YouSaid · the spoken record

Scott Belsky

lines on the record: 130
first: 2018-09-13
most recent: 2018-09-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Forward. I think when you're bootstrapped for a period of time and forced to develop that muscle, that serves you forever. And of course the story is of people raising way too much out of the gate and never developing that muscle. Typically actually don't end quite well. So when it comes to thinking about that, a couple thoughts. And one story is when I first hired our first kind of operations leader, a guy named Will Allen from actually he worked at TED conferences prior to that. And he came on board to kind of kick some operational prowess into how we were working as a company. And I remember every time teams would go to him saying, hey, we're growing. We got to, you know, we need a bigger budget for web storage space. We need more people for this, for that function, whatever. Will would always say, you know, this had this mantra, refactor, refactor, then higher. And he just believed fundamentally that every team can go through one or two reasons.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really like to start. I mean, for me, all these, you know, these insights that I kind of cataloged into the optimization side fell in these camps of team self-product. And I would just start on some of the team stuff. And this could be like whether you're just getting a few people to work with you. You're starting something as a solo entrepreneur, or you're actually leading a team. I think one, I would just start with the fact that we all know how important it is to be resourceful and not just rely on more and more resources to solve problems. I think it's pretty common knowledge that if you're constrained, it's a form of creativity and there's a million stories about that. I like to think about, especially in the startup world, resources are like carbs, resourcefulness is like muscle. It just, when you develop it, it actually stays with you and impacts like everything you do going forward.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now that we made it through the first, and I have to say, endurance is not sexy, but it's just we have to know we're not alone. These are important things to think about.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The team is, how hard the project is, how many unknowns there are, and that is your timeline. And I would argue that when you work with certain types of organizations or you undertake certain commitments, you have to multiply it by 1.2. Like you're going to have a few misunderstandings and back and forth and one date change. And if you actually went into this knowing that that was the status quo, You wouldn't have been as upset.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that is what you do. Right. And it's almost like when you build a, not to bring everything back to product management, but when you build a plan, you either add one point, you multiply it by 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 based on”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“These weren't the dates we agreed on. Sorry, Dill off. Like, don't call me again. There's actually something about that that I admire from a truth and emotionally connected governed way of living. It's in the middle where you're kind of, and I'm actually wondering now if it's sort of like the blackjack rule. You either always hit on 16 or you always stay on 16, but like don't do it based on your emotional system. Right. Don't be inconsistent. I mean, I definitely aspire to be more on the pro side. And that kind of goes back to the do your fucking job thing. I tell myself in my head sometimes when I am feeling like I am going to sleep with this. Compartmentalize uncertainty or fear or anger or whatever. And it's just a if you're a pro, you should be able to do this. That's kind of what I tell myself.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think it's, well, my attitude is that I actually admire people on both ends of the spectrum here, and I have less admiration for those in the middle, probably myself. On one side of the spectrum, you have those true pros that are able to just have all this going on. I mean, remember that story about Barack Obama right as they were capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. And he was like at an event that night cracking jokes and whatever, knowing this was going on in the back. And you look at that. You're like, that guy must be a pro. How did you do that? And then the other end of the spectrum, I admire people that are just like truly with their emotions and authentic. And they're like.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, I mean, I think it's a holy grail type of thing that this notion of can we compartmentalize our uncertainty, our fear, our anger in situations, and somehow be able to allow the other 90% of our brain to operate as if it weren't there. I mean, that's the gold standard. And I remember being on my honeymoon two years into the start of my startup and thinking, gosh, like how irresponsible am I? Like I'm here in Thailand and my team is back grudging through it and we're this many months out of not making payroll and whatever else. And you know, yes, there was this part of me that was like, but this is your freaking honeymoon. And like you get this once, hopefully. And you got to at least be present for part of it. And I remember that was like the beginning of my education on trying to compartmentalize that stuff. It's fucking hard.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But hey, this postmortem, like this process, I mean, this is what develops muscle memory. This is what develops our judgment.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I'm all for principles, but principles tend to ignore nuances and other practicalities. And again, like the limitations of some people and organizations and constructs and industries and situations. Maybe the exercise is to go back and say that Hey, this is not what we agreed on. And, you know, and this is what will work for me. Can we still make this work for me and give them like one more chance slash olive branch and see where it goes? I also on the counterpoint believe that this sort of thing tends to be a repeatable pattern. And you probably know what you're in for.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Tim that I would know by default, in my opinion, knowing having known you for years is you would say I'm out. You guys, this is not what we agreed on time above all else. I want to be with high performers, work with things that are on point. This is just going south.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's nothing. That won't get you anywhere. So, in some ways, you have to change your expectations and have a greater tolerance for a different level of in some ways performance or impact. And I think what you're describing is like this extra debt or extra cost rather, you didn't think you were signing up for. That is one way, at least for me, that I would excuse and be able to manage it”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He sort of looked at me and said, You know, Scott, all these cool startups and things that you're so excited about doing and building and founding, they won't be around in 100 years. But this will, and it has been. And sometimes in life, you find something where all you can do is add a brick. And that is an incredible impact to something that will be around forever. And what I heard him say in that is that adding a brick in a startup is pathetic.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then it always kind of hits me. And in this case, I was at my first ever board meeting for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, a Smithsonian institution with, you know, people with famous names on the board and very kind of old institution, right? And it just moves slowly in some ways because that's how it has sustained for so long. Of course, it hasn't gone through radical change. That's what makes it in some ways sustainable. And I walked out of this meeting and I said to John at the time he was still president at Renowned School of Design. I said, gosh, like, how do you kind of manage such an unproductive meeting? Like, I think we heard a lot of people speak. We celebrated certain people for doing things. I don't think we got anything really done. I don't know what is actionable. And he looks at me kind of shaking his head, being like, oh, you know, young Skywalker.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“John is just a brilliant designer and thinker. He was the president of Rhode Island School of Design. Before that, he was head of MIT Media Lab. He spans both technology design. He also wrote a book about simplicity. But in my life, he's like my personal yoda. The stuff that he tells me has to kind of roll around in my head a little bit to reveal its truth.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the hack that I would use. Is that what I'm enduring in this case and putting up with, what I'm tolerating, is part of my contribution. So when I go to nonprofit board meetings and that sort of thing that I find, generally speaking, much less productive than other organizations I'm involved in or certainly startups where it's all about what needs to get done. Let's get out of here. Everything's scrum and it's a standing meeting. It's obviously very different. I do sometimes tell myself like this is part of the condition that I committed myself to work under. I'm reminded of a great piece of advice that John Maeda, one of my mentors once gave me.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Comes to managing anger, I think it's also like hey, you know, what is in my influence? What is out? How much can I expect this person, org, industry, whatever to change? And then you have to become a fierce protector of extraneous energy.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Particular people, particular industries, companies, nonprofits at a certain stage with a certain caliber of talent, with whatever else. Like what can I expect and what's reasonable and what's not? Because listen, I think there's a part of us that believes that everyone can and should change. And so if there's an in-law or a parent or whatever, and they just are always aggravating us, it's like shame on them. They should change and that can actually be where the anger comes out. And that whole kind of notion of teaching old dogs new tricks. I do say that to myself quite often. I'm like, hey, is this person really going to change as a leader of a team too? There's only so much you can develop people into. And at some point, there's just certain limitations that I think people have. And I feel like I'm getting too pragmatic here. And of course, I believe in the potential of people and I believe in change.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, I mean, I'm with you and I think I feel this a lot oftentimes when I am stuck in a foam tree. It's just like, this is so expensive for me in the sense of how I value my time. Like, gosh, you know, it's frustrating. And the other question is that I oftentimes ask myself when I have anger towards someone or something is how much can I expect people to be changed”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What did I say? I think that, first of all, I always ask myself when I'm angry about something, which I do get on occasion, is this in my influence or out of my influence? Like, is this something that I can directly end or shift? Or is this just the universe is against me at this moment and I'm just going to have to like roll with it and how much of my energy am I going to give to it if I have no influence over it? And because then it kind of boils down to math for me. It's like, all right, like this sucks. But the sunk cost thing kind of fly is oftentimes the wild card in this notion of righteousness that a lot of us have.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I know, but one actually thing that stuck with me was, I forget, the exact scenario, but the crew had a choice of going back and getting all this food from the ship that was sinking and everyone was like, we have to, of course we have to get it. We might be out here for years. We need as many supplies as possible, but he didn't let them. And it was like, what do you mean? You're the leader. How could you put your team at risk? But he realized that by allowing that to happen, he would be sending a message to his team that, yes, we will, in fact, maybe be stuck out here for years. And he knew that that would be almost like a death sentence to morale and to everything else. And so he just kind of artificially constrained their lifeline to some extent to make sure that the team knew that we just had to win. We had to survive. We had to move faster. Like that's an example. Wow, that's.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which obviously relates to my thinking these days, which is just a phenomenal story. And there's so many interesting leadership lessons of counterintuitive things that he did that help you understand difficult decisions that have to be made.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that there are some biographies that Doris Kearns Goodwin type stuff, a few Walter Eigson, like classic biographies. I think there's recently read Shackleton's Endurance story.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His name is Tren Griffin, right? Josh Wolfe, who's a great investor in New York of a firm called Lux Capital. He's actually been an extreme skeptic of Tesla for a very long time, calling out from his vantage point around some of the fundamentals and also I think he's used to entrepreneurs that have very kind of wild personalities for future narratives. And he pokes holes for a living in that. And so he has some perspective on what he thinks may be happening on the Tesla front, which is always interesting. So he's another example of someone who just kind of grounds what you're reading on the headlines with some different perspective.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Trend Griff A guy who has been at Microsoft for a long time close to Bill Gates and has sort of observed the software industry evolve and has a lot of insights around what's going on with all the mayhem these days with valuations and certain companies that are exploding without concrete business models. And he kind of always kind of boils it down to things like cost and requisition, lifetime value of a customer. But it's just, again, I like people who come from a vantage point with an extreme bias in his case towards those fundamentals trying to make sense of everything else that's crazy in the world. That's helpful.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Ben Thompson, who you just mentioned, Switzerie, is certainly one of the greatest thinkers, I think, on what's happening every day and always has a unique spin. Has a lot of actual helpful self references because he'll pull up things he wrote three years ago, not only to take a victory lap, but also actually it's a very helpful reference because it helps you kind of understand. Some of these things could have been predicted and what the strategy is behind a lot of these moves. I think there are a lot of different investors that I follow or subscribe the newsletters for because I want to hear their view. And I'm trying to think of others.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're going against our biological tendencies. And so you have to have hacks, you have to have those short term reward system hacks. You have to have things like the cultural mechanisms or the structural mechanisms that push patients, the chapters, the merchandising.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And you see other parts of their business become huge businesses on their own because they're just willing to invest that way. You have to have a way though, because I think the realization here is that we are all impatient. I mean, part of my belief is that it's just biological, right? I don't know what our life expectancy was, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, but it was a hell of a lot shorter than it is today. And so the notion of committing 10 years of your life to something was just insane and very unwise. And so when we do that, we are getting”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They also had their original shareholder letter that they attached to every new shareholder letter and is sort of a Bible within the company that also is all about that. It's basically saying we're going to do what's right for the customer at the expense of a lot of other near-term opportunities to generate profit, right? And that becomes a cultural tenant that obviously impacts the decisions that leaders make across their businesses. And I think that's why something like AWS became such a large part of their business.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's part of it. And the other part of it about it is how you kind of build patients into the way your team is built. I mean, if you look at a company like Amazon, I think they kind of have a cultural setup for patients, this notion of being willing to be misunderstood for a very long period of time. It's very embedded in the culture. You hear lots of ways that that's perpetuated. And then you take a company like Google where I think actually they've tried to also build patients in, but not as much cultural, more structural. So this notion of alphabet and all these little companies that are able to kind of exist. As if they were in a VC portfolio versus subject to the quarterly cadence of a large public company. So, I think it's breaking those down into the chapters. Yes,”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And maybe, I guess, kind of goes back to that drive with No Sight Out the Windows, like how do you keep the team engaged? I think it's crucial point and it's part of the endurance question.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, one last thing on that front, I would say is something I've seen for a number of founders. I know Ben Silberman, CF founder of Pinterest, is one person who really thinks this way. We were talking about that kind of long journey, multi-years and the merchandising and whatever. And this idea of breaking it down into chapters, when he talks about Pinterest, he'll talk about the fact that you're After product market fit, then there was the year of internationalization And everything in the company was geared around, let's go global, let's stop these clones. And then there was a year around monetization. Let's figure out how are we going to have a business here. And each year has been like a chapter. And that's how he likes prioritization and”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where a lot of investors get stuck because it's easy to be a visionary. And know that someday, yes, we will have flying cars. That does not mean that we need to be making flying parking lots at this moment.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the sense that you can have the greatest idea for 10 years from now, but it's again like time is the enemy of every bold endeavor. It's just like super hard to keep people engaged long enough and keep, of course, capital and everything else you need to stay alive long enough until the planet's aligned and the timing is right. And I think that, and so that's why I would say that so much of investing is really about just knowing really what's right around the corner or already there. And making your product and team bets based on that knowledge.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my God, like this is even more inevitable than we ever thought, this is more important. This problem is actually going to be bigger than we realized. And we just have so much more conviction, even though shit's hitting the fan right now. And gosh, our product is completely wrong, right? And we have to start all over again. That team, I would say, you guys have to stick with it. Like you're just in that classic kind of mode of whoever sticks with it long enough is going to figure this out. So that to me is really where the decision point comes down to.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To me, conviction is really about knowing that the world is going to be a certain way based on all of the work and research and experiences that you're having. And I don't care what the company is, what the product or services that you're trying to make. As you go about it day by day, you learn more and you start to realize where you were right and where you were wrong. And you're always wrung a little bit. I mean, that's the whole point about pursuing a product market fit. However, a lot of teams will realize, wait, like people actually don't need to do blah, blah, blah. You know, they don't, they don't want to have laundry done within a three-hour thing. And that's not a real opportunity. But since we raised $2 million and we've got a team working, we're just going to stick with it. I actually think they should quit. However, if the answer is”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think, I mean, to me, the answer is pretty simple. First of all, you recognize the fact that everyone's kind of messy middle journey is at times hopeless. And that self-doubt is a real thing. And so you're not alone. However... If you start to lose conviction in what initially set you off on this journey, I mean, that's a serious thing. And however, if you have as much, if not more conviction for the problem you're trying to solve, then you have to stick with it. And that's actually what I typically will ask teams when they're having that question.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if you can just have a team stick together long enough, and if you have continued conviction in the end state, then it's really a matter, it's a fight against time. And I really believe that. I mean, some people might say, oh no, no, no, you can keep at it forever. A labor of love has a way of paying off, just not how you'd expect. And what, of course, you do have to, and when founders feel really low, and sometimes I'll say, well, how do I know whether I should quit or not?”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I usually start by reminding founders that one of the greatest competitive advantages is simply sticking together long enough to figure it out. And how they shouldn't necessarily beat themselves up about the daily volatility because it's basically just a series of ups and downs in which you hope you have a positive slope at the end of the day. And you hope that every next low is a little higher than the one before it, right?”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think that sometimes hiring people that think differently or don't have the traditional expertise that you think you're needing to hire, I think you sometimes have to recognize the benefits and not knowing too much.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because, first of all, the disbeliefs you had in your more reserved plan are suddenly out the door because that sounds easy suddenly. Because this new thing, like I don't even know where I'd start. And I think that there are ways we can make sure that we just have exponentially more belief in ourselves at times. Now part of it also is a is also Taking pride in how naive you are in certain areas. I remember talking to the Airbnb guys and a few other teams that talked about how they didn't even know the terminology of the industry they were trying to compete in and how that actually was a very empowering thing because had they known that they would have realized that some of their numbers didn't match up early on and they would have certainly abandoned The project before it actually became a business.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that always sucked with me. And I was always kind of wondering how do I prescribe that to myself. And I think there are many different tactics there. I mean, one that I've heard from a number of folks who have worked at Google over the years and have been in certain meetings with Larry Page where he'll say, great, good plan. How do you do 100x that? And that jolt to the system suddenly throws the current project plan out the door, like all the kind of near-term doubts you had don't matter anymore. It's like a hundred times that. We have to be doing something completely different, right? And in some ways, it's sort of the same effect.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think that one of those little notes that made it to the finish line for me was this question around suspending kind of disbeliefs. Another tactic towards endurance. I remember my father as an orthopedic surgeon, but when he was a resident, he was working one of those crazy New York City hospitals where people would come in with overdoses and shooting wounds and stuff like that. And he was telling me that the most often kind of prescribed, especially on a psychiatric stuff that came in was like 100 ccs or whatever of Oba Kelp, which is, of course, placebo spelt backwards. And how as soon as someone would be like, Obacalp stat, 100ccs, that would suddenly switch something in a lot of these patients' minds in terms of where they felt they were in their hope, right?”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I usually start in my head, and then I start getting a little anxious because I'm like, oh, I'm actually, this is something I need to be, this is going to cause a chain of actions that I have to take, in which case I will then I have also an Evernote action tracking list where it's like the things that if there's one thing I want to look at every day that I'm sort of tracking that require some action or thinking through or whatever deep churning and I immediately like kind of added it to the list and then I think that that's when it starts to become more of a process and less of a provocative inner monologue.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's provocative because, and you have to be provocative in your thinking, right? So, you know, I actually, when I caught myself and the fact that it was actually sort of about hedging, then it's like, well, what are my doubts about those one or two things? And maybe I should just spend a cycle of my time on just those. And that actually in this case Impacted a number of meetings I set up and conversations I had and some data that I requested and whatever. And I remember after that whole process being like, okay, that was like a good cycle of leadership right there.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Usually, I'm doing it on planes I benefit from the disconnected period where you're just kind of letting things churn. It definitely does not happen. Starting from the belief that you're wrong. If you start from the belief that you're right and everyone else is right, what do they mean? These are my 10 things. And I've already, you know, I know that these are all important. It's not going to hit you anywhere.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I started to think, gosh, like maybe I am doing what I always tell people not to. Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin. I am not having enough conviction on the one thing that matters. Am I a good manager? Am I a good leader? Am I being formed properly? Do I have enough data? You start having all those kind of self-doubts arise. And then I think, I mean, in this particular situation, I did a few things. I mean, one is I started to play out some scenarios in my head. I don't know. Is there one thing that's disproportionately likely to make an impact more than everything else? And actually, I felt like out of the list of 10 or so things, there were probably a couple that I would say, yeah, like if I had to pick one or two, I think that those have an outsized proportion of, or likely to making an impact. So why wouldn't I just go all in?”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was a response from the other side, and it threw me off. I was like, one. I've got lots of products and lots of things going on and every business is dynamic. How could you not have one thing? I mean, that sounds crazy. And it really threw me off. And then I.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think, let's see, I'm thinking of a few recent examples. And one is when there's a meeting I was in recently where I came in with a number of priorities that I'm focused on, which ultimately means I want them resourced. I want to invest in these. These are things I want to put my chips on. And I felt pretty committed and felt like I did a lot of diligence. And then the question was, how could you say that all of these should be resourced? How could you not come in and literally just talk about one?”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm still figuring out as well, but I would say this is where the team comes in. I have and I've always had people on my team that were really different.”
2018-09-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #336: Scott Belsky — How to Conquer the Messy Middle · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT