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The Hard Thing About Hard Things Is You Must Give Ground Grudgingly

A quarterback stands poised behind his offensive linemen, who are slowly giving ground to protect him. This image visually represents Ben Horowitz's concept of "Give Ground Grudgingly" from "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." Drawing by Brian Nwokedi.

Introduction

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz provides a raw and insightful account of the challenges faced by a CEO in the tech industry. Unlike many business books that offer formulas for success, Horowitz provides a realistic portrayal of the difficulties and complexities involved in building and leading a company. Drawing from his personal experiences, he shares practical advice and hard-earned wisdom that can benefit anyone involved in the entrepreneurial journey.

Give Ground Grudgingly

In “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” Ben Horowitz introduces the concept of “Give Ground Grudgingly,” emphasizing maintaining growth while minimizing degradation. This principle advises leaders to make necessary sacrifices but resist unnecessary losses. It’s about finding the balance between expanding the business and preserving its core values and capabilities. Essentially, Horowitz is advocating for cautious and strategic growth, ensuring that as the company evolves, it retains its essential strengths and integrity, thus degrading as slowly as possible.

American Football Analogy

There is a great analog to this concept in American football. An offensive lineman’s job is to protect the quarterback from onrushing defensive linemen. If the offensive linemen attempt to do this by holding their ground, the defensive lineman will easily run around them and crush the quarterback. As a result, offensive linemen are taught to lose the battle slowly or to give ground grudgingly. They are taught to back up and allow the defensive lineman to advance, but just a little at a time.

When you scale an organization, you will also need to give ground grudgingly. Specialization, organizational structure, and process all complicate things, and implementing them will feel like you are moving away from common knowledge and quality communication. It is very much like the offensive lineman taking steps backward. You will lose ground, but you will prevent your company from descending into chaos.

Final Thoughts

In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz does not sugarcoat the entrepreneurial experience. Instead, he provides a genuine look into the grit required to lead a company through its toughest times. His insights are invaluable for current and aspiring leaders who seek to understand the true nature of building and sustaining a successful business. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of entrepreneurship.

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The Suffocation of The All-Or-Nothing Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow Without Enough Oxygen

Americans now expect marriages to fulfill higher-level needs, requiring significant time and effort (oxygen). Most couples invest less than before, leading to lower marital quality and well-being, and in doing so, the suffocate as they try to climb Mount Maslow. Drawing by Brian Nwokedi 
"Contemporary Americans are asking their marriage to help them fulfill different sets of goals than in the past. In the past, they asked their marriage to help them fulfill their psychological and safety needs. Now, they ask their marriages to fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs, and they do so without sufficient investment of time, psychological resources, or "oxygen." 
--- Eli J. Finkel (2017)
Americans now expect marriages to fulfill higher-level needs, requiring significant time and effort (oxygen). Most couples invest less than before, leading to lower marital quality and well-being, and in doing so, the suffocate as they try to climb Mount Maslow.

On average, we as a society are investing less time in our marriages than in the past. As a result, mean levels of marital well-being is declining over time. Spouses are struggling with what they are asking from their marriage and what they are investing in it.

In his 2017 book, The All-or-Nothing Marriage, Eli J. Finkel investigates how the dynamics and expectations on marriage in America have changed since roughly the colonial times. These changes mirror Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as American marriages transitioned from the fulfillment of lower needs, to higher needs like self-actualization.

Success at these higher altitudes require a significant level of investment in time and energy … One that not every participant in modern marriages has willingly made or adapted to.

In short, modern marriages are tougher than they have historically been given that economic progress and industrialization have made it easier to live alone, especially when compared to colonial times of the 1700s. And in short, this fact has made us require/request more from our marriages leading to a very large expectations gap that Finkel calls the All-or-Nothing Marriage.

Downloadable Content – Raw Notes

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The “Rational Fool” Inspired by Richard Thaler’s Misbehaving

"People who always give nothing are rational fools who blindly follow material self-interest." --- Richard Thaler (2016)
The "Rational Fool" by Brian Nwokedi serves as a whimsical yet thought-provoking representation of the human tendency to act against our own best interests despite possessing rational capabilities. This concept, rooted in behavioral economics, challenges the traditional economic assumption of humans as perfectly rational decision-makers. This drawing aims to spark curiosity and discussion around the fascinating intersection of psychology and economics, highlighting the importance of understanding behavioral biases in our everyday lives. Through this playful visual metaphor, the Rational Fool invites visitors to explore the intriguing complexities of human behavior and decision-making, ultimately encouraging a deeper appreciation for the nuances of our choices.

Inspired by Richard Thaler’s Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, the “Rational Fool” serves as a whimsical yet thought-provoking representation of the human tendency to act against our own best interests despite possessing rational capabilities. This concept, rooted in behavioral economics, challenges the traditional economic assumption of humans as perfectly rational decision-makers.

This drawing aims to spark curiosity and discussion around the fascinating intersection of psychology and economics, highlighting the importance of understanding behavioral biases in our everyday lives.

Through this playful visual metaphor, I invite visitors to explore the intriguing complexities of human behavior and decision-making, ultimately encouraging a deeper appreciation for the nuances of our choices.

Downloadable Content – Raw Notes

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The Psychology of Money

"Success with money relies more on Psychology than Finance,and doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are, and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people." --- Morgan Housel (2020)

“The Psychology of Money“ by Morgan Housel is an insightful guide that puts the spotlight of financial success squarely on the shoulders of human behavior. In this world of complexity, how you behave with money is more important than what you know about money.

With a blend of research, anecdotes, and stories of personal experiences, Housel illuminates the significance of better understanding your own behavior, and how that is far more responsible for your financial outcomes than your skill.

The following one-page visual guide has been created by me to help you apply the teachings from Morgan’s book to your life. See below ?

Downloadable Content – Raw Notes

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Everything You Need To Know About Saving For Retirement

“However, I am confident in saying that if you can figure out a way to save 10% to 20% of your income into the financial markets each year, automate your savings and all of your bill payments, increase the amount you save each year by just a little, diversify your investments, and basically leave them alone, you will be better off financially than the vast majority of retirement savers in America. Everything else is gravy.” --- Ben Carlson (2020)

“Everything You Need to Know About Saving for Retirement“ by Ben Carlson is a succinct yet insightful guide that puts the spotlight on a fundamental aspect of retirement planning: your savings rate. In a world of complex investment strategies and ever-changing financial landscapes, Carlson distills his wisdom into a straightforward message – it’s not just about where you invest, but how much you save.

With a clear and approachable style, he emphasizes that building a secure retirement is within reach if you focus on increasing your savings and maintaining a consistent approach. Drawing on his expertise in personal finance, Carlson’s concise and no-nonsense approach empowers readers to take control of their financial destinies, offering a roadmap to achieving financial security during retirement through a smart savings strategy!

The following one-page visual guide has been created by me to help you apply the teachings from Ben’s book to your life. See below ?

This one-page visual guide by Brian Nwokedi has been created to help you apply the learning from Ben Carlson's book to your life.

Downloadable Content – Raw Notes

Ready to dive deeper into Ben Carlson’s work on Saving for Retirement? Download my unfiltered notes below ?

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Steve Young: An Example of a Paragon of GRIT

You cannot quit. You have the ability, so you need to go back and work this out.” - Steve Young’s Dad, (circa 1980s)
Drawing by Brian Nwokedi to explain the characteristics of a GRIT paragon
Steve Young: A Gridiron Paragon of Grit. From every touchdown to each hard-fought comeback, his relentless determination on the field defines the true essence of grit. A quarterback icon who faced challenges head-on, Young embodies the spirit of unwavering passion and perseverance.

Steve Young is the epitome of a GRIT Paragon. When he was a freshman at BYU, he was the 8th string quarterback and was barely even getting any practice time. Like most freshmen when things don’t go according to plan, Steve called his father (whose nickname was actually Grit). 

Steve’s dad basically said the following: “You can quit but you can’t come home because I’m not going to live with a quitter. You’ve known that since you were a kid. You’re not coming back here.”

With the words of his father ringing in his ears, Steve Young stepped up his game and put the work in. By all accounts, he threw over 10,000 spiral passes at a practice net the summer between his freshman and sophomore year. By his sophomore year, he had risen to QB2 and by his junior year he was BYU’s starting QB. In his final year with the Cougars, Steve Young won the Davey O’Brien award for the most outstanding college quarterback in the country.

Then … It happened all again when he got to the San Francisco 49ers. He spent 4 years on the bench as the backup to four-time Superbowl champion, Joe Montana. And because of his experience at BYU, Steve stayed, learned, and flourished under Montana’s apprenticeship. He eventually got his chance and the rest is history.

When Steve Young retired, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history.

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GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

What we eventually accomplish in life may depend more on our passion and perseverance than on our innate talent - Angela Duckworth, Grit (2016)

In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth unpacks the attributes/traits of those individuals who possess grit which is defined as holding the same top-level goal for a very long time and having the passion and perseverance to see your ultimate goal through.

She challenges the unconscious biases we all have towards talent, especially in the way that we all rush to anoint people as extraordinarily talented whenever they accomplish a feat worth writing about. As much as talent counts, effort counts twice as you can see in the following picture of skill and achievement:

What we all achieve depends on talent (how fast we improve skill) and our effort. But as you can see in the above picture, effort factors in the calculations of achievement twice. This is because effort builds skill and at the very same time, effort makes skill productive!

Similar to the findings of Daniel F. Chambliss by the end of the book it is clear the most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary. High level of performance is, in fact, an accretion of mundane acts. 

Steve Young: An Example of a Paragon of GRIT

“You cannot quit. You have the ability, so you need to go back and work this out.” - Steve Young’s Dad, (circa 1980s)

Steve Young is the epitome of a GRIT Paragon. When he was a freshman at BYU, he was the 8th string quarterback and was barely even getting any practice time. Like most freshmen when things don’t go according to plan, Steve called his father (whose nickname was actually Grit). 

Steve’s dad basically said the following: “You can quit but you can’t come home because I’m not going to live with a quitter. You’ve known that since you were a kid. You’re not coming back here.”

With the words of his father ringing in his ears, Steve Young stepped up his game and put the work in. By all accounts, he threw over 10,000 spiral passes at a practice net the summer between his freshman and sophomore year. By his sophomore year, he had risen to QB2 and by his junior year he was BYU’s starting QB. In his final year with the Cougars, Steve Young won the Davey O’Brien award for the most outstanding college quarterback in the country.

Then … It happened all again when he got to the San Francisco 49ers. He spent 4 years on the bench as the backup to four-time Superbowl champion, Joe Montana. And because of his experience at BYU, Steve stayed, learned, and flourished under Montana’s apprenticeship. He eventually got his chance and the rest is history.

Drawing by Brian Nwokedi to explain the characteristics of a GRIT paragon
Steve Young: A Gridiron Paragon of Grit. From every touchdown to each hard-fought comeback, his relentless determination on the field defines the true essence of grit. A quarterback icon who faced challenges head-on, Young embodies the spirit of unwavering passion and perseverance.

When Steve Young retired, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history.

Final Thoughts

Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole.

People with grit are paragons of perseverance and effort. As much as talent counts, effort counts twice as much with them. They develop their skills by hours and hours and hours of deliberate practice beating on their craft. They master the capacity to do something repeatedly, to struggle, and to have patience over the long-term. But most importantly, they develop the stamina to go over something again and again and again no matter how difficult it is.

In closing, greatness is actually doable because greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable. When it comes to how we fare in the marathon of life, effort counts tremendously, and consistency of effort over the long run is everything.
Great things are accomplished by those people whose thinking is active in one direction, who employ everything as material, who always zealously observe their own inner life and that of others, who perceive everywhere models and incentives, who never tire of combining together the means available to them.

Little Habits and Characteristics That Can Make You More Gritty

  • Seek to continuously improve
  • Focus on the daily discipline of trying to do things better than you did yesterday
  • Find and develop your Growth Mindset
  • Remember that the 10-Year Rule Applies to developing skills: thousands and thousands and thousands of hours spent in deliberate practice over years and years and years
  • Love what you do
  • Remember that sustained effort over the long-run counts more than talent
  • Interpret setbacks and failure as a cue to try harder rather than as confirmation that you lack the ability to succeed

The Extras

Brian Nwokedi’s Book Review on Goodreads

Ted Talk by Angela Duckworth: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

Ready to dive deeper into Angela Duckworth’s work on GRIT? Download my unfiltered notes below ?

Notes on Angela Duckworth’s Grit by Brian NwokediDownload
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Redefining Leadership: The Servant-Leader’s Path to Empowerment and Transformation

Image Credit: Carol Smith

In a world dominated by large institutions that often fail to truly serve our needs, the concept of leadership needs a fresh perspective. In Robert K. Greenleaf’s thought-provoking work, “Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness,” he introduces the idea that a great leader is, first and foremost, a servant. This notion challenges the traditional understanding of leadership and suggests that true leadership is rooted in serving others.

Greenleaf emphasizes the importance of listening, empathy, and acceptance as essential qualities of a servant-leader. He delves into the idea that effective leadership requires the ability to bridge the gap between available information and the unknown future, relying on intuition and foresight. Stressing the interconnectedness of past, present, and future, Greenleaf suggests that a qualified leader maintains a wide span of awareness. Furthermore, he advocates for leadership through persuasion rather than coercion, and he highlights the significance of both active leaders within institutions and external trustees who oversee them.

Ultimately, Greenleaf’s vision calls for nurturing strong natural servants who have the potential to lead, enriching the world through their presence, and striving to build better institutions in an imperfect world. In this journey, servant-leaders emerge as beacons of positive change, inspiring and guiding others toward a more harmonious and effective future.

“Ready to dive deeper into the profound insights of Robert K. Greenleaf’s groundbreaking work, “Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness,”? Unlock the full spectrum of wisdom and transformative concepts by downloading my unfiltered notes here.

Delve into the nuances that unpack Greenleaf’s ideas, gaining a richer understanding of servant leadership’s potential to reshape our institutions and empower individuals. Embrace the journey of discovery and join me in exploring how these principles can catalyze positive change in our world. Your path to enlightened leadership starts with a simple click – download now and embark on a transformative exploration!”

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Luis Figo: Real Madrid’s Change Agent

Luis Figo Served as Real Madrid’s Change Agent During the First Era of the Galácticos
Drawing by Brian Nwokedi to explain the purpose of a strong COO and CEO relationship

In 2002, Luis Figo emerged as the winner of the prestigious Ballon d’Or, recognizing him as the top football player in Europe. This accolade came shortly after his controversial transfer from Barcelona to their arch-rivals, Real Madrid.

Figo’s move to Real Madrid marked him as the chosen Change Agent by Florentino Pérez, who aimed to usher in an era of high-profile, world-class superstars. The 62 million euro transfer fee was just the beginning of a series of extravagant signings from 2000 to 2006, during which Madrid spent well over 290 million euros.

Over his five-year tenure with Real Madrid, Figo made a significant impact, with over 200 appearances and notable triumphs, including two league titles and the 2002 Champions League. His arrival injected new vitality into Los Blancos, albeit at the expense of his former club in Catalonia. Organizations often require a COO to serve as a Change Agent, focusing on implementing specific organizational changes. In this role, the COO spearheads initiatives such as turnarounds, major organizational transformations, or planned rapid expansions, while the CEO maintains the day-to-day operations. When executed effectively and in balance, this approach can lead to remarkable progress and success.

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Scottie Pippen: The Co-Leader to Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen Formed a Strong Two-In-A-Box Partnership During Their 10-Year Run at the Top of the NBA
Drawing by Brian Nwokedi to explain the purpose of a strong COO and CEO relationship

Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen established an extraordinary and cohesive Co-Leader partnership during their dominant ten-year reign atop the NBA that ended in historic double three-peats. Throughout their intertwined careers, Jordan and Pippen exemplified the essence of a Two-In-a-Box partnership. Their collaboration on and off the court showcased remarkable synergy, mutual understanding, and shared goals. Pippen’s exceptional abilities, combined with Jordan’s unparalleled talent, propelled the Chicago Bulls to unprecedented success, and Pippen flawlessly assumed the role of Michael Jordan’s Co-Leader.

Their dynamic duo not only achieved individual greatness but also fostered a collective strength that elevated the entire team. Together, they formed one of the most electrifying and potent duos ever witnessed in the NBA. In drawing parallels to the COO’s role, Jordan and Pippen’s Co-Leader partnership exemplifies the power of a collaborative approach. By working together, leveraging their respective strengths, and nurturing a harmonious relationship, they propelled the Bulls to the pinnacle of the NBA. The impact of such a Co-Leader dynamic extends beyond basketball, highlighting the significance of a strong and complementary partnership in driving organizational success.