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- What is no-code?
Break down your content into manageable steps. Use videos, images, and text to explain your main points, and set clear expectations and goals. You can also include files and audio as additional resources. Consider adding a questionnaire to ask participants what they hope to take away from the experience, or a quiz to test their understanding before getting started.
- Find Your Purpose
Have you ever thought: If I earn this much money, I’ll be happier or if I owned that thing, I’ll be happier? It’s refreshing to know that in recent years, as a society, we’ve started to move away from the idea that economic success, wealth and possessions are signs of achievement or the sole items responsible for our happiness. What is Ikigai? Philosophers have been deliberating over constructs that explain the pursuit of happiness and the meaning of life for centuries. Ikigai is one thought to combine the Japanese words ikiru, meaning “to live”, and kai, meaning “the sensation of what hopes for”. Together these definitions create “a reason to live” or having a life purpose. We all strive for satisfaction and purpose in our lives. Your ikigai is your reason for jumping out of bed in the morning, what motivates you to revel in and appreciate life every day. Ikigai is a beneficial practice in career growth because like your own passions and needs, and what the world needs — the meditation of ikigai grows and changes with you. There’s not necessarily an end to your ikigai practice, it’s an ongoing journey. How to find your Ikigai? According to Japanese culture, everyone has ikigai. Detecting our strengths is not always easy. There are four questions that can help us find our path. If you write them down somewhere where you come across them regularly, you can use them as a compass bringing you closer to your purpose. To find your Ikigai, you must ask yourself: 1. What do I love? (passion) 2. What am I good at? (vocation) 3. What can I be paid for? (profession) 4. What does the world need? (mission) Ikigai is the union point of four fundamental components of life: passion, vocation, profession and mission. In other words, where; what you love meets what you are good at, meets what you can be valued and paid for meets that which the world needs. Ikigai is only complete if the goal implies service to the community. We feel more satisfied giving gifts than receiving. The next step, once you’ve identified these components, would be to start following your compass. Start working on your questions, and see how your answers fit in the Ikigai fundamental components. According to the diagram, the intersection of what you are good at and what you can be paid for is your profession. The intersection of what the world needs and what you love is your mission. Sometimes three of the criteria overlap, like the case where your passion (what you are good and what you love) and your mission (what you love and what the world needs) overlap. In that case, you have “delight and fullness, but no wealth.” Ikigai is when all four criteria are satisfied. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman What the world needs, and what people will pay for are the same. An economist wouldn’t really see a difference between what the world needs and what you can be paid for. If somebody needs something, then they would be willing to pay for it. If somebody is willing to pay for something, then they necessarily want or need it. Even if we consider social problems like poverty and homelessness, those with resources are willing to pay to help alleviate these problems. We economize on the use of resources to alleviate social problems through voluntary donations from others. Thus, somebody with a need who cannot pay for that need to be met is still covered by the blue-red total eclipse. “People have the potential to create your environment. Your environment then determines your mindset, and your mindset determines your future”. ~Myles Munroe (The Principles and Power of Vision) The law of association guarantees you a spot in the division of labour. Furthermore, the law of association guarantees that everyone has a comparative advantage. Using the language of the Ikigai graphic above, everybody has a guaranteed spot in what you are good at and what you can be paid for overlap. And since the blue and the red circles are really the same, what this means is that everybody has the profession-vocation combination. Everybody has a comparative advantage because even if somebody is really good at something, it means they incur a high cost by doing anything else. Said another way, if somebody is really good at something, then somebody else can produce something else at a relatively lower cost. The law of association is based on this logic. One man’s relative productivity in A is necessarily another man’s relative productivity in B. Individuals find their comparative advantage by interacting with others in the market. It is only by surveying existing producers, goods, and the prices of those goods that one can make an informed decision on what to produce or where to apply for jobs. What you love and what you prefer. The economic theory guarantees everyone a job that satisfies three out of four of the Ikigai criteria: what the world needs, what you can be paid for, and what you are good at. Unfortunately, the economic theory cannot guarantee the fourth criterion: that you love what you do. That part is up to you and your values. Economics can guarantee, however, that you will do what you prefer, which might be considered a broader category that encompasses what you love to do. The 5 pillars that enhance your Ikigai. In addition to answering those four questions about ourselves, there is another layer to the Ikigai concept: It is much easier to feel Ikigai when we create social connections. This explanation is perhaps due to the ingrained social connections that Japanese society promotes and is conditioned to seek. Ken Mogi, a neuroscientist and author of Awakening Your Ikigai, advises us to focus on what he labels the five pillars, which are: 1. Starting small 2. Accepting yourself 3. Connecting with the world around you 4. Seeking out small joys 5. Being in the here and now To make the most of the five pillar method, Mogi suggests incorporating this mindset in the first couple of hours after you wake up to start your day on the right foot and get your brain accustomed to this way of thinking. Time to find your Ikigai. Keeping the five pillars in mind, take 10 minutes to ask yourself those four core questions. Be honest in your answers and see what you come up with. Over the next several weeks, set aside time to ponder these questions. You might even consider journaling your answer and thinking about how your answers change over time. Revisit them a month from now. Six months. A year. We cannot expect to find our Ikigai overnight. Ikigai is an understanding of our own unique life mission, and for most, that takes many years — and it often changes. However, the more determined you are to find your Ikigai, the more quickly you will do so.
- The Unstuck Method
Our approach to launching startups focuses on learning by doing. Our process is focused quick lessons, clear and simple step by step actions on how to launch and grow your startup through ideation, validation, building traction, business model and positioning. We will even help you manage web, app development, fundraising and partnerships. This is not theoretical or unlocking your inner potential. This is straight-up experience (through 20+ years of trials and tribulations) to help you get things done and achieve real results. We focus on Mindset, Strategies, Tools, Insights, and Actions. READ: The Myth of the Entrepreneur STEP 1: Do you agree with the below? Being a founder is hard work, you need to be willing to get involved in every part of your startup. If the above statement scares you STOP, No one will do the work for you! STEP 2: Promise to "BEING YOUR BEST" If you are ready to do the work grab a piece of paper or open the notes app in your phone and answer this question: What is the best the version of you? (list all the ways you plan on applying your self) This is a promise you make with yourself. BONUS: Share your, "Be Best" promise with someone.
- Avoid Common Mistakes
Believing that you need an amazing idea to get started The first, most common mistake is believing that you need an amazing idea to get started. What this usually looks like is someone who believes the key to having a successful startup is starting with a brilliant idea Jumping into the first idea that comes to mind The next mistake is exactly the opposite: jumping into the first idea that comes to mind, without really stopping to think critically about whether it's a good idea at all. Starting with a solution instead of a problem The third mistake is to start with a solution instead of a problem. The last mistake is believing that startup ideas are hard to find. Actually, they're easy to find, because there are many, many real problems left in the world. If you're having trouble finding them, it's just that you haven't yet learned how to do it. Once you learn how to notice good startup ideas, you'll see them all over the place.
- Understanding Risk
Periodically I receive inquiries from people in the startup community who are exploring an idea or want an estimate on how expensive this particular idea may be to implement - as is common in the entrepreneurial community I’m happy to pay it forward (because I received help like this when I was just getting started too) and review a pitch deck, specification, or business plan and offer my advice if the person is someone I’ve interacted with online, in-person, or is referred through someone else I know. Most of these pitches are doomed from the start. It’s not because the idea is terrible (although many often are) or because there’s some impassable barrier to market entry. It’s because the founder has insufficient skin in the game and thus, they’re not going to behave successfully. Why is that? Incentives Matter Imagine three founders who set out to create a startup company together: Founder A - will go broke if the company isn’t able to make enough money to pay his salary within 6 months; Founder B - has enough in savings to go without compensation for up to 18 months; and Founder C - has another full-time job but is willing to contribute work on nights and weekends. Which founder is going to: Work as fast as possible to deliver revenue-generating results? Eagerly begin contacting and recruiting potential customers? Design a system to iterate as fast as possible in order to achieve business sustainability? Founder A, obviously - for the simple reason that he has the most exposure to the consequences of the company’s decisions. If the company fails to achieve break-even, he’s going to lose all of his savings and be left with nothing. Founder B will be out 6 months’ worth of savings - some skin in the game, but not a catastrophic loss. Founder C will probably drop out of the startup altogether because the company’s success or failure is immaterial - Founder C has very little financial exposure to any amount of downside and very little to gain from the startup achieving break-even success. The startup would have to be an overnight success in order for Founder C to join the company full-time. Most people who send me pitches are Founder C - people who think they have a great idea but aren’t willing to risk very much themselves to realize it. Therefore, their hope is that their idea is so good that someone with a skill they require would be willing to take on most of the delivery and implementation risk in exchange for worthless equity. In practice, this almost never works because ideas are intrinsically worthless - only through their implementation can value be realized. Skin in the game means having a personal stake in the desired outcome - exposure to both the upside and the downside. This exposure creates very different behavior on behalf of the actors in a given economic, financial, business, technical, or really any kind of decision making. Actors who have sufficiently high amounts of skin in the game are strongly incentivized to behave in a way that is more likely to create positive outcomes and avoid negative ones. Aligned Incentives Say you have a friend who strongly recommends purchasing Tesla stock and thinks it’s going to be worth 10x its current value in two years - would it make a difference to you if: The purchaser agrees to buy in at the same time and dollar amount as you; The purchaser holds a large Tesla position that is already very profitable; or The purchaser holds no Tesla at all and no future plans to do so. This information should influence your decision. Position 1 has the greatest skin in the game - they’re exposed the same amount of entry point and time risk as you. Position 2 has some risk, but they’re already sitting on a large and profitable position - if Tesla doesn’t make a significant upwards move from its current price then this person has no downside. Position 3 has zero skin in the game - your friend’s recommendation is useless in this scenario as they don’t believe in their own advice strongly enough to take it themselves. But it’s not just financial decisions that require skin the game - the same can be said for technical and product decisions too. Imagine if a technology company created a cloud service that it did not use itself for any production services - what kind of experience would you have? Well, this was exactly what Windows Azure was like inside Microsoft circa 2010 - product groups like Bing, Xbox Services, Office 365, and others didn’t build any of their products directly on top of the consumer-facing version of Windows Azure and as a result - Azure was largely unusable up until about 2014-2015. Compare this approach to Amazon’s early mandate that 100% of its internal services would communicate with eachother strictly through APIs, a practice which ultimately bred the practices and patterns that would lead to the creation of Amazon Web Services - the first product that really delivered “cloud computing” as we know it. AWS was built to run Amazon.com first and turned into a customer-facing product second. Amazon had a significant amount of skin in the game with AWS - which is why it was revolutionary and successful, whereas Azure stagnated for over five years until new leadership changed the model for how Azure would be developed and used internally. Skin in the game significantly changes the behavior of the actors involved because it alters their incentives; those incentives can be to mitigate risk, financial rewards, market leadership, or even to achieve a self-sustaining small business. You simply can’t trust actors who don’t have any skin in the game to overcome the hurdles of thankless drudgery, risk, or uncertainty that stand between coasting by and achievement - they’re not sufficiently exposed to upside or downside to make it.
- START HERE
In this section you will be introduced to the Unstuck Method and go over some common mistakes to avoid for first time founders.
- Do You Have Entrepreneur DNA?
What Makes a Good Entrepreneur? We have found many traits that correlate positively with entrepreneurship. Here is a sampling of the major traits: Bad Founder DNA Some traits can limit you as an entrepreneur. For example:
- Embrace Failure
Embracing Failure Helps You Succeed 1. It sets you on a new path When you fail, it could be a sign that you shouldn’t have been going in this direction, to begin with. This, of course, is if you recognize clearly that your goal or vision for what you wanted isn’t exactly what means the most to you. Failing should hurt, but you should only proceed in a different direction if you don’t feel it within your core to go forward in your initial direction despite that failure. This means that your vision of success has to be compelling enough to drive you forward, even if it is hard. 2. It reaffirms your previous direction When you fall and then get right back up towards that same direction and goal you send yourself a message that you still want it even though you are going through pain and devastation to get there. This strengthens your investment and your will to win. If you are willing to fight for your goal even when you have been put through pain and struggle then you tell yourself and the world that this is a worthwhile goal. 3. You tell yourself that you are worthy of the goal by fighting on Fighting on despite disappointment shows you that you still believe in yourself. It shows that despite irrefutable evidence that you can’t do it, you will still strive to win. This action itself is communication to yourself that you will win. When you have the opportunity to affirm the belief you have in yourself despite all the negative feedback, the judgment of others, and what happens to you in life, this can allow you to become more resolute in your goals. This is really a gift of failure. 4. The challenges are what cause you to grow Failure is just a sign for you to understand that you need to grow more. What some people have a difficult time in comprehending about failure is simply that it will mold and shape you into a person that can reach your destiny. When you are sharpened by the challenges thrown your way and the despair of failure, this allows you to grow and become a better person. Look beyond the immediate pain and realize that it is only through the failures we face that turn us into the person that we really want to become. 5. Your failure leads to a compelling story Through our biggest obstacles, the most incredible stories can be told. These are stories of you overcoming your biggest challenges and becoming the person you wanted to become. These are stories that shape your life and inspire others. It would be sad to look on one’s life after having lived it only to realize that they had never failed. This likely would be a life of comfort and mediocrity. Without having failed then one wouldn’t have many great stories to tell or any noteworthy accomplishments to talk about. 6. How you respond to failure inspires others What you do in the face of failure will inspire and motivate others. How you show up when faced with the ultimate defeat will impact the lives around you. It can help them to achieve their biggest goals and this can drive you even further. Your fans and your critics are watching to see what you will do in the face of failure. It’s not important to pay attention to your critics or even that you will fail because you will, but it is more important how you will show up in the face of such disappointment. When you take failure for what it is and strive on further towards your goal, others will notice and you could very well be the cause that inspires someone else to greatness. Looking at failure in a different way can be one of the most profound changes that you will make in your life. The moment of failure sucks, but what you can gain from it might just transform your life. Know that you are interested in the long-term rewards of becoming the person you want to become. Find joy in failing because the knowledge of such a thing means that you are even closer to your goals. Anything worth doing or any goals worth having are worthy of failing at. If you can’t fail at something then likely it is an uninspiring and fruitless path. What I have found is that the fails lead to your greatest successes. Fail more today so that you can succeed tomorrow. Look back at your life and notice how just after you have failed, then came your biggest accomplishments
- Bonus Activity
Podcasts Never Underestimate your first idea Reading I Don't Want to be a Founder and I Don't Think You Do Either