You Don’t Need This Book

Listen

Listening is louder than it sounds.

Most entrepreneurs like to talk and the more obsessed we are, the more vociferous we seem to get. Idea machines must be willing to share compelling stories, but listening is a key part of any transmission. This may seem obvious, but with precious air time up for grabs and knowing so much about our own interests, listening can devolve into feeling like a required distraction.

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Hearing is passive. Listening is active.

As we guide people through the layers of understanding, active listening forms a bond much faster than forcing yourself to be heard. The fear of not having time to deliver your message will linger, but when we truly tune into what another person is saying, it shows we care. It also helps us better harmonize our thoughts within the moment and counters the common mistake of overloading others with too much numbing details all at once. Knowing each conversation is part of a broader relationship and community-building journey, good listeners are almost always given a chance to make a bigger impact.

Ready for an experiment? The next time you meet someone new, embrace your inner scientist. Set your introverted/extroverted mindset aside and focus your attention on asking as many thoughtful questions as you can. The less you talk, the better. This will feel awkward if you just fire question after question, so be concise with each response, then return to more thoughtful questions for a more natural interaction. Consider expanding this social experiment by purposely doing this throughout an entire networking event. Remember who you talked with and track how the listening-focused conversations evolve. Over time, how do these relationships built on listening, compare to others where you’ve been more outspoken? Here are a few tactics to support your practice.

  • Center your internal attention.
  • Stay engaged with eye contact.
  • Use jarring questions to dodge small talk.
  • Don’t interrupt or jump to conclusions.
  • Occasionally paraphrase what was said.
  • Avoid the urge to make it about you.
  • Ask curious questions to go deeper.
  • Exit gracefully, without a sense of rush.

This type of active listening will extend your ability to hear more, but also make your responses more in-tune with what others are thinking, versus always trying to prove your point. Selflessness may keep a conversation from landing exactly where you want in that moment, but as you move from one topic to the next, you’ll learn how others work. When done well, an unspoken bond forms. This synchronization creates space to explore more directions you’d like to take future conversations, but now with the priceless ingredient of shared enthusiasm.

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Listening within a support network ignites optimism, connection, and motivation. A healthy balance is to also listen to your challenge network, which keeps us intellectually humble and rooted in reality.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Stealth Mode

We’re all guilty of thinking our idea is better than it is.

Stealth mode is when entrepreneurs wait to start telling their story. Staying quiet about a new project often starts with good intentions. Curiosity and a bit of mystery can generate hype, especially if you’ve been successful in the past. Too often however, people hold onto silence because they fear feedback or that what they’re building may not work in the wild.

To avoid failure, the choice to continue building in stealth mode keeps everything safely in the workshop. This may be wise if the project needs work or when the competition are known pirates, but there are few ideas that require much secrecy. With 8 billion humans on earth, your idea is probably not unique and when it comes to shipping your art, it all comes down to execution. Survey the market and research existing patents to help guide decision making, but stealth mode will soon lag toward being an excuse to procrastinate. Even if you have something big, it can be deflated without the open air of honest feedback. Stealth mode may sound nice, but silence, pride, and fear can devolve into a suffocating sinkhole.

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Winners are good at losing.

If you decide to build in stealth mode, give yourself firm timelines. Determine if intellectual property needs legal protection. If you need to keep certain aspects of the project under wraps, do so while still allowing the idea to breathe. Stealth mode only works when it results in a stronger story. It’s hard to know how strong your story is unless you share it.

Yes, we can only be new once, but the leverage of a startup is an ability to quickly evolve. As your team connects with the true market through strategic, creative, and generous execution, humility paired with persistence will pay off in the form of confidence. Even if something fails, it’ll be more like a pit stop on your path toward product-market fit. Be a scientist. Experiment thoughtfully, iterate often, and invite doubt knowing that if you’re wrong, it can activate a signal that guides the project toward a more sustainable future.

Be careful with the comfort of stealth mode. Those who build in too much silence can go quiet themselves.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Perpetual

It’s hard to stop anything that repeats so frequently it seems endless. There’s infinite ways perpetuity could be good or bad, but never ending happiness, trust, love, hard work, fun, generosity, action, wonder, and learning seem like safe bets.

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It’s not whether you know how, it’s whether you will.

Being inspired by so many remarkable people (like you), has instilled a lasting appreciation for consistency within the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Perpetual feels like a cousin to persistence, so without airdropping the final chapter, here’s a short excerpt from the closing moments of You Don’t Need This Book: Entrepreneurship in the Connected Era.

As entrepreneurs traverse through the unknown, setbacks are inevitable. Each conquered setback makes an entrepreneur more resilient. As resiliency bonds with experiential knowledge, focused determination makes setbacks less distracting. Eventually, setbacks become more like interesting challenges for problem-solving entrepreneurs. This hardened mindset welcomes endless suffering. Such willingness to suffer unlocks a key to entrepreneurship. Passion.

Passion fuels persistence, and persistence is a wild card. Passionate persistence combined with obsession, allows anyone to achieve entrepreneurial success.

You’ll build when others don’t. You’ll savor projects longer and you’ll fight through dips that made others quit. You’ll be comfortable with uncomfortable and you’ll enjoy making a ruckus every step of the way.

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Belief in one’s self is contagious.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Launch

A successful launch rewards hard work.

No matter the audience or how heavy the news, introducing what’s next is your opportunity to spark energy. This milestone will soon be celebrated, but rocket ships do not launch without intention.

The excitement of sharing something you’re proud of can be intoxicating, but we can only be new once. Launching before you’re ready can lead to carnage. Limping into a launch without a connected cadence will also reduce excitement as attention becomes diluted.

Let’s first look at how to avoid launching before you’re ready. There’s value in shipping your art often, as this is the only way anything is set free to evolve toward product-market fit. This, however, does not give us permission to be careless. Research, internal planning, strategic development, thorough testing, and working with true fans is the easiest way to stress test whatever you’re building. When we normalize a nimble, but detailed-oriented approach, you’ll create confidence in what’s being launched while also allowing your art to connect within the market you seek to serve more often.

When the time is right, planning a strategic launch sequence can initiate a boost loud enough to create attention and also long enough to push through the thick atmosphere of endless distraction. Instead of a single celebration, think of your launch as a connected collection of memorable moments.

The most common misfire is overloading your audience too soon. This may be part of the strategy with a short launch sequence, but when a launch lingers, duplicative content will numb an audience before the intended culmination arrives. One tactic for staying patient is mapping the overall launch sequence. This helps sync development with the timing of communication. Such planning also provides internal clarity and connects valuable context to each transmission.

To map a launch sequence, start by creating intrigue with as little information as possible. Think of this subtle stage like a notice to save the date. Next, create excitement by leaning into the pain. Leak a little on why the audience should be excited for what’s to come. No need for too many details quite yet. Those will land next.

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As the countdown ticks toward zero, fortify the team to determine how you can effectively respond to every type of inquiry during launch. With internal operations ready to rock, release one final burst of hype before delivering the payload on launch day. As thrusters fire and liftoff occurs, you’re now set free to release your art into the universe. Congratulations!

Within the early moments of flight, keep messaging sharp. Deliver on the promise, include singular calls to action, and track analytics to stay strategic.

A thoughtful launch can create a flurry, but attention is hard to earn and it’s gone before you know it. As the loudness of a launch begins to fade, hit the free prize inside button to activate a few more extraordinary insights built to fuel lasting momentum. Once in orbit, maintain a smooth onboarding process for late arrivals and enjoy the view knowing elevation makes us all feel successful.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Online Event Management

Live event management is a handful. Virtual events should also be well thought out. How can we create a memorable experience when everyone is participating online? Let’s teleport into this topic together.

First, consider what must be accomplished. What cannot be achieved without this time together? Determine how long the virtual experience should last. It’s usually less than you think. Next, line up the right technologies to ensure it fits the needs of your virtual experience. As tech is selected, use security tactics to avoid unwanted distractions. With objectives and logistics in place, it’s time to flesh out the experience.

While our connected era has unlocked the next level of efficiency with these virtual interactions, a drawback to online gatherings is the lack of time before and after a meeting. This means there’s less serendipitous interplay. Stay efficient, but it may be wise to weave in random value through manufactured moments that still feel natural for participants.

As attendees arrive, use your opening remarks to set the tone. Generate cohesion with jolts of genuine energy as any rules of engagement are quickly confirmed. If there’s a meeting agenda, run through that and connect it with meeting goals so attendees know what to expect.

After a welcoming attendees with a concise, energizing, and clarifying introduction, have fun unpacking the primary discussion. Stay on task and try to avoid distractions, but leave time for interactive dialogue. With less open dialogue due to the limitations of a virtual experience, this is one way to create space for those manufactured moments of serendipity. These conversational buffers help to avoid having the loudest voice be the only one that’s heard and invites an inclusive environment with deliberate space for everyone to participate.

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The term “hybrid” is hard to define. There’s value in weaving tech into in-person events so that others are able to virtually feel the experience. There’s also value in keeping things simple so the focus remains on your attendee’s engagement. Experiment with what works for you, but one interesting combination is to go all-in with live events, and then add strategic online events into the mix. This avoids fragmented coordination, eliminates the hollowness of virtual content within an in-person experience, and creates ease for organizers who benefit from both types of environments.

As you bring your online events together, you want interactivity so it’s not talking heads with attendees pretending to listen. Do this by including icebreakers, musical moments, pop-up polls, breakout discussions, scavenger hunts, doodling exercises, physical activities, and scheduled breaks. Encourage note taking and grab screenshots as artifacts to share later. Leave time for questions before wrapping things up.

As you bring things to a close, it’s important everyone feels a sense of accomplishment. If ramblings drag on before the meeting abruptly cuts off, people will leave feeling empty. Keep the virtual energy juicy, review key takeaways, and encourage action to tie a bow on the efficiency of all your online events.

By Ben McDougal, ago