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Adii Pienaar


Pep Talk

(Note: I originally wrote this post - and list - in November last year prior to my decision to press pause on PublicBeta, which means it was more focused on immediate action. Upon reflection though - and even though I'm not actively work on or planning to work on a startup / project right now - I've decided that this is such a powerful mantra and mindset for my own journey this year.)

I am in the (ongoing) process of giving myself a pep talk and a firm kick up the ass.

In the last year, I've allowed the world and other people to dictate terms to me in a way that has had a significant impact on my life. I've become more fearful of failure, less reluctant to experiment, more risk averse, unadventurous and I have done so much just to avoid making mistakes.

Most of all, I've mostly become a hypocrite about most of the things that I write about here.

So the other night, a kind of aggressive, "fuck the status quo", inspiration hit and I wrote down this list to remind me about what's important:

  1. Think positively. I need to detox my mind from negative thoughts; they don't help in any way. Every thought I have should be laced with optimism, because that changes the lens through which I look at the world.

  2. JFDI. There is no learning without doing. And without learning, I'll never know if something can or can't work.

  3. Stop being so scared. Everyone is scared sometimes, but this constant focus on mitigating fears & risks is totally un-entrepreneur-like.

  4. Focus on one thing: momentum. Moving from point A to point B is all that matters. Find and do the things that accelerates that path the most.

  5. Create value. The underlying currency of all businesses is value. Create that and everything else will follow: traction, customers and revenue.

  6. Start small. Everything in life has a beginning and the size of that beginning has never determined the size of the eventual outcome.

  7. Stop thinking about money. Money is never the end-goal and only serves to convolute the simplest strategies. Rather think about everything else above.

  8. This is Sparta. Even at 300 against the world, I like those odds. The world takes no prisoners and easily accepts shitty excuses. But it can never keep a good man down.

This is a start and I'm getting back into shape.

(I initially wrote the first version of the above list in a 2-minute frenzy using this awesome note-taking app: Off The Mind.)

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