The ONLY Philosophy You Need as a Startup Founder...

The Jordan P. Anderson Show

September 23, 2024

TLDR

* Speed to action is the key philosophy that has driven my success

* Speed to learning and speed to execution are crucial

* Don't get stuck in endless learning mode; balance learning with doing

* Embrace a healthy ego and self-belief

* Believe you're the one to execute your vision

* Iterate quickly, run tests, and don't be afraid to make mistakes

Good morning.

I wanted to talk today about a philosophy that I've been thinking about.

It's a philosophy that I've had throughout my career…

I don't know if it's survivor's bias or if I'm here today and I've gotten where I've gotten because of this one philosophy…

And that philosophy is speed.

But first…

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Speed to Action

Now, I don't mean being fast at finishing your work or being fast at doing something.

I mean speed to action.

You have an idea, you have a strategy, you put your goals together, you put your little sprint together.

How quickly can you execute that?

Can you do everything within a couple of days?

That's been my overarching philosophy in work, running a business, even being a full-time employee.

Speed to Learning and Execution

With speed to execution, I think there are a couple of things inside of it.

One is speed to learning how to do something and not being afraid of kind of going out into open water and trying to figure something out, something that is unknown.

A lot of folks can get paralyzed by that.

They will just not know.

For example, this year, I learned how to use Framer.com.

I've never used it before.

I thought, “Well, I don’t wanna get left behind not knowing this skill.”

So with Framer, for example, it is watching every video I can and then watching, testing, watching, doing, watching, testing.

It's not just study, study, study, read a book, watch all the videos.

It's study it, understand it, and then try to do it in your everyday life.

I think a lot of people get addicted to learning.

I was addicted to learning.

Two years ago, I had my “reading habit” where in one year, I read 50 books.

That sounds impressive…

But really it was more procrastination.

Instead of doing the thing, I just wanted to learn how to do the thing.

I just needed one more book to understand how this works.

And then once I understand how this works, then I can go and execute, then I can start taking action.

Cut all that out.

My advice is to cut out that habit.

It's about how quickly can you learn to do a skill?

How quickly can you become adept at using that skill?

And then the other side of the coin is how quickly can you execute?

How quickly can you take that knowledge or that idea and put it into action or put it into a test?

Iterating and Testing in Your Business

If you're a startup founder right now, how quickly and how many tests can you run this year?

We have 100 days left this year.

How many small little tests can you run?

Little experiments.

Because you don't know what will work or what won't work unless you test it, unless you are fast enough to get it up and running.

So if you are a technical founder, for example, and marketing is something that is a foreign language to you, how quickly can you learn marketing?

Can you take an online course real quick, study everything, download a kit and be good enough at marketing to where you could at least follow the steps?

It's almost like a recipe.

You don't have to become a master chef…

But can you study it, watch enough food videos, and then read the recipe and say, okay, from a couple of videos that I watched, I think I can do that and do it sloppily, make mistakes along the way, not be perfect on the first attempt.

It would be insane to get it perfect on the first attempt.

So how can you do that?

How can you take that knowledge, apply that knowledge, test it out, learn from it, and then do it all over?

The Role of Ego and Self-Belief

And the last thing that's unsaid with this, and speaking personally about how I've done it in my career, is yes, it's speed, execution, iterating, learning quickly, all of that.

But I think underneath all of that, you have to kind of be obnoxious.

I won't say narcissist, but you have to have this—

I thought about what Casey Neistat said a long time ago in one of his videos about why the vlogger, when you're vlogging, or I think he was talking about like talking in public, he's like, you have to have a level of ego to believe that you are the person to be doing this, to believe that it's my job or I'm the one that's going to do this, or I believe I'm the only person that can do this.

You have to have that level of ego and not let it be a negative thing, but use it to your advantage.

So if you are egotistical or you're not egotistical, for me, I'm a little egotistical, but I can be aware of my ego.

I can have a little self-inflated ego and use that self-inflated ego to my advantage and not let my big ego get in the way of doing what I want to do or trying to execute.

But it’s taking that ego, harnessing it and blasting it towards a positive direction you want to go in life.

I believe I can launch this startup.

I believe now is the time to share this with my audience.

I believe I can make an impact.

Because this is the moment, this is what I believe that we need to be doing right now, and we are the people to do it.

That's the attitude you have to have.

So it's speed, execution, iterating, learning fast, but underneath all that, kind of pushing it all up, is this self-belief that I can do this and I'm the one to do this.

Not that I can do this or I have motivation and I believe in myself.

It's I am the one to do this.

It's me.

I'm the only one that can do this.

It's just me here that can do this.

A little bit more intense, but it works.

That's how I do it.

That's how I approach life.

So let's wrap it up there.

That's our life lesson for today.

Go execute, believe that you're the one, iterate, do it all over again, test, make mistakes.

Don't be perfect.

We'll see you on the next one.

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