Cultivating Serendipity 🗯- The art of listening 🙉- Behave like a UFC fighter 🥊- A stoic life with Ryan Holiday 💡- Mission Blablacar 🚘

« Rien n’est plus puissant qu’une idée dont le temps est venu » Victor Hugo.

Hi there 😊,

Episode #46. I hope you are optimistic for 2022. I am. Not just because I am an entrepreneur but because I have this intention and hope that after 2 years, the pandemic will go 🙏. I wish I was wrong when I told a journalist back in Spring 2020 (going out of lockdown #1) that the crisis might last much longer… he treated me as pessimistic. I am not 😉

Buckle up and get ready for your weekly dose of inspiration 👇

#1 Cultivating serendipity 🗯

My key takeaways from an article you can access here 👉 La lettre de Umanz : les 4 filtres de sérendipité 🇫🇷 (The 4 filters of serendipity) was published by my friend Patrick Kervern on January 14, 2022.

Pasteur said « la chance favorise les esprits préparés » (Luck favors prepared souls").

Great question from Fred Smith, a former CEO at FedEx, « who is the most interesting person you met over the past 90 days? ». “How can you get back in touch with her/him?”.

“Ceux qui ne lisent pas de livres n'ont qu'une seule vie, les pauvres : la leur.” (Those who do not read book only have one life. Poor them. Just theirs) once said Umberto Eco.

Questions are more important than answers to find serendipity.

Ask yourself:

« What questions did I ask today » rather than « what did I learn today ».

Be proactive vs. technology like Mark Andressen:

« There will be 2 categories of people: those who will order computers what to do and those will be told what to do … by computers ».

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#2 The art of listening 🙉

My key takeaways from an article you can access here 👉 The art of becoming a better listener (Tactical advice for the startup setting) This piece was published by First Round Review in January 2022.

You can find tons of training to become a better public speaker, what about becoming a better listener?

It requires asking open-ended questions, staying neutral, and centering the discussion on someone else.

Vengoechea wrote a book “Listen like you mean it” after consulting for companies like Twitter or Pinterest to help them build a better product.

« When you actually deeply listen to someone, you get to know them much better, which is going to allow you to work with them better. You're going to get greater alignment more quickly”.

If and when you focus on fine-tuning your speech or flow, you may make the error of considering your counterparts as an audience, not collaborators.

Hurry Slowly « So many startups are playing a game of hurry up and wait — sprinting to get somewhere only to later realize it wasn’t even the right destination. »

The path to success is to listen to your customers and to your colleagues.

Humility + Curiosity + Empathy > listening mindset. Forget your own assumptions, opinions, and expectations.

Being humble is an attitude where you are trying to learn, you are like a student.

Listening is not passive > “Listening is not simply about staying quiet, nodding along, and just being a vessel for what the other person has to say. It’s an active process”.

As a leader, you have to invite people and welcome receiving information whether good or bad news.

As a manager, beware of picking the right listening mode. Problem solver or interviewer for example. « Open up space. There’s power in asking ‘Would you like me to listen or brainstorm solutions with you? ». Sometimes it is just about creating space.

“The number one question I get from folks who’ve read my book isn’t about how to be a better listener, but how about how they can be heard and deal with folks who won’t listen to them,” says Vengoechea.

To get heard: “The best thing that you can do to get your message across is to be super clear and use simple language: I need help with X, I’m unhappy with Y, I'm struggling with Z.”

Read the full article to discover specific tips for every department of a company to become better at listening: Product, Design, Sales, recruitment.

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#3 Learning from a UFC fighter 🥊

Patrick Kervern’s takeaways from an article you can access here 👉 A conversation with Michael Bisping, a UFC Hall of fame fighter & former middleweight champion. This piece was published by Thought Economics on December 16, 2021.

2 great takeaways worth sharing from an interview with UFC fighter Michael Bisping:

1-Do not get angry

When you’re angry, you’re in a frantic state of mind, you are not the best version of yourself. When you’re fighting the very best martial artists on the planet, you cannot react out of emotion. You have to be cool, calm, collected, and in the moment. You need to think clearly about how to counter an attack, not reacting to an attack out of emotion or anger.

2-You are a warrior in preparation

It’s about doing everything in the lead-up to the fight to make sure you win. You have to get your weight cut right, you have to make sure you’ve fought the right sparring partners, you need to make sacrifices, you’ll have to invest money, you’ll spend a lot of time away from your family, you’ll be in the gym, you’ll be flying around, living out of your car, sleeping on the floor. That’s where the warrior mindset turns on – it’s when you prepare so can do whatever it takes to win that fight.

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#4 A stoic life with Ryan Holiday

My takeaways from a podcast conversation you can access here 👉 Ryan Holiday: A Stoic life. This podcast from The Knowledge Project (#128) was published by Farnam Street on January 11, 2022.

The dichotomy of control > do not waste time on things you do not control.

« We don’t control what happens but we control how we respond ».

Balanced people rarely become exceptional. Outstanding people like basketball legend Michael Jordan had an unlimited need to be adored and publicly recognized… without being ever satisfied with what he had.

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#5 Blablacar > The book

My takeaways from the 1st chapter of the book Mission Blablacar (Ed. Eyrolles). This book written by Frederic Mazzella was published last January 11, 2022. Hopefully, those few thoughts I am sharing (in French 🇫🇷) will give you the motivation to buy and read this book.

Quelques pépites jalonnent ce livre qui retrace l’histoire de Blablacar mais pas seulement:
« Rien n’est plus puissant qu’une idée dont le temps est venu » Victor Hugo.
Les bonnes idées ne peuvent pas être volées, elles volent d’elles mêmes.

Une bonne idée c’est juste une étincelle, il faut aussi du bois (produit ou service en face d’un besoin) et de l'oxygène, de l’air (le travail). « Et il faut souffler fort et longtemps pour que le feu prenne ».

Il y'a 2 phases dans la vie d’un produit: l'amélioration de l'expérience utilisateur puis la croissance pour passer à l'échelle.

Analogie du Vendée Globe. Le marché c’est le vent. Le cap c’est la vision. Le client c’est le public qui vient voir du sport, de l’action, qui va gagner la course?

Bien choisir les métriques sur lesquelles aligner tout le monde. Permet d’atteindre la même direction à (plus) grande vitesse.

Einstein « si un bureau encombré évoque un esprit encombré alors que penser d'un ´ bureau vide ».

Le bureau encombré de Fred Mazzella “nourrit sa réflexion et favorise sa créativité”. 

Merci Fred et coucou Florian Mirairou pour ce nouveau témoignage de la scène startup made in France +1. Bienvenu au club des startuppers x auteurs Mr Mazzella!

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See you next Sunday!