by Brice Hogan
July 7, 2022 | bricehogan.com
Hello Everyone,
When I started this newsletter my idea was to include ideas that would force you to think about: What can you improve? How can you improve even if it's just by 1 percent?
I love learning and I look at everybody I listen to or read about my personal mentors. I may not know them, and they may not know me, but I am able to glean something from them that makes me better, that I can share with you, and hopefully that makes you better.
Hope you enjoy this week's issue!
As always if you have any feedback or suggestions about the newsletter reach out to me at bricejhogan@hotmail.com
Brice
What I Listened To
Disrupt Yourself: There Is No Such Thing as Failure - Anne Chow
"Everyone has biases. If you are to say, I don't have a bias, you'd be saying your brain doesn't function properly. To be human is to have a bias." - Anne Chow
There were two big takeaways that I got from listening to Anne (who is the CEO of AT&T Business)
If you don't ask the answer will always be No.
This is true for anything in life that we want. If we want a better anything we need to ask and then show how we can add value especially if it relates to a job we may want. I think Michael Jordan said, "YOu miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
Bias isn't inherently bad
This one I had to think about because we often look at having a bias as something bad. But it has a few benefits. It helps to organize thoughts around certain strengths we have. What we want to avoid is the type of bias that is action related and creates obstacles to being more collaborative.
There is No Such Thing as Failure
VC20 With Harry Stebbings
This is my little gift podcast to everyone. That might make you laugh but this is a fantastic podcast that revolves around the VC world. I would suggest you take a listen because in it there were so many life lessons and if you are a manager some great leadership lessons on how to lead your organization.
A Conversation with Sonali De Rycker
What I Watched
Do One More
Ed Mylett is an intense, dynamic leader he has built companies and does a lot of motivational work for people. One of the things he talks about is the concept of Do One More. This fits right into the theme here at The Brice Hogan Project of continuous improvement.
One of the big takeaways was humility breeds confidence and curiosity. Humility is a core characteristic of true learners. Anyone who has a sense of humility is a lifelong learner because they know they don't know everything. Which makes them curious to find out what they need to learn to get better.
Something to Think About
Motivation and the Paradox of Social Information
Social Information is everywhere and it affects our motivation and our self-image.
When we are not progressing to our goals our confidence slows
Motivation slows especially if we compare our situation to someone else.
The Social Information Paradox says
We can use the social information comparison and negative emotions from it to motivate us to achieve our goal, the same information that demotivated us.
Comparison to others - slows progress
Slow progress to our goal - slows confidence
Slow progress to our goal - demotivates us
Paradox
Negative emotion from comparison - motivates us to achieve the goal
The takeaway here is that the more we use social information it has the effect of slowing us down if we feel we are not progressing to our goal, but if we take emotion with that it can fuel is to perform better.
Interesting Articles -
12 Rules of Life
Probably one of the best articles I have read in a long time about 12 (in some cases) out-of-the-box rules for living life. My personal favorite was Make Shabbat. Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath, but the idea was not religious. The point was that we need to set apart a time to create, relax put the things of the world behind us.
I find when I take even 20 minutes out of the day to go on a walk or just unload. The focus I have when I get back to what I was doing is more.
Why Getting Started is More important Than Succeeding
We often get stuck in a rut of thinking, that if we are starting something new, it has to be perfect or optimal. When in reality it's messy and you just have to start. It's better to do than to think about doing and never start. Success will never happen unless you start moving forward to achieve what you want to become.