I've been influenced quite a lot by 4 different people recently: Murilo Gum (genius of my generation in Brazil), Derek Sivers (most out of the box thinker I know), Cyan Banister (I don't know how to describe her and that is great), and Zach (my friend, not available for everybody).
Someone said to me 3 weeks ago: you can't let 14 clients go and stay only with 5 ones. I asked back: who said I can't? It's my company, that is the best thing about owning a company - I create the rules.
He didn't want to be mean, he was just following the M&A playbook of diversification. But I'm not playing this game. I'm playing my game, on my way, The Infinite Game (another guy that influenced me a lot in the past - Simon Sinek). The goals of my company and our products are quite simple:
- Be better every day, this includes technology but also ethics and doing what is right
- Keep playing the game of business, our success is not measured in amounts of dollars, it's on how long we will keep playing
Ok, enough about the infinite game, back to my latest influencers.
What I learned from Murilo Gum? The most important lesson so far was that I should have a maximum of money and not only a minimal amount to retire. What is enough? What is the upper limit? I already have my limit defined and you should have one as well.
What I learned from Derek Sivers? The most impactful lesson so far was that life can be simple and a great way to simplify it is to make just one decision and one decision only: Hell yes or No. Meaning, if you can think about all your decisions inside this framework of "hell yes or no" you can live a great life and make decisions fast.
What I learned from Cyan Banister? Life doesn't need to be planned or scheduled, we can use even random things to mix up our life a bit. Maybe throwing a dice could be a great way to make some decisions, maybe using a weird or inappropriate outfit, or whatever you can come up with.
What I learned from Zach? So many things but there are a few things that got me thinking for days and changed how I run my company or even my life. I'll mention two here:
- His favorite job is to be father
- His goal with his current businesses is not for himself mostly, but also what he could make for others around him
Anyway, this text is intended to get you to move, to think more, to get to know more Murilo, Derek and Cyan. They have a lot of content online, Derek has 4 books, Cyan has at least 3 very good recent podcast appearances and Murilo has plenty of videos on Youtube.
You can decide what to do, and even to do nothing is a valid answer but all your actions will have consequences and to be honest inaction could be the worst path.
BTW, I'm starting to write a book, I'm still thinking a lot about how to write it but mostly it's going to be about myself and my life. As Murilo Gum says: "Everything you do has you in it, how are you?" or for Brazilians: "Tudo que tu faz tem tu, como tu tá?".
If you want to be the first to read my book send me your GitHub username.