Matt Gray is a well known Youtuber and content creator. He is also the founder of Herb - the largest and most engaged cannabis community in the world of over 14 million people.
Previously he founded Bitmaker, which trained full-stack software engineers and got them jobs at companies like Shopify, Facebook, and IBM. Bitmaker was acquired by General Assembly.
Guest Author: Matt Gray
I’ve read 200 books on business.
I would’ve saved myself years of time if I just understood these principles instead:
1. Lateral Thinking
If you think like everyone else does, you’ll never outperform.
Optimize your life for alternative perspectives:
• Try new hobbies
• Have people tear down your ideas
• Go to talks away outside your domain
And you’ll think from scratch like a child again.
2. The 3 Ts
Time, tenacity, and timing:
3 factors that determine 99% of your success.
Stick with something long enough, keep iterating based on data and failure is near impossible.
People always overcomplicate success.
It’s because they can’t accept that it could be that simple.
3. Love the Problem
If you don’t have a ‘why’ that ignites you, it becomes impossible to get out of bed when things get tough.
Have you, or a loved one, deeply confronted the problem you’re solving?
If not, starting a business reduces to a glorified job.
4. Love the Customer
You know nothing.
Your customer knows everything.
Assume they’re 10x smarter than you – and aim to please them at every turn.
Because ultimately, it’s your customer who decides whether you retire rich or poor.
5. Make Something People Want
Don’t build a business unless you, or someone you’re close to, has directly faced the problem you’re solving.
Building without validating demand is like sailing without a compass.
You might move, but you’re likely lost.
6. Diversify your Learning
Ever noticed how the most successful have weird interests?
• Warren Buffet: Playing the ukulele
• Sam Altman: Bronze Age weaponry
• Mark Zuckerberg: Hunting and killing his own food
Innovation stems from perspectives the conventional can’t generate.
7. Be Able to Get into Deep Work
My deep work stack:
• DND
• Brain. fm
• Noise-cancelling headphones
Work like a lion for 4 hours instead of grazing like a cow for 12.
8. Be Antifragile
Entrepreneurship’s not easy on the psyche – your emotions get taken for a multi-year rollercoaster.
My antifragile toolkit:
• Journalling
• Meditation
• Gratitude
Cultivate stoicism: it’s armor for the battles in your mind.
9. Be a Contrarian
Everyone who’s achieved outsized results has to, by definition, have defied convention at some point.
They’re called crazy – until they’re right.
So always question what you’re told.
Swimming against the tide might find you treasures in the depths.
10. Echo Chambers Limit Growth
Surrounded by people who always agree with you?
You’re in a comfort zone.
And no growth ever happens in a comfort zone.
Embrace disagreement – you never truly understand something until you can hold two precisely opposite points of view on it.
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