Don’t Follow The Herd
Edition #083
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The Newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
The Salary Trap
Romeen Sheth, CEO of Metasys, has written a compelling and thought-provoking article on the Salary Trap—something that genuinely resonated and a thought that can be related to.
Here are some key highlights of the article:
Let’s say you have two job offers on the table. Which one should you pick?
Job A is for $60,000 at a fast-growing company
Job B is for $90,000 at a slow-growth company
99% of people would say Job B. On the surface, it’s obvious - it’s almost 50% higher pay than Job A. When you’re 25 years old, that’s super attractive.
‘Early in your career, salary is one of the least important factors you should consider. In fact, I’ll go one step further to say the worst thing you can do early in your career is take a job that pays 50% more but where you will learn 80% less.’
Early in your career, pick a job where the learning velocity is steep. You will sacrifice short-term compensation ($30k in this case) for long-term rewards.
When your learning curve is flat, your earning curve is flat. When your learning curve is steep, your earning curve is steep.
Read the article here.
The Best Interview I’ve Ever Done About Founders
David Senra is the creator of Founders Podcast (it’s one of our FAVOURITE podcasts!). Through this podcast, you will learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week, David reads a biography of an entrepreneur and finds ideas you can use in your work.
In this episode, David shares what he learned from the first six years of reading, researching, analysing and exploring more about history's most outstanding entrepreneurs and Founders. It’s a fantastic summary of what he finds as a common thread among all of them. Just click the above link and listen.
How to Take the BS out of Business Speak
Robert “Bob” Wiltfong is a journalist and comedian and is best known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
In this brilliant talk, Bob talks about how "business speak," or the particular language most of us use at work, which can be jargony, confusing and even exclusionary. In his own funny but impactful way, he shares a lot of corporate acronyms and phrases that don't make much sense without context!
Here are some key takeaways and highlights:
Use business-speak words that can make others inclusive and not exclusive.
If you can use common words that make it easy for people to understand, use them as much rather than complicated jargon words just because others use them or you want to prove a point to others!
Learn to express fresh ideas without often used or stale business cliches. Sometimes, people use cliches without they not knowing enough about them.
Consider the cultural differences when you use BS words, as they may not mean anything to somebody else in another part of the world, or they may not even have a context and hence do not mean anything to them.
Just click on the above video and watch this explained hilariously by Bob.
Don’t Follow The Herd
While reading, listening and watching all the above three thoughts, one common thread kept popping up in our minds - the number of times we mindlessly follow the herd because many others around us are doing it.
It is pretty scary that you do many things every day, and you don’t question them deep enough in your mind - if you are convinced about doing them, fully committed to them, and even really enjoy them.
Let’s look at a few of them:
The first one could be what you are asked to study or, in simple language, your education, which you complete without being convinced if you want to be an engineer, chartered accountant, lawyer, marketer, technologist, etc. You are told to do it because you can earn a high salary, or work in the best company in the world, etc. And the world around you markets it very well. When you start working, since you are not convinced, you do a poor job of it because you don’t enjoy it or are not committed to it.
The next one, you are often told it’s really fun to be in a start-up or start something on your own. What is not told is the uncertainty, ambiguity, pain, and chances of failure, which are never spoken about to you. Or if you work for a large company, if you are somebody who relishes freedom, risk-taking, etc., the environment can be constraining for you to be yourself and be in a flow to perform at your best. Because it is what others do or seems to be the season's flavour, you take it up without evaluating your strengths and weaknesses. In fact, what does not seem to be the most significant risk may be the most risky over the long term!
You are ‘evangelised’ into the corporate world with seemingly amazing ‘perks’ that seem too attractive to resist. It’s a kind of ‘comfort addiction’ that you may never be able to get out of. The salary, the travel, the exotic places you stay, the importance you get or given, etc. And you soon become another ‘people cliche’ in the corporate world who speaks BS.
But, when you read or listen to the life lessons of great founders, legends or leaders, these entrepreneurs or professionals have failed a thousand times and gone through ups and downs frequently. They had incredible patience or resilience - waiting for many years before they even succeeded, but that’s not the story you hear or told - which is ‘Excellence requires a high degree of pain tolerance.’ They had taken a path not taken by many, and they were unsure if they would succeed in their beginning years.
But one thing seems common - obsession, relentless pursuit of what they wanted to do despite roadblocks, an incredible amount of hard work and effort, mindless focus on every little thing that mattered to them despite being seen as unfriendly, pushy or non-empathetic by others, sacrificing their personal life or family relations etc. Some things you may want to avoid doing are learning from their mistakes but imbibe the traits that made them who they were.
One fundamental truth seems to be clear from all this - ‘Don’t Follow The Herd.’
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Don’t get into the salary trap. Your rate of earning is directly correlated with your rate of learning.
Excellence is hard-earned and hard-fought. There are no shortcuts. It’s a conscious choice you have to make.
Unambigutate your business speak. People don’t understand or even relate honestly to the jargons you use.