Adam Viet is a baller who connects others and recruits tech talent to support company cultures that sing the songs of significance. Adam is a leader in Des Moines, hosts the Shooters Touch Podcast for basketball coaches, and owns Vociferous – #109 within the Roasted Reflections NFT Collection. Sub in as we shoot hoops and talk sports, hiring talent, RPO/ROD, connection vs. transaction networking, web3, and always staying curious.
For people who play 80 hours instead of working 40, a diversified career portfolio often emerges.
A variety of activities and the contemporary energy of popcorning between them, helps vanguards stay ahead of the innovation curve. Diversification of work can also provide stability when the volume of different activities are strategically adjusted over time.
As we diversify career portfolios, balance, transparency, being realistic, patience, perpetual learning, and avoiding The Headline Trap is critical. These real skills fuel focused progress on multiple fronts and help reduce the risk of diluting yourself to mediocrity. If you’re stretched too thin, the value of diversification can devolve into fragmentation.
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It’s easy to discount our potential, but life is too short not to love what you do.
When change is constant, visualized assessment helps track how time is spent. Below is the evolution of my own career portfolio. People who see this often want to implement this method introduced in the Side Hustles chapter of YDNTB, so let’s jam on how to visualize your diversified career portfolio.
First, organize the things you spend time building. Assign a percentage of time spent on each activity, then plot the data into a pie chart. I use Apple Keynote to manage the pie chart and Adobe Photoshop for added flare, but any spreadsheet or slide deck software can visualize data in a similar way. Once created, save the pie chart as an image. You now have a conversation piece that showcases how you spend time. Update it as your career portfolio evolves or use this method as an annual exercise to stay balanced with your own personal bandwidth.
The echo of an idea is always fading.
How can we extend ideation long enough to activate early moves, blow through barriers, and maintain lasting enrollment? This is clearly a loaded question. Much goes into enabling ideas into reality and the rate of an idea’s degradation depends on a million factors, but let’s sip on the artistry of pushing without being pushy.
As seen in the Ideation and Research chapters of YDNTB, personal reflection is the easiest way to think through the various angles that might make an idea interesting. This private contemplation doesn’t require much skill and we don’t get stuck trying to earn the attention of others. Unfortunately, the ease of your own activity is matched by the hardships that await those who don’t let ideas breathe. This is why stealth mode is precarious and ongoing customer discovery is key.
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Will you spend time or money?
When we share a new idea with someone else, the situation becomes complex. This is the moment we put our idea on a hook. It’s when we push past fear and invite doubt. Connecting dots within such complexity is difficult, takes time, and is never straightforward. Research helps to build confidence and adds clarity to how opportunities are articulated. While this preparation helps guide others through layers of understanding faster, a blend between patience and urgency is required to align interest.
This makes blunt repetition tempting, but ineffective. Whether it’s potential co-founders, mentors, early adopters, or investors, more of the same (without execution) can chase away interest. To avoid potential fading too fast, find different ways to motivate movement.
For a fun visualization, let’s imagine a small pond. If one pebble drops in, the lonely ripple would be obvious, but also fades fast. While it made a splash, it’s soon forgotten. Now, imagine many pebbles being thrown in different ways, all around the pond, and over time. The pond is now alive! The echo of each pebble is magnified and the abundance of rippled collisions leave a more lasting impact.
Like this pond full of pebbles, we can nudge progress long enough to activate action by adding variety into how we introduce and continue to explore an idea. Conversation in different environments, creative analogies, inquisitive questioning, active listening, talking about anything else, releasing reluctance, or getting more people involved are all ways you can keep building without seeming frantic, repetitive, or desperate. This intentional diversity allows different echos of one idea to each feel different, and yet, all bounce in the same direction.
Introducing a modern equation:
The “future of work” is something many people throughout an entrepreneurial ecosystem think about, talk about, and work on together.
When everyone is trying to figure out the future of work, how have we arrived at this simple solution to such a complex, important, and constant debate?
It began with 20+ years of collaborating through connection. This experiential wisdom is wonderful, but thinking/writing/talking about education through the lens of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and innovation has embedded perpetual learnings from students, educators, employers, and community builders. Along the way, “Playforce” was coined to describe a workforce that thirsts for significance through work that feels like play. In fact, an optional multiplier in this C.I.R.V. equation is actually having fun through an intrinsic sense of play. The depth of each variable (curiosity, initiative, real skills, and vocational knowledge) is also key to equalizing this complex equation.
This long-term focus has provided clarity, but this C.I.R.V. equation was refined through an ambitious collection of professional podcast interviews. In just three months, we orchestrated, recorded, and produced 55 fascinating episodes of You Don’t Need This Podcast. You read that right my friends. 55 thoughtful episodes of YDNTP were created in only 3 months, with a new episode now queued up to be released every week into 2024! During this prolific sprint, leaders boldly shared timeless insight linked to all parts within the educational system and related influences from throughout an entrepreneurial ecosystem. These were not quick chats. These were rich conversations with each special guest totally plugged in, sitting directly across me in a downtown recording studio! Navigating this many peculiar interactions sealed in the required comprehension that connects through pertinent perspectives.
Forecasting the future is hard, but action guided by the modern principles expressed in this new C.I.R.V. equation helps us activate exponential value as we continue building the future of work.
We use linear thinking in an exponential universe.
From a blade of grass on the football field, how can one imagine gaining a single yard? The first down marker feels distant at best, a touchdown seems impossible, and winning the game is barely comprehensible. A season championship? Yeah, that’s not even a glimmer in our mind’s eye. Trying to win all at once makes movement daunting, but staying consistent builds confidence and unlocks efficiencies. When space from this efficiency is used to stay innovative, what’s working is fortified as wormholes connect new levels of momentum.
We all know this.
Let’s dig deeper.
If a linear thinking is status quo, opportunity awaits those who augment their work through a cosmic perspective. As signals of product-market-fit emerge, understanding how each part effects the system will optimize what must work. This awareness leads to stability, which tempts most to coast along a linear path. People like us know that while it’s important to respect past success, such nostalgia does not guarantee the same results within a neon future characterized by constant change.
Yes, paving an exponential path takes endless energy, but we play for 80 hours to avoid working 40 and your creative eagerness can be nourished by a peculiar lack of routine. The goal is not more of the same. That will lead to similar, linear results. Instead, maintain what works, then keep increase the curve’s trajectory by feeding new ideas, talent, collisions, and action into the system.
You knew this was coming, but as always, an easy way to go beyond our linear capabilities is found in community. Community allows us all to do more with less. Curiosity, initiative, and adaptability activates diversified trust channels. Fresh feedback rewards a willingness to experiment and when integrity to follow up is applied, variables can be added to a more exponential equation.
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“Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work.” –Naval Ravikant
Like the opening analogy reminds us, converting a slope of work from linear to exponential is not done all at once. The Headline Trap is distracting and we often assume it takes luck, but we make our own luck with every action.
As we leverage our own community-driven exploration, we uncover ways to earn more with our mind, not our time. The farther we separate time and money, the less we rent our most precious resources. Each time we find that next gear, the system unfolds and the rising slope of your impact, personal bandwidth, sense of peace, and happiness is set free to rapidly ascend.
