I have often referred to podcast episodes from The Diary of a CEO for previous posts. The host, Steven Bartlett, asks insightful questions and brings his vulnerability to the table to make each conversation interesting for both the listeners and the guest. Over the last several months I have known this channel, the subscribers of the YouTube channel grew from 600K to 2.4 million.
I wanted to learn what the man behind this podcast had to say in his own book. I knew he had accomplished a lot even before finding a success with his podcast and wanted to see what I can learn from him.
There are a lot of good points in the book. Here are a few that I found memorable.
Do not hand over the control of your emotion to someone by saying “I am angry because Y did Z”
Steven says he hears this type of complaints from employees all the time. We attribute our emotions such as anger, frustration and disappointment to some external events or persons. Steven points out that in such instances, we have given the person (or event) the permission to control our emotion. We need to choose not to give that permission. We need to remember that we are ultimately in control of our own emotion.
Steven talks about the days when his company was hacked and a lot of his business client relationships were destroyed as a result. He was able to mitigate the damage because he managed to stay calm despite how stressful the situation was. Remembering you have the full control of your own emotion and not letting external factors influence your emotion is probably the single greatest habit to achieve being present, better decision making and finding happiness.
The art of quitting — make a decision to quit using a simple framework
Steven quit his job or left opportunities many times and he credits that habit for his success. He developed the following framework to help you decide whether you need to quit.
I wish I had this framework before when I was thinking about quitting my job at Google. But again, it’s one thing to have this framework easily tell you quitting is right for you and it’s another thing to believe in this framework and have the conviction to quit when so much is unknown (e.g. am I going to find a new career soon?)
Ultimately, this framework brings us back to the same theme I discussed in the above point.
If it sucks, by asking what you can do about it and whether you want to do it, you stay clear of the emotion and focus on things you can control (i.e. what can you do to fix it?). This way, you avoid wasting time wondering “should I quit” and remaining stressed.
Whether it sucks or it’s just hard, the framework reminds you to ask “is it worth it?”. That is, do I really want it?
It’s a simple question that we should practice asking often. It forces to us to examine where we are headed.
Also, note what is not included in the framework — other people’s opinion, social norms and what media tells us.
You are already enough. To get what you want, first let go your desire.
Steven grew up in a poor family where he lacked money. He thought earning a lot of money and having a nice car will make him happy, but when he got them all, he did not find the never-ending happiness waiting for him.
If you have a strong desire for something, it indicates you think you don’t have it today. If you want more money tomorrow, it means you think you don’t have enough money today. It could be anything else — social recognition, fame, success, material objects, etc.
If you believe you lack something, according to Steven, that is not true and therefore setting where to head to in life from a position of lack is a flawed approach.
“I became a happy sexy millionaire when I realised that striving to be a happy sexy millionaire was the one thing that stood the greatest chance of stopping me from becoming one.”
When you are in position of lack, social media further reinforces you to believe that because it is full of messages reminding you that you lack things that make you happy. Those messages unfortunately are the ones that are popular and get pushed by algorithms. Hence, they appear to be acceptable unless you have done enough work on yourself and have the belief that you are already enough.
Steven says believing that you are enough is the key to finding your genuine motivation and the greatest internal goal.
In closing, I’d like to note that it was relieving to hear the same messages I have been discovering during my gap year from someone who is accomplished in entrepreneurship space.
Messages below
- “you are enough”
- “let go your desire”
- “work on your emotion”
- “quit often”
don’t sell as well as what Steven calls “hustle-porn”.
I was exposed to a lot of entrepreneurs when I was in my early 20s and no one mentioned any of the ideas above. I acknowledge that one can go far in life and succeed without those ideas. Perhaps their source of motivation was their insecurities and they powered through challenges simply by being hard on themselves. Some people manage to succeed while ignoring any misalignment between their true desire and what they pursued. Most of what I saw and heard was hustle porn and these important messages never surfaced until I got off the corporate ladder in my mid 30s and started reading books outside entrepreneurship.
I hope Steven continues sharing his wisdom through more books (new book is set to release in August 2023) and podcast episodes and that society, especially entrepreneurship communities, pick up more of his messages.
