Friday Links: Reinventing, Asking Questions, Being Agile

by Nina Post

Talking to Yourself (Out Loud) Can Help You Learn

"To help him outperform his younger colleagues, Ross asked himself lots of questions. He would constantly query himself as he read through the assigned texts. After each paragraph, after each sentence, he would ask himself: “What did I just read? How does that fit together? Have I come across this idea before?”"

My husband likes to talk things out for more complicated tasks (he kind of mutters through it), and we find it's really helpful to learn something then explain what we learned right away. Trying to articulate what you just learned and answering questions about it gives you a deeper understanding of it. Here are some of my tips for metacognitive competency.

Guidelines for a pitch practice meetup

In my most recent post, I talked about how get more practice with public speaking. Here's an interview with the guy who started a pitch practice meetup in Atlanta - there are some good details about guidelines and how it's organized.

Doing Agile and Being Agile

"But the wider point is that agile is not just a process, it defines a culture. This is what agile practitioner Michael Sahota described as the difference between doing agile and being agile. It’s the difference between practices and mindset."

Creative Careers Demand Reinvention

"Inventing and re-inventing. Making it work. I always remember something the rapper Ice Cube told me: “Ain’t nobody givin’ up no ass.”

The Secret to Powerful Goal Setting

"Crystal clear goal setting can be really powerful—it’s the type of goal setting that gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you motivated… for the entire year."

The Subtle Art of Living a Good Life: A Conversation with Jonathan Fields and Mark Manson

“A good life isn’t a place that you can mentally get to and then you’re good. It’s a practice. It’s a daily practice, and it builds over weeks and months and years.” Long, but well worth the read.

What You Should Do As Soon As Your Facebook Live Broadcast Ends

"There’s a lot more you can do to squeeze some extra mileage out of your video after the camera turns off.

What can you do to make your live broadcasts as valuable as possible after they end?"

The Germaphobe’s Guide to Airplane Travel

I do all these things: I always wipe down the tray table, everything around me, and everything they hand me with sanitizing wipes. I use a paper towel to touch anything in the bathroom, and would never ever take one of the blankets. Anyone gets too close, I spray them with Lysol.

Have a great weekend!  

3 Ways to Practice Your Public Speaking

by Nina Post

Sometimes I hang out and answer questions over at inbound.org, and one of the skills I have listed in my profile is speaking. I've done enough public speaking that it was reflexive to include it, but I'll admit that I'm out of practice.

When you don't get public speaking practice in between speaking events, it makes it much harder to be comfortable with those events. And what do you say to yourself every time? "I really have to get some practice."

And when you're an entrepreneur, you're constantly pitching to some audience, either one-on-one or to a group, like a pitch competition or a demo day. You need frequent practice, and what's offered isn't enough.

So whether you're an entrepreneur or just want to get more facile with public speaking, you need consistent, weekly practice in between events. But how do you get that?

1) The first thing to remember is that you don't need to be someone else, and you don't "conquer" your fear. You manage it and get enough practice that you can work through it.

When you're at a pitch competition or any other event where you're speaking, it can feel like you're addressing coyotesthat want to devour you. You think that everyone in the audience hates your guts, couldn't care less about you or your company, and can't wait until you get out of their sight—especially next to the extrovert, who may as well be David Copperfield or Tony Robbins for their ability to bewitch the audience. Or at least it feels that way.

But you don't have to be like them. All you need to be is capable, and make sure people can hear and understand you. The rest will come in time -- if you practice. 

2) Look for any opportunity in your area: pitch competitions, local co-working spaces, and Toastmasters.

If you're participating in a pitch or business plan competition, you should ask if there any opportunities to get feedback on your pitch in a non-competitive environment.

Check co-working spaces in your area. You don't necessarily need a full membership—you might need only a one-day-a-week pass, or a pass for a few days a month. There are a lot of different variations, so see if the ones near you offer non-competitive practice sessions.

Galvanize has the Pitchers & Pitches competition, but I've never seen anything in local co-working spaces that mentions smaller, non-competitive pitch practice with peers. (I thought about starting one myself.)

Another option is Toastmasters, but it costs money to be a member, and there probably aren't many other entrepreneurs in the group. Plus, the locations tend to be... not ideal. But if you're so inclined, you could see where and when local public groups hold meetings, and go check one out. There's no charge for sitting in to see if it's right for you.

4) Your best bet for getting pitch practice is to contact a few other founders you're friends with or know of and see if they're interested in starting a pitch practice group. Competitions aren't frequent enough to get the kind of practice you need to become more facile at public speaking.

If you're not an entrepreneur, you could still try this option. I can tell you that there are very few good options in Seattle, and that smaller pitch practice meetups (or any smaller public speaking meetups) are desperately needed. I'm sure that's the case by you, too.

You could meet at someone's house each time, or in a reserved room at a co-working space. You can build connections with other founders and get much-needed practice with going through your slides and pitch. You could also put up a flyer at co-working spaces and university business schools to promote your pitch meetup to find more interested people.

Each public speaking opportunity helps you refine what you're saying. With enough practice, you no longer worry if you can do it—it just becomes a matter of how well you're going to do. You can't guarantee you'll do an awesome job, but you know you'll do a decent job. You get comfortable with your baseline, and that's a great asset to bring with you to future pitches.

The important thing is to take action and practice. If you can't find enough opportunities to get public speaking / pitch practice, create one—and help some other people in a similar situation.

pics by Unsplash

The Most Effective Strategies for Creative Incubation and Divergent Thinking

by Nina Post

As a company founder, most of the problems you deal with will be divergent problems, which are problems that have no single unique solution but a lot of potential solutions.

And before you say anything, I know that most of the problems you encounter can be classified as a shit-storm, shit-cyclone, or shit-nado, and that "a lot of potential solutions" means scrambling to find the best shit-blocking umbrella in the least amount of time.

In any case, you're always in a time crunch, and don't have a lot of time for protracted creative problem solving. Recent studies on Divergent Thinking and Immediate vs. Delayed Incubation will clear up the role of unconscious thought and task interpolation so you can get a better idea of what's effective for a creative problem-solving incubation period.

Divergent vs Immediate Incubation

There are two incubation paradigms in the incubation stage of the creative process. This process, according to Graham Wallas, has four stages: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification.

With Delayed Incubation, you work on the problem, go do an undemanding and dissimilar task, and return to the problem for a post-incubation work time.

With Immediate Incubation, you get information on the problem, delay conscious work on it (possibly because you're too busy having a moderate panic attack)—and do an unrelated task immediately after the main problem, before returning to the problem for uninterrupted work.

Meta-analyses and recent studies reveal that incubation periods, whether delayed or immediate, do have beneficial effects. Delayed Incubation resulted in better decisions than Immediate Incubation, but both types are beneficial relative to no incubation period.

One way to optimize the Delayed Incubation period is to break away for an undemanding task, like cleaning or showering. One meta-analysis showed that the benefits are greater for an undemanding task compared to a demanding task or no task at all.  

Unconscious Work

With Delayed Incubation, “beneficial forgetting” facilitates fresh starts—AKA “set shifting”—when you take up the problem again. As you look for the solution to a problem, you might lead yourself down misleading or incorrect paths. Set shifting weakens those paths.

The good news is that Immediate Incubation, though it doesn't allow time for sets to get established, does permit some unconscious work.

There's also support for an even more expedited problem solving process.

The Fresh Look Hypothesis

The Fresh Look hypothesis is a variant of the Beneficial Forgetting approach, and supports the role of attentional shifting in Delayed Incubation. The study indicates that simply removing attention from the target task is sufficient, and that the length of the incubation period or tasks performed during that period isn't important.  

Incubation Options

You have a few options when it comes to the incubation period of the creative problem solving process. When you get information about a problem, you can (1) sit with the problem for a while, then go do an undemanding and dissimilar task before coming back to it.

Or you can (2) do an undemanding and dissimilar task immediately then return to the problem (yay). And if you're really pressed for time, (3) just shift your attention to something else and then come back to the problem. Ideally, you'd do the first one: work on the problem for a bit, then go do an undemanding and dissimilar task before returning to the "three-ring shit show" that is your life at the moment.

gifs by giphy.com

Are You Making These Mistakes When Adding People to Your Newsletter?

by Nina Post

Say you meet a startup founder at a networking event. A couple of weeks later, you start getting their email newsletter.

Hold up... you never signed up for that list.

The issue isn't limited to small companies. I see this with companies of all sizes, and with individuals. Unfortunately, it's a very common problem. Some people add everyone they meet to their list, with no permission or opt-in. It's shitty and unethical, and isn't doing your personal brand any favors.

It sucks that this is such a widespread thing, but this is especially important for startups because when someone starts getting emails from a new startup, it's pretty obvious who added you and when.

So, if you're doing this, please stop.

Here's what you can do instead:

1) Don't add anyone to your list UNLESS you explicitly asked for permission to add them to your email list—AND if they granted you permission to their inbox (saying, for example, "Sure, add me to your list.") Otherwise, you are a surprise, and not welcome.

Not only does it make you look bad, and dangerously ignorant, but you could get into trouble with your email service provider, and as a startup founder, you can't afford that, in either time or money. Enough ridiculous crap that's completely out of your control comes your way. Don't invite it with something you can control.

2) If you get a verbal consent, then the next step, at a minimum, should be to send a standard double opt-in email so the recipient at least has to click a link to confirm they want to be on the list.

3) Create a short template for an email you can send to someone you'd like to be on your list. This email includes a brief, polite note that makes mention of where you met, along with a sign-up link.

It could say, "I enjoyed meeting you at the Archie McPhee University Business Plan Competition Honoring David Lynch, and thought you might be interested in keeping up with the company's latest updates in our newsletter. I send it out every month, and you can always unsubscribe. Just click the link below to join."  

It's also a good idea to give people more than one way to connect with you, so you could add something like, "Or if newsletters aren't your style, it'd be great to connect on LinkedIn or Twitter."

Then when someone does sign up, they get an opt-in email where they confirm that yes, they do want to join this list. And they get their confirmation email telling them that they're all signed up for your list. Everyone feels good about it.

The alternative: this person sees you at another event, thinks, 'Oh, there's the asshole who signed me up for their email list without asking,' and avoids you and doesn't want to hear about your company anymore. That's not the worst that can happen, either.

Don't be a dum-dum. Always get permission.

gifs by giphy.com

How Surprise Frustrations Can Work in Your Favor

by Nina Post

Shortly after we first met, my husband and I (spoiler: Reader, I married him) planned a weekend at Universal Studios.

I was in Orlando at a Cisco conference, which started on a Thursday. He couldn't get to Universal until Friday, after an investor meeting—and he flew from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando because there was no point in us having to drive two cars back.

I came to the airport and met him as he was coming out of the terminal.

I'm sure I started laughing right away (like can't-breath-laughing), because along with his T-shirt, he was wearing jean shorts, white tube socks, and black loafers. He had changed out of his work clothes after the meeting, but forgot to bring along another pair of shoes.

We went to an outdoor mall, where he found a Foot Locker. He was in there forever because they didn't have what he wanted. We went to two or three other stores, then ended up returning to the first Foot Locker, where he bought something he liked enough.

Years later, after we were married, he had a meeting near Portland. He had to leave the house at 4 a.m. to get to the Seattle airport, and I was up, too, because I always get up with him if he has an early flight.

It was too early for public transit, and he was taking a town car service to the airport. He dressed in a suit. I made him breakfast, then when he was ready to leave, I checked if he had his phone, boarding pass, etc.

He arrived at the Seattle airport.

I got an email.

He was still wearing his slippers.

I laughed. I laughed pretty hard.

(His shoes were moccasin-style, so it wasn't obvious before then.) By the time he got into the terminal, he had thought, "Oh crap, I'm still wearing my slippers."

His flight was leaving at 6 a.m. from Seattle, and stores didn't open until 6 or 7. He had to wear the slippers outside twice: walking to the small plane on the tarmac, and getting off the plane.

He arrived in Portland, and thought he'd have to take a cab to a shoe store or a mall and get shoes there, but luckily, since Nike is based near Portland, they had a huge store right in the airport terminal.

He went into the store, found an employee, and said, "I'm looking for shoes that wouldn't look ridiculous with this outfit."

They were pretty amused, but very helpful, and brought out a few options. He really liked a pair called Roshe Run*, which were lightweight, all-black running shoes.

The shoes he found turned out to be his favorite shoes ever. He ended up tracking down another pair later, and always wears them with dress pants. When he goes to any meeting, or any event, he wears the Roshe with dress pants.

And I learned to have a better "leaving for a flight" checklist, including "Wearing the right shoes?"

I like checklists, and didn't like this flaw in my system, so I patched it.

The takeaway here is that when a frustrating thing comes up, totally unplanned, and you have to change your tactics at the last minute or deal with an unexpected situation—ook around. The solution could be closer than you think.

Oh, and use checklists.

*The closest version you can buy today is a Roshe One.

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