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Trends from Entrepreneurs’ Starts on NPR

National Public Radio (NPR) has a great podcast called “How I Built This” anchored by Guy Raz. From the show:

How I Built This is a podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. Each episode is a narrative journey marked by triumphs, failures, serendipity and insight — told by the founders of some of the world’s best known companies and brands.

There are some really fascinating stories including Spanx’s Sarah Blakely, WeWork’s Miguel McKelvey, and Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia.
Here are some trends I heard from these stories:
  • They’re opportunistic. Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard started life out by becoming a metal worker to make climbing equipment when he couldn’t find what he wanted.
  • They start things with people they haven’t known for a while… or they go it alone.WeWork’s Miguel McKelvey shared how he met his cofounder through his roommate after he wanted to work in NYC. He moved there. He met Adam Neumann who was highly complementary in skill sets and the ability to hook people on vision and sell.
  • They fake the sh!t out of it. Spanx’s Sarah Blakely would pop up her display in department stores on her own without getting official consent. People thought she was legit and bought her product.
  • There’s the hustle we all think we’re doing, and there’s the hustle they do. It’s next level. Toms’ Blake Mycoskie rolled from idea to idea, startup to startup – from a laundry delivery service for his college peers to doing giant advertising displays on the side of buildings only after seeing them work in LA. Then, he spent weeks in S. America to help hand-craft over 2,000 pairs of shoes when orders started piling up when he first started.

Go listen to the podcast. It’ll be motivating and inspirational.

What podcasts do you listen to?
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Another Steve Jobs Saying to Live By

Steve Jobs has some real memorable quotes. The latest, I discovered goes, “Real artists ship”. I’ve now added it to my list of Baller Quotes to Live By page.
The quote is all about execution – beauty means little if not shipped (created). Naturally, this applies for entrepreneurs. Artistry and entrepreneurship is not about creating perfect. It’s about creating.
Here are a few other quotes from the late Steve Jobs that I love and try to live by.
  • “… you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”
  • “When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
  • “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

What are some of your favorite quotes from Steve Jobs? How about other quotes you live by?

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Book Review: Primed to Perform

In late October at the Sales Force Productivity Conference, I kept hearing whispers about a great speaker that I didn’t get a chance to hear – Lindsay McGregor. She talked about culture and what motivated employees. She also co-authored a book about high performing teams. This has always been interesting to me, so I sought out Lindsay to talk to her about her talk. I ended up running into her several times. When I told her all her books at the conference were sold out, she happily told me to send her an email, and she’d send a signed copy.
Well, I got the book in November – Primed to Perform – that she cowrote with Neel Doshi. After reading the book, it’s one of my favorites! I finished it a while ago, but I wanted the material to sit a little while longer before writing a review of it. Yes, it was that good.
McGregor and Doshi studied hundreds of companies and other studies about high-performing companies to find the key factors of what drove their successes – developing the Total Motivation Factor (“TOMO”).
Here are my major take-aways:
  • TOMO is made up for 3 direct motivators and 3 indirect. They range from the most powerful motivator to the least influential, and then least influential to the most powerful “de-motivator” – Play, Purpose, Potential, Emotional, Economic, and Inertia.
  • Direct motives – “Play” is the game and the enjoyment attained by the role/ job. “Purpose” relates to the outcome of the activity – the impact. “Potential” is how the activity enables some downstream effect aligning with some personal goals.
  • Indirect motives – “Emotional” pressure occurs through disappointments, guilts, and shame. “Economic” pressure comes from solely having some reward or even avoiding some punishment. “Inertia”, then, is the most powerful indirect motivator. Inertia is the motive where they do what they do simply because they it’s the norm – “It’s a job”.
  • TOMO can be calculated for teams by assessing scores in each of the motives – sample assessments can be found at www.primedtoperform.com. The highest performing companies tend to have TOMO scores at least 15 points higher than their industry peers.
  • Tactical and adaptive performance are critical strategies for every company. Tactical refers to the structure and processes of how a business operates. In sales, this may include following sales cadences for outreach. For marketing, this may include the editorial calendar for social media postings. It’s the plan. Adaptive performance refers to the ability to adjust to changes quickly, and perform at a high level. The military refers to adaptive capabilities as VUCA – variability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. VUCA enables military personnel to adapt to fast-changing scenarios where plans go awry.
  • Beware of cobra farms. When India was a British colony, there was a bounty placed on dead cobras. At the time, cobras were plentiful and roaming wild. With compensation for dead cobras, suddenly, cobra farms started manifesting. This created the wrong solution as there were many times more live cobras being bred. Beware of the incentives and rewards put in place, and how success is measured.

There are many more take-aways from the book. In fact, this is one book I will read at least a few times a year to continually remind myself as my company grows and I build my teams. The company will continue to evolve, and enabling a culture that is agile and adaptive will be key to growth and having a sustainable competitive advantage.

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100 Strangers, 100 Days – A New Journey to Inspire

Yes, that’s right… today’s Wednesday, and I “missed” yesterday’s blog post. Actually, that was on purpose because I’m shifting blogging back down to ONCE a week – weekly on Wednesdays. Why? Because I have started a little side project called 100 Strangers, 100 Days.
You might be able to guess what it’s about already… I’m meeting 100 Strangers over the course of 100 Days. I started last Saturday, September 17th. I should be wrapped up with my 100thStranger on December 26! How wild is that?
This little project (I laugh as I type “little” because it’s actually, I think, quite a big undertaking) came to me as I was hiking on Stone Mountain that Saturday morning for the sunrise, as I often do. As I walked, I realized a gentleman who was walking beside me for the last 5 minutes. I told myself I might as well say hello to him, and then, the lightbulb came on…
Everyone is fascinating and has some story to tell. I’m fortunate and grateful to have met some really amazing people. These amazing people have shaped who I am, and I’m proud of who I am and who I am becoming. I have looked at relationships as incredibly special to me – a realization surfaced from my time at Emory. That is, how much people and connections mean to me.
So on my hike, ironically, I didn’t end up meeting the man walking beside me as my mind went straight into thinking about documenting how I meet others – by reaching out, saying hello, and digging just a little bit deeper… with Strangers.
For whatever reason, the number 100 crept into my head for both 100 Strangers and 100 Days – had a nice ring to it. I thought about 30 days, but that didn’t seem very ambitious. 50 just sounded like an odd number. So 100 Strangers. 100 Days. Let’s go.
The purpose of this project is many, many fold.
  • To inspire connections. I want people to get out from their cellphones texting and “Snapchatting” to get to know people around them. Myself, I see so many people in my office, but do not say hello. I may say, “hi”, or give a friendly nod, but that’s the extent. I want to connect, and I believe we should all connect as social organisms. Plus, serendipity is a wonderful thing.
  • To motivate action. Like I said, 100 days is, I think, ambitious. I thought of the idea for this and within two hours, I was interviewing my first Stranger. Within 6 hours I had the website up. I want others who have passions or questions or a project in their heads to turn those questions to answers… to turn ideas into reality. I’m an entrepreneur because I execute. I want others to realize it’s not hard to start something magical.
  • To challenge myself. I wrote Postmortem of a Failed Startup: Lessons for Success last year. This could very well be another book down the line for me. That, and I want another personal/ passion project other than the passion for the startup I work for.
  • With 1 Stranger per 1 Day, I want to show it’s not hard to get out of our comfort zone. Just one little connection per 24 hours. It’s an exercise not to rush 100 connections, but to illustrate it’s possible on a consistent basis.
  • Show the world we can be compassionate and vulnerable. I can ask some deep, personal questions to which I hope to hear truths. I want to challenge others to be vulnerable to not just answering questions to me, but to sharing their story with the world (and their picture). It’s an incredible thing to ask, but I want to ask to let others make that choice… not me make that choice for them (which I have a terrible tendency to do – make choices for others). It’s a trust thing.
  •  To encourage us to get to know those who we don’t consider Strangers. I have friends now sharing THEIR answers to questions like they were Strangers. They want to share with me! Meanwhile, I have friends now asking THEIR friends these questions because they want to know what motivates them. It’s exciting to watch as we consider how people around us could be Strangers in some way, too.
  • To change the world for the greater through entrepreneurial endeavors. I have no idea where this is going to go other than 100 Strangers… 100 Days. I may ask some more friendlier faces as I realize, too, that some familiar faces are just surface-level connections. As I said earlier, I want deeper connections, so maybe I go beyond Strangers. I don’t know if this will be a book. I don’t know if this will amount to anything “commercially viable”, but I’m good with that. I hope this journey motivates bigger effects on us as a community, as a nation, as a race. We all have common threads as well as beautiful differences. I want us to embrace each other and the effects of this journey for greateraspirations whatever they may be.

So stay tuned and check out these beautiful Strangers on http://100strangers100days.com – I’m on Day 12 today. Also, you can follow the journey via Twitter @StrangersXDays or Instagram @StrangersXDays.
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How to Stay Motivated

I opened up the floor for others to suggest today’s blog post topic and decided on “how to stay motivated”.
I’ve heard several entrepreneurs recently share their struggles – struggles from overcoming challenges to staying consistent in writing. It’s tough. It’s really, really tough.
As I mentioned in the past, many people assume the hardest part of startups is making the leap into entrepreneurship. That’s tough, but the greatest challenge is overcoming the CHASM. The greatest challenge is staring down doubt and overcoming hurdles over and over. There’s even a period referred to as the “trough of sorrow”.
Tips on staying motivated:
  • Ground into your why. The why is what fuels your passion. It’s the reason you started. If it’s powerful enough, it’ll keep you going.
  • Find tools, whatever they may be that gives you energy. For me, that sometimes starts with a simple motivational video.
  • Surround yourself with supportive, like-driven people. Atlanta is really thriving as a startup hub with a vast network of entrepreneurs, startup spaces, and dream-chasers and achievers.
  • Take a step back and reassess your situation and your direction. 
  • Be vulnerable and ask for help. This is why I read Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. Staying motivated sometimes means opening up to others to ask for the support and encouragement needed.

“Staying motivated” implies you’re already in-flight on your idea, passion, or startup. A piece of advice that can help before you make that head-on jump: Can you pursue this idea or passion on a steady basis as a hobby? Sometimes, making a big plunge is too drastic and requires too much change which can quickly deflate interest and motivation.

There are a number of ways to stay motivated, but the big ones are grounding into your why, and reaching out for help.
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Start Your Idea Like You Would a Habit – With Micro Goals

I was talking to a wantrepreneur recently who was having a tough time getting started on her idea. She felt overwhelmed not knowing where to begin. Stopping her from starting was her own grand ambitions.
This is pretty common – this paralysis of too much and the unknown. However, we (this wantrepreneur included) can take a step back and realize startups aren’t short-term sprints – they’re marathons (of sprints).
Successful startups don’t happen overnight. Instead, they are successful from learning and iterating. It’s not about that initial jump, but sustained persistence. If we think about it this way, then we can think about approaching our ideas like we approach habit creation.
An anecdote from my life: I wanted to write my book two years ago. I had a couple false-starts where I typed up a couple pages and stopped. I kept stopping because I felt how daunting it was to start from PAGE 1 of a book of XYZ many pages. I believed in what I wanted to do, but it was a massive mountain to climb.
Last November, I decided to write the book again, but with another approach. I listed out all the chapters of the book, and made a decision to two chapters of the book till completion. I attached micro-goals to my macro-goal. Within 10 days, I had the first iteration of my book.
Gregory Ciotti of 99u.com refers to this as “micro and macro quotas”. Before when I stared at page 1 of XYZ, I looked at it as page 1 of chapter 1.
Instead of looking at the whole grand idea and being intimidated by the grandiose, create a plan (that will change), and create micro goals of what to accomplish each day. Build the idea as if you’re building a habit of success.
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The Mountain Biking Lesson That Gets Us Past What Stops Us

Took a hike on Saturday morning to the top of Stone Mountain to catch the sunrise. There are a million reasons not get up this early, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have caught this beauty.
If you’re a mountain biker, you know the importance of picking a line, attacking it, and driving your legs to get through tricky terrain. Turns out, this line-attack-drive mentality is actually pretty applicable in the world of startups and entrepreneurship, too, but not just in navigating the treacherous terrain of entrepreneurship, but also in just starting out.
When I was younger, my buddy and I biked around the neighborhood looking for “mini-off-road adventures”. That meant going down stairs around the ‘hood, flying through the wooded backyards of neighbors, and occasionally, fording a creek bed near the neighborhood pool.
The creek had rocks and dips in addition to the slow current of the creek, so it made for a “risky” adventure – hey, we’re in the suburbs. The key to navigating the traps and obstacles was to find a line, attack it, and keep churning your legs.
At first, my buddy had trouble fording the creek either stopping well before entering the creek or right smack in the middle. But once he focused on a clean line free of rocks and big dips, finding momentum into the line, and then driving his legs, he was crossing the creek almost effortlessly.
I’ve recently sat down with several “wantrepreneurs” and musicians, and so many of them are stuck in this “I’m not ready” phase or “I’m waiting for… [insert ‘stars to align’ here]”. But as they’re waiting for the right people to come aboard to help or for themselves to have the confidence to try, years have passed by. And in most cases, those ideas are now yesterday’s someone else’s successes.
So why are people holding back? How do you just “pick a line, attack it, and keep your legs driving”? Everything’s easier said than done, but maybe being conscious of what’s holding you back is a step towards accomplishing the goals you’ve set forth for yourself. So here are a few thoughts:

Surprise! You’re afraid of what others think.

How many times are we afraid that others won’t like what we’re doing, or they “disapprove”? Funny thing is that everyone has their own priorities, and you should too. That priority? Yourself.

I happened to meet a young girl in high school who said she liked to sing, but she didn’t consider herself a singer or musician. In fact, when my friend and I asked her why she didn’t share her music more, she mentioned “mean girls” at her school. Wow. That was truly sad. She was holding herself back from her passion, afraid of being teased by others who really didn’t care for her. Meanwhile, those who did care for her encouraged her, but it was the rotten apples in the group with nothing positive to say who held her back.

What you’ll learn in any marketing exercise, especially in startups, is that you’ll have multiple levels of the market, and those who your message resonates with are the ones who matter the most. It’s that depiction of a funnel where the right audience who comes through at the end. And believe me that there are plenty of people who will care about what you do and say.

You think you’re not ready.

“If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.” – Lemony Snicket

Truth is, I don’t think we’re ever truly ready for a lot of things. Couple examples:
  • I hear from my friends who are now parents of little ones that they didn’t think they were fully ready, and even when their kids were born, they weren’t. But they learn on-the-fly.
  • As I’ve started consulting independently, I’ve had to rely a lot on my own experience and skills and my ability to quickly learn. Once I sold myself on projects and started working on them, I’ve continued learning which has been my way of powering through (the drive). Sometimes, it’s smooth, sometimes it’s not. But each time has been a great learning experience.

When we pursue a dream or a passion like entrepreneurship, we have to be strong, smart, and vulnerable enough to ask for help. Those capabilities you think you may lack can be learned, and asking for help is one of the best ways to do that.

It’s amazing what happens when we actually push ourselves and keep our legs churning – we accomplish what we didn’t think we could.

With more time (and falls), you seek the path of least resistance.

I was hiking on Stone Mountain this weekend, when I realized I started picking lines on the trail with the smallest “steps”. I remember I used to love jumping down the larger boulders. Now, I’m nursing a sprained ankle (I’m like Mr. Glass these days), and I’m consciously more cautious of what line I take.
When I was younger, I would dream about mountain biking up and down this granite. Now? Now I’m slowly, cautiously stepping down each boulder. Ah, how the years have affected my risk aversion…
As we all get older, “wiser”, we’ve got more experience and scars that keep us from both getting hurt and attempting anything too risky (like a growing family). Sure that can be a good thing, but it can also hold us back as we settle into a pattern. It’s important to weigh risks against the opportunities and realize, too, that some risks aren’t really risks at all. Instead, they’re just excuses.

You don’t think you’re good enough.

Patrick McKenzie (of Kalzumeus Software) wrote a post about the need for salary transparency in Talking About Money, but he also shared a little nugget of truth about skill growth. Patrick increased his consultancy rates dramatically from $12K per week to $30K to $50K (PER WEEK!!) DESPITE his skill levels being largely the same. Instead, it was his ability to continue to market and sell himself that drove up rates.
When we’re afraid to venture out on our own or to share our music or our ideas, most of the time, it’s because we THINK we’re not “good enough”. However, in most cases, we are. Patrick continued growing his consultancy rates by learning and iterating over the years. It took practice to learn and iterations… practice and iterations he would never have if he never started.

You put others and others’ obligations ahead of yourself and your own.

I was talking to my musician friend the other day. I’ve heard his stuff, and he’s genuinely a great musician, but due to his work with others, he hasn’t put out any new music in years. At least, he hasn’t shared it. It makes me sad a bit.
I explained it to him like his personality… he’s a great guy, has a good heart, and has some deep, creative thoughts. However, most people don’t know him that way because either he doesn’t open up to others or strangers don’t just say hello. I just happened to be the Curious George to say hello.
His music, like his personality, will never be liked, disliked, or even known it ever existed if he doesn’t share it with the world.
It’s easy to be so focused on the day-to-day that our true passions fall to the wayside while we earn the paycheck that puts food on the table. Important, sure. However, perhaps it just takes being conscious of the lack of effort we spend on what we’re truly passionate about to seize the opportunity and share.

…

The most successful DO-ERs know that stagnation is a trap, and it’s got this gravitational pull that keeps us there. They know that the only way to success is to… well, DO. Pick your line (your direction), attack it (you do), and drive through it (learn, iterate, keep doing). 
How would you use the Line-Attack-Drive mentality to achieve some goal you’ve set? What other step do you think is missing from this?
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Does the Challenge of the HOW or the WHAT of an Idea Motivate You?

What’s more motivating for you — learning how to fish or the fish itself? (Image Source: http://thelakemurraynews.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fishing.jpg)
I was talking to an intellectual yesterday about an idea of his. He’s an entrepreneur in the marketing realm, and wants to get a technology idea off the ground. He’s also an author and PhD with a wide breadth of exciting experiences; hence the “intellectual”.
So we were talking about his idea, and it’s in the realm of politics. I know diddly squat about politics. I’m sitting there and understanding what he’s proposing conceptually, and at the end, he asked me to get back to him if I’m interested in taking on the project in some capacity, but also, if I’m not passionate about it or the subject at all, then no worries.
That little bit made me think about if I need to know or “care” about politics, or if there was another drive that would motivate me to take this on. It made me think of what I’m passionate about, what challenges I find rewarding, and to some extent, what am I scared of – the domain of an idea or building the idea.
Throughout our talk, I was leaning on my experience building startups in thinking about the venture as it relates to marketing, user experience, and largely, the technical mechanics of it. It’s not technically difficult to be honest, but I don’t know politics necessarily. So all this time, the hamster in my head is running furiously thinking about the building aspect of the idea, not really politics. That’s what drives me.
I’ve long called myself an opportunist. I mentioned in prior posts like “The Next Act for an Entrepreneur With Breadth, Not Depth – Am I A Product Manager?” that I don’t necessarily have a specific domain expertise, but look at what I’ve done, and you won’t necessarily find much commonalities in domains. Instead, you’d find the BUILDING part of my ventures as the common thread. It’s the thrill of the strategy formation, hypothesis testing, implementation, learning, and then the recycle.
Thinking about this “domain” vs. “build” concept, I suppose I can relate “build” to the “work”, “implementation”, or “delivery” of other occupations or even in the corporate job world. Or better yet, “domain” would be the “what” question and “build” would be the “how” question. For me, it doesn’t so much matter about what an occupation or idea is in. Instead, I’m interested in the “how”. What scares me when I’m building iOS apps right now, for instance, is how to mechanize an idea. How do I use the iPhone’s GPS, if I’ve never used it before?

Taking the old proverb, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. But perhaps the more relevant question is if the man even wants fish. What if he’s allergic?! So fishing, in this case, is the “HOW”. And the “fish” is actually the “WHAT”.

And of course, you have more questions that can and will motivate you as you choose a new job, a new venture, etc. including WHO, WHEN, WHERE, and my favorite… the WHY.
  • The Who question can address who you work with (want to work with your best friend?) or who you serve.
  • The When question can address if timing is right – if the market’s ready, if you’re ready, etc.
  • The WHERE question, similarly to WHEN, can address if the location’s right. 
  • The Why question is a tough one, and yet so easy… this can answer if you’re in sync with the purpose of a company. Is the company pursuing a mission you’re proud of and feel strongly about?

But with the Intellectual, the questions that raced into my mind that concerned me the most were that of the domain (the WHAT) and how mechanizing the idea would work (the HOW). At least with this opportunity, I wouldn’t be able to tell if BM would or would not be someone WHO I would want to work with. I will have to consider the WHEN question before I get back to him given my bandwidth now and in the foreseeable future. And as for the WHY, this opportunity would allow me to learn a lot from a brilliant, well-connected individual that would perhaps be a great stepping stone for something later I could be even more passionate about.
Of course, for me, I have to be wary of that the building process only lasts for so long before the product reaches maturity and stability. And thus, the challenge dissipates, but perhaps, the challenge actually transforms into another type of build… like building a company, or building new innovative ideas… but in a better case, the WHAT becomes just as appealing as the HOW.

What are your thoughts about what excites you about your job or a new opportunity – is it the domain or the build? How do you consider the other questions (who, when, why) as you evaluate options?
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5 Steps to Overcome the CHASM Between You and Successful Habits and Passions

Source: http://www.quotesvalley.com/images/09/motivation-is-what-gets-you-started-habit-is-what-keeps-you-going.jpg
Recently, I got a chance to sit down with the President and co-founder of IRUNURUN, Travis Dommert. Met him walking down the street of Piedmont with a friend. I actually yelled at my buddy from 200 yards away. It’s funny how things work.
Anyways, great guy with some deep thinking. We talked a little about irunurun, especially sharing some experiences from Body Boss, and how he and his team are pivoting slightly towards building more sustainable habits after watching how users were tracking and engaging in their run-tracking platform. Now, irunurun is…

IRUNURUN is a performance and accountability app designed to help people and organizations achieve through focus, consistency, and accountability. 

If you’ve been reading my blog regularly or at least ​a few articles, you’ll know my interest in psychology and passion-pursuits. So Travis and I had a great talk, and it made me think more about building sustainable habits. But there was this one idea that really hit me and made a lot of sense — the Gap vs. the CHASM.
I wrote about Getting Over the Gap previously, but I hadn’t thought about the follow-up CHASM that exists. It makes sense. That is, getting over the gap is really tough, but getting over the chasm is REALLY, REALLY TOUGH. Crossing the chasm is consistently​ doing (vs. just doing) and can be referred to as “mastery”. This is where many people, I’ve seen not make it over.
I’ve seen entrepreneurs take the plunge and just after building an MVP (or oftentimes more than), watch traction not quite be where they dreamed, and they call it wraps without actually trying to find out why or how to pivot. There’s a saying to “fail fast”, but don’t quit prematurely. I’ve seen others find the financial burden of jumping off the original gap​ (and off a full-time gig) quickly swimming back to the full-time safety net. I don’t see enough people really endure and knock through walls where challenges exist; instead, wanting to turn back around. I’m not saying I’m not one of those to have turned around in some points, but maybe this opens my eyes on how to succeed.
Real back-of-the-napkin stuff right here… See the CHASM? It’s huge. Have your five steps grounded in your WHY to reach mastery
Travis described there being five stepping stones to help get over the chasm… each, anchored in a bedrock of some purpose — the “why”. I think my business school professor for an Innovation class would be thrilled to hear me say this. The five stepping blocks are:
  1. ​Clarity– What’s the goal? What’s the purpose? Who’s the team? Etc. This is mostly living and breathing and will need to adapt over time.
  2. Rhythm– Build a cadence that is sustainable, and sticking to it. I like to reflect on this story about how a guy did a “life hack” by getting up everyday at 4:30AM for 21 days. Except, he didn’t do it everyday straight. Instead, he focused on the weekdays because he knew that he couldn’t sustain early days on the weekends.
  3. Accountability– Who are you accountable to? For me, I’m accountable, largely, to me and I can usually drive my feet towards a goal. However, accountability can also come from work colleagues, friends, saying publicly you’re going to do something (like buddy Matt performing 100 asks for 100 days).
  4. Reinforcement– What enables you to consistently achieve what you need to achieve? In some ways, this can be the incentives. Lean more on the intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivators most will say.
  5. Leadership​ – In many ways in entrepreneurship, this can be you and kind of you alone. However, you can also lean on mentors and co-founders or even idols to lead you. Though, it’d best be someone or some example that you can have some direct interaction with.

​The five steps are from Travis, but the rest was in my terms of understanding. Let’s see if I got it right when he reads this (and potentially corrects me). The biggest stepping stones that I find people having trouble with is in Rhythm and perhaps the bedrock of their Purpose. Whether it’s finding time to workout in the morning, building a new business, or any other transformation, it’s imperative to find the balance that works for you (Rhythm). Part of that may include taking a step back and uncovering what it is that really drives you, not just motivates, but really DRIVES you (Purpose/ Why).
** As an aside and for bonus points, I thoroughly enjoyed Simon Sinek’s TED talk “Start with Why“. Good talk on what really drives people, and it’s not the “what” that a company does, but the “why”. My good friend Michael Flanigan, Co-Founder of innovation leaders Covello, recently shared his thoughts where in the [near] future companies will all need to have a humanizing element to be successful and sustainable.
What are your thoughts about the five steps to overcoming the CHASM? Are we missing a step? 
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Wait, Am I An “Unemployable”? A Founder’s Problem

(Source: http://blogs.transparent.com/english/files/2013/10/odd_one_out.jpg)
Recently, I was described by an entrepreneur as “unemployable”. Hmm, well, since I was talking about potentially joining/ helping his startup, this could go a couple ways, but none sounded very assuring.
He quickly drew the comparison of him and me. Can’t be that bad, right, if he’s comparing the two of us?
But then again, I knew what he was referring to when he used the term. I just hadn’t heard the term before. Since Body Boss, I kept contemplating the role I wanted to pursue, and where/ how could I best help a company if I were to join vs. founding another startup of my own.
One of the challenges of true entrepreneurs – those looking to hop back on the startup grind even after failure – is finding that Next Move… finding the next home. Michael Tavani, co-founder of ScoutMob and now launching a design-focused incubator (simplistically) called Switchyards inATL, said it best: “Founders gotta found.”
The idea is that some entrepreneurs can be the idea guy, or can be the guy who really wants to start companies. It’s risky to hire these type of people because at any moment, they can strike some idea and run off to try to build it. I get that. I mean, that happens to me every other day it seems. Building Body Boss, I kept my spreadsheet of new ideas, and I never really pursued any. But when I was working as a consultant before for someone else or even with another startup, yeah, I get the urge to build something great… something that I can really ownand say, “I built that… I foundedthat”.
Of course, that comes with a price.
The price… or maybe the question is whether I can be a valuable contributor and committed to another cause. Can I be a team player, too? Can I be proud of helping to build someone else’s company? Fair questions, and I believe I can be all of the above.
No job is permanent, and with that, there are opportunities to learn and grow in just about any position. And of course, like I said last week, there is a “mortality” of being an entrepreneur and that coincides with my ability to keep my life sustainable amid that savings account. Building companies with little to no income can definitely be hard, so biting the bullet to be employable is perhaps a necessary step.
Hiring these “unemployables” can be hugely rewarding. Not just for their ability to think outside the box, but in general, they can keep a company continually building, continually inspiring others for greater. Just take a gander at Bloomberg Businessweek’s article “Need Innovation? Hire an Entrepreneur”.
To the entrepreneur’s point at the beginning of this post about the risk inherent to the unemployables, the hardest part is holding onto these entrepreneurs. They seek challenges and ways to continually promote their dynamism. For me, I know I work best when I really own several processes, not just one. I love doing just about anything and everything outside hardcore programming and okay, maybe some of that accounting/ finance, too.

Being unemployable isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it could be a great thing to know, and a way to challenge yourself to be employable, Yes, even if that means taking some time off your dreams in hopes of taking a couple years of more incubation and learning to then eventually reach those dreams. 
What are your thoughts on your employability? How do you fancy yourself to be team member? How can founding entrepreneurs fit into other startups after failure, and be kept motivated to continue as part of the new endeavor?
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