#56: “Build things, tell people” and other lessons from reading useful nonfiction books
What a tab on my brain looks like
One of the best habits I’ve ever developed was religiously reading non-fiction books. Over the last few years, I’ve consumed a lot of titles from a wide range of categories including product design, startups and psychology. It has been instrumental to how I approach both my life and my work.
My motivation to get started was purely intrinsic. I was hungry and determined. One day I decided to really follow my curiosity, one page at a time. Then it just blew up. It became an activity I couldn’t get enough of. I have gotten (and am getting) a lot of satisfaction and thrill from learning through reading. It is a major part of my content diet.
It is as essential to me as eating and moving physically.
Of course, that is not enough. Reading itself is not enough. I had to actually apply the learnings I’ve gained to the various areas of my life where it’s applicable. This is the hard part but in a lot of ways, it is also where the fun begins.
This post is about those lessons. If you have the time, I would encourage you to read all the way. Think of this as an informal notes, a tab in my brain, a preview of my ROI so far on the subject of reading.
The lessons / insights unlocked (Not an exhaustive list)
Please refer to the numbers (#) attached to the insights for the book references (‘Bibliography’) all the way to the bottom of this page.
The formula for big (and small) wins = Build things, and tell people about it. The product is the marketing. At the risk of sounding so simplistic: if the product is great and recommendable & it delivers the promise to the people it was built for, the money will follow. It is also worth saying that delivering said promise is a lot harder than what it sounds like. (#4, #11)
Build and write in public is a form of testing and risk mitigation. It is also a fun, exploratory way to iterate digital products without wasting a lot of time / resources. I’ve written about this here:
The process and frameworks of product building can be applied to careers. Design experiments, run tests and iterate continuously. These product development concepts that are completely transferable to real life problem solving, including career-building. Whether you are a developer, a product manager or a designer, these everyday tools are practically applicable to a lot of what we do outside of our day jobs. (#10)
The book, The Startup of You, Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha brilliantly explained why it matters a lot to embrace these ideas of experimentation and permanent beta when it comes to career-building.
“Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs, that there’s new development to do on yourself, that you will need to adapt and evolve.”
If you can continuously improve these 3 core skills in business, you will be in a good & desirable spot for the future: Design, code and writing. — even with the rise of Generative AI, I’m still a firm believer of this. (#3, #11)
The modern day superpowers can come in the following abilities:
Making good decisions without having all the data (#8)
Knowing when to quit and cut your losses before it accumulates (#8)
Learning how to make informed bets
Having the core foundation in building businesses in the 21st century (code, media — writing/audio/video, design)
Learning when, where and how to take calculated risks
Innovation is hard. It’s isn’t always obvious and repeatable. However, if you want to thrive in your work, you have no choice but to continuously study it, practice it and ultimately live it. (#7)
Just how does one actually ‘live’ and breed innovation thinking? Aside from reading, I would…Study the greats — people, company, products. Find patterns and develop your sense of intuition around these things.
Create constantly, consume consciously — there’s no denying the enormous upsides of being a creator vs being just a mere consumer to everything.
Work with innovators, original thinkers, doers
Learn the rules before breaking them
Connect with people who are doing amazing things (my tools of choice on this: elpha, linkedin and lunchclub)
Live close to where everything is happening, if possible
Know how to separate the real things (that are worth pursuing) from the fluff / noise — difficult enough as it is to have worthy goals, try not to get distracted by the unworthy ones. (#5)
Question everything. Develop a first principles thinking as an approach to problem solving. Unlock secrets, find problems worth solving and pay attention to where the world is heading. (#3)
Design makes the world. The world needs designers, now more than ever. As I’ve said before, whatever happens to design, happens to the world. It is imperative that designers are aware of this also. (#11, #12)
Related post:
Business skills can be learned (and should be learned) by non-business majors. Literacy in this department is no longer a nice-to-have. For anyone who is pursuing anything worth achieving, it is critical to understand, use and leverage this at their disposal. Some key areas to start:
Communications (Written and oral)
Project management
Product management for the digital age (#9, #14)
Business development (#1, #10)
Sales and marketing
Basic personal relations and business etiquettes
Working understanding of what an R&D means (#16)
Persuasion and negotiations (#13)
User & market research
Being lean, scrappy and resourceful pays off big time. The barrier-to-entry for producing and launching work has never been this low. There is a way to make a lot of things happen. From early MVPs to user and market research all the way to grassroots marketing, there is a tool for almost everything to assist early-stage founders, or even tinkerers like myself. I call this one, internet literacy. Know how to use the internet to your advantage and it could, possibly be, the best thing you could ever invest your time on— outside of your personal life, of course. (#16)
(Your online) Reputation is everything. Build it around the problems you’ve solved and have that as the foundation for your online profiles. Put yourself out there, preferably as soon as possibly, especially if money is tight. The sooner you do so, the sooner you will get the feedback loop you need. (#5, #11)
Closing word on this
This is just the tip of the iceberg for me. I could talk about this all day. My purpose for this post is to share my notes, gather insights and form educated opinions on the topics I care deeply about. My hope is that you’ve gotten some value out of this as much as I have.
Learning is a lifelong pursuit. It is not at all indulgent nor self-serving. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Aside from building, learning is also one of the most practical things you can ever invest your time on.
Especially in this era, where quality information is accessible & tools for education are getting more and more sophisticated. The only thing that is scarce, for me, is time. I don’t have enough of it during the day to squeeze and maximize this habit to its utmost potential.
Otherwise, I feel incredibly lucky. I finally found what a lot of people look for their entire lives, which is the answer to ‘What would you do (with your time) if money wasn’t an object?'*
Learn - build.
And books are a key contributor to this. In fact, in a lot of ways—intellectually—I am who I am partially because of the books I’ve read and have influenced me my entire life.
Happy reading and thank you for reading working title,
Nikki
*worth noting that this is a priority below my personal life. Between learning and spending time with my growing family, there is no question that I would pick the latter. Always.
Bibliography
The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
Think Like A User Researcher by David Travis and Philip Hodgson
Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel
Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category of One by Category Pirates
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
Build Better Products by Laura Klein
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Painters and Hackers by Paul Graham
Design Makes the World by Scott Berkun
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
The User Experience Team of One by Leah Buley
Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
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