Sean Johnson :: Intentionally – Live on Purpose

What makes someone a “deep” person?

How many deep people have you known in your life? For most of my adult life I’ve wanted to be deep, but i didn’t really know what it was.

In college, I thought it meant saying things that sounded smart at parties to people who were drunk.

After college, I thought it meant writing things that were self deprecating and introspective, or talking about God or philosophy at a bar in Manhattan until 2 in the morning.

Obviously those aren’t the marks of a deep person. Those are the marks of someone who likes hearing the sound of their own voice.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned a little more about what it means to be deep. And while I don’t embody any of it particularly well, it has served to focus my energy and attention, and given me something concrete to aspire to.

Deep people meditate on what matters most

Deep people know what matters to them. Underneath their job or their friendships or their hobbies lie their values – the things that are most important to them.

Deep people don’t just arrive at these values willy nilly. They don’t simply regurgitate what their parents or their professor or their pastor or some author says, although they do consider their advice.

Deep people earnestly try to understand how the world works, and carefully consider how they orient live their lives in light of that reality.

Deep people are clear on their non-negotiables. They plant themselves next to the water rather than moving with the current. They train themselves to filter decisions and actions through their values. They earn respect and a reputation for integrity because their decisions are consistent.

Deep people are not distracted

Deep people know what they’re trying to do. They don’t let the opinions of others get to them. Their values, and not the changing whims of the crowd, dictate their goals and their steps.

Deep people take council, but are picky about who they listen to. They recognize that the world is full of people who will, with the best of intentions, suggest courses of action that will steer them from their goals and undermine their values.

Deep people ignore scoffers. They know that if they’re doing something worthwhile they will get ridiculed and insulted. They realize that just because someone is loud doesn’t mean they are right.

Deep people understand that life isn’t usually about deciding between good things and bad things, but between good things and best things.

Deep people cultivate strong roots

Deep people cultivate roots that serve them in good times and bad. When success comes their way, they remain grounded and humble. They know that their success is the result of hard work, and are proud of their achievements. But they don’t cling to them – they recognize that their achievements are not who they are, and they aren’t a substitute for their character.

Deep people also know that when adversity comes, they won’t be shaken. Their roots go deep and keep them from being tossed this way and that. Even though the world around them may be crumbling, they have an underground reservoir of strength to draw from.

Deep people communicate confidence and maturity because they can handle problems. They don’t pout or rationalize or give up when things don’t go their way.

Deep people are able to share in other people’s burdens. When friends and loved ones with shallow roots encounter suffering or trouble, deep people are able to provide wise council. They know the right word to say at the right time, know when to admonish and when to build up.

Deep people understand that life has seasons

Deep people recognize that they won’t always be “yielding fruit”. They have seasons in their lives. Daily seasons, weekly seasons, monthly seasons, annual seasons.

Deep people have learned how to deliberately order their lives in a way that recognizes their seasons. They know when to engage in activity and when to rest. They know when they can be available to others and when they should be alone. They are fully present at work but understand when it’s time to put work down.

Are you deep?

Deep people certainly embody more than these traits, but they do not embody less.

Let us resolve to become deep people. People rooted in our values, who live lives consistent with what we believe. People who remain grounded and peaceful in good times and bad. People who can be counted on for advice, encouragement or wisdom.

To be people whose leaves does not wither.

[ http://player.vimeo.com/video/27468967?title=0

The 7 Minute Candidate Matching System from Sean Johnson on Vimeo.

It’s a familiar story – you post a position on various job boards, get bombarded with resumes (many of whom obviously didn’t read the job description), and have to spend way more time than you’d like sorting through them all. You take hiring seriously, and you of course want to sit down with a short, highly qualified list of people. But getting from 200 candidates down to 10 is time you’d rather spend elsewhere.

This is the problem we were solving at Brill Street, a hiring startup I where I led product development a few years back. We discovered a consistent pain point at the top end of the hiring funnel and set out to solve the problem using an algorithm.

Using a combination of experience, education, skills, competency and culture, our system was able to take the 15,000 candidates we had in Chicago and tell you which would be the best fit for a given position. The system actually worked, too.

But building a system like this is expensive – you need to know algorithm design, machine learning, statistics. You need multiple developers working long hours for several weeks. Not cheap.

Luckily, you can get most of the way there. You don’t need lots of time or money to build your own candidate screening system. In fact, you can reliably screen candidates for any position for less than $100 and less than seven minutes of your time.

Step One: Write down the list of things you want a person in this role to have.

For any given position there is a list of things you’re looking for in an ideal candidate. The first step in your system is to write these criteria down.

As you’re doing this, focus on objective measurements. You want to focus on things that can be verified by the information in the resume or cover letter. You aren’t looking to gauge the ‘quality’ of a given criteria (for example, the quality of a design portfolio) but simply testing for whether the criteria exist. You’ll see why shortly.

Let’s say you’re hiring a front-end web developer. This list might looks something like this:

Step Two: Assign a weight to each criteria

Once you have your criteria, it’s time to open up a spreadsheet. You can use whatever software you’re comfortable with, but I recommend Google Docs for reasons you’ll soon discover.

Your column headers will start on row 2. In the first column, put “Candidate Name”. In the second column put “Total”. And starting in the third column, put each criteria you listed in Step One in a column heading.

Above each criteria, assign it a weight. Think to yourself, “if this candidate didn’t have this skill, how likely would I be to hire them?”

It’s important to make sure that your must have’s are weighted much more heavily than your nice to haves. If a web developer doesn’t know HTML, that’s a huge problem. I use a scale of 1-50 to give me enough of a range to weigh certain items much more heavily than others.

Step Three: Create Your Formula

Once you have your weights for each criteria, you need to create your formula for adding them up. You can of course just look up and enter the weight value into the cell directly, but I like to keep the spreadsheet clean by just using x’s. To do this, I use the following formula:

=sumif(C3:O3,"x",$C$1:$O$1)

This says “For each column in Row 3, check to see if there is an X. If so, use the weighted number above it. Add all of these numbers up.”

This should give you a total score, which you can then use to rank candidates.

Step Four: Test Your Weights

Before you continue, you want to test your weighting. Drop some made up names into the candidate column, and start randomly filling in X’s. You want to make sure that someone who is missing critical criteria doesn’t end up with a high score because they have a bunch of less important criteria.

You’ll most likely find yourself making some tweaks to your initial weights, which is totally fine. What matters is that you have confidence it will spit out reliable results – otherwise you’ll be looking at every candidate’s resume anyway which defeats the whole purpose of the exercise.

Step Five: Hire someone cheap to look at the resumes

Use ODesk or Elance to find someone to review the resumes. You could even hire the high school kid who lives down the street.

Share the spreadsheet with them via email and explain what each of the criteria means. This is why having a Google Doc is valuable – no passing the document back and forth, and you can check in on their progress or do QA checks with the early resumes if you feel so inclined.

When you hire someone, I strongly suggest you ask them to do it once per day, rather than throughout the day as the resumes come in. People are more efficient when you batch similar tasks together, which will save you money.

Depending on the rate you agree to, you should be able to get 200 resumes reviewed for less than $100.

Step Six: Get some work done.

When you post positions, set up a forwarder in your email client to send resumes along to your contractor. You might also want to set up a rule to have these emails skip your inbox directly, going into your archive or another folder. They’re out of your sight, but available if you need them later.

With the system set up, you can now get to work on the things that matter to you. In the background, hundreds of resumes are coming in. Your contractor is looking at them and comparing them to the criteria you outlined in your spreadsheet. They aren’t having to make value judgments to determine which candidates you should look at, because the formula is doing it for them.

A week or so later, you can drop into your spreadsheet and do a sort on the “Total” column. If you built your formula correctly, you should have a small group of candidates who meet all of your must have criteria and have a solid combination of your secondary criteria.

We’ve found this system to work very well across a variety of positions. Looking for a social media person? Look at the number of Twitter followers or their Klout score. Looking for a backend dev? Ask if they have a Github account. Salesperson? Look for specific quotas hit.

The key is to use objective metrics – you want a series of criteria that a high school student could reliably check. While you can get more advanced, we’ve found the efficiency gains to be minimal. Once you’re down to a short list of 20 names or so, you can take the time to make the subjective value decisions yourself, assessing the quality of someone’s code or design work, etc.

Save Even More Time – Use My Spreadsheet

For less than an hour’s worth of time and less than $100 you’ve saved yourselves hours of time and have a short list of candidates you’re excited to talk to.

To help you jump start your formula, I’ve shared an example spreadsheet in Google Docs. Feel free to copy and paste it into a new document, and edit to fit your needs.

If you have suggestions for improving this process, let me know. I’d love to hear how this process works for you!

We have some friends who are in a program called “safe parents”. The deal is that parents who are in crisis (drug addiction, abuse, etc.) can enter the program to get advice and resources to address their problems, while their children can stay with loving families temporarily (on average, around six weeks.)

It’s not an easy program, as my friends are the first to admit. They’re not adopted parents and have no real authority over the children. The children often have been neglected, are dealing with intense hurt or anger, and lash out in frequent and frustrating ways on the safe parents.

And yet they feel called to do this. They take the children to the zoo, or to the beach (a beach that the kids have literally never seen, even though they live only 2 miles away.) They endure the tantrums and help them grapple with their emotions, and bathe them in love.

Wasted salt

A few years ago Pew did a survey of 18-25 year olds and asked them what their two most important life goals were. 81% said being rich, 51% said being famous. Wealth and fame have the two pillars that drive what most people consider to be the formula for being “somebody.”

The startup crowd in many ways personifies the pursuit of these two goals. We’re all working insane hours, going to event after event after event, meeting after meeting after meeting, killing ourselves to reach these two objectives, hoping to get that big score so we can become a part of the club with the big exit and the founder’s shares and the speaking engagements and Twitter followers and Klout score that comes with it.

But the problem with living and breathing your work is that it deadens you. You become so obsessed with making something of yourself or your business that you develop blinders to world around you.

The idea of being a safe parent or volunteering at a senior center or raking your neighbor’s leaves or babysitting for the new parents down the hall so they can go on a date all seems like a distraction from your chief aim to hit it big. Actually, it would seem like a distraction, but we’e too busy for the thought of doing any of those things to even occur to us in the first place.

The work isn’t the problem, it’s the motive. The desire for money and fame makes small, private acts seem like a huge waste of time. A drop in the bucket. An unwelcome detour from the relentless pursuit of one’s rise to the top.

I’m certainly not immune. A few weeks ago my wife and I were asked to be mentors for engaged couples, and I seriously was waffling. If I’m honest, my first thought was probably something like “I can’t sit down over lunch each week to help young couples think through important issues that will have a huge impact on the success of their marriage. I’ve got a business to build.” Thankfully I have a wise wife to keep me in check.

We don’t exist for ourselves.

Jesus said that we’re to be the “salt of the earth,” a phrase I didn’t really understand until recently. Salt’s purpose is to enhance the flavor and enjoyment of other things. No one eats salt by itself.

If that’s true, it means that my talents and gifts and life are not ultimately for me. Their highest and best use is not to make me rich and healthy and happy. And the things I’m doing professionally, while awesome and worthwhile and fulfilling, will have been worthless if the end game is about me.

More often than I’d like to think, I’m wasted salt. Salt spent on glorifying myself instead of God. Salt spent trying to build myself up rather than trying to help others. Salt spent trying to make myself look good instead of getting my hands dirty to bring love and light to a world desperately needing it. Salt that works hard but for the wrong reasons, and often at the expense of more important things than my own notoriety or bank account.

Even though we have countless examples of people who pursued wealth and fame and didn’t find happiness, we’re convinced that it will be different when it’s us.

But salt used on itself is pointless.

In my twenties I was a flurry of activity. I deftly juggled dozens of balls. I burned midnight oil. I crushed it.

In my twenties I aimed for the fancy title and got it. I navigated politics. I embraced crappy tasks. I made sure I was responsible for deliverables that were public and visible and easy to quantify.

In my twenties I was carried by talent. I was given some gifts and worked hard to make the most of them. I overcame weaknesses and character defects by demonstrating mastery in areas of strength.

In my twenties I was promoted, awarded, rewarded and applauded.

In my twenties I wanted to be successful and liked and be the best at what I did. And I wanted it immediately.

Life was a race, and I was a sprinter.

—

In my twenties I had an enormous fear that I wasn’t good enough. Every time I sat down in front of a blank screen to make something new I told myself that this was the time I would screw up, and that everyone would finally realize I was a hack.

In my twenties I cared immensely about the opinions of others. I pretended to be my own man, driven by a motive power that was purely internal. I wanted people to think I was a funnier version of Howard Roark. But deep down, most of my actions were designed to get you to think I was smart and talented and witty and charming and worth being around.

In my twenties I was undisciplined. I worked hard, but usually on what I wanted to work on. I avoided accountability. I enjoyed being unreachable.

In my twenties I bristled at the suggestion that my work or idea or decision wasn’t great. Even when I was wrong and knew it, I wasn’t willing to lose the battle without winning the war, especially with my wife. To say something I did was flawed or stupid was to say that I was flawed or stupid.

In my twenties I used jokes at my own expense to mask a celestial ego. I used raw talent and bursts of hard work to mask a lack of discipline. I used charisma to mask character.

Life was a race, and I was a sprinter.

—

Then I fell down for the first time at work.

Then I became a father.

Then I turned 30.

In my thirties I realized that I had some fundamental issues that talent and extraversion couldn’t fix, character traits that were undesirable, and a shaky foundation underneath a shiny facade. I realized that unless I made some large changes to my life I risked causing some major problems.

In my thirties I realized that my son won’t care about what my job title is or how much money I make or what cool new product I helped build. I realized that he will care immensely that I’m present when we’re in the same room together. He’ll want to know I’m not “crushing it” at night instead of talking about his day. He’ll want to know that I care more about his drawing than my iPhone.

In my thirties I realized that my wife won’t care about who I’m able to have lunch with or who retweeted me or who wants me to talk at what event. But she will care immensely that we have date nights. She’ll want to know I’m not working after the kids have gone to bed instead of talking about her day. That I care more about her than our new office space.

In my thirties I realized that no one thinks of me as a funny Howard Roark or a pale George Clooney. In fact, no one thinks of me. No one really cares whether I fail, and no one really cares whether I succeed. No one cares that I’ve gone 8 months without writing something, and no one is wondering why I’m at fewer networking events. I was obsessed with convincing an imaginary crowd that I’m somebody important.

In my thirties I realized that work is extremely important, but legacy isn’t. My achievements up to this point live on inside of my head and on my resume and that’s it. Even if I build something big and visible that everyone marvels at, it will likely not survive as long as I do. And when I die, my funny jokes and clever writings and great products will all be forgotten. I realized that that I had turned work from an important thing into the most important thing. I realized I’m obsessed with building a castle of sand.

In my thirties I realized that my faith means nothing if it’s relegated to the periphery of my life. I need to be firmly grounded in the things that matter the most. I need deeper roots, need to be a tree that bears fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither.

In my thirties I realized that I need a healthy dose of discipline. I need to get up each morning at a consistent time. I need to eat a breakfast that’s good for me, at the table, with my family. I need to stick with a workout regimen for more than three months. I need to work on the difficult project, make the difficult call. I need to listen when people are talking to me instead of thinking of something witty to say. I need to eat I a dinner that’s good for me, at the table, with my family. I need to read my Bible and pray for my family and go to bed at a reasonable time instead of after my wife has long been asleep.

In my thirties I realized that I need to care less what you think about me. I need to model what a good man looks like to my son. I need to consistently be the kind of husband my wife deserves. And I need to be the kind of man who finishes a race well, not simply starts well.

Life is a race, and I was a sprinter.

But life is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

One of the more common critiques I receive from friends and colleagues is that I’m too self-deprecating. Too quick to point out my flaws or talk about challenges I’m facing. Too “humble”.

The argument has been that talking about one’s weaknesses or flaws (on a personal or business level) are detrimental. You lose opportunities this way. People don’t want to spend time around someone who’s negative, and talking about your rough patches can be perceived that way.

I’ve tried to absorb these suggestions over the years, and think about whether I should change how I converse with others. I’ve thought about the impact it has had on my personal and professional life.

But the conclusion I keep coming to is that it’s not a fault. I have many, many character flaws, but I honestly don’t think this is one of them. In fact, I would argue that I have experienced the opposite of what my friends think happens when you talk honestly about what’s going on.

I haven’t seen the lack of business opportunity. I haven’t seen people not wanting to spend time with me. It simply hasn’t been the liability you’d think it would be.

I think the reason is that what some have called self-deprecation or humility, many more perceive to be candor. And it’s become clear to me that candor has some huge benefits.

You’re okay, I’m okay. Everyone’s okay.

Most presentations I watch and most blog posts I read are full of bravado. They’re full of people telling you about the things you should do, based on the many and varied successes they’ve had. Occasionally someone will say something vague like “I’m not perfect, but” or “I’ve certainly had my share of mistakes, but”. But they won’t talk about them.

Get into a conversation at an event and ask someone about their business. My bet is that their business is going amazingly well. Customers are thrilled, investors are lining up, and all is right in the world.

At some point, folks decided that it’s a weakness to show weakness. The creation and preservation of one’s “personal brand” became of the utmost importance, and part of that was to not show chinks in your armor.

And so everyone you meet is amazing. Their companies are amazing. Their projects are amazing. No one has problems.

You could argue that it’s important to be positive. That an important part of success is to project success. That showing signs of weakness spooks people. In some cases (raising VC money comes to mind) you’re probably right.

But in many more instances, I think we could benefit from some more candor.

Candor builds stronger relationships

For me, candor has resulted in bonding with people at events where surface conversation rules the day. I meet fewer people but learn more about them. My decision to open up and talk about things my company is struggling or that I’m trying to get better at opens the conversation up. People feel like they have permission to share in kind. Underneath the whole “unnetworking” thing is a desire to get to know someone on a deeper level, and candor has been the key to making that happen.

But that’s very hard to do when both of you are talking about how amazing you are. You know it’s not true (about either of you) and they do too. But you play the game, project an image that you think you’re supposed to project, and add another business card to your pile.

The two business groups I got the most value out of in Chicago have been Jelly and the DIY-MBA group I was a part of. In both cases, friendships were quickly forged because of a spirit of shared candor. At Jelly people talk about issues they are dealing with in their companies and get advice. At DIY-MBA we went even further – we shared financials with each other, we shared our goals with each other, and we held each other accountable.

Note that candor as I’m defining it is not “being blunt”, which is often just a caveat for being a jerk and voicing your opinions in the most abrasive way possible. It is about being open about what’s important to you, what you care about, what you’re worried about. It’s about advising and counseling others out of love, helping them accomplish their goals and giving advice – using candor as a tool to build them up, not tear them down.

Those relationships were only possible because we all decided it’s more profitable to open up than to project a false reality.

Candor actually helps sales

One big lesson of the last year has been that I’m much better at sales than I thought. It was a huge concern coming into the year – my first company in Colorado was a failure chiefly because our sales skills were abysmal. But we learned, got better, and actually had an exceptional year from a sales perspective.

What I found was that talking about what you’re good at and what you’re bad at – even about the problems you’re facing – has led to more trust, not less. People are used to being told that whatever they want they can have, and they’re sensitive to being lied to. Being up front and saying “we don’t do that” or “this might not work” has made sales better, not worse.

Candor helps me when I fall

The problem with being amazing is that you can’t screw up. When your brand is predicated on being perfect and not having problems, issues become magnified. And no one magnifies it more than you do. You start to believe your own hype. Which is great when things are clicking, but when you falter it can be much harder to recover.

The success we had in sales actually led to some huge problems as we took on more work than we ever had before. I learned about my personal limits, which hadn’t really been tested before. I learned that my project management skills aren’t so hot, and my inability to delegate and rely on others came to a head. To be honest, I fell flat on my face a couple of times this year. And it hurt.

Being honest with myself about my weaknesses – even just acknowledging up front that I’m going to make mistakes and screw up, sometimes royally – has helped me get back up and try again.

In my career I’ve failed many times. I’ve made hiring mistakes. I’ve launched products that didn’t work. I’ve created interfaces that were less successful than what they replaced. I’ve organized many events where no one showed up. I’ve had a number of half-starts as an entrepreneur. I’ve closed down a business because I couldn’t sell. And I’ve made lots of sales and then screwed up because I didn’t plan well enough for the work.

Based on how other people talk about their careers and what’s necessary to be successful, I should be unemployed, homeless, and my wife should have left me. But that hasn’t happened. The mistakes lead to success. My interfaces are miles ahead of where they used to be. My products are better. My sales skills are much improved. And I’ve been getting better about delegating and managing projects.

In the meantime, being honest with myself has helped me recover, learn from mistakes and try again. And being honest with others has helped me earn a little bit of grace when I screw up.

I work my butt off to get better, and I try my best to learn from my mistakes so that they only happen once.

But I will continue to have failures. And I’ll continue to talk about them. It helps keep my ego in check, it helps me cut through the crap and connect with others, and it helps my career.

Next time you’re at a networking event or talking about your business, try to open up a bit. Share some of the bad along with the good. Worry a little less about projecting confidence and instead be confident enough to be humble. And don’t be surprised if good things come of it.

Some researchers came to Miles’ daycare today, and they tested him on a whole bunch of things – putting blocks into holes, hiding things under blankets to see if he can find them, etc. He nailed it – every task they gave him, he did. The researchers didn’t come right out and say that he’s the smartest kid they’ve ever tested, but they knew. Oh, they most certainly knew.

There really is nothing like the feeling you get when your kid does something cool. I used to think that the dad reveling while watching his kid play football or piano or give a speech was just trying to live vicariously through their child – to live the life they never could. And perhaps in some cases that’s true.

But in most cases I bet that’s not what is going on. The amount of joy I get from watching Miles solve a problem, push a chair across the floor, or recognize the word I’m saying is immense. No accomplishment I’ve ever had, no mountain I’ve ever climbed comes close to giving me the kind of joy I get from watching him say “baby” when he looks in the mirror.

It’s not that he’s doing something I wish I could – I’m actually pretty good at getting the square peg into the square hole. It’s not a feeling of living vicariously through him – it’s much more visceral than that. And there really is no comparison that does it justice.

I once tried explaining to someone that it’s like finishing a project and admiring what you created, multiplied by a billion – and realized about halfway through the absolute absurdity of what I was saying. Equating your child to a website or science fair project or nice dinner feels hilariously wrong. But it’s the closest thing I can think of. It’s not even a feeling of “look at what I made” as much as it’s “I can’t believe that he exists, and that I get to be a part of it.”

I never got much out of the concept of God as a father until I had a kid, but I think about it often now. I think about the joy he must get when he sees me treat my wife well or help someone or give with happiness. I think that the joy I get watching Miles read a book is a faint glimmer of the immense joy that God has for his people.

Especially when he watches Miles.

Six years ago this week I finished writing a book about how college students can find great jobs after college. This week, I’ve decided to put the entire book online, for free.

In truth, A Bright Red Package isn’t only about how to find a job. It’s also about how to transform yourself into someone anyone would love to hire. Indeed, there have been dozens of emails over the years from people who were already in the working world who still got value out of the book.

The ideas of identifying a personal position for yourself, working like mad to live up to it through the development of a compelling portfolio of work, and then projecting it out to the world through a disciplined, generous approach to networking are applicable to everyone.

If you find yourself looking for a job immediately, you might want to skip to the final chapter on putting together your job marketing campaign. There are plenty of ideas, some of which are a little contrarian, which have helped many others find great and land great opportunities.

In the coming months, I plan to update and revise some of the material based on the tools and techniques that have emerged since it was first written. I also plan to provide additional tools and resources to help students take advantage of the lessons in the book. But that will have to wait until I’m out from under the mountain of work I currently have.

Until then, I hope you or someone you love finds something useful in here. I’m confident that embracing some of the ideas in here will change not only their job search, but their professional lives.

Your can read A Bright Red Package free here.

There has been a backlash lately against churches and Christian leaders who advocate for social and economic justice. Spearheaded by Glenn Beck, they are arguing that messages of social justice are poisonous, evil messages trying to infiltrate the church.

For Beck, Falwell and their ideological peers, the argument basically goes like this:

The flaw in the logic is in the assumption that because he didn’t say that it was government’s job to give to the poor, it follows that a government that does is evil. There is a huge leap there.

The reality is that Christ didn’t make arguments for government policy at all, in either direction. Part of the reason could have been because he lived in an empire, not a democracy. Who knows. But it’s folly to presume that because he didn’t say the government should prevent social injustice, that we should assume he preferred a government that perpetuates it.

I honestly don’t know how a political leader could hold those two ideas in their head at the same time. If you believe personally in giving to the poor, helping the widow and the orphan…why would you not want your government to protect and help those same people? Why would you promote a political or economic system that systematically marginalizes some and lavishly rewards others, and then work to alleviate the suffering of those same people when you leave work? Why would you not go beyond helping those who are already hurting in your neighborhood and try to address the systems and powers that lead to injustice in the first place?

It simply does not make sense that you would spend your weekends at the soup kitchen, would donate a 10th or more of your income, and go out of your way to help someone in need while at the same time desiring a government completely unconcerned with those same people.

There is a difference between a government that is run by the church, and a government that happens to operate in a way that is consistent with the personal beliefs of the citizenry. While the separation of church and state is a vital and necessary doctrine (one that Christ himself would not have disagreed with), it does not follow that the state and church should operate according to opposite or contradictory beliefs.

The funny thing is, the people who rail against economic and social justice are often the same people who vigorously work to have the government adopt their views on marriage, abortion and the like. Why is it acceptable for the government to address those issues and not issues of systematic injustice?

When I was in high school, my step-dad bought into a startup and became the CEO. The company had an amazing opportunity to bring enterprise software to a mid-market that had been eager to implement it for years. As the sole provider in the Rocky Mountain region, they had a wide open market.

For a variety of reasons, the opportunity turned out to be less lucrative than anyone had anticipated. Eventually the company’s entree into the mid-market was abandoned and the company was shut down.

The thing I remember most about this wasn’t the company itself. It was how he responded to its collapse. He didn’t get upset. He didn’t beat himself up about it. The day after he shut the doors he picked up the phone and started getting his old consulting clients back.

His response was to move forward.

The rule of economic well-being

When I asked him about it a few years later, he told me about a rule of thumb that he’s operated by for most of his professional career that helped him recognize the situation for what it was, and helped him move forward with relative ease.

It might sound simple, and the connection might not be obvious. But understanding this idea can have profound implications in how you view the world.

Understanding this rule is why he didn’t get upset when the company folded – there wasn’t enough value to potential customers, or the value wasn’t communicated effectively. It was a learning opportunity.

It’s why he didn’t lash out at the larger organization they were partnering with. They didn’t “owe” him anything – it wasn’t their job to take care of him.

It’s why he was able to jump right back into consulting so easily. He recognized that his value isn’t a function of a particular company or opportunity – it’s something he has available to him at all times. He can bring people immense value regardless of the situation.

Putting the lesson into practice

Three months ago, the startup I was working for took a dramatic step in a different direction. Matt, my business partner for many years, and I were both let go. It was a sudden change of events, one that coincided with my wife deciding to work part-time, us starting to put our son in daycare, and the decision to buy our condo. When it rains…

When it happened, the temptation was to throw a pity party. A part of me wanted to get the emotional high that can come from feeling you were wronged, the sick pleasure one can get from worrying about something even though there’s nothing you can do about it.

But then I remembered what my step-dad taught me.

Rather than hold a grudge or feel sorry for myself, I decided that what we had worked on, however clever or promising it might have been, simply didn’t create enough value in the minds of the people who mattered. If it had, we’d still be there and the product would be taking off.

Sure, having more time might have helped the situation, but we didn’t have more time. That’s not wrong, that was just the reality of the situation.

So Matt and I decided to put our energies into finding consulting work, while we figured out what to do next. We turned our outsourcing company into a product development shop and started doing what we did at Brill Street for others. Rather than stay indoors with the lights off staring at our computers while eating Cheetos and feeling sorry for ourselves, we hit the streets and started selling.

A couple of opportunities fell into our laps right away thanks to the help of our friends (and I’d like to think a little bit of providence.) We gathered some momentum, picked up some additional business, brought on some new guys. In the last three months, we’ve picked up more business than we were projecting for the year.

It’s been a crazy 90 days. Who knows if we’ll do the consulting thing in the long term – it certainly brings with it its fair share of stress. But for now we’re working hard, having fun, learning a ton and meeting a bunch of great people.

And none of it would have happened if I didn’t remind myself about my step-dad’s rule of economic well being.

Rejecting Entitlement

It’s a lesson that I think we should all keep in mind.

There is a large portion of the population that operates as though they are owed something. Because they got a degree, they deserve a job. Because they logged the hours, they deserve a raise. Because they didn’t screw up, they deserve a promotion.

Your company isn’t obligated to take care of you. They have an obligation to their shareholders and to maximize value. If you provide immense value, they’ll bend over backwards to keep you.

You don’t have to sit and hold a grudge because you got passed over for a raise. You don’t have to do less than your best work because you and your boss don’t get along.

You don’t have to blame the company if they let you go. Instead, you can step back and use it as an opportunity to learn. In what ways were you not providing immense value? What could you have done differently to make yourself indispensable? What lessons can you take with you to your next opportunity?

Most importantly, you can keep moving forward. The world is so full of opportunities if you’re willing to look for them. All you have to do is remind yourself that at the end of the day, no one owes you anything. And then go create value.

During the last 6 months at Brill Street, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in several dozen meetings with area VCs. I’ve also been able to work with my boss, who is a VC himself and has a very generous heart when it comes to sharing knowledge. Needless to say, it’s been a spectacular learning experience.

In the process, I’ve managed to cobble together a few early lessons that I’ll hopefully have the presence of mind to remember in the future. While certainly not rules, and most likely flawed due to a limited sample size and my own incompetence, I do think they might prove useful to start-ups looking to interact with venture capitalists on their own ventures. As with anything I say, your mileage may vary.

The most important thing is the team

I had heard this maxim frequently in the past, but had considered it hyperbole. It’s not.

Everyone has ideas for a company, and many of them are good. The idea, while important, is not the difference between success and failure. Execution of a mediocre idea is much better than a great idea poorly executed.

It takes a great team to execute on an idea successfully. VCs have learned that a smart, aggressive, flexible team of people can make things happen.

This is why they’ll often hire “entrepreneurs in residence” – someone who they think is talented and can make something happen, but who is between opportunities (most likely following a sale). They’ll pay this person to come into the office, listen to pitches, and think – and when the right opportunity comes up, they back them.

Simply put, they bet on the jockey and not the horse.

Which means when you’re thinking about your pitch, you need to seriously consider the caliber of your team, and if necessary make some upgrades or additions.

If your business is highly analytical and you lack a marketing whiz with expertise in running those kinds of campaigns, you’re in trouble. If you’re a tech company without a technologist, you’re in trouble. If you’re trying to sell an enterprise product and no one has experience dealing with the drawn out, convoluted enterprise sales cycle, you’re in trouble.

It’s also important to be honest with yourself – do you think that a VC would be comfortable putting money into a venture that has you at the helm? There’s a chance that the only thing standing between you and an investment is you.

If your venture could benefit from someone with more expertise or with a personality and disposition more suited to a CEO role, have the humility to find that person, make them a great offer and take on a role that is better suited to your skill set and personality.

The team matters more than anything else.

Listen, and be flexible

Most VCs are very smart people – most have been successful on their own prior to joining the firm, and they have had access to thousands of business plans and first-hand experience with dozens of startups just like yours.

Which means that when you’re pitching a firm, you should treat it as an opportunity to learn and not just a presentation. Most startups rarely end up doing what they originally set out to do, and the smart ones listen and adapt faster than the others.

During the course of your pitch you’re likely to get advice, often in the form of repeated questions around an area of weakness in your plan. Don’t bristle at this – learn to listen to it. It’s likely they’ve seen a similar company fail for precisely that reason. At the very least they’re pointing out the weakness in your pitch, which if corrected could lead to more success in future meetings.

It’s also important to listen during your pitch because they’re paying attention to you as much as they are to the deck. They want to see if you’re flexible. They want to see if you have logically thought through your ideas, and if not, how you react to weaknesses in logic being presented. They want to see that you can take advice without getting upset, since they’ll want to be able to do that as investors should they pull the trigger.

A mediocre business manned by someone who can listen and adapt will become better and can possibly become great. A good business manned by someone who’s inflexible and stubborn will probably never become more than what it already is.

Know your odds, and don’t take it personally

Many entrepreneurs I’ve talked to in the past about failed attempts at raising money had a chip on their shoulder, as though the VCs that turned them down were idiots or were doing it to spite them. In reality, these folks probably just didn’t have a solid grasp of the numbers. If they thought about it at all, they would probably have thoughts that the firm is choosing between them and, say, 10 other ideas.

The firms I’ve seen so far make only a few investments a year. So if you figure on any given day they’ve heard at least one pitch, and if you figure that of all the pitches they hear during the year they’ll make maybe three investments, you quickly see that the odds are not in your favor.

Which means that you should a) do everything you can to understand what those few investments tend to have in common, and b) not take it personally if a firm doesn’t choose your company for an investment. If you were putting several million dollars of capital into a company, you’d be picky as well.

Know your audience

Venture firms, and the partners who make the decisions within them, have certain industries or types of investments that they are drawn to. This could be based on their prior work experience, or a result of previous investments. But before you try to sit down with someone, it’s important to know what they’re investment preferences are – in many cases it’s not a stated purpose of the fund, but simply the personal preferences of the partners.

VCs like to have deep knowledge of the space. Lack of expertise in an area represents a risk – and with all the other things that could go wrong with an investment, it would be foolish to jump into a deal without sufficient knowledge or expertise. So don’t be shocked if a firm tells you that you have what sounds like a great idea, but that it doesn’t excite them – you could just be outside of their comfort zone.

Be likable

People prefer to work with people they like. If you have a great idea and a great team but are arrogant and abrasive, you’re probably going to have a difficult time raising money.

If a VC firm takes on an investment, they will probably take a board seat, and will be actively involved in the business offering advice, making introductions and trying to make the venture succeed. Which means they’ll be spending a lot of time with you. If you’re a jerk, they’ll probably think twice before entering into that kind of relationship.

So be friendly at all times – be humble, be gracious, be thankful that they’ve taken the time to sit down with you.

And remember that they all talk to each other, and that word can spread about your hot temper and derail your efforts at any other VCs you try to sit down with.