Swim with the sharks without being eaten

At Wowzi, learning never stops. Every week we host our Threewin Learn session, a peer to peer learning session, where one team member teaches the rest on a topic of interest.

This week it was my turn. My topic: Swim with the sharks without being eaten.

Navigating your career or entrepreneurial journey oftentimes seems very turbulent. As though the world is full of sharks ready to pounce on you at the earliest chance. How do you navigate this?

Here are some rich lessons I picked up from my teachers, mentors, books I read, a TED talk I watched.

Stay hungry. Stay Foolish

I first came across this phrase from Steve Jobs's biography. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. It was also his ending comment in the commencement speech he made at Stanford University which went viral.

Stay hungry: Never be satisfied, and always push yourself. Success can be the enemy of progress. Hence why this idea is profound. There is always more. There is always a better way. Don't stop questioning.

Stay foolish: Do or be willing to try things people say cannot be done. Living at the edge is exciting. Human progress has been achieved by people who question the status quo and keep pushing in spite of rejection and push back. It's the Wright brothers believing that one day humans could fly, the moonshot thinkers who believed the moon was not too far a destination, the teacher who didn't give up on a student who's falling behind and now they've won a Nobel prize.

Develop a thick skin, build resilience

?When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Don't ask for a lighter weight, ask for a stronger back. Whenever you are doing anything worth its salt, expect to face challenges left to right and center. How you react to it will be the key differentiator of whether you become a mere statistic or whether you leave a mark in the world and achieve sustained success.

Wangari Maathai, Nobel prize laureate comes to mind when I think of developing a thick skin. She was a humble community organizer, working with women to plant trees. However, when her beliefs were shaken and she sensed injustice, she spoke out. No amount of humiliation, intimidation, or abuse could weaken her resolve. We celebrate her.

Learn the skill of compartmentalizing

One day my mentor who runs a major solar and energy conglomerate is giving us a tour of his manufacturing plant. In the middle of the tour, he receives a call, excuses himself, and steps out to pick the call.

After the call, he comes back and calmly says, "Sorry about that guys, I have just been informed that my daughter collapsed in the middle of the street, nothing to worry about, I have sorted it out, an ambulance has been sent, all is well."

He then continued with the tour as if nothing had happened. My first instinct was that this was probably the coldest dad ever! If it were me, I would stop everything, panic! Stop the tour and run to go take care of the situation at hand, but no!

This I later came to learn is the rare skill of compartmentalizing. Most refined CEOs have it. It is where the world is falling apart around you, but you choose to be present. As a leader, you are typically dealing with multiple crises at any one point. You owe maximum attention to the people you are with at the moment.

It's not that my mentor did not care. He was probably scared shitless. He simply chose to not pass on the burden to us. The factory floor workers were not affected, our tour wasn't disrupted and at the same time he sorted out the issue with his daughter. She is safe and sound by the way.

The first bounce of the ball is obvious. Think about the third and fourth consequences.

When doing scenario planning, most people say if we do this, this will happen. They stop there. Don't be lazy. Push your thinking a little bit harder. What are the third and fourth level consequences of your actions, strategy, or approach? That is where the most interesting challenges and opportunities lie. It's the blind spot area.

During these times of fast-paced technological growth, and disruptions coming from places you never imagined, this skill has never been more important.

I personally build this skill by playing the game of Chess. With multiple possibilities and consequences, Chess really pushes one to see third and fourth level consequences.

It's not how much it's worth, it's how much people think it's worth.

I am lucky to have had a chance to work with some top consulting firms. While in the heart of premium consulting I saw something interesting. I saw us charging a client several millions of dollars for short consulting stints. At the same time, some firms which were not as prestigious charged so much less for arguably the same work, if not more. Hmmm...how do things work here?

Perception is key. People may perceive one service as more valuable than another based on "soft elements". Years of experience. Who else is working with them? How expensive are they? The more the merrier. This is why top consulting firms go to extreme lengths to manage their brands and position themselves as thought leaders. How you dress, talk, answer an email, smell. It matters. That's because it works. It's the difference between earning well and earning peanuts.

Guard your reputation jealously. Build your brand. You will be surprised. With time people will perceive you to be worth way much more than you actually think you are worth yourself.

Show up. Keep showing up. Someone successful once said, 99% of success is just showing up.

In this social media world, you might find yourself caught up in the hype.Talk is cheap. A lot of us will spend time tweeting about what we will do, rather than actually doing it. The typical story of the writer of a book spending most of her time reading other books and barely any time actually writing. Dedicate time. Show up at your desk. Write. That painstaking line by line is what you need.

If you haven't already watched it, check out The Last Dance series on Netflix. See the kind of hard work and resilience it took , my namesake, Michael Jordan to be the Greatest of all Time (G.O.A.T). He not only went to the gym and practiced religiously, but also went the extra mile. Staying longer than everyone else. You cannot expect extreme results, without being extreme.

Get up and show up.

Patience cook stones.

We call it the microwave and fast food generation. I want it yesterday! I can't wait for my Uber for one minute. That's too long!

People overestimate what they can do in a short time and grossly underestimate what they can do in the long-term. Businesses are stuck in quarterly results when in reality some conscious long-term investment is what would be best for them.

The words "Patience Cooks Stones" were imprinted in me in high school by our Principal, Mr.Muhia. During our weekly parade sessions, it wasn't complete until he said. "Boys, patience cooks stones"

Think about it. Patience actually cook stones. Hang in there. Sometimes time is all that's needed and everything falls in place.

Don't be the Best. Be the only

Being the best is an ideal we all aspire to. Being the only is an even higher ideal. It has a way of bringing out an inner strength that we were not even aware we had. Muhamed Ali reminded himself that "I am the greatest" to instill this idea in his head.

Go on be the greatest. To yourself be true. You are a combination of skills, passions and unique attributes. Use them to leave a mark in the world.

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