March Update

🦉Ideas

1️⃣ Convenience is my secret to regular exercise.

In late 2022 I was barely doing any exercise. I’m not a big fan of running and traveling made it hard to have a workout routine. But in 2023 that changed completely. So far I did a +30min workout in 66 out of 91 days. That’s ~5 days a week. So what’s my secret?

To me the secret is convenience:

1. It doesn’t matter what type of exercise you do, it only matters that you do something.

2. Travel time matters. The gym or workout spot needs to be close and easily accessible. Ideally bikable or with car parking, and reachable in under 15min.

3. It must be super easy to start the class or workout, and with few accessories or preparation required.

4. Comfort is not a detail. Great amenities make it desirable to go there often. Good showers, towels, and other seemingly unimportant details all add up to persuade to go.

2️⃣ IRL to innovate, URL to iterate.

There’s a lot of debate about the pros and cons of in-person vs remote work, but I recently found this simple framework that represents well how I feel about the topic.

Having spent 10 years in the ad world, I know first hand how the energy of being in the same room can have a multiplier effect on creativity and innovation. But, now at Talent Protocol, I also experience how a distributed and async team can be much more efficient and productive.

If you’re trying to go from 0 to 1, work in person, if you nailed the idea, and are trying to scale from 1 to 100, work remotely. Also, use sync time to make decisions, and async work to execute and move fast towards a known goal.

3️⃣ Meeting rules we use at Talent Protocol:

Let’s face it, meetings will hardly ever be exciting.
But they can be much more effective:

1. Meetings are not for sharing updates. Meetings are for making decisions and clarify doubts or disagreements.

2. No presentations or proposals during the meeting (record a video to watch before the call).

3. A shared doc with an agenda and topics (we use Notion); anyone can edit, add or even start answering the questions async.

4. Always have a moderator.

5. Meetings start exactly on time and end on time. Don’t wait for anyone.

6. Join 5 minutes early to have some informal, social time.

1. I was in LA for 7 days this month…and I exercised every single day! The secret: it was both convenient and super fun. LA has innovative workout classes, excellent gym amenities and very charismatic trainers (a lot of them are actually actors).

2. Being at SXSW in Austin, the place where tech, music and film intersect, felt like a huge win (and privilege). It also made me realize that I love films more than live music. Of course I enjoy live music and discovering new artists, but I only really love electronic music.

3. Constantly iterating on the Talent Protocol product vision feels like going in circles, but this month I saw meaningful progress. I’m very happy with the new slide deck I made this month. Check it here.

🌨️ Learnings

1. I’m slowly getting better at difficult conversations, but I still find it difficult to be direct and assertive. I still sugar coat the message too much. Being a “good” person, liked by everyone, has been a core part of my identity until now, and with good results. But it might not be serving me that well anymore. Time for an identity update?

2. I’m an ambivert. I have both introversion and extroversion characteristics, and can flip into either depending on my mood, context, and goals. I need to be constantly balancing between my introvert and extrovert mode. But this month I attended too many events in a row (ETHDenver, SXSW, NFT LA, ETHRio, ETHSamba), and felt increasingly less social as time went on. By the end of the month was practically avoiding people instead of starting conversations, which I normally enjoy. I need to recharge my social batteries.

3. Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. I’m good at strategy, ideas and solo execution. But not at leading team execution.

   • And if strategy is a commodity, no need to keep it a secret. Optimize for more people knowing your strategy, not less. Strategy needs constant clarification and reinforcement. If you try to keep it too confidential, what usually happens is your team not understanding it clearly.