Everyone should write. You know why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of.You don’t talk about these ideas, even in your own head, because you’ve never put them into words. They’re gut feelings. Intuitions. You use them a dozen times a day. But you’d shrug your shoulders if someone asked why. How you react to career risk. Why you invest the way you do. Why you like some people and question others. We’re all brimming with opinions on these topics that we may never discuss, even with ourselves.

Writing Is For Everyone 

Intuition is strong enough to put these ideas into practice. But intuition isn’t a tool; it’s a safety net at best, and is more often the fuel of biased decisions. Turning gut feelings into tools means understanding their origin, limits, and how they interact with other ideas. Which requires turning them into words.And writing is the best way to do that.

Understanding The Intu

Writing crystallizes ideas in ways thinking on its own will never accomplish.The reason is simple: It’s hard to focus on a topic in your head for more than a few seconds without getting distracted by another thought, and distractions erase whatever you attempted to think about. But words on paper stick.

Writing Makes Your Ideas Perm

A common question people ask professional writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?” A common answer is, “From writing.” Writers don’t know exactly what they’ll write about until they start writing, because the process crystallizes the fuzzy ideas we all have floating around. This chicken-and-egg problem is probably why writing is intimidating for some people. They don’t think they can write because – in their head, as this moment – they don’t know what they’d write about. But hardly anyone does. So, write.

Cycle Of Ideas Through Writing

Writing is for everyone even if you think you don't have something to write about.

Everyone should write. You know why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. You don’t talk about these ideas, even in your own head, because you’ve never put them into words. They’re gut feelings. Intuitions. You use them a dozen times a day. But you’d shrug your shoulders if someone asked why. How you react to career risk. Why you invest the way you do. Why you like some people and question others. We’re all brimming with opinions on these topics that we may never discuss, even with ourselves. Like phantom intelligence. Intuition is strong enough to put these ideas into practice. But intuition isn’t a tool; it’s a safety net at best, and is more often the fuel of biased decisions. Turning gut feelings into tools means understanding their origin, limits, and how they interact with other ideas. Which requires turning them into words. And writing is the best way to do that. Writing crystallizes ideas in ways thinking on its own will never accomplish. The reason is simple: It’s hard to focus on a topic in your head for more than a few seconds without getting distracted by another thought, and distractions erase whatever you attempted to think about. But words on paper stick. They aren’t washed away by the agitator in your head who won’t shut up about the tone of an email someone just sent you. You might be able to hold focus just briefly in your head, but a sentence on paper has all the patience in the world, waiting for you to return whenever you’re ready. It’s hard to overemphasize how important this is. Putting ideas on paper is the best way to organize them in one place, and getting everything in one place is essential to understanding ideas as more than the gut reactions they often hide as. Take four questions: What is your edge over competitors? How do you react to unforeseen risk? What have you changed your mind about recently? What part of your job are you not good at? These are vital questions that most of us, if asked on the spot, couldn’t answer well. Not because we haven’t thought about them; we certainly have. But the thoughts are probably vague, unsubstantiated, or pure emotions. Many people’s response to the first question would be an uncomfortable pause, a ponder, and a lump in the throat. Which says a lot, just not in words. It’s not until you put thoughts on paper that everything from ignorance to denial to unfulfilled potential is viewed in the raw, ready to be analyzed. Sometimes writing is encouraging. You realize you understand a topic better than you thought. The process flushes out all kinds of other ideas you never knew you had hiding upstairs. Now you can apply those insights elsewhere. Other times it’s painful. Forcing the logic of your thoughts into words can uncover the madness of your ideas. The holes. The flaws. The biases. Thinking “I want this job because it pays a lot of money” is bearable. Seeing the words on paper looks ridiculous. Things the mind tends to gloss over the pen tends to highlight. Warren Buffett once said: Some of the things I think I think, I find don’t make any sense when I start trying to write them down. You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. A common question people ask professional writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?” A common answer is, “From writing.” Writers don’t know exactly what they’ll write about until they start writing, because the process crystallizes the fuzzy ideas we all have floating around. This chicken-and-egg problem is probably why writing is intimidating for some people. They don’t think they can write because – in their head, as this moment – they don’t know what they’d write about. But hardly anyone does. So, write. A journal. A business manifesto. An investment plan. You don’t have to publish it. It’s the process that matters. You’ll uncover so much you never knew.

Why Everyone Should Write

The hybrid work environment creates new challenges for leaders, including:<ul><li>How to keep everyone focused amid so much change</li><li>When and how to communicate when some workers are on-site while others work remotely</li><li>How to make fair decisions</li><li>How to manage conflict when employees are out of sight and out of mind.</li></ul>Innovative leaders can use this time of instability and uncertainty to define leadership of the future.

Challenges of hybrid work for leaders

Clarity can be as simple as guiding an employee to the next right step, sharing a big vision for the future, or accurately describing a particular situation and desired outcome.Here’s a checklist of areas that contribute to a lack of clarity:<ul><li>Policies that are outdated or unenforced</li><li>Constantly changing priorities</li><li>Ineffective digital communications</li><li>Misunderstanding about how decisions are made</li><li>Unclear job descriptions.</li></ul>

Clarity

Today’s hybrid leader must acquire good writing and speaking skills as well as competency on various platforms.Quick tips to become a better communicator in a hybrid work environment:<ul><li>Text is okay for short updates or requests</li><li>Keep emails simple and short with the action item as the end</li><li>Space and format emails for easy reading</li><li>Difficult conversations require video or in-person meetings</li><li>Phone trumps email for complex issues.</li></ul>If there’s too much confusion, excessive unresolved conflict, and lack of follow-through, it could be due to ineffective communication.

Communication

The hybrid workplace requires leaders to have the capacity and competency to manage conflict among remote workers, virtual teammates, vendors, partners, and contractors.How to calm down and get clear before handling difficult situations.<ul><li>Feel the emotion, but don’t act until you have calmed down.</li><li>Instead of sending the email, send a calendar invite for a one-on-one meeting.</li><li>Plan your conversation, and clarify your intended result.</li><li>Clarify the situation by stating what’s happening that should not be happening.</li><li>Initiate a one-on-one private conversation in person or by videoconferencing.</li></ul>

Conflict capacity

The author of ‘No-Drama Leadership’ says we can use this time of instability and uncertainty to define leadership of the future.


Stashed ideas

3 ways you can create stability in uncertain situations

You need to identify what matters the most to you to put a strategy together that fits your level of commitment and vision.
<ul>
<li>Making a plan and committing to it will unleash all the energy and discipline you’ll ever need.</li>
<li>If you’re looking to disrupt an industry, you’d better be armed with the right story, right team, right data, and right strategies.</li>
<li>When you’re working on something you deeply care about, you will find the enthusiasm to make life a great adventure.</li>
</ul>

Know What You Want

You can break down Drive into four categories:
<ul>
<li>Advancement. Wanting to reach the next goal (promotion, deadline, or task)</li>
<li>Individuality. Having the lifestyle you desire and the security to do so</li>
<li>Madness. Competing against others and proving you are the best at what you do</li>
<li>Purpose. Self-actualization and having a positive impact on others.</li>
</ul>
You can have more than one type driving you. However, a driver can stop to work in your favor.

Your Drive

People often feel lost after a big deadline because their driver is suddenly gone.To solve this, you need to dive deeper into your Purpose.Define your purpose by asking:<ul><li>How do you want to be remembered?</li><li>How do you want to make an impact on other people’s lives?</li><li>What does the greatest version of yourself look like?</li></ul>

Running Out Of Your Drive

Rather than competing in games where you’re an underdog, find unexplored new markets in which you can win.Examine both your unique skill set and the competitive landscape to find your “Blue Ocean”.Process the competitive landscape by asking:<ul><li>Is this a place where you believe you can do well, given who your competition is?</li><li>Do you possess the necessary resources to compete?</li><li>Do you need to acquire specific resources before you can compete?</li><li>Have you educated yourself about the competition?</li><li>Is there some additional benefit your competitor has that you can’t beat, no matter what you do?</li></ul>

Your Own Blue Ocean

Don’t complain that the game is rigged. Instead, find a game in which you have a differential advantage.

Before you act on a problem, you must first “process” what’s happening. The key to success at all levels of business is to know how to process issues:Optimal processing is:<ul><li>The ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand with the highest odds in your favor</li><li>Subjecting every difficult choice, problem, or opportunity you face to a rigorous mental analysis</li><li>Playing out strategies, seeing the hidden consequences, and sequencing a series of moves to permanently solve problems</li></ul>But to be great at processing problems, you need to take responsibility whenever you can.

Master The Ability To Reason: The Power Of Processing Issues

<ul><li>Ask lots of questions. Having more data leads to making better assumptions</li><li>Don’t care about being right or wrong. Be only interested only in the truth.</li><li>Don’t make excuses. Wasting time and effort on why things went wrong is not productive</li><li>Embrace challenges</li><li>Be curious. You can’t solve problems without knowledge</li><li>Prevent more problems than you solve. Spot yellow flags before they turn red</li><li>Learn to negotiate</li><li>Focus on permanently solving a problem. Don’t put band-aids on problems</li></ul>

Eight traits to become a great processor

Instead of reacting emotionally to problems, use the Investment Time Return (ITR) formula to reach an objective conclusion.Investment Time Return formula:<ul><li>Investment. How much will it cost or save</li><li>Time. How much time will it take or save</li><li>Return. Return on the money and time involved in the decision</li></ul>

Investment Time Return (ITR) 

<ul><li>Find at least 3 alternative solutions to a given problem. The more choices you have, the better are your decisions</li><li>Determine the money investment of each solution</li><li>Determine the time investment of each solution. Is it a 3-month project or a 6-month project?</li><li>Calculate the return for each solution. What are the impacts on your revenue and cost?</li><li>Figure out the breakeven point of each project</li></ul>Make a list of the blind spots or things that could go wrong with each decision. If you only think about what could go right, you will overlook the downside.

Decide Using Investment Time Return (ITR) 

Problems might be different, but the way you process them should not.You need to give structure to your decision-making.The ability to solve problems well is the ability to take a complex issue you’re facing and break it down into a step-by-step formula that helps you identify the root of the problem.Three parts to Solve for X:<ul><li>Investigate. Find out the real causes of the issue, the impact of the problem, and how urgent it is</li><li>Solve. List out possible solutions and their consequences</li><li>Implement. Who will be responsible for the project and how it will change future situations</li></ul>

Solving For X

Working effectively with others will mean the difference between enjoying the process and desperately seeking a day job while hiding under your desk.Instead of being selfish and looking to see what you could take from others, focus on what you could give them. You need to define:<ul><li>What benefits are you currently offering to others? </li><li>In what way do people improve by associating with you?</li><li>How many lives have you changed positively in the past year?</li></ul>Think about who you need to help you to achieve your long-term objectives. Take care of them, and they’ll back you up.

Master Building The Right Team: Fundamentals

The less your business depends on you, the more valuable it is.

As your company grows, you will constantly replace yourself with others.Alongside the growth, you also need to create a contingency plan to replace any important position.If you have a plan in place for how to replace every key member of your team, you can handle an unexpected exit without missing a beat. Plus you’ll sleep better at night, knowing your next several moves are already planned out.

Replacing Yourself: The Game Plan

List your tasks and skills. Make a list of all your tasks and skills and determine which ones you are good and bad at.Identify who’s seasonal and who’s not. Identify who is there to fill a six-year role and who a six-month roleKnow the different languages spoken by your sales, support, technical, and executive teams.Identify who can maintain the company culture.  Know your company’s practices and procedures. Write down each department’s practices and procedures to help transfer skillsDevelop leaders to help spread the right mindset

Six Ways for Replacement and Skill Transfer

Ways you give and receive love into 5 categories:<ul><li>Quality Time. One-on-one time of undivided attention</li><li>Words of Affirmation. Appreciate the effort verbally</li><li>Gifts. Offer something to symbolize your appreciation</li><li>Acts of Service. Be at their disposal when they need you</li><li>Physical Touch. Non-verbal use of body language and touch to show appreciation</li></ul>Show people that you take the time and care needed to understand what they want.

Learn Each Individual’s Love Language

<ul><li>Don’t be afraid to call them out when they don’t keep their word. </li><li>Ask why they broke their promise. Get a specific answer.</li><li>Make specific quantitative statements, not blanket qualitative ones. Give them specific challenges to meet that can be measured and have deadlines.</li><li>Provide clear metrics and incentives. Let them know what they will get for hitting (or missing) their metrics.</li><li>Coach people through their workflow. Help them improve how they work.</li><li>Know the role each person plays on the team.  </li><li>Finish with heart and empathy.</li></ul>

Master Strategy To Scale: Make People Accountable For Growth

Seven-step system to compress time frames and increase speed:<ul><li>Choose a process. One of the best ways to identify a potential business is to find a flawed process that you can improve upon</li><li>List the steps of the process</li><li>Remove a step. How would the process function without that step? If the process is not affected, take it out</li><li>Minimize the steps. Take the remaining steps and condense their time frame</li><li>Beta test the new process. Find a subset of customers to test and see how the new process functions</li><li>Adapt the process. Based on the results of your beta test, adjust your process</li><li>Repeat.</li></ul>

Increase Your Speed

<ul><li>Know your weaknesses. Knowing your weaknesses will enable you to pivot when taking on your Goliath</li><li>Know Goliath’s weaknesses.</li><li>Master three things you do better.</li><li>Don’t try to be Goliath.  Don’t copy</li><li>Specialize. Goliaths tend to generalize in order to spread their influence and power. </li><li>When you’re small, make yourself appear bigger. </li><li>Keep a low profile initially.</li><li>Move quickly. </li><li>Partner with competitors that share an enemy.</li><li>Study history. Prepare by learning from historical events</li><li>Let other competitors wear your opponents down. Save your resources whenever you can</li><li>Don’t disclose your strategy. </li></ul>

Master Power Plays: Beat Goliaths

A simple rule of business is that in order to get, you have to give. Most amateurs are experts at making demands. What they fail to do is offer value first. When you put yourself into the other party’s shoes and lead with how they will win and make money, it will be natural for them to give you what you want.

Closing Thoughts

Your Next Five Moves explores how you can improve your business and your life by learning how to strategize.

From the creator of Valuetainment, the #1 YouTube channel for entrepreneurs, and “one of the most exciting thinkers” (Ray Dalio, author of Principles) in business today, comes a practical and effective guide for thinking more clearly and achieving your most audacious professional goals. Both successful entrepreneurs and chess grandmasters have the vision to look at the pieces in front of them and anticipate their next five moves. In this book, Patrick Bet-David “helps entrepreneurs understand exactly what they need to do next” (Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog!) by translating this skill into a valuable methodology. Whether you feel like you’ve hit a wall, lost your fire, or are looking for innovative strategies to take your business to the next level, Your Next Five Moves has the answers. You will gain: CLARITY on what you want and who you want to be. STRATEGY to help you reason in the war room and the board room. GROWTH TACTICS for good times and bad. SKILLS for building the right team based on strong values. INSIGHT on power plays and the art of applying leverage. Combining these principles and revelations drawn from Patrick’s own rise to successful CEO, Your Next Five Moves is a must-read for any serious executive, strategist, or entrepreneur.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

#clarity

IDEAS ABOUT #clarity

Why Everyone Should Write

3 ways you can create stability in uncertain situations

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#clarity

IDEAS ABOUT #clarity

Why Everyone Should Write

3 ways you can create stability in uncertain situations

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career