*Typing*

If you pick a fight with the toughest boss right from the jump, you’ll get pummeled. Instead you should start small. Find your footing in a tiny, uncrowded market where the competition is sparse. Some of the the biggest companies on the planet started out this way.

Netflix rented DVDs. Nike built track shoes. Amazon shipped books. Shopify sold snowboards. Toyota manufactured looms. Instagram made photo filters. Lululemon designed yoga pants. If you’re like most early-stage companies, the work you’re doing now is the worst work you will ever do. You’re only going to get better.

By choosing a small market, you give yourself time to hone your skills, systems and services far out of reach from more brawny competitors. With time, you will evolve. When you finally do take a swing, they won’t know what hit them.

Curiosity is one of those beautiful human traits that give way to other traits that serve you, your work and those you come into contact with. When you’re curious of yourself, you’re aware. When you’re curious of others, you’re caring. When you’re curious of the art, you’re inquisitive. When you’re curious of difficulty, you’re courageous. Be curious. If nothing else, be curious.

Don’t give into the hype. Huge followings aren’t indicative of competence, experience nor skill. They’re usually just an indicator that somebody prefers to talk about the work more than they like actually doing the work. This trait is good for gaining followers, terrible for growing enterprises. Hire undervalued talent. They’re hungrier. They’re humbler. They’re easier to work with. And, they’re generally better skilled.If you are hiring someone with a large following, be aware you are more likely to overvalue their capabilities. So, try and look at their work through an unbiased lens. Ask yourself: Would I still be impressed with their work if they didn’t have 100,000 followers?

‍

At the age of four, Fred Smith's old man dropped dead of a massive heart attack, leaving the young boy to grow up fatherless. Worst yet, Smith suffered from calcium deficiency disease. This weakened his bones, preventing him from playing sports, rough housing and enjoying physical activities. Longing for freedom, Smith developed an obsession with aviation. At the age of fifteen, he learned how to fly.

Later on, while in college, Smith had an idea for an overnight delivery system that relied heavily on airplanes. He wrote up a term paper. Turned it into his professor. His idea was dismissed as being impossible. Upon graduation, Smith joined the Marines, where he served two tours in Vietnam as a pilot. Smith probably didn’t realize it at the time but the Marines would provide him a masterclass in supply chains, transportation and logistics.

After the war, he decided to give the “impossible” business idea he outlined on his term paper a whirl. He invested his $4 million inheritance in starting FedEx. Eventually, Smith found himself with just $5,000 of that inheritance left. He went to Las Vegas, sat down at the Black Jack table and turned that $5,000 into $27,000. It was just enough dough to keep FedEx alive and breathing until Smith could go out and raise more capital.

Today, FedEx has a market cap of about $65 Billion. It’s where you go if ‘it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight’. Smiths life is worthy of a motion picture.

Don’t find problems. Solve them. Problem finders might appear smart in the short term for being the first person to point out the mustard on the proverbial shirt. However, with time, they become associated with bad news, spinning tires, long hours and additional revisions. You want to be the problem solver. You want to be the person who points out the mustard on the proverbial shirt and then immediately pulls out the Tide Pen. By gaining a reputation for being the kind of person that “handles shit”, you will be the one that is called in when shit hits the fan. At the organizational level, this comes down to creating a solution-oriented culture. When someone comes to you with a problem, immediately ask them what their solution is. If they don’t have a solution, ask them to find one. At the individual level, we need to challenge ourselves to never air a problem without also presenting a possible solution.We aren’t short on problems. The world is full of them. What we are lacking are people courageous enough to solve them.