Embrace Friction

November 9, 2021 Nate Anglin

This was from the latest edition of The Optimized Report newsletter, a collection of actionable ideas to help small business teams improve their performance, profit, and potential without sacrificing what's most important.

There are two types of people:

People who see a problem as a problem and love complaining about the problem. And people who see a problem as an opportunity and look for ways to improve it.

Which one do you want to be known for?

Now, on to this week’s optimized ideas: 👇

1/ Embrace Friction

"Resistance isn't some mental toughness exercise; the best things in life come from friction."

Life isn't meant to be easy.

If it was, what would be the point? Without resistance, you don't grow, and without growth, you swim in a sea of complacency. My best results have come from the land of difficulty.

As Steph Smith writes in her Tweet, "nothing worth having comes easy."

2/ Supply Chain Woes

"China accounts for 80% of total raw materials for making medicine — and for antibiotics like cephalosporins, azithromycin and penicillin, the number jumps to 90%."

For once, the term "supply chain" is sexy.

Your life depends on goods being transported from around the world using various modes of transportation. But shortages occur when the global economy becomes frail, and pressure starts to bend logistics.

This is an incredible oversimplification, but our global economy is feeling the heat.

Shortages are plaguing nearly every industry; semiconductors, wood pulp, coffee, and maybe your most prized possession, FOOD.

"Tires for farming equipment are reportedly in short supply. Even packaging and pallet shortages are causing problems in food production. And like many other industries, labor is an issue. More than half of agricultural laborers, some 450,000 workers, are immigrants."

Don't rush to buy toilet paper (buy a bidet already), but your spending habits will likely change soon.

3/ Cancel All Your Meetings.

"For me, it was no longer about growth at all costs, but 'freedom at all costs.'"

I began to sweat as I read how Sahil Lavingia built Gumroad on the back of no full-time employees.

There are no deadlines, and they complete projects based on the impact on the company. The one caveat is everyone must write well since team members talk "to each other via GitHub, Notion, and (occasionally) Slack, expecting responses within 24 hours."

In our new remote workforce world, we'll see more of this coming to fruition.

In my own experience, our office teams are now fully remote; we've hired multiple team members from abroad and have plans to scale this up.

Remote work is our future, but leaders have to learn to incorporate internal relationship building in some form.

Humans long for connection.

4/ Use Google's Innovation Principles In Your Company

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

Google has 8 innovation principles that are worth exploring for your company.

I especially like "Focus on the User."

Where most small businesses fail is a disconnection with who consumes their product or service. They focus on operations, engineering, manufacturing but leave out how it'll impact their customer, from start to finish.

Innovative companies "genuinely care about their customers’ experience and are constantly trying to improve it."

Peter Diamandis outlines three critical questions every company should ask themselves:

What do they like?
What are their biggest complaints?
How can you improve your product or service based on these findings?

5/ What is a Critical Life Skill? Your Ability to Stay Calm.

"Many people find that the best way to connect with this source of inner strength is by taking three or four full breaths deep into your abdomen."

Living your life as a tightly wound ball of anxiety is never the answer.

The first step is having enough self-awareness to know you're a mess. The next step is to work on remaining calm, no matter what life throws at you.

The simplest way to remain calm is through your breath.

Try Deepak Chopra's approach.

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