21 Comments

Love the analogy of the game to your business approach Jonathan. The way you run an experiment to dip your toes into new opportunities before spending X months/years planning them out is refreshing. This gets you to action faster to help validate or possibly in-validate your hunch.

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Ready - Fire - Aim & repeat

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hahaha yeah

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Serendipity at its finest! Another coach told me he’s using this book to do 2023 planning. Looks like I better get it 🤓

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Oh i didnt know it was a book

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You're making it seems easier than it is. haha

I've been following you for a while now. I listened to your old podcast, participated on the Design Sprint Course, the mentorship group, Level-up, so on. You studied a lot and built something really great there. Congratulations to you and your team!

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I love it! Playing the right video or board game can be excellent training before the real-world scenarios e.g. your example with Elder Ring or Rat Race (a board game that trains people on building a good mindset and habits for finances).

You just inspired me for another product that I could build :D

Thanks Jonathan!

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Very good article, thanks for sharing

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Thank you for reading!

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I’m a big fan of following the heat, but I also know that a car company (or the road built for it) require a less organic approach. I agree most people could do a lot more ready, fire, aim (even at stages during the build out of cars and roads).

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Makes sense, this blog is specifically focussed on small businesses though so not sure if I can comment on something like a car biz

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Fair.

Although you have a unique vantage point from the sprints you do with big corporations and that they need your help validates their structures aren’t typically designed to pivot.

I’m merely suggesting not to swing the pendulum too far and allow for more space when the situation might benefit from a different approach.

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I love this organic approach. But there's a condition to be able to do that. The thing is, in my opinion, you do things strategically right even if you don't have the strategy laid out precisely. And you're able to follow good opportunities organically because in the years of building the businesses you accumulated so much insight and knowledge of the industry that you somehow do the right decisions - almost subconsciously. The strategy isn't on a piece of paper, for you it's a feeling, like a strategic muscle you built over the years.

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Yeah I’d agree with that

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A worthwhile 8 min podcast about this topic: https://caffeineforthesoul.libsyn.com/ready-fire-aim

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I’ll listen

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Let me know your thoughts 💭 after that

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I like how you left out the amount of times you have to die an excruciating death to succeed in Elden Ring 😭 jk - great read! Doing and exploring isn't talked so much about as a pure means of running a business - which is a shame. I think it's probably an archetypal approach which suits a lot of people - but isn't leaned into because the leading narrative is to have a planned approach.

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I’ve died so many goddamn times

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Very interesting indeed. I am 100% pro planning so reading that someone is running a business (of any size) with no plan gives me goosebumps.

Are all parts of your business really so volatile that everything changes all the time?

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Things change pretty fast!

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