This 14th Aug, for the pre-schooler(s) in your life, sit down and share this gift freely available on youtube. Stop watching talk shows and toxic news, share lessons of compassion instead.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? is a 2018 American documentary film about the life and guiding philosophy of Fred Rogers, the host and creator of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. If you didn't know about the show before today or knew just very briefly, I recommend you watch it first and also the documentary on the life of Fred Rogers.

It will be a sound investment.

Outcomes

In 1944 the CIA put together a secret manual for sabotaging enemy organizations.

Ever since I discovered this some years ago, Ive used this to evaluate the context of situations around me.

Read it, does it sound familiar? Apply it in the context; of the jobs you are in, the people you know, the conversations you have, the politics around you and take stock.

If this sounds like a company you work at, do not stick around, they are destined for doom. If you are building a company, a business, a team make sure you actively look out for these traits and don't let them bloom.

This was the hand book of sabotage, not like the CIAs sabotaging your current work place, but if people exhibit these traits you should know that this company/organization and its people are going down a spiral that doesn't result in successful outcomes.

The full Manual Here.

For our time to be well spent and our outcomes aligned with our actions we must also continually analyze the environment around us. We are a product of the environmental elements too, most of us feel we can be successful in isolation, that typically is not the case.

If you see: These actions or traits, run......

(1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to, expedite decisions.

(2) Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.

(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision.

(7) Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision -raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Actually re evaluate where you are, what peoples real objectives are and what you should be doing to not subject your self to these actions. Your outcomes most times depend on how you choose to handle externalities. If you continue to ignore them, you become part of the problem vs a great outcome.

One New Thing

Historian Herodotus described a hairy fox-sized “ant” in Asia that dug up gold from the earth, which would be collected by locals. This was likely the Himalayan marmot, which often makes its burrows in gold-rich soil.

French ethnologist Michel Peissel says that the Himalayan marmot on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province of Pakistan, may have been what Herodotus called giant "ants". Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. Peissel interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, collected the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when digging burrows.

Boring Stuff that Scales

We get side track and mesmerized by the sexy startups, the fund raising, the cheering, the hype of startups. If you are in your 20s and have a stable corporate gig, I encourage you to think about the boring business of thinking about your outcomes as a math problem that starts small but scales fast once you get the hang of it.

Lets say.. You want to get to an additional 50PKR a month?

What do you do?

It has to be fueled by revenue streams. Heres How:

• Build value to be able to bill 11.35hrs at @ 20$/h

• Sell a course to 2 students/quarter @ $114

• Sell a 7$ Product to 35 customers a month/subscription

• Do 4 sales a month at 56$

Do any of the above and you have 50k Revenue potential. Ignore the math focus on the msg & u can likely do 7.5m PKR/Y if you look at the avenues which can get you there incrementally, vs home runs. More details on a post I wrote earlier on wage potential

What you should be Reading

How will you Measure your life... If you read one book this year, let it be this one.

"Where did they go wrong?"

Clayton reviews his Harvard alumni class - the smartest, hardest working and well-connected people in the world.

Yet so many of them still experienced divorce, family breakdowns and crime .....

The trap many people fall into is to allocate their time to whoever screams loudest, and their talent to whatever offers them the fastest reward.. This has crazy effects on personal relationships and life at large.

Jobs are a means to an end, if you instantly improve these factors of your job, you’re not going to suddenly love it. At best, you just won’t hate it anymore.

It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time… Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.

This part was the most hard hitting:

Monetize your time

By knowing momentum is intoxicating.

By knowing sales make the world go round.

By not focusing on brand or logo or product.

Apply this golden rule: Any new project you start: close the first sale, get the first user, get instant 0-1 traction.

Under 10 days.

Really? Yes really. Momentum in sales is akin to any other high in life, perhaps better than most others.

My take. You don't need a brand, most certainly no logo and you know what, even without a product, just a baseline this can work. Lock in the validation then build for the execution.

An email, a stripe link a monetized way to collect the initial $s. Do it vs dreaming about doing it.

Time is monetized when you make it billable, not when you think about making it so.

Made in Pakistan

Any thing you can put your mind too. For 14th Aug , as I do annually I will do Five, 30 min sessions with entrepreneurs who have real problems that need to have a quick chat to get better directionality in their outcomes. You can email me or dm via twitter and share what you are doing and I'll share a link to lock in a time(over the course of the month of Aug), if you are short listed.

One last thing

This is the most stellar piece of advice out there. Take it, without over analyzing it.

If the world is 6+bn people. Identify if you are the top 1% of any thing, say troubleshooting car mechanical problems for cars made in the 60s, If you also have the super power to make great youtube videos or you partner up with some one who is at the top1% of that craft. You are no longer competing with 6+bn people. You are competing with the intersection of mechanics with the ability to make compelling youtube videos....... and......wait for it....people from within that segment who have a desire a self-belief to go build a company around it. You’re never competing with the world, you’re only competing with those oddballs who will venture to build some thing.. Many can win, as can you from that small intersection of doers. But, its all useless if you over analyze getting started.