I suggest “efficiency is the enemy of effectiveness.”

—

In a recent mastermind, the conversation turned into a sharing of keyboard shortcuts in Excel and Gmail.  This seems harmless: improving your ability to use these tools helps you get more out of them and free up time.

If you’re building a business that disconnects your time from money, is spending time on Excel hacks getting you where you want to be, or is it distracting you from the hard work in front of you?

—

A colleague wants to turn a lucrative freelance design business into something bigger, except he is among the most creative in his industry and won’t trust others to do work under his brand.  He can get faster at shortcuts but still only has 24 hours in a day, and he’s in such demand that he finds himself stressed by too much work.

He knows his business would fall apart tomorrow if he got sick, but he can’t let go of his own awesomeness.  He’s trapped himself with his own efficiency.

—

In conversation with the founder of a 15-person marketing agency, he lamented being unable to find someone to run the company and replace him: finding the line staff in Thailand/Philippines/Vietnam is easy enough, but finding the people with the skill set to manage and grow the company is hard.

If replacing you the genius CEO is impossible, perhaps you should design your company to be run by an idiot.

—

The best coffee in the world is probably in a small cafe you’ve never heard of because the barista is too busy making great coffee to share it with the world.  This is selfish.

Are you looking to build a great business or a great tiny product that never touches anyone?

The reality was I never found myself comfortable there: the pace was slower than I wanted, I struggled to find friends with my worldview, and I spent more time pining for silicon than enjoying the sand.

Most people construct paradises in their mind: places where they will be happier in the future.  Christians have Heaven, Muslims have Jannah, and hedonists have San Diego.  Whether real or imagined, these places serve as a retreat from our lives, a destination we’re striving for where otherwise we might feel an existentialist crisis.  Your life doesn’t need a purpose: retiring to paradise is your purpose.

This paradise fit perfectly into the script of the Industrial Age rat race: leave home, go to college, find a city to make cheese, and your reward after 40 years will be retirement in paradise.  Physical relocation became symbolic of key moments in your life, so retiring to a paradise seemed appropriate.

Today, however, our script feels more tenuous, and we have a few different solutions to resolve the cognitive dissonance:

• Naive exceptionalism: keep to the script, acknowledging the the changes in the deal while convinced your map still points to paradise
• Drugs and Distractions: acknowledge the script is failing without finding a new script.  Instead, find drugs or other distractions
• Paradise redacted: pretend the script always included buying used clothing and watching a buffet of Netflix rather than owning new clothing and movies.  Its a beautiful world, for you.
• Anarchy: its going to get far, far worse.  Stock up on batteries and read forums on the next apocalypse.
• Design: If you can’t find Shell Beach in your script, add it in.

I was an early adopter of the design script: reading “Downsize This!” at age 12, I was made aware of the impending doom and gloom, and after trying all of the above solutions, reading  4 Hour Workweek provided a positive solution: seek out the hedonist paradise now, rather than wait 40 years for it.

So I tried finding my Shell Beach, and that took me to Santa Cruz, Puerto Viejo, San Diego, and Bali.

I found sand, and shells, but paradise wasn’t there.

One of my favorite writings is the play “No Exit” by Sartre, about a collection of people who arrive in hell and realize they are meant to be the tormentors of others.  The most memorable quote from the play is “hell is other people”: this notion that we create hell for each other, and accept it.

In another famous existential writing, Camus tells the story of Sisyphus, who finds happiness in carrying his pointless stone up the mountain.  His joy doesn’t come from the paradise at the top of the mountain, but the striving with the boulder.

Reflecting on these, and in trying to settle in paradise, I found my happiness comes from carrying my boulder up the mountain, seeing others doing the same, and helping them with their boulders.

Is this purpose of life instinctively shared by the majority of the world?  Do they realize the struggle is the purpose?  Or do they simply lack the resources to shortcut their way to the paradise?

I don’t know.

Life is a game.

This statement goes deep.  Strap in.

1. Life is a game, and your pursuit of success is a game.  Read “Finite and Infinite Games” and watch Alan Watts to truly appreciate this.

2. The game you play includes Poker luck, not roulette luck. The word luck is tough because its usually thought of as one thing: pure chance.  Most people think of blackjack  or even roulette as gambling/luck.  The big mindset change is to think of luck as that in Poker: you’re competing against others of unknown skill level, and your success = (chance * skill * stakes).  You can influence two.

3. The game requires luck, skill, and stakes.

4. Don’t be only the audience to another’s game. This is why most people I spend time with don’t watch regular TV, but you shouldn’t watch sports either, unless reciting the score improves your standing in another game.  Televising professional games serves to entertain the masses who are pawns in other games.

5. You can play multiple games at the same time. To succeed in an exclusive game, such as the NBA basketball championship, you may have to be like Michael Jordan and combine the practice, genes, and chance to be the best.  But along the way he played and won thousands of smaller games.  There are many smaller and shorter games you can play that will build your stakes for other games in the future.

6. Not every game uses money, but every game has stakes. Michael Jordan doesn’t need to pay for dinners, because restaurants will comp his meal in exchange for a photo.  The stakes are the restaurateur’s social status gaining a bump, which makes his restaurant a bit busier; his friends a bit more impressed, and his direction in life feeling validated.

7. You cannot play every game. There are billions of games being played and you cannot be in every one.

8. You can choose your game. Most people will never choose the games they play, but instead just start playing the game they can see in front of them.

9. If someone shares “The Secret” of the game, you’re a pawn in their game. At the height of the 1996 home run race, Mark McGwire was discovered to be taking a drug called Andro.  Sammy Sosa, second in the race, admitted to taking Flintstone vitamins.  Dozens of magazine articles interviewed them and offered the secret to amazing strength: reverse crunches/negative lifts/some other BS routine.  They were taking steroids the entire time.

Sometimes Its okay to get played: you can be a pawn in one person’s game, and use that status to be a king in another game (see: #6)

10. There are games being played all around you, and you need to be aware of them.  I have a friend who is in the top staff of a hotel, the kind of hotel where Madonna will stay next door to royalty.  It was difficult at first to hold a conversation with her because she was so tuned in to listen for multiple games, to translate my words to identify every game I was playing.  And like any new poker player, my rookie strategy confused her because her mental model was to play against experienced poker players.

Most American middle class spend the first 20 years of their life preparing to play one game: their career.  They don’t even see the other games.  Just seeing these around you can change everything.

11. If you don’t know the games being played, find a guide. Shawn Kemp is another notable sports star because he had something like 20 children with 20 wives.  Entering the Pro league too early, he allowed his hubris to get the best of him, and these women played the game perfectly.

In contrast, most star athletes want to work with top sports agents, agents who will take 5-15% of their earnings to guide them in the various games (sports, women, endorsements, dealing with poor family, health.)  When entrepreneurs get funded and talk about taking “smart money” this is what they mean.

–

When you can see the games around you, and understand what games everyone around you are playing, then every secondary behavior of success becomes easier to obtain: mastering sales is easier when you can see the games others play; taking chances is easier because you know the true odds of success; getting that job you want is easier because you know what company needs you more than you need them.

This mindset also helps to make decisions in your life.  Can’t choose between waking up early and sleeping in?  Choose the games you want to play and be awake for them.  Feel morally against the Tucker Max approach to objectifying women?  Realize, as he did, that the women he targeted were playing out the game where their fathers treated them like shit, and he was simply helping them continue the same game.

• On Venkat’s blog, he talks about the individualist desire to run away
• In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff discusses alpha framing and beta traps

Venkat discusses the desire to run away from home and how that home is more about the psychological elements (including social relationships) than the minimal physical elements (such as a favorite chair.)  He is mostly interested in the individualism required for this to occur.

My take: the desire to run away is firmly focused on the psychological home, and its less about individualism and more about malleability and escaping the “beta traps”.

When we stay in one place for too long, our psychological home grows: we develop more friends, acquaintances, coworkers, etc.  This is a great thing, but for the beta traps.

As Klaff explains, beta traps are environmental elements designed to put you in a beta position, below someone else.  In his example, large intimidating waiting rooms are common.  In dating, a standard beta trap occurs when a woman gets a man to buy her a drink at a bar by batting her eyelashes.

But there are more common, everyday beta traps that become part of our psychological home:

• That car you failed to negotiate on reminds you weekly of your beta traps at the dealership
• Those weekly donuts at work place you in a beta trap with your coworkers, beneath the executives
• Your long daily commute reminds you of the beta home you live in
• Your HOA takes every opportunity to control your actions
• Your high school / college reunions remind you of the beta you were then

Over time, these moments collect to become your station in life, and they serve as constant reminders (“beta trappings”)

When we travel, we can temporarily forget these beta trappings.  Visiting a new place, where no one knows of your past beta traps, you can indulge in the fantasy that you are an alpha.  You’ll get homesick right around the time you fall for another beta trap.

But what if, instead of escaping your beta life, you change your beta life?  Is it possible?

In his book, Oren offers a method to reframe your interactions to maintain the alpha position.  He offers different frames, such as the power frame, the prize frame, and the time frame.  But underlying this is his worldview about the alpha position.  It isn’t something you naturally have at birth, but rather the contextual local temporary status you achieve with the proper frame.  In this model, Klaff has fallen into beta positions dozens of times; rather than accept it unwittingly, he acknowledges his defeats and learns for the next social spar.

Its especially telling when, at one point in the book, he relates the story of when he responded to the economic crisis by running away from civilization for an indefinite duration, returning only when someone gave him the opportunity to be an alpha.  For him, the possibility of a long term beta trap was too great, and he escaped to avoid it.

When you want to run away, ask yourself “did I just fall into a beta trap?”  If you can learn from these traps and avoid them, your desire to run away may diminish.

February 2007:  I have a dilemma: do I major in Philosophy or Information Systems Management?  Every day for weeks I debate this choice internally.

Like any homo economicus, I make a list of Pros and Cons for each:

Information Systems Management Pros:

• Obvious career path
• I’m good at it (3.8 GPA for the major)
• Already invested majority of hours needed
• Probably won’t end up homeless begging for money

Philosophy Pros:

• I enjoy it
• Good prep for grad school
• Finish my B.A. one year faster
• Less likely to be pigeonholed into one career

Weeks of struggle, still no resolution.  Queue the weighted averages for every possible attribute.  Its a wash; every input is a guess, so the output is a mess.

Getting to the core of the question

At the core of the question was my fear (and yours): pick the wrong major, and my twenty three years of education would be a waste.  I would be pigeonholed into a career I hated, or locked out of the college graduated professional middle class.  Both sounded awful.  Stalemate.

Because of this core fear, I couldn’t make the choice logically.  Instead, I would have to understand my emotions and allow them to drive the decision.

The turning point

The turning point for me arrived when I spent a day at my father’s office.  There, he happened to have two colleagues doing roughly the same work but with different undergraduate studies.  One had studied information systems, while the other was big on philosophy.  But they were colleagues.

Hidden Assumption: Your Major Determines Your Career

I realized then, I had a number of hidden assumptions driving the decision.  First, I assumed your major determines your future career.  But this isn’t true, unless you move on to graduate school.  For those who move into a career directly out of college, their major impacts jobs they pursue, and people they know, but it isn’t a paved road.

I fully realized this when, after college, I worked next to  marketers with backgrounds in Aerospace Engineering, Marketing, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, and History.

Hidden Assumption: Your Major determines your Salary

Second, I assumed salaries were caused by your major, rather than just correlated.  So when I saw ISM majors making 42 percent more than Philosophy majors, I worried picking the wrong major would ruin my life.    But there are other factors here:

• Engineering degrees have a lower variance of expected production, so the starting salary will be higher
• Philosophy majors are more likely to take public interest jobs that pay less financially but more socially
• Philosophy majors are more likely to pursue graduate school and alternative career paths, making salary ranges larger
• What you major in is a sliver of your education: the books you read, etc. define your knowledge

The Decision

At the time I didn’t see these assumptions, and I was at a stalemate.  It was to the point where my university was refusing to let me enroll in more classes until I declared a major.  So I bypassed everything I knew, and posed two new questions:

1. What would I want to tell my children I studied?
2. For the choice in #1, whats the worst case scenario and how can I improve it?

For me, #1 was easy: though I was better at Information Systems, at the time I was far more passionate about philosophy.  I couldn’t imagine explaining ISM to my future kids, but I would jump at the opportunity to discuss philosophy.

Once I realized this, #2 was easy as well: I would study for and get into a business school.  Even a second tier business school would give me a credibility boost and enable me to find a career.

Outcome

I declared my major in Philosophy and proceeded to struggle in the classes.  Turns out much of the Philosophy curriculum is History of Philosophy, rather than how to be a Philosopher.  No matter.  I pushed through the courses, and just ten months later I was in business school.

Five years later

Looking back, did I make the right choice?  Career-wise, I’m pleased with the outcome.  I look at the trajectory of my ISM peers, and I see roughly what I expected: better salaries in large companies.  Good for them.  Since graduating, I’ve started two companies, traveled extensively across three continents, and organized 100-person events.  Their path is paved and mapped; my path is muddy and unexplored.  Its a matter of taste.

How to Choose your Major

Are you undecided about your major?  Instead of wasting hours on salaries, as I did, try a different approach:

• Add your best professors and advisors on Linkedin
• Search Linkedin for alumni with each major (my search)
• Seek introductions from your advisors, and reach out to five alumni for each major, and ask to meet for coffee.  Pick ones with jobs that interest you.

Expect 4/10 will respond and meet you.  Maybe more.  As a student, you have a magical halo around your head, and alumni will love talking to you.

Conclusion

Your major matters, but not as much as you think.  When making decisions like these, there is no substitute for meeting others who made the same decisions in the past.

1. Success is about what you do.  Every action you take, every day, causes other things.
2. There is no Prince coming to save you.  He is busy slaying dragons.
3. No one does anything they believe is the wrong thing.  Admitting you’re wrong is hard.
4. Judge others on their values, not on your own.  The only real sin is a lack of integrity.  This is why we pardon murderers who are criminally insane: they have more integrity than the average citizen.
5. The knowing/doing gap is the biggest epidemic in American society today.  We know more than ever, but we do less than ever.  Your success will depend on your ability to reverse this.
6. You are what you consume and produce.  Consume garbage, you will become garbage.
7. Success is not simply about who you know or what you know.  These matter. but…
8. Success is about what you do.  Every action you take, every day, causes other things.

For the Startup: Ansir Innovation Center

For the Enterprising Female: HeraHub

For the Networking Professional: Co-Merge

For the Seeker of Inspiration: 3^rd Space

For the Urban Creative: HiveHaus

For the Social Networker: Kohwork’n

Click on any of the links above to read more, or you can find a map of the locations and a full directory below.
View Coworking spaces in San Diego in a larger map

3RDSPACE
4610 Park Blvd, San Diego CA 92116
619-255-3609

Looking for a space with a “chic industrial vibe”, where you need to exercise your creative muscles? Look no further than 3RDSPACE, a dynamic hub located in University Heights. Coworkers can join a unique community in an interactive, relaxed environment, emphasizing creativity and connectivity.

Rates: Cost of membership starts at $100.
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ANSIR INNOVATION CENTER
4685 Convoy St, San Diego CA 92111
888-882-8833

A relatively new co-working space that’s been on the rise in San Diego, AI Center targets startups and provides them with a variety of accelerator services beyond the average co-working model. Great for the fledging startup, who are invited to weekly events and to join the growing community at the center.

Rates: Day passes are free, flexible monthly options available.
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CEDROSWORKS
444 South Cedros Ave, Suite 175, Solana Beach, CA 92075
619-922-3398

Cedros Works is a flexible space that is centered in Solana Beach, and targets creative self starters. Their membership includes a 3G network, notary services and a roster of experts ranging from product development and business to IP law.

Rates: Starts at $375 a month.
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CO-MERGE
330 A Street, San Diego CA 92101
619-255-9040

Need a fresh, brand-new environment to get some work done? Co-Merge is a new, co-working space that is located in the Financial District. Along with the variety of co-working options, both indoor and outdoor, they also provide conference rooms, virtual offices and event space for networking events. Ideal for professionals who need a productive workspace, Co-Merge begins with its grand opening on July 28^th.

Rates: Hourly rate starts at $10 a hour, or membership at $500 a month.
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ECOHUB
4542 Ruffner Street, Suite 170, San Diego CA 92111
888-277-6304

If your business has the environment’s needs at heart, then you’ll easily find solidarity within Ecohub. The main services that EcoHub offers are innovation space, start-up solutions and a diverse community. Ecohub’s main distinction is that they focus on green and clean-tech entrepreneurs, and offer flexible membership plans.

Rates: Starts at $25 a day.
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EVONEXUS
3398 Carmel Mountain Road, Suite 200, San Diego CA 92121
858-546-4150

EvoNexus is an incubator connected with CommNexus, a non-profit high-tech organization in San Diego. In order to be considered for selection, applicants must apply and pass a rigorous application process. However, the benefits are tremendous, as fledging businesses in the program are given exposure, sponsorship, and access to an exclusive network.

Rates: By application process only.
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HERAHUB
3422 Tripp Court, Suite C, San Diego CA 92121
619-889-7852

HeraHub, the “Workspace for Women”, is designed with the accomplished, entrepreneurial woman in mind. Instead of working home, or from a coffee shop, women can come to this spa-like environment and get connected to resources and a like-minded community. In addition, membership will also give ladies access to exclusive networking events. HeraHub will be moving to a permanent location in Sorrento Valley on August 15^th.

Rates: Memberships start at $49 a month.
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HIVEHAUS
770 11th Ave, San Diego CA
241 14th St., San Diego CA
619-702-6211

When you think of co-working, the first thing to come to mind is probably HiveHaus. With two locations (one in downtown San Diego and another near Petco Park), HiveHaus offers flexible rates for creative, contemporary workspaces that are fresh alternatives to the traditional office.

Rates: Daily rate starts at $35 or $45 a day.
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KOHWORK’N
375 Rancho Santa Fe Rd., San Marcos, CA 92069
760-576-4564

Kohwork’n brands itself as North County’s first co-working space for startups, and features relatively low rates for a shared office environment. Designed with community in mind, the space serves as a medium where startups, individuals and organizations can interact with each other and share ideas.

Rates: Day passes start at $20 a day.
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PBC CARLSBAD OFFICE SPACE
2173 Salk Ave, Suite 250, Carlsbad CA 92008
760-579-7300

PBC Carlsbad is perfect for those that are looking for a more conventional office space without having to pay the high fees associated with it. Office spaces come with secretarial spport, copy services, and various administrative, legal and accounting services.

Rates: Virtual Offices start at $74 per month, while Private Offices start at $399 per month.
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VISIONPULSE CREATIVE
5945 Pacific Center Blvd., Suite 510, San Diego, CA92121
858-605-6262

VisionPulse offers CEOs, or creative executive offices, where members can have access to offices or conference spaces without paying a long term lease. In addition to space, they offer design services, consulting and event resources.

Rates: Enrollment starts at $149, with $25 monthly dues
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This is not a comprehensive list of coworking spaces in San Diego; if you have or are developing a space for entrepreneurs to connect, please leave a comment, so we can add yours to the list!

And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know? But I, colleagues! in this, perhaps, differ from most marketers; and if I should say that I am in any thing wiser than another, it would be in this, that not having a competent knowledge of the lead scores of our leads, I also think that I have not such knowledge. -Socrates, Marketer

So you have a marketing automation system, and you’re implementing a multi-model system covering implicit and explicit data. Your sales team is going to spend less time chasing cold leads, they’ll know everything about their prospects, and your revenue is about to triple.

Not so fast.

If your lead scoring model is like most, it will fail in the worst possible way: sales will see great leads with low scores, bad leads with high scores, and conclude “this score means nothing.”

Looking Deeper

To understand this, lets consider how most models work.  Jon Fortune searches for widgets and clicks on your ad(+5), registers on your landing page for a whitepaper (+5), and downloads the whitepaper from the email you send him (+5).  You ask about company industry and he’s in the right industry (+5).

So far, you’ve collected demographic information(industry) and behavior information(actions on website) – good work!  But your threshold for marketing qualified leads is 30, so Jon will remain in your marketing nurturing queue for awhile, hopefully consuming your content and eventually raising his hand and asking to talk to sales.

Heres the problem: Jon Fortune is the CEO of a construction company in Nevada.  Construction isn’t your top niche, but your sales guy in Nevada (Mark) prefers construction leads, because he has experience in the industry and closes them easily.  Being a busy CEO, Jon doesn’t use a lot of email (he has an assistant for this) so he doesn’t open your nurturing emails.  He has a pressing need for your widgets, the authority and budget to purchase, and wants to buy soon.  While sitting in your nurturing cycle, your competitor cold calls and reaches him, setting an appointment and eventually gets the deal.  Mark learns of this deal through acquaintances, searches the database and finds out Jon was in marketing being nurtured.  Mark then threatens to quit unless he gets all leads in his territory, without qualification.

What happened here?  Your scoring model assumed it knew everything, so it didn’t qualify the lead properly.  Perhaps 70 percent of the leads in construction are scored correctly, but the system didn’t know Mark is great at closing these leads.  Result: Sales loses confidence in nurturing, thinks the scores are wrong, and your marketing automation investment is considered a failure.

Another scenario: Jane visits you at a trade show and enters her business card for your tschotske(+10).  Jane has no authority or budget to buy your widgets (she was just laid off), but she desperately wants to work for your company.  So she goes to your twitter and follows you (+10!), likes your Facebook page (+10!!), and visits 20 pages on your website to learn more(+20!!!).  She applied through an external website so she never visits your careers page, but in a short span she now has 50 points, enough to label her a marketing qualified lead.

This time, Mark calls Jane, excited to get a qualified lead from Marketing.  The number he has from her business card goes to an office voicemail, but he doesn’t despair: this one is clearly interested.  He calls back, ten times, and never receives a response.  Finally, he gets a response from her former boss:  ”Jane doesn’t work here anymore, and we have no need for your widgets.”  Rejected.

This time, your scoring model failed because it was too sensitive, quickly judging a lead to be qualified based on actions that didn’t matter.  It doesn’t ask the question “is Jane still employed?” because its too difficult to answer.  Instead, it makes assumptions and hopes for the best.

Score the Prospect Upside and Win

The first step is to mentally acknowledge the problem and account for it: understand the limits of lead scoring, and acknowledge these to sales.

The next step is to make the limits explicit.  Each lead should have a score based on known demographics, but it should also have a “potential score”, indicating the maximum demographic score the lead could ever have.  In contrast to the behavioral and demographic scores, this potential score will actually decrease as you learn more.  The difference between the demographic score and the potential score is the “prospect upside” and this should be a calculated field, visible to sales and marketing.

Now that you report the data for the problem, you can minimize it and measure the improvement.  For example, you could look at a quarter of data and see the average “prospect upside” is 50 points, and make it a goal to decrease this to 20 points.  You could then look at the fields with the biggest impact and purchase the information.  Using Salesforce?   Jigsaw would fix this.

While you’re working to improve the data, you can educate sales on the different scores.  They intuitively know a lead with 5 points could be more valuable than a lead with 50 points, so giving them these new data points will improve their confidence in you.  Rather than holding back leads from sales, consider passing all of them over immediately, while only showing qualified leads in the default views.

Bottom Line

Marketing automation systems are quick to tell you data, and slow to tell you what data is missing.  As a result, sales can lose confidence in marketing if their expectations of scoring aren’t met.  By admitting your level of confidence in the data, you can improve their trust in marketing, and over time measure the improvement in the quality of your data.

Examine this chart:

In 2009, he… somehow retained his phony image as a fun-loving, dreadlock-wearing, batsmith/comedian.

2,574 hits, the 555 homers, the .585 career slugging percentage, the .996 OPS… Just three players in history have ever assembled those numbers  (Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and Ramirez.)