Last week was no different. I was overwhelmed by the kindness that came flowing back from my help requests. You guys all rock.

But it got me to thinking. How can I give back? How can I help you? 

My plan is to take especial care in the coming week to help as many people as possible. It doesn’t matter if we are friends, passing acquaintances or complete strangers – any and all help requests will be considered!

I can do a bunch of stuff! Things that spring to mind, but that by no means constitute an exhaustive list are:

• Help you make your small biz/personal website easier to use for your customers
• Help you write compelling content for your small biz/personal website
• Help you make your small biz/personal website easier to find
• Hang out with you (I’m really awesome at this)
• Go on a random adventure with you
• Take your photograph
• Help you figure out what you want to do with your life/figure out your priorities
• Help you sort out/organise your stuff

And much much more.

Get in touch with me any time this week with your idea for how I can help – I’d seriously love to hear from you. Yes YOU!

Ways to contact me:

• Comment on this post
• Ask me on Twitter referencing this post
• Ask me on Facebook referencing this post

My tip was:

My one tip would be to demonstrate passion from the get-go about the problem the startup is trying to solve. The most impressive candidates are those that have applied off their own bat, many times without an open position even being advertised, and who make a strong argument for why my company and our problem needs them to come on board. If this is demonstrated up front, and I can see that the candidate understands what we are trying to achieve and is passionate about wanting to help solve that problem, then I’ll always call them in for an interview.

Read the rest of the article to hear some useful tips from other entrepreneurs.

So, in light of all this reading, I thought I’d write about some of my favourite books that I’ve read recently that have helped me on this entrepreneurial journey. Not solely “business’ books, here is a small selection of the books that have helped inspire and nurture my entrepreneurial aspirations and ideas:

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie wrote this seminal book in 1935, and it truly is a testament to the worth of its simple messages that the book is still insanely popular today. The premise of the book is that a few principles can help you to make genuine connections, lead people more effectively and win people over to your way of thinking. You can find a summation of the key principles that Dale espouses at my Words I Really Like tumblr.

This is really recommended reading for every entrepreneur, as it’ll open your eyes to little techniques and habits to get into that will truly revolutionise the interactions that you have with everybody around you, that could lead to great things with potential colleagues, users, investors and even rabid fans.

View the book on Amazon

2. The Art of Looking Sideways, Alan Fletcher

This isn’t actually a book I read on my Kindle – it is a great big book that is highly visual and colourful. It is still a recommended read though. It is a book full of just.. interesting stuff! Amazon says:

“an absolutely extraordinary and inexhaustible “guide to visual awareness”, a virtually indescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life.”

Its got lots of chapters, all arranged around a different topic like ‘Colour’ and “Noise’, and is an explosion of inspirational things that get you thinking, perk your interest, and start getting you to think in different ways.

I’d recommend this to every entrepreneur. It’ll open your eyes and change the way you see the world, it’ll take your imagination on a journey, and really help blossom your creativity.

View the book on Amazon

3. The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker

Everybody should be interested in people. We interact with our fellow people every day, and it makes sense that we should want to know as much as possible about them, and about ourselves. Specifically, entrepreneurs should want to know about people. They should want to know what makes people tick, what drives them to do things, why people want to do one thing but not another. When your life’s work is providing value to particular people, you sure as hell should want to understand the people you are providing value too.

That’s why I have included this rather psychological book on this list, about nature VS nurture, as I believe its invaluable to start thinking about and being interested in the psychology of the people around you and who you are trying to affect.

This book takes a look at trying to understand how we are made up by a mixture of our genes and our environment. Pinker swoops in and cleverly challenges our long-held assumptions that ‘we are just a mix of both nature and nurture’ and makes a brilliant case for the power of human nature in driving human behaviour.

An excellent book delving into and reigniting the nature/nurture debate. A must read for anyone who is interested in people. So, that should be all of you!

View the book on Amazon

4. The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss

This book has been described as the entrepreneur’s bible and I’m sure many of you have read it already. I wanted to include it on the list because I wanted to say that this book isn’t just a book – it is a total revolution and has completely changed my life. And I mean that literally (unlike most of the times I hear that phrase being used). It has literally changed my life.

Having quit my job, started a business, started building up my passive income streams and working smarter rather than more, I am working towards the kind of lifestyle espoused in this book – less hours, more freedom.

And I owe that in part to Tim’s book really reinforcing that feeling that was growing inside of me that there must be more to life than the 9-5 and waiting for holidays, and answering to other people. This book challenges all those traditional assumptions of how jobs are supposed to work, and will open your eyes to a world of possibility.

View the book on Amazon

5. Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman has crafted an absolutely genius book of very short stories, each describing a world that has a different, theoretical realm of time. For example, in one world, time is circular; in another, there is no time, only frozen moments. There are over 30 different worlds.

Like The Art of Looking Sideways, I found this book to be excellent at getting my brain to think of things in different ways, and sparking off a creative process. It is a really thought-provoking read that allows your imagination to run wild and go play. And we really all need that.

View the book on Amazon

What are some of the books that you have read recently that you’d recommend to entrepreneurs? Let me know in the comments!

In it, he sets out some of his top criteria for choosing a great co-founder, and expresses his surprise at how some people seem to choose their co-founders without much thought or effort into probing and questioning about how aligned they are.

Reading through some of Elad’s criteria, I realised just how fortunate I have been. When I was approached by Rob to start Leonis Software, we didn’t really have half of these conversations. We didn’t need to.

Why?

We knew that we were aligned on the big questions already.

Rob and I had not only worked together before, but we had also spent many many hours discussing not only our approaches to business related stuff, like our views on hiring, company culture, processes etc, but also about our lives, our goals, our dreams. We were friends, as well as being past colleagues.

So, when Elad puts down “Have known them for a few years” and “Have worked with them directly” as nice-to-haves in his criteria, I’d say that it was actually down to those two things that really understanding each other’s positions on all his other criteria came about.

Whilst I get that not everybody is lucky enough to work with somebody or have friends that want to co-found a start-up with them, I believe that it is far better to approach finding a co-founder from a “friends/colleagues first” angle than from the other way round.

My point is, is that you can sit down and have a chat with anybody who wants to co-found a startup, and you can go through all sorts of checklists and criteria that check how closely aligned you are on any number of spectrums, and you might even find that you are perfectly aligned. But in these cases, all you are doing is talking to people that you don’t really know about things that you can only really talk about on a superficial, theoretical level. You aren’t really getting to the grit and bones of the thing.

In my experience, there is no substitute for seeing this stuff in practise. Those nice-to-haves that Elad mentioned at the end, they are, in my mind, critical to really understanding all his other criteria, and they are also achievable for anyone, with a little rewording:

• Have known them for a few years

This just means ‘you know them well’. It doesn’t have to take a few years. In my mind, anybody who you are seriously considering founding a startup with needs to be an important part of your life. The kind of person you can’t wait to hang out with, talk to. Being cofounders means spending an insane amount of time with each other, and you need to be able to get along, communicate honestly, make each other laugh, support each other, and know each other’s personalities inside out. So, if you meet somebody who you you think could potentially be a good fit, take the time to get to know them as a friend. This stuff does take time, but can really be helped along by an intensive crash course of friendship. If you are shaking your head thinking “But I don’t have the time/inclination to make this person my new BFF”, then he/she is not the person you are looking for.

• Have worked with them directly

Again, this is not always achievable for everybody if you limit it to “work” work. But thats not to say you can’t work with them on a personal project before jumping into founding a startup. This is a really great idea because it gives you both a chance to experience working with each other in similar roles to what you would be doing, in a zero risk environment. Pick a fun project together and give yourselves a time limit on it. Approach it like this is your startup. Review the outcomes at the end and really retrospect about the good, the bad and the ugly. Many of the typical founder criteria/checklists will be tested in this scenario and will give you a much more true-to-life picture about how you would both handle it together than by just talking over a pint.

So, what I really wanted to say with this post was that I think that Elad got all the right components together but in the wrong order. Elad’s criteria of ability to communicate, alignment on key questions, agreement on roles and skill sets are all questions that will be answered and tested by getting to know each other really well and by working on something together. Without putting these to practice, they are just conversations and just words.

What do you think? Let me know!

Stop. Right. There.

Did you know that actually, there are a series of tiny little steps that are crucial in helping you to achieve your dreams. Thats right, your path to greatness is made up of small, very achievable chunks.

Even better, most of them are common sense! But, as with many nuggets of common sense, most of the time, they get totally overlooked.

So, in this short deck, I will take you through these 9 small steps that will help you achieve your goals!

By the way, I also wrote about this on dreamBIGLY, where you can actually get started making your life list and writing those dreams down! Nifty, eh?

I’d love to hear your feedback on my deck, so shout out in the comments – I’d love to hear from you!

PS. If you liked this post, you might want to check out Question The Rules!

I wrote a blog post for dreamBIGLY about how to create a kickass life list. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Not sure what about what you’d include on your life list? Check out these great life list ideas!

PS. If you liked this post, you might want to check out Question The Rules!

Hold up! That’s NOT a cue to give up and go home. Just cos we can’t think of any better alternatives, does not mean there aren’t any.

The reason we don’t push ourselves any further is, in my opinion, 2 parts fear and a huge dollop of laziness! We stay stuck in our boring lives because we can’t really be bothered to put in the hard work that goes towards fixing it. Also, we’re a huge bunch of scaredy cats. Cos making big life changes is hard, and nerve-wracking, and we as normal human beings tend to shy away from anything that makes us feel uncomfortable.

And I get that. Which is why I am presenting a totally unthreatening, no-commitment, list of 10 questions to ask yourself to get you thinking about your life direction. 

The purpose of these questions is for you to start understanding what you could offer to the world that will get a huge grin on your face and racing to wake up in the morning.

You won’t have a plan to quit your job by the time you’re done, but you’ll be clearer about where your passion lies. Use this knowledge how you wish – to take an online course to further your knowledge, to start a small biz sideline, to give yourself an hour a day to indulge in your passion, whatever. Just be clear about what makes you feel alive.

10 Questions to Jumpstart your Passion

(By the way, this exercise works best if you print this page out, grab a pen and a coffee, and go somewhere quiet to take 30mins to really think about your answers. Write them down so you articulate your thoughts clearly. If you don’t have the time, ask yourself why you don’t want to invest your time in making your life better?)

1. Don’t be shy: What are you ridiculously great at?
2. What were you doing last time you felt really excited, like you had come alive?
3. Who/what inspires you?
4. What do you love to work hard on? Why?
5. What are you doing when you get ‘in the zone’?
6. If money were no object, how would you spend your time?
7. What topic/s get you most passionate? Like, you could talk about it hours?
8. What do you love helping people with?
9. What is it that you can’t wait to get started on?
10. What would you want your Wikipedia entry to say about you in 100 years time?

Go on! Print me! There’s nothing more important that you can do for yourself than making sure you know what makes you want to live with purpose and excitement. Get started making a change right now.

PS. If you liked this post, you might want to check out Question The Rules!

The first lesson is the hardest. Not everyone is ready for what you are doing with your life. There’ll be discouragement, snide remarks, disbelief and unsupportiveness (is that a word?!) Don’t let that stuff distract you. These people, the people who don’t support your dreams and passions, their feelings have nothing to do with you. Their reactions are coming from a place of defensiveness. Because they know they wouldn’t have the courage to do the same thing.

• Cut 90% of what you want to do.

Starting out, we had the biggest dreams ever. We still do. But if we tried to build all of that straight out of the gate, we’d still be building and would not have shipped anything yet. Don’t be scared of releasing stuff before you think its ‘perfect’. Its never gonna be perfect. Get to the bare bones of where the value lies and start with that small seed. All the other stuff, the 90% – that can all wait till you’ve proved that the small seed is worth continuing on with.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Working in a startup is to learn at a ferocious rate. Each day brings a new challenge and something else that you don’t know. You cannot do it alone, and nobody expects you to. Don’t be too proud to admit that you don’t know what something means. Find mentors, find e-books, find resources, find conversation with other smart people. Ask for help – people are surprisingly awesome at being there when you need them.

• Complement and compliment your co-founder

Co-founding? Choose wisely, because you’ll be spending a hell of a lot of time together. You need to be able to work with your co-founder through anything – the easy, fun times and the heart-wrenching shit times. Find somebody that complements your talents and personality – it should feel like you are both bringing valuable skills and points of view to the table, as well as being able to bounce of each other and feed into each other’s good points.  Make sure you can make each other laugh – there’ll be times when you will sorely need it. And finally, compliment your co-founder every single day – constant appreciation and respect will keep your partnership alive through anything.

• Feeling stupid is normal

Not a day goes by where I don’t feel stupid at something. Embrace it. If you don’t feel challenged, you are stuck in your comfort zone, and you’ll never progress further. Lack of challenge is a huge part of why so many people feel stifled and bored at their job. So really, your feelings of stupidity are contributing towards your overall job satisfaction! Go you!

• Uncertainty is your new BFF

This is certainly true of how we roll at our startup – you simply have no idea whats going on most of the time. We don’t have any grand 3 year plans, hell, we don’t even have a 3 month plan. Its what keeps us nimble and free to abandon something at a moment’s notice if we don’t feel like its working. We don’t get too attached to anything. Its just a series of small experiments that we hope will someday lead us to glory (GLORYYYY!). Be prepared to roll with changes.

• Articulate what you want clearly

This is still a tough one for me. I’m used to doing the whole office dance where you have to negotiate 8 people and wait a week to decide anything. You develop coping strategies to make the best of this situation and I have found, for me anyway, that an unfortunate side effect is that I now find it hard to just come out directly with what I want. I get flustered when my co-founder asks me to state directly what I want, being used to having to couch things in much more subtle ways. But when its just the two of you, or a small team of you, there’s no need for any of the bullshit. You decide stuff and then you do it. You may find yourself asking for something in kind of an indirect way and being utterly shocked when it has been done 30 minutes later. Its awesome! But don’t hold your mouth wide open for too long.

• Have FUN!

You can get so swept up with the craploads of work that you are doing, and stressing over activation rates, and wondering where your next meal is coming from, to actually stop and realise that you are having a freaking awesome time! I’m absolutely living my dream right now – I’m working on products that honest to god feel like my children, I get to work my own hours (night-owl shout out!), I make decisions without 10 other people weighing in, and I can work from anywhere in the world. This is my dream, and you’ll be living yours too – so don’t forget to smile!

• Get a Master’s degree
• Get my first tattoo
• Buy a DSLR
• Visit Bruges
• Drive Across Europe
• Visit all 50 States: New Jersey
• Visit the Vatican
• Go camping
• Sell stuff at a car boot sale
• Send a handwritten letter to a friend
• Digitise my quotation collection

In 2011:

• Find out about my genetic history
• Visit the Grand Canyon
• Photograph the Eiffel Tower
• Chill out in Amsterdam
• Visit all 50 States: Arizona
• Visit all 50 States: California
• Visit all 50 States: Nevada
• Win/Lose money in Vegas
• Own less than 250 things
• Own less than 150 things
• Fly in a helicopter
• Be my own boss
• Give a public presentation
• Go to see Take That

Are you looking to make a life list? Or, looking for some great life list ideas? I got you covered!

No one is coming to your rescue, and nothing will change until you do.

–Dave Navarro (rockyourday.com)