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You’re back in the Slipstream. Your weekly exploration into the way of entrepreneurship, self-improvement and lifelong learning.

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Today’s issue is here to help.

LIFE/ PRODUCTIVITY/ WEALTH/ ENTREPRENEURSHIP

🤫The Secret of the greatest tribes, teams and squads - Constant Improvement

The modern world, just like the primitive and natural world, progresses through competition. Contrary what others might say, we live on a plant with finite resources. Energy production, raw materials, capital and manpower are all being competed for in the marketplace.

As a company, team, family, squad or tribe, you are part of an organization that’s banded together for a common purpose. To achieve certain goals and outcomes together. Likewise there are other organizations in this sea as well, also seeking to do what you do to gain benefits for themselves.

This is where the key concepts of community/ team/ squad building come into play. The main one being “The ability to learn”.

The team’s ability to learn is a core skill that leads it to become successful.

We all enter the world with imperfect information. As we learn more, we gain a better understanding of how the world works and how to operate within it more efficiently.

That is, we get more out for the same amount of effort, thus making our lives better.

We learn individually and we learn collectively. The knowledge of the team is instantiated through it’s culture, how it does things, and more tangible things like policies and wikis.

While it can be easy to learn individually, an organization needs to have some explicit rules to allow it to become a learning organization.

Steps to build a tribe of learning

Strep 1 : A learning culture is built upon a series of company-wide rituals and rules.

The main ritual is the debrief. One should do it as often as possible. Always look and think how could you make things better after an event, sprint or project.

True learning requires consistency. A ritual or habit of feedback allows for continuous learning to take place.

There are no perfect performances. Everyone must learn to say “These were my mistakes and this is how I am going to improve them.”

Every debrief/feedback informs the next iteration.

Step 2: Transparency must be seen as an organizational imperative.

Transparency is key to keep the entire organisation moving at top speed.

If you’ve made a mistake, the worst thing for your team is to not share it openly. Not only is it bad for the team, but you’re blocking your own learning. If you’re in denial about what went wrong or aware of what went wrong but don’t share it, you’re blocking the opportunity to improve, for yourself and the team.

Without it, no one can learn and improve, in a tribe nor in business.

Share the reality. Be objective and factual about it. There is simply the situation.

Embed it in your culture. Be proud and reward transparency. Make it seen. Be proactive about being transparent.

Non-learners not welcome. A person who is not sharing is slowing the company down and the effect of multiple people like this is compounding. On the other hand, those who share their mistakes and learnings openly are force multipliers beyond their actual job skills. These are the people you want on your team.

Step 3: Scrutinize your wins as much as your losses.

You should be able to learn from your wins as well as your losses. Winning and learning is the ultimate spot to be in, but failing and learning comes in second. The worst position is to fail and not learn, whereas winning and not learning is good, but is a wasted opportunity if you don’t evaluate how you could have been better. There’s always a way to have done things better. Learn as you win.

Learning is a superpower

Learning is really one of our defining characteristics (as human beings). Leveraging this ability both individually and as an organization is absolutely essential to surviving and thriving in this fast-paced world.

This is the time to position yourself to be a constant learner and to join organizations that can improve your learning and ability to navigate the changing world.

Ask yourself:

• How can you make sure your team is a learning one?

• How can your next iteration be better than the previous one?

• How are you learning?

• How can you improve your rate of learning?

The individuals and organizations that remain humble and transparent will not shy away from the hard conversations and being critical of themselves. As such, they are the first to find fault with themselves, and to correct it before the market even realizes.

Through this discipline and attitude, individuals and companies can leave their competition in the dust.

P.S. You might have seen that I am putting together a community to weather this worldwide storm, share learnings and collaborate towards financial freedom. It’s built around learning, critical thinking and developing a shared knowledge base. We’ll be focused on Digital Entrepreneurship (to gain wealth), Crypto (to multiply wealth) and Conspiracies (to protect wealth). Reply to this email with a “Yes” if you’d like to be added to the waiting list.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT, LIFE

How to reinvent your life in 4 months

The end of the year brings with it an air of change. A glimmer of hope for a new beginning. A new chapter, a better you.

Some of you are probably planning to make some changes.

Yet we all know how quickly the standard new years resolutions fade from memory once, without a plan, we inevitably fall back on our usual routine.

How can we fix it? How can we ensure lasting change this time?

Well,this time we got help from productivity expert Cal Newport, author of Deep Work - one of my favourite productivity concepts.

“Deep Work” is meaningful, slow, complex work that takes time to ramp into. It requires full focus and attention, and cannot be completed in a 5-min break. It’s hours long work. Deep Work is what moves the needle forward in your life. Writing is deep work.

By contrast, Shallow Work is what fills in the gaps, mostly because it is easier and can be done in smaller chunks. This can be administrative work, checking emails, watching vids or doing online research. It’s easy to fall in the trap of Shallow Work and think that we’re being productive.

As Seneca famously remarked “Love of bustle is not industry”

But back to reinventing your life. How do we do it?

Cal provides a 4 step process, which is relatively simple. However, that don’t mean it’s easy.

It will involve you sitting down and doing some Deep Work. Block out 2 hours to do thinking, planning and writing about yourself, your life and your goals. As the video breaks down, we look at your life through 4 levers or levels. Cal calls this the “Deep Life Stack”

At the base level, is Discipline. You need to be able to set a schedule for yourself and then stick to it. You need to be able to do things even when you don’t feel like. It’s the difference between something being a passion/hobby and a craft/ job. It’s the difference between being an amateur and a professional. It’s the difference between winning and losing.

Once you have basic Discipline in place (such as moving your body for 20 mins everyday), it’s time to add your Values to the stack. It’s now time to think deeply about what you care about and line that up with your daily and weekly habits. For example, if Health is your highest value and you only train 2 times at the gym you will need to correct that.

The third level is introducing external Control mechanisms. This is about curating your environment more carefully so as to make the positive habits and routines more natural and likely. Clearing out junk, putting your phone on silent and having a a habit journal can help here. Have elements that remind you of your goals and vision to make doing the habits relating to them easier.

The Last level is your Vision. This is where it is all leading up to. Thinking of the end is the most important step, and one that most people often get wrong. They focus on doing what they can in the short-term, with the hope that they will end up in a better place in the future. The proper way to do it is imagine the ideal future you aspire to. Once that is clear in your mind, you can break it down to the Values, the Controls and the daily Habits you will need to do in order to get you there.

This is known as Lifestyle-centric career planning, also known as Lifestyle Design in Tim Ferriss’ book “The 4-Hour Workweek” - One of the first inspirations on my path to entrepreneurship.

Life is constant reinvention

As the months are heating up here in South Africa, I think its a good time to use that extra boost of energy and time away from work to direct inwards to your own life and really think about the path that you are on.

As I heard in recent video, “It’s better to work inefficiently on the right things, than to work efficiently on the wrong things”.

But, only you can decide what is truly right and wrong for yourself.

Watch: How To Reinvent Your Life In 4 Months (My Full Step-By-Step Process) | Cal Newport - YouTube

1. Your Writing Can Go Viral Regularly with Only 200 Words | by Tim Denning

   • Insightful piece on how short-form content (~200 words) is now sufficient to gain followers and become viral

2. Robin Sharma on Impact Theory

   • Learn from the author of 5am club about how to take care of the four empires - mindset, heartset, healthset, soulset

3. How To Reinvent Your Life In 4 Months (My Full Step-By-Step Process) | Cal Newport - YouTube

   • Clear guide on the Deep Life Stack and the 4 steps to reinventing yourself

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Till the next time,

- Karmsheel