Welcome back to school! Tom Swartwood has made the world a better place by accelerating endless students around the globe. We talk about activating the entrepreneurial spirit within academia and redefining retirement for leaders who will never stop making a ruckus to fuel positive change around the world.
Nancy Mwirotsi is a nationally recognized wayfinder who inspired students to lead by outfitting them with skills in technology and innovation. Over the past 10 years, Pi515 has promoted diversity in STEM careers and graduated hundreds of students, with free programs geared toward refugees, young women, and people of color.
The real skills we talk about in this episode of #YDNTP defines the future of work and empower students to thrive through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Have fun!
Taking a break can nourish an artist and the seasonality of the art they’re creating. A hiatus can refocus teams or provide space for a community to recharge as well, but misplaced interruptions can also become an excuse to stifle progress.
Let’s look at short breaks. For example, a moment to refill your mug, eat lunch, catch the latest episode of YDNTP, or get some sleep. When you’ve achieved flow, time away can feel like a waste of time. If a hiatus is only an excuse to avoid the work, then yes, worthless wandering is a trap and can actually devolve into a dangerous habit. When paralyzing progress is normalized, it will impact other things you actually want to accomplish. This means that even short breaks should be used to recharge your return.
What about a more extended hiatus? This could be time away, setting a project aside, or even taking breaks in a relationship. When things get tough or positive momentum starts to fade, it’s tempting to avoid reality by pushing pause. This may keep things afloat, but it’s often a lackadaisical move to avoid reality, which may include the challenges of calling it quits. If an extended hiatus is truly strategic, the time should feel restful and build confidence as rearranged resources add fresh motivation. If this time away is wasted however, a false restart can be hard to recover from and will further expose what always needed to change. If a hiatus ever feels like an excuse to dodge blame, instead of being fainthearted, perhaps the illusion of an endless break should be replaced by a determined effort to make the bigger decision.
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With limitless ways to spend our time, it’s easy to take on more than we should. Be careful taking breaks when you’ve overextended your own personal bandwidth.
The length of any hiatus is relevant and so are the people who decide to take the break. Lone wolves can make these decisions easier, but they may struggle to understand the whole equation without feedback from customers, mentors, and fellow community members. When more people are involved, deciding what/when/how to take a break becomes more complex. For example, if a few people decide a break is good for a larger group, this decision may come from an individual’s lack of interest or bandwidth instead of what’s best for the group.
When we feel significant, promises are kept and more people are set free to lead together. When we lead together, the limitations of some are less likely to compromise the well-being of many. This agency supports enrollment, trust, creativity, and honesty between more linchpins who collectively decide when the right type of intermissions will be most invigorating.
Create a library of written works.
It can unfold into a timeless asset.
Imagine if you had already started writing. With no index cards required, welcome to your very own collection of organized, articulated thoughts, eh!
You will have embraced the moments of your own thoughts. You will also have felt the nourishment of released energy that awaits within the art of writing. Even more, you also moved past the fear and began “shipping your art” by sharing it within a community as well.
With your library of writings in place, even if traffic is low, your future self can become a real-time index. Available any time, from any device, and you’ll remember them all because you created them!
This treasure trove becomes super handy and very valuable! You can effectively add thickness to any interaction. What a timeless gift to yourself and to those you seek to serve, beyond so many beautiful, but brief sparks in time.
Quick temperature check. The world is experiencing a mainstream surge in AI, but don’t let that become an excuse. Anyone can now unleash AI and #ChatUX is so sweet, but those who show ingenuity will never be out created. Along with helping us all maintain intensity, your own writings can represent a honest heart connected to different topic you’re also talking about… maybe even building realities around as well!
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“Reading helps us understand the world.
Writing helps us understand ourselves.”
– Ben McDougal, Roasted Reflections
Does writing take serious time? Yes. Does publishing your writing online spark hesitations? Yes. Will writing welcome a creative release and potentially deliver more art for you to ship? Also yes.
Start writing my friend, then get generous by sharing it with us.
Breakout valuations are achieved when a business is valued based on how it makes people feel and its future potential, not just on what it’s done in the past.
The nine components of a breakout valuation are confidence, vision, curiosity, people, communications, cash management, financial forecasting, capital strategy, and business design. Whether or not you sell your company, owners who optimize in these areas position themselves for a breakout valuation.
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This is an adaptation of Breakout Valuation by Patrick E. Donohue. Patrick is the Breakout Growth Investor—a founder, valuation expert, and capital strategist who helps us build magnetic vision, unlock financial clarity, and create lasting value.
While you’re running a company, breakout valuations make everything easier. It attracts talented employees and quality customers. This expands your market position, makes financial capital less expensive, and invites vendors to extend better terms based on your surging trajectory.
Knowing what your ownership of the business is worth helps you make important financial decisions and becomes increasingly important as a business matures.
If a business grows to the point where it becomes valuable to acquire, academic and finance professionals attempt to make valuation objective, but the complexity of each transaction makes valuation subjective in the end.
Along with all the objective data, valuation is highly influenced by the environment, relationship, and personal views of the participants in a transaction.
Knowing how investors and lenders use objective valuation tactics is crucial. But understanding the potential value of the business, articulating it to potential partners, and having them buy into the vision will arm you with an advantage to get what you want: a breakout valuation.
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What are we doing today to support our goals for tomorrow?
Breakout valuations are not aspirational.
They emerge from what you are doing right now.
Be clear with your mission and vision. Know your numbers and how everything comes together through a shared mindset, communication, and workflow.
The pursuit toward a breakout-valuation compounds, requiring attention today and every day moving forward. This steady focus aggregates a deep level of understanding and builds confidence. When the day comes to part with some or all of your business, the assurance from a breakout valuation will maximize the payout or support the poise to walk away.
Alright, grab the gondola.
Let’s head back up the mountain.