fishburners slides

Self-Awareness MasterclassSeptember 27th 2016

I work with both individuals and companies to better understand themselves and their problems to leverage their internal resources to overcome challenges.

What I do and who I have worked with

Programs on resiliency and self-awareness• Schools through the Mark A Mark Project• Teaching lecturers through the University of Sydney• Colleges within the University of Sydney

Work with individuals• Suicidal and depression• Anxiety and have gone through severe trauma• Business people trying to find or hone their edge• People lacking a direction in life• People who just want a cognitive tune up

Specifically with start-ups• VR/AR, messaging apps, data software for education and health, recruitment, marketplaces,

solar technology, logistics technology, drones, travel software and education software.• Worked with companies in the idea phase right through to funding and beyond (yet to work with

an exit)

This talk will focus on the specific problems that I most commonly see in my work with entrepreneurs and the public in general.

Outline

The way that these talks usually go….• Someone get’s up and talks about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur• The challenge with that is

• I don’t have an opinion on that• I’ve never raised funding• I’ve never worked in a startup

What increases the chances of you becoming a successful entrepreneur?

This talk will focus on the specific problems that I most commonly see in my work with entrepreneurs and the public in general.

Outline

The way that these talks usually go….• Someone get’s up and talks about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur• The challenge with that is

• I don’t have an opinion on that• I’ve never raised funding• I’ve never worked in a startup

What decreases the chances of you becoming a successful entrepreneur?• This is what I deal with day in and day out.

The 5 most impactful patternsThese are ranked in order of importance

1) Lack of certainty2) Feelings and fears of unworthiness driving behavior3) Unwillingness to grow through ones own ego4) Poor ability to handle pressure and use perspective5) Poor understanding of priorities and time allocation

The 5 patterns that destroy self-awareness

These are ranked in order of importance1) Lack of certainty2) Feelings and fears of unworthiness driving behavior3) Unwillingness to grow through ones own ego4) Poor ability to handle pressure and use perspective5) Poor understanding of priorities and time allocation

What makes people make poor decisions?

When you feel better, you make better decisions

Priorities exerciseUse your phone or a piece of paper and answer this question

‘You have one month left to live. What would you want to do withyour time? What percentage would you dedicate to each activity?

What does a perfect working day look like to you?What are you working on? Who are you with?

What is the current goal of your business or career?What activities will take you to that goal the fastest?

Priorities exerciseOne month left to live:

50% of my time would be spent with my girlfriend, family and friends25% of my time would be spent working on my mission20% of my time would be spent doing activities and being a nuisance5% of my time would be spent in the gym

Perfect working day: I’d film, speak in front of groups and work 1 on 1 with people basically all of the hours I was awake

Goal: Double my current revenue by the end of the yearFastest way: continue to build awareness

Priorities exerciseFundamental Priorities

50% of my time would be spent with my girlfriend, family and friends. 25% of my time would be spent working on my mission20% of my time would be spent doing activities and being a nuisance5% of my time would be spent in the gym

Personal Work Priorities: I’d film, speak in front of groups and work 1 on 1 with people basically all of the hours I was awake

Global Work Priorities: Double my current revenue by the end of the year, continue to build awareness

Priorities exerciseThe point of this exercise is the following

• You need to be allocating hours to each of these aspects• Minimise all time spend on things that are not written down• Have a life outside your startup and work• Understand these three areas and stop doing everything else• Stop wasting time on that which doesn’t matter

Time allocationThere is 168 hours a week

• 70 hour work week• 8 hours of sleep a night• Leaves you 42 hours a week

There is more than enough time• You just need to get better at prioritising and saying no• You need to be exceptionally clear on what you want• You need to ruthlessly prioritise it• A lot of people are not working hard enough

How committed are you to your craft?

LinkingStop doing unimportant things: things you don’t enjoy and don’t bring value

• We’ve taken a narrow frame on this – you could do this for goal and growth• Stop wasting time on what is not important • You will avoid burnout and be more joyful • The people who enjoy what they do are far better at it• Supreme and dedicated sense of focus

PressureI don’t need to tell this crowd that pressure can be huge in a startup

• You can often be in a war• Your mindsets around pressure are critical• The impact of stress is either –ve or +ve on hormones• Confirmation bias • Change how you feel change how you react

PressureWhat do you do under pressure? What is your way of handling it?

• Does pressure crush or create diamonds?• Do you understand that all hard times lead to strength?• Do you use perspective and gratefulness?• Do you find a meaning that brings you excitement?• Do you search for the gift and the way to improve?

Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you

PressurePressure causes people to lose clarity

• Clarity is the game• Without the correct mindsets pressure destroys clarity• With clarity you think and move faster and more efficiently

Clarity = Trust x Health x Direction• Pressure often insidiously erodes all three of these

HealthThe entrepreneur is a craftswomen

• The usual mode of health mindsets and the pattern of near death experiences

Health the only variable that has instant +ve impacts on all factors of life• It’s returns are convex

Health consists of:• Diet• Exercise• Meditation• Sleep• Gratefulness (or perspective)• Laughter

LinkingHealth consists of:

• Diet: Clearer thinking, more energy, more willpower• Exercise: More energy, more willpower, more endorphins, better decisions• Meditation: More focus, more resilience, better communication• Sleep: More creative, focused, diligent, energetic• Gratefulness: Find more joy• Laughter: Stop being so damn grumpy

Rate yourself out of 10 on the above aspects and pick oneto start working on tomorrow.

DirectionYou have to know what you want

• Why do you want it and what does success look like to you?• What is your strategic objective for your business?• How adequately are you communicating that?

• Leaders often 10x under communicate their vision

You will thrive in pressure • When your belief is stronger than the pressure• Tactics don’t make sense without a strategy• You can’t reverse engineer without a north star• You will be eaten up without a strategy

Growing vs EgoGrowing and learning requires humility

• Do you want to protect your feelings or find the truth and get better?• Are you willing to be uncomfortable and grow?• The most important variable seems to be the rate of growth• Having an ego breaks the iteration process

Growing vs EgoGrowing and learning requires humility

• I so often see people who blame everything but themselves• It’s confronting and challenging to admit how much you don’t know• Just because you have a brain doesn’t make you a neuroscientist• People refuse to take 2 steps back to take 7 steps forward• Recognise your own and others bias’

Instead of seeking to protect the ego, seek truth• Truth is the most accurate depiction of reality• Celebrate mistakes• Root causes not proximate (17 interviews)

LinkingInstead of seeking to protect the ego, seek truth

• Your ability to iterate is inversely proportional to your ego• Your ego will corrupt every aspect of your collected data• You will harm every one of your relationships through ego• You will constantly miss opportunities to improve• You will not acclimatise to being uncomfortable

Where are you currently being held back by your ego?

This is really pattern 1A as opposed to 2. It’s an incredibly damaging mindset that alters the entire fabric of your life, consciousness and every important decision.

Feelings of unworth

I cannot overstate how corrosive this belief is to a person• This goes so far beyond entrepreneurship • This taking attitude will effect every decision that you make in your life• It ruins your trust and eventually leads to you not liking yourself

Essentially all people suffer from this at some level• We feel we are lacking something and try and fill that void up• Most people do nothing about it and let the fear it creates dominate their life• Some people fill that hole with negative habits (drugs, food etc)• Everyone in this room has developed a positive habit to deal with it

The Achiever Matrix• ‘I’ll go and achieve then I can feel happy’• You create a system of punishment and withholding to motivate yourself• It’s very, very inefficient and causes you to always be hard and down on yourself• You may reach success, but you will always be unfulfilled

You can listen to fear or listen to love• It’s either ‘How can I take to fill up?’ or ‘I’m so full how can I give?’• The power of giving and the power of abundance

Lack of certaintyEveryone in this room loves to think and analyse

• The problem with that is that the brain doesn’t understand certainty• Sales and sports are perfect examples of certainty• 80% psychology and 20% mechanics• ‘I just know’ - ‘embodied cognition’

‘Shots’ of certainty• Music• Movement • Manipulation of emotions

Global certainty• Exercise

ACTION &THE WINDOW

Where to find meSnapchat: the_thymos – for my most intimate rantsFacebook.com/thethymos – rants every weekday Email: [email protected] for anything and everything else

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