers. For example, Gary has never sold Kendall Jackson chardonnay nor Santa Margherita pinot grigio. The reason isn't because Wine Library doesn't carry those labels, the reason is because Gary knows better chardonnays and pinot grigios, usually at lower prices. The point being, as an entrepreneur your focus (indeed your obsession) should be delivering real value to your customers. That is what will determine the success of your company, much more than its name. And at any time, if necessary YOU CAN CHANGE THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY. So don't overthink it!

Again, I am a serious student of GV. In fact, I am enough of a student to know one of his blind spots. As a recent Instagram post about "Just Do" indicates, Gary learns by doing. But, believe it or not, lots of people aren't like that. Lots of people learn by listening to people like Gary! My point is this, if you were fortunate enough to spend ten years working in your parent's successful small business, you too would probably do most of your learning through doing. But, if you never had that sort of role model (and few people do) give yourself some grace and understand successful entrepreneurship takes a lot longer than you imagine.

I have lots of love for you, Gary. So much so, I felt compelled to write this lengthy post to help some of your students. OF COURSE you have to take action to succeed as an entrepreneur. But at the same time, learning by doing isn't always the fastest path. I end with advice I think GV would agree with: Go as fast as you sustainably can, while remaining patient with however long it takes to arrive at your promised land.

Truth > Positivity

Believe it or not, I actually like Gary Vaynerchuk. Haha! Last time, I disagreed with Gary’s insistence on the importance of humility. And this week, I will disagree with Gary’s insistence that we be positive.

Unlike the humility thing, I didn’t talk with Gary about positivity. But perhaps I should. Because, again, I think truth is more important than either humility or positivity. In reality, there are probably few things more important than truth. As the Bible famously says, the truth will set you free. So, please allow me to derive the importance of positivity by explaining its relationship to truth.

A core truth is that life is fundamentally about growth. And, while every other animal basically only grows physically, humans have another dimension called consciousness. And consciousness is open to unlimited growth. Whether you call it mind, soul or spirit, the most miserable people I know have stopped growing.

Now, let me bring in the work of Barbara Fredrickson (pictured below) who is a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina. Top among her many accomplishments, Fredrickson is best known for her broaden-and-build theory. More thoroughly, it is called the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Psychology has long identified and addressed negative emotions, so back in the 1990s Professor Fredrickson began asking “What is the point of positive emotions?” And while the question may seem rhetorical, the answer is worth knowing.

Fredrickson has rather conclusively demonstrated that positive emotions facilitate growth. More specifically, positive emotions broaden our mind and build our resources (aka grow us). Perhaps you can start to see why I believe truth is more important than positivity.

As stated, I think there is no question humans must grow. And as Fredrickson has shown, positivity is a precondition for growth. Now, perhaps you think I have argued in a circle and disproven myself. Nope. Watch this.

Just because positivity is a precondition of growth, doesn’t mean people utilize positivity to grow. In fact, a lot of people turn into what I call “inspiration junkies.” There is no question inspiration (and positive emotions generally) feels good. And a lot of people stop there, which is understandable because growth hurts. In other words, growing pains are a real thing, which often causes avoidance.

Given the choice being painful growth and remaining in delightful positivity, many people, understandably, choose the latter. This is essentially what it means to remain in your comfort zone, and it easily creates inspiration junkies who keep coming back for another hit.

So, am I just a Negative Nancy? Of course not. As stated, positivity is required for growth. And while positivity is pleasurable, growth is enjoyable. If you aren’t familiar, the difference between pleasure and enjoyment is growth. Delightful experiences such as a wonderful meal are pleasurable, but they don't cause our soul to grow. Conversely, life’s enjoyable experiences do involve psychological growth, but they aren’t usually pleasurable while they are occurring.

That last paragraph is a synopsis of one of the main takeaways from Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's legendary book Flow. The subtitle of the book is “The psychology of optimal experiences,” and Csikszentmihalyi does a great job of explaining the important difference between pleasure and enjoyment. But, we shall have to save a deeper dive into Flow for another day.

For today, I simply hope to make it clear that I love positivity. The thing is, I just love growth more. And if you have had flow experiences, I trust you would agree.

P.S. It is also rather clear that the best way to ignite positivity at work is through progress. More on that will be coming in another post.

Truth > Humility

I was recently speaking with Gary Vaynerchuk. We were discussing the importance of humility.

Usually known as Gary Vee, GV runs an advertising agency in New York. Additionally, he has a large social media presence. If you follow GV you have probably heard him exclaim the importance of humility. His and my particular conversation began when I said “Humility is overrated.”

After our conversation, it is clear to me that Gary and I are in agreement. And, the reason I am writing this post is because I think it is bullshit to tell people to be humble. If you don’t agree with me, allow me to give you my definition of bullshit. My definition of bullshit is “Knowingly or negligently spreading half-truth.” Before I continue, let me share with you Gary’s bio from the Twitch website.

GV’s bio on Twitch:
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance and the internet. Known as “GaryVee” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business – he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior.

Now, if I asked you to give me the top ten adjectives describing that bio, I highly doubt “humble” would be one of them. That isn’t a humble bio. Nor should it be! Let me explain.

Whether we are discussing mammals or electrons, there exists a well-known phenomenon called pair-bonding. And though we didn’t say it this way during our conversation, Gary and I agree humility is pair-bonded with confidence. In other words, you show me a truly confident person and I will show you a truly humble person, because the two things go together.

I think a big part of the confusion stems from the human ability to bullshit and make pretend. If you tell a person to be humble, most likely they will fake it. At the same time, if you tell a person to be confident, most likely they will fake it. The same goes for happiness, gratitude, and many of life’s most valuable virtues.

Though I didn’t say it at the time, I wish I would have told Gary truth is more important than humility (Truth > Humility). Because the truth is humility and confidence are pair-bonded, and a person cannot achieve real confidence without humility. And since people often fake humility, better than telling people to be humble is telling people to know their limits. In other words, know the truth.

I will end with this. Though she was before my time, I think Israel’s former prime minister, Golda Meir, would agree humility and confidence are pair-bonded. Below is the way Ms. Meir put it.

New Day's Resolution

Now that we are in February, apparently many people have abandoned their New Year’s Resolutions. And while this is understandable, it is also regrettable.

Speaking for myself, I abandoned New Year’s Resolutions a long time ago. The way I look at it, resolve is so important, why would you only do it once a year?

If we are being honest, many people use New Year’s Resolutions as an excuse to procrastinate making changes they want to make. I know I have. And so, I came to find that much better than New Year’s Resolutions are New Day’s Resolutions.

By resetting and resolving everyday, I have been much more pleased with the outcomes. And if that seems like too much effort, let me give you an even more extreme example.

Judith Beck is the daughter of the late Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive behavioral psychology. One of the books Ms. Beck has written is called The Beck Diet Solution, where she applies cognitive behavioral psychology to dieting.

The book discusses no foods in particular, rather it focuses on the way we think about our diet and eating habits. Since many people struggle with overeating, I highly recommend Judith’s book. And even if you don’t, the book can be a great introduction to the world of cognitive behavioral psychology.

In the book, Ms. Beck, who has counseled many dieters, tells the story of a common pattern. If you have ever attempted to lose weight, you can probably relate.

To lose weight, most people will have to create and stick to a food plan. And though things may be going well for a time, one day you will probably screw up.

A lot of times the mistake is the result of lack of rest, or being stressed, or any of a number of problems. But regardless of the exact cause, sometimes dieters fall off the wagon and eat food forbidden by their food plan.

What Dr. Beck found is when a dieter stumbles and eats something “bad,” they often tell themselves something to the effect of “Since I have already screwed up, I might as well enjoy the rest of the day. I can restart my diet tomorrow.” I know I have been guilty.

But Dr. Beck specifically calls out the flawed logic, saying just because you messed up doesn’t mean you can’t get back on your food plan. There is no law that says you have to wait until tomorrow. You can give yourself some grace and forgiveness, and get right back on the wagon. You might call it a New Minute’s Resolution, and it makes a lot of sense. Especially the grace and forgiveness part.

I guess what I am saying is, waiting for the New Year is silly and wasteful. But whatever you choose, don’t beat yourself up. Life is challenging and nobody is perfect ❤️

Entrepreneur or Solopreneur

Are solopreneurs entrepreneurs? Or, is organization building an element of being an entrepreneur?

I am a pretty big fan of Seth Godin, and I know he says he is a proud freelancer. Having built three different companies Godin says he is better off being a solopreneur, because he says he takes being a boss too seriously, and suffers when people’s livelihoods are dependent upon him.

I don’t know about you but I find Godin’s honesty refreshing.

So while I am a fan of Godin, unlike him I rather quite enjoy building organizations. And regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur, you are well advised to be a lifelong learner and to consume wisdom wherever it is being dispensed.

Regular readers of his blog already know Peter Drucker is on my personal Mount Rushmore. If you wish to better understand organizations, I can think of no one better to study than Drucker.

That said, I recently stumbled upon an interesting person named Fabiana Lacerca-Allen. Ms. Lacerca-Allen grew up in Argentina during the so-called Dirty War, or Guerra Sucia, a time of rampant corruption and strife.

But as the old cliche says, pressure makes diamonds. And today, Ms. Lacerca-Allen lives in the USA and works with large organizations on compliance and risk management, and she recently published a book titled Crisis Capable.

In a brief eighteen seconds, below you hear Ms. Lacerca-Allen give a nice little summary of what to look for in a team member.