Brew Some Recklessness

Giving myself half an hour to write this newsletter today. It's been taking me too long. So you might find it a little bit quicker and dirtier.

A quote this week pulled from the screenplay of The Royal Tenenbaums. Such brilliant writing by Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson in this film. And I've been converted of late that the best self-help advice might more often be found in fiction writing, and this scene is a great example of that.

Also reminds me of the "Live dangerously — carefully" maxim from the Walter Isaacson Elon Musk biography. And if you're not careful when you're running some kind of office-based business, you can coop yourself up all day. I know I do. So this is just a brilliant reminder to go out into the world for me and live a little bit more, and more recklessly. So let's see how I follow my own advice in September.

This week I'm going to be a bit cheeky and add in another quote because why not? It's my newsletter; I can do what I want. And it's from the Tottenham Hotspur manager, Roberto De Zerbi. Whether we like him or not, or like that team or not.

I have stated many times that sporting analogies aren't as good as we think they are when we extrapolate them into business. However, even I can't resist the temptation to use them.

This was thought-provoking because perhaps it does extrapolate to the job market. And I've had conversations with the founders and the owners that I work with that they struggle to find mentality in the job market — as ambiguous a word as that is. They struggle to find it, and that's why they end up working with people like me, who bring that to their business in spades.

Because the founders and owners know that mentality is extremely important. I believe that the mentality they are thinking about, to make it less ambiguous, probably looks like productivity. Grit, determination, work rate. And a lot of people don't have that.

And there might not necessarily be anything wrong with that. They might still be able to do a good job. However, when you work with a mentality ‘player’, it is a game changer for your business. Because it has an iron-sharpens-iron effect, it gets you into a sharp mental state when you work with people who are operating at the top of their game from a mentality point of view.

I admit this is still somewhat ambiguous. But I know that many of you reading this will understand what I mean.

Well, it's the first of the month. I'm off the back of a truly fantastic August, which, by the way, I'm extremely grateful for. My Big Thinking August Sprint. August was a really good challenge. I learned a lot about myself. I unlearned a lot too.

So I'm thinking now about what the challenge is going to be in September. Arguably, I should have done this a couple of days before the end of August, but I wanted to give August my full concentration.

So I haven't sat down to think about September properly yet. That's the job for today. I want to go for a long walk, and for my mind to be provoked into idea-making during that walk.

Briefly thinking about it now, though, there are some major lessons from August. One of the most front-of-mind ones is: I can still step up.

So if I have to deduce what I'm thinking about today, and the most pertinent thought, I would say it's a simple question of: how can I continue to level up? In September and beyond. And what do I think that looks like?

To briefly answer that now, whilst I'm here and whilst you're here, I think it means unblocking myself from other areas where I think I am blocked (I'm not blocked, poor choice of words, but you know what I mean).

More systems. Like the one that really worked for me in August, which was working with a community manager on my content creation system. Where else can I create easy systems for myself that work and deliver results?

You can still level up. I'm due to publish my learnings and findings in a blog shortly, where I'll share more juicy and exact details from the Big Thinking August Sprint.

Bringing back a dedicated day for specific activities. Again. So Tuesday, the day of writing this newsletter, is entirely what I'm calling a creative day. So it's a day for writing. A day for working creatively. On my business, if I work on it at all. A day for playing around with the things that I'm building with AI. Such as grAttitude — open-source journalling tools for mental health and wellbeing. Apliy — automated job search, real interviews, in your calendar. And my own website, mbarton.co.uk. And if I can also receive some creative input from somewhere as well, from a book or an art gallery.

What I'm struggling with here is telling my own mind that I don't need to be busy all the time. I don't need to be hustling all the time. And that these Creative Tuesdays are actually a massive form of leverage for my business and life, where creative ideas come from.

But I'm not going to lie to you; I do struggle with the guilt around not being busy in the business.

Additional experimentation based on discussions with my community manager around TikTok, of all things. With my community manager. A decent amount of my admittedly very few followers are Spanish speakers. So I'm going to test the Venn diagram of the work that I do. The writing. Etc. With my Spanish-speaking skill set, as a foreign-language speaker. I think that might prove to deliver some interesting results.

I'll tell you what I did watch on Saturday: my beloved Coventry City playing their first Premier League home game in 25 years.

If I'm lucky, I get to see my team play once or twice a year. And I always try to be there for the big occasions. Like I was for the Wembley playoff final a couple of seasons ago. And like I was when I was a kid at the last home game at Highfield Road. There are no business lessons here…

I didn't watch anything else. No films or Netflix or anything this week. Because I was having too much fun in my business.

Well, I have Fooled by Randomness out for delivery today. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of my favourite authors. And reading his books for me is like a workout for my mind. And whilst my maths is nowhere near good enough to understand his maths, I broadly get the ideas he shares, about half the time. But they do very much sharpen my thinking. And I love his wit and aggressive stance on his ideas and opinions. Let me know if you've read it and if you got a little value from it.

So far I've only read The Black Swan and Skin in the Game, both of which I very much enjoyed. And in all honesty, I need to go back for a second read of both. Oh, and start taking maths lessons again.

That's everything for this week.

Matt

P.S. Writing in half an hour is easy; editing in half an hour really is not 😅

Work with me on

Closing bigger deals. Founders who need to sell. The mental game of revenue generation, or even getting into the industry in the first place.

Hit reply if any of that relates to you. Always happy to talk.

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