The best time to start a company is at the bottom of the market or at the top of the market.

During a recession and capital scarcity, most people of scared shitless and sitting in the fetal position, hoping they don’t get canned. The tourists have gone home or are enrolling in Business School. Risk-averse people stay in full-time jobs, don’t move cities, don’t sell their house, immigration levels drop, which all means less competition. Overextended companies get obliterated and lay off high-quality people, which means those talented, humble people are looking for a new project. It’s a great time to recruit, find office space, and inspire people who are looking for a silver lining.

At the top of the market, when things are booming is another excellent time to start. At the top of the bull run, people get sloppy and overconfident. They attribute their success to their smarts and not the momentum of the market. They aren’t scared anymore. Everyone is cocky and their risk tolerance has ticked up over time. Risk tolerance builds over time, correction happens instantly. The result is a lot of inexperienced, overcompensated people who think they are good but don’t know the first thing about grinding it out when things get tough. Customer service is shoddy because there’s always someone else willing to pay, and innovation slows down because companies that are overextended lose focus and try to do it all. The top of the market is the perfect time to pay attention to customer service, treat your customers like you’ll lose them tomorrow, build loyalty for when things slow down and build up a rainy day cash fund

Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash

We all have many digital subscriptions; subscriptions for music, tv, newspapers, storage, productivity tools, other guilty pleasures, etc. It’s good to do an annual check-up and see what you are really using and what’s just quietly charging your credit card each month even though you can’t remember the last time you used the service. a subscription can be as little 99 cents per month but these little vampires add up. The cull saves you money and frees up space on your phone. Those apps are probably harvesting personal info about you so there are other valid reasons for auditing your subscriptions.

Do the same annual check-in with your social media accounts. Over time lurkers creep into your follow list. They are like an old piece of furniture in the house that you never use but never quite think to remove. Every time you check a social media feed these lurkers bubble up. You scroll past them but whether you do it consciously or unconsciously you still take in what they are posting. It’s taxing on your brain and you don’t even know it.

Unfollow, unsubscribe or mute these people. Free up your time and your brain.

Photo by Ann Kathrin Bopp on Unsplash

There’s a rare breed of people in the world who are good, know they are good but aren’t overconfident. They have mastered their craft, know it, and are quietly confident.

Overconfidence or hubris is the road to folly, and the way is wide and welcoming. Humans flock to overconfident talkers because we conflate overconfidence with competence, and that’s when mistakes happen. Things aren’t checked, promises are made, people get sloppy, and disappointment follows.

Find and work with quietly confident people. Most times, you have to seek them out because they won’t find you.

Photo by Prince David on Unsplash

If someone complains to you about something, then remember to sanity check the statement with some relativity.

The traffic in San Francisco is terrible! Relative to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where it takes 30minutes to go 2 miles, San Francisco traffic is a breeze!

The trains in London are unreliable! Relative to Los Angeles, where subways are virtually non-existent, London public transportation is incredibly accessible and quick!

The air quality Cape Town is low quality on a windless summer’s day! Relative to Sydney during the bush fire season, Cape Town’s air quality is liveable!

Everything is relative. Asking yourself, “compared to what?” is a great way to get some perspective on someone’s complaint.

In 2015 I was at a crossroads in my career. Do I start something on my own, consult/advise or jump into another operating role?

I spoke to a lot of people to get their views. A friend who was a COO at a company in San Francisco gave me the advice that I ended up acting on. He told me to go deep. Go full immersion and dig into a role where I could learn, keep growing my network, and understand a field intimately.

Consulting was shallow work. As someone who started out at an accounting firm, I knew that already. I got to be super good at understanding just enough to get the job done and then move onto the next client – but I never had to implement something. I doled out academic advice and got the hell out of dodge. I had no skin in the game.

So, I took his advice and committed to a long term, full-time role. Looking back, it’s been such a great move. I’ve made more lifelong friends and broken into a new area of expertise that was only possible through brute force time investment, which in turn has opened even more interesting doors that I had no idea were there.

The thing about going deep is that it’s dark down there where the sun doesn’t shine. You don’t know what’s waiting for you so it can be intimidating. You only discover new things once you commit and trust other people.

Down beneath is where the learning, discovery, and magic happens.

Photo by Jakob Boman on Unsplash

The destruction and loss of life from the fires in California and Australia are what happens when fake news hits the buzz saw of reality. Scientists were saying for years that the weather will become extreme. The summers will be longer, hotter, and more fringe, but people wouldn’t face the facts. Junk science and conspiracy theories were taken seriously, and, in some cases, morphed into terrible policy. The result was an underinvested infrastructure and uneducated electorate on the dangers of extreme weather like flooding and fire.

Fake news and conspiracy theories take off because they are easy to believe and provide an escape hatch from doing the hard work. Why prepare for something if it isn’t going to happen? The same thing happened in South Africa in the 1990s when the South African government went into denial about the AIDS epidemic. Fake news and junk science kill people. Even back then in the ’90s, there was junk science and fake news. The difference in 2020 is that fake news is turbocharged by super communication highways like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It makes me angry and sad that we have to learn the hard way, but there is the benefit of turbocharged news by super communication highways like Insta, FB, and Twitter is that there’s nowhere to hide the consequences of bad policy and decisions. We’ve all seen the harrowing pictures coming out of Australia. We’ve all read about the rolling electricity blackouts in California. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we can document, broadcast, and amplify the consequences and then learn from our mistakes, at least it’s not all in vain.

Against the verdict of history, there is no appeal. I hope we learn and take action.

Start now, so you have momentum at the end of 2030. Exercise, learning, building, loving, leaving, arriving. Start! The longer you delay, the less likely you’ll begin. Feel the urgency.

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” – Bill Gates

Work with what you got now.

Enjoy what you got now.

Scratch the itch.

What’s past is not prologue. The fires in California and Australia, extreme weather, Brexit, US politics, cryptocurrencies – things are changing fast and nobody saw them coming. If they tell you they did then they are lying.

Listen and watch, but don’t lurk on the sidelines – get in there and play.

Everybody is winging it. Everybody.

A lot has happened in the last decade. In 2030 what will people be talking about? Be curious, dabble, and tinker. Buy some crypto, sign up for the latest social network, play the new hot video game, listen to new music, talk to smart people, follow people you disagree with. Get a little uncomfortable.

Have you ever thought about phoning someone for a catch-up, reached for your phone to dial their number – but your phone starts ringing because they are already phoning you? The person you were going to call is calling you, and you have thought about talking to each other at precisely the same time!

The same thing happens on WhatsApp. I’ll be thinking I need to message a friend and check-in – and out of the blue, I’ll get pinged from that friend checking in on me.

Have you ever dreamed about an old friend and then heard some news that they are going through a tough time. I have no idea why this happens again and again, but I’ve stopped being surprised.

Nowadays, when an old friend pops into my head, then I always try to give them a call or send them a quick note. Maybe they pick up, perhaps they don’t, it doesn’t matter, I follow up with a quick text and then continue on my way.

If you think that phone calls are a drag in 2020, then time box the call. Tell the person you only have 15 minutes, it’ll help you skip the pleasantries and get down to catching up. Follow up with an email or a text. Sometimes a note and a check-in from an old friend can go a long way for someone. Just because they don’t respond doesn’t mean it didn’t hit home.

Mentors are guides who can help you with a shared experience. Tricky decisions can be talked through and played out on paper. Mentorships come about through relationships and favors, but a mentor doesn’t usually have skin in the game. At the end of the day, you are on your own.

Allies are people who have aligned interests where a particular outcome is mutually beneficial to both of you. If those interests diverge, then the alliance won’t last. That’s how alliances work.

Co-conspirators are in it together. You conspire together, plan together, lose together, and win together. The plan only works if you trust each other and work together hand in hand.

Seek out co-conspirators who have the same values as you. You need people with skin in the game when things get tough or when things go well.

Happy 2020 everyone.

I try to participate in a group open water sea swim each morning. It’s the perfect tonic to start the day. After the swim and a cold shower at the beach, I treat myself to a black coffee. It’s hard to beat.

Last week it blew a pumping onshore wind, which swept in a lot of seaweed and blue bottles. Blue bottles are like jellyfish and have a nasty sting that burns like hell and then lasts a couple of days. If you get stung, your arm looks like it’s been licked by a leather whip. It’s not a pleasant experience.

This morning, the wind had dropped, and I arrived to overhear that the blue bottles were out in full force. There’s were ‘clumps’ of them floating just beyond the shore break. I looked around to get a feel for the crowd. Some people debated whether to risk it. I understood why it wasn’t a straightforward no. It was Sunday morning, and some of them had traveled a long way to get here – should they risk the blue bottles and get into the water? I watched as some of them waded into the white water with only speedos, caps, and swim goggles.

I stood for a minute and then, a little disappointed, turned around and headed back home. I’m lucky enough to be able to come back tomorrow for another swim, or the next day, or the day after that. I know that the swim and community are essential to me, so I’ve structured my life around these moments where I don’t have to risk getting stung for a fix. I get to say next time.

Structure your life around the things that bring you joy or relieve your stress. Build it into your daily rituals. It shouldn’t have to feel like the last hurrah each time.

When the structure is in place, then it’s a lot easier to enjoy it day-to-day. And you also get to say next time.