THE STARTUP CHAT

Hiten Shah:

Great.

Steli Efti:

Awesome. Hey, this is Steli Efti.

Hiten Shah:

And this is Hiten Shah. On today’s episode of The Startup Chat, we’re going to  talk about how to cultivate a bias towards action. As many of you probably already  know if you’ve listened to more than just this episode of The Startup Chat, many  of you listen to many from what we hear, from the feedback we get, Steli  and I have an almost automatic bias towards action. We wanted to talk about this  because we feel like we haven’t really doubled down on it and kind of talked  about it. We’ve talked about a lot of things like how we started the podcast, and I’ve even mentioned how I think Steli definitely inspired us to start this podcast.  We did it literally right away, within the same coffee meeting, we walked over to  his place and did it. And this is really the start of how even this  podcast started, so I think this is a great topic to talk about. I know,  Steli, you kind of came up with it, so I’d love to hear if anything  inspired you because we like getting inspired by things, so I’m assuming something did. So  bring it.

Steli Efti:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you’re absolutely right. You know, what it was, I traveled a little  bit around the world in the last two weeks. I was in Belgrade in Serbia,  I was in Berlin in Germany, and I was in Mexico city just before coming back home. One theme that developed itself was that a lot of the startups I  was meeting, a lot of the advice that I gave at the end boiled down  towards you guys need to take more action, move faster, be more ruthless about the  way you … A lot of these startups, they were describing to me their plans  and the ideas they had and the things they’re trying to test and the things  they’re trying to figure out, and the common theme was that I almost every time  I felt like why is this plan lacking … Their thinking was lacking a stronger  bias towards action. It seemed to me too slow, it seemed to me too much  in the theory. I was like, “Why can’t we just get something done right now?  Let’s go out, let’s talk to five users. Why do you have to build this  whole feature? How can we just create a pop over and see how many people  would click this thing and get some data before we make any decisions?” I came  back to this theme, so I thought no better person to talk about this than  you. I felt like this is just something that the more people cultivate a bias  towards action, especially as entrepreneurs in the startup world, a lot of times the better  entrepreneurs and the better the results they’re going to be able to generate. So I wanted to talk to you about this. How did you got to where you are?  How can we help other people cultivate that bias towards action? Take more action, take  better action, take faster action, that’s what inspired the topic for today’s podcast.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, I mean there’s a massive brand out there that was created on this concept  of a bias towards action. I’m going to call out Nike, “just do it”. Just  do it. The folks I think in Boston have this thing called JFDI, just fucking do it.

Steli Efti:

Just fucking do it. Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

There’s GTD, get things done, which actually gives you a process, which I don’t think  is the same as a bias towards action, but it’s super interesting that there’s these  things out there that should inspire you to just get it done. I think defining  a bias towards action is literally like, instead of ruminating on things and getting either emotional or debating too much, the way you make progress in life is actually just  doing more things and taking action on these things. One of the things I’ve learned  that really helped me is that I think people are actually quite different. There’s a  number of personality types, and I know both you and I have studied things like  this, whether it’s hypnosis or the geekiness I have around personality tests and understanding humans  and things like that, it really starts with understanding what gets you to take action.  In my case, the thing that gets me to take action, which I’m pretty sure  is different than you, is when I have some inspiration that motivates me. I would  have said it differently maybe a couple years ago. Right now I would say I  just need some spark, and it’s usually not my own spark. It’s usually me reading  something or talking to someone or wanting to do something with somebody. That goes back  to how we started this podcast. I wouldn’t have done this alone, and the reason  is I had no inspiration, I had no reason. In a way, we have a  really weird podcast where we don’t bring on guests, and we just talk to each  other. I think without you specifically, and your motivation to do it, I would not  have been as motivated. For me, that’s my pattern. For example, a lot of the  businesses I’ve started in the past, and even currently, I want to do with somebody  else, and somebody who’s an equal partner. If it’s not like that, I’m less motivated  to do it. I don’t know … I’m sure I could change that about myself,  but it’s something I like about myself, and it makes things easier for me. When  it comes to a bias for action, to me it has a lot to do  with you yourself understanding what causes you to take action. I’m damn sure that you’re  different than me, so I’d love to hear your side of that.

Steli Efti:

Yeah, I love that. And you know what? That actually makes me think that we  should talk about this because I’m not that different in that regard, but it just  feels like I do this in different ways. I’ve noticed this pattern in myself as well where there’s certain areas in my life that I know that I’m not going  to be the driving factor, I’m not going to be the person that’s initiating a  lot of action or a lot of things in a specific type of field, but  because of that I’ve picked friends and people in my life that make that happen  where I’m a happy Robin to them being Batman or something. There’s a lot of  things, travel, for instance. When it comes to traveling to new places, there’s just a few friends that I’ll try to make sure they’re in the city or in this  place when I’m there because I don’t like to research the city and go to  all the places and find the coolest restaurants and meet new … Like I don’t  like to organize all of this, but I always find somebody close to me, a  friend or somebody, that’s really great at that, and then I just benefit from it.  I’m a very willing participant and cheerleader to that person organizing whatever, a sailing trip  or something crazy like that. There’s different people in my life that have tendencies that  I appreciate, but I don’t have, so I keep them close because they create certain  adventures, or they create certain things in my life, that I would not do myself,  but I want to experience. Slightly different from what you said, but this is something  I’ve noticed in myself. More in my personal life funny enough than in my business  ventures, but it makes a ton of sense. I’ve noticed this in you, you’re really  good at collecting humans that inspire you to participate and start businesses and do certain  things.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, we’re actually very similar, but I think with a different framework, right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems so.

Hiten Shah:

So that’s pretty fascinating. Like you almost bring these people around you, and then you’re  happy to push things along. In my case, I won’t even necessarily consciously bring these  people around me, but when I see an opportunity, I’m definitely happy to dig into  it and feel it out. I think another thing I wanted to say about this  is not everyone is like you or I. Even us, we have slightly different takes  with probably one framework still, which is the other person is what’s really helpful in  getting us to do something.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

And taking actions. For me, I’ve construed that to be like if I get an  email, it’s about somebody else, and I just want to help them, so I’ll respond  to it as fast as I can. These days my email definitely backlogs more because I’ve got other things that I’m doing as well, and then a bunch of them,  but then that’s my bias. Even today, there’s a priority list I have in my  head, and if those set of folks or categories of folks email me, I’m responding  right away to them. That goes back to they sent me an email, I need  to respond to them and get them moving, and that’s my bias for action, which  is how can I help that other person, at least in the small things like  when it comes to email. Because I get a lot of questions about why are  you so fast at email, and why do you have such an inbox-zero attitude about  it versus letting a thousand emails in there and then claiming bankruptcy. Because for me,  claiming bankruptcy would be like I failed everybody, and that sucks. But, again, people aren’t  like that. Like I know a few folks who are very successful that I can  literally count the days ’til when they’re going to respond to an email I sent  them, regardless of what the importance of the email is. For example, I’ve had one  person, super successful founder for many people because his company makes a ton of money  and it’s big, but I can tell you, every time I’ve emailed him, and I  don’t email him often, but 30 days. Exactly on the 30 day mark somehow, he emails me back.

Steli Efti:

Wow, interesting.

Hiten Shah:

I’m like what the fuck? That’s just on mark. Again, I think he has a  bias for action, but in email it’s definitely a delayed one, but it’s very on  the mark. I don’t know how he does it or what the mark it, but  every time. I’ve emailed him half a dozen times, and every time it’s literally 30  days. He’s probably got some system going on. I have no clue. And I don’t  think he read my email ’til the 30 days later, which is fascinating too. That’s  my theory. So, yeah, I think the bias for action’s such a big deal, but  it really starts with what are things that get you to take action and really  thinking through that in your life. I’ve rarely seen people do that.

Steli Efti:

That’s so interesting. If you think of the very fundamental levers that motivate any type  of action, and you can make this a lot more granular, but on a very  high level, it’s either moving away from pain or moving towards pleasure. Behind almost every  action, there’s something that we try to either avoid or something we’re trying to get.  Unfortunately, I think, or biologically, the stronger motivator’s always been the moving away from things  that we want to avoid. So pain is a much stronger motivator than pleasure. And  I tell people, if I told anybody here I’m going to give you a million  dollars if you run 200 kilometers right now, almost nobody would start running, but if  I put a gun to the head of somebody you love and I say, “You  run 200 kilometers or I shoot,” nobody’s going to go through the, “Is this really  realistic? Is this going to happen or not?” You’re just going to start running. If  the pain is strong enough, if you’re afraid enough, you’re going to take pretty massive  action. Hence why I think a lot of people, the reason why they don’t take  as much action, is because the bigger motivator in their life is probably trying to  avoid rejection, failure, emotional or physical pain. If fear is kind of the main thing  that drives your decisions and drives as main motivator for what you do and what  you don’t, you will, more likely than not, take less action I think. When I  look at people … I mean some people stress themselves out and take a lot  of action, or have this fear of missing out, or this panic that they’re not  going to get rich or they’re not going to get famous or they’re not going  to get … That can be a big motivator for people to take a lot  of action. But I don’t know I feel like for me that was probably part  of it growing up, was more of like a chip on the shoulder, having gone  through a lot of adversity and then trying to prove myself, and coming from that  kind of an angle, but as I’ve matured and as I’ve experienced more and more  things in life, today I find that almost the only way for me to take  any kind of action is out of inspiration, which you call the spark, something that  inspires me, something that motivates me. But also, and I want to talk about that  for a second, a lot of times … There’s a Stephen King quote that says, “Most of the people sit around waiting to be inspired before they start writing, and  us pros, we just write independent from,” I’m butchering this quote, “But independent from if  we’re inspired or not, we just start fucking writing every day.” That’s another thing, to  me, in my past, we’ve talked about consistency I think, I only took action when  I was really inspired to, and when I was really feeling like it. And then  I had times when I didn’t feel like doing something, I felt depressed or I  felt tired or something like that, and I would just not do it. Today I’ve just learned to take action, especially take action when I don’t feel like it because  that usually creates a much bigger spark, and that makes me take more, more, more  action. I’ve talked about this internal mantra of saying, “Om, fuck it, do it anyways,”  even if you don’t feel like it. Funny enough that you mention Nike, earlier in  the episode, I had a guy that actually did the Nike logo, and instead of  saying Nike it says “Steli” and then below “Fuck it, just do it”.

Hiten Shah:

That’s awesome.

Steli Efti:

I think he put it as a poster in his office and I told him  to send it to me.

Hiten Shah:

Even more awesome.

Steli Efti:

I don’t know why this has helped me so much, but this has helped me  so incredibly much because ten years ago, Hiten, I was oftentimes a victim of my  own emotions. If I felt fearful or if I had doubt or if I felt  depressed or if I felt whatever, tired, I would just not take action out of  those bad emotional states. Today I’ve learned to take action despite these feelings, and it’s  just allowed me to accomplish a lot more and be a lot more consistent, just by learning to say that, “I can do this although I really don’t feel like  it. It doesn’t matter.” And if I do it poorly or if I do it  depressed or if I do it fearfully, it doesn’t matter, just do it. Do it  while feeling shitty versus waiting for you to feel amazing or perfect or ready before  you take action. That has made a huge difference for me.

Hiten Shah:

I really like that. I think it’s easy to get stuck in paralysis, and that’s  another … That’s not even another, that’s like a big part of why people don’t  take action. They get paralyzed and don’t realize that they’re paralyzed. What I would say  is in any moment, you can probably easily assess the things that you’re having friction  or having anxiety over doing, and really feel into that and figure out why does  that exist, and is it something you should keep resisting or is it something that  you actually should take some action on. For myself, on a daily basis I can come up with things that I’m resisting. All of us can.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

And the whole trick is, and I love your framework around it, the whole trick  is to basically make sure that the important things that you’re resisting you actually address,  otherwise they turn into much more important things or bigger problems if you want to  take that approach.

Steli Efti:

One thing that I’ve been thinking about since I’ve talked to so many startups in  the last few days was that I ask myself, was I always like this? And  the truth is I wasn’t. I can remember back 10 years ago, 10, 15 years  ago, 15 years ago when I started my first businesses, I was not as action-oriented  as I am today. I do think that it’s part of my personality, but I  do think that I cultivated that part. I was not always like this. And when  I thought of, when I asked myself, what happened in the last like 10 years  to make me a lot quicker on the trigger of taking action, I think that  a big part of this was realizing that the only truth is, the only way  to know what works and what doesn’t, is to generate results and to expose your  ideas and your thoughts to truth and to reality, which can never be in your  office or in your home or in the brainstorming discussion. I’ve learned over time that  the longer … I’ve learned not to say this is a good idea or bad  idea and just to say, “This is an interesting idea, or an idea we should  test, and how can we test this really quickly?” Versus 10 years ago you told  me something, I would’ve said, “Oh my God, this is an amazing idea. This idea’s  going to be huge, this is going to make such a big difference.” You’ll never  hear me say these words, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t either because I don’t  fucking know. I know I need to test it and get results before I know  if this is good or not, if this works or not. So I’ve just I think, through a lot of exposure, a lot of failures, I’ve learned that I need  to create results as quickly as possible, and let the results or the data dictate  if something works or not, and not my opinions, biases or thoughts on something. I  think that that has helped a lot. The other thing is, I was telling this  the other day, that I have this framework of the power of “right the fuck  now”, which is like how many things, like how many meetings, how many calls, how  many interactions do you have a day where nothing is decided and nothing is getting  done, where you just talk about what should be decided and what should get done.  I was doing these types of meetings for many years until I realized that any  meeting I have where at the end we have even more decisions we haven’t made  or have even a longer to-do list than at the beginning of the meeting, is  just a horrible waste of energy and time. Learning to slow things down in a  meeting and go, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let’s not decided this later, why are we  not deciding this right now?” “Well, we need more data.” “Well, last week we said  we need more data, what has changed? Can we make a decision right now, can  we get this off the table?” Or if I talk to somebody and they say,  “We should email such and such,” I go, “Can we email them right now?” Let’s  just get it done. Let’s make sure that at the end of this meeting we  took off some work from everybody’s plate instead of just keep adding more and more  things and wasting time just debating and discussing things. And I know that you have  that sensitivity as well of like, we talk, how can we convert that conversation into  action and results and real data versus just opinions and thoughts and more stuff to  pile on to some kind of a bucket that hopefully eventually will force you to  take action.

Hiten Shah:

Actually, I definitely do. I hate wasting time. I’m very impatient. I used to just  frustrate myself with the impatience, but these days I just apply it to these things  and I get happier. Oftentimes, you’re right, there’s a lot of debates about what to  do, looking for more data, when there’s probably a really simple step you can take.  I would say it’s one of the most difficult things to cultivate. For me it  just started with just being perpetually impatient and/or bored. Depending on which of those moods  I’m in, I might use a different approach to taking action. Like if I’m bored  it’s just like, okay … Growing up my dad would be like, “If you’re bored,  like what are you doing? That’s your problem. Just solve it.” I was an only  child and so I used to say that to him quite a bit, and he  would just get pissed off. He never got pissed off actually, but I would feel  like he was pissed at me and then I would go do something about it.  I do the same with my kids. Like, “Oh, you’re bored? I mean the world’s  your oyster, figure it out. That’s the perpetual state.” If I’m bored, it’s more about  causing trouble I call it, so then I’ll cause trouble, but that’s a different story.  That’s usually taking action or making someone else take action. And then the impatience is  really where I get it from for myself, which is I’m very impatient. I used  to just feel like nothing would move fast enough, and I didn’t know what to  do about it. Usually for me it’s like … It’s usually in business and it’s  usually the teams because in my personal life I’m actually super patient, just because I  just go with the flow, but in business I’m definitely hyper-impatient. What I’ve done now  is take that impatience and say, okay, I’m being impatient about this, is there anything  I can do? Should I direct my attention towards this problem or not, or whatever  I’m being impatient about, or am I just impatient in general? What can I go  impact? I think for me action is really about impact, and impact is really like  what can I go impact right now with the smallest baby step? I’m in meetings  a lot, in my companies and others, and one of the biggest things that I  learned is that people are not very impatient. People are happy to defer a decision  or defer an action for later, and that is actually why I get impatient. Even  my way to manage engineering, because if you’re running a company, whether you like it  or not, you’re also managing engineering, if you’re a founder, CEO, even if you’re not,  meaning even if someone else is taking care of it. That’s at least how it  is in all … Basically I have three endeavors I call them, and they all  have one engineering manager who’s the head of engineering, but I’m managing that person as  well as sometimes people that work with him or her. What ends up happening is  that they always give me estimates that I hate because I’m impatient. What I learned  about myself is how do I get them to learn that they can take an  action without having all the data? They can go do something without worrying about the  full answer if that thing is such a bite-sized chunk. So if someone tells me  it’s going to take a day, I tell them, “How can we do something in  an hour that gets us closer to the goal, or closer to it being done,  or closer to the customer?” You have to have some end goal in mind and  some way to kick people out of this inaction is at least what I’ve learned.  Maybe that’s my tip is you can’t take action, you can’t have a bias for  action, unless you know what the actual goal is in what you’re trying to do.

Steli Efti:

Yeah. I love it. All right. So I think piling on to that, you need  to know where you need to go.

Hiten Shah:

Ooh. You need to know where you need to go.

Steli Efti:

Where you need to go.

Hiten Shah:

Done, dude. That rhymes too. Good one.

Steli Efti:

It rhymes. I didn’t even know as I was saying it. I love that. I  think that to me it comes down to, I’m a big quote guy, and it  comes down to this quote from Albert Einstein, it’s one of my favorites, which is,  “Nothing in the universe happens until something moves.” I kind of feel like being alive,  part of my responsibility is to make something move forward. To make a difference in  the universe means to move things forward, and to move things forward, the only way  to really, truly to do that, is to take some kind of an action, to  make decisions, to help things get accomplished, get done. So every day I just feel  this responsibility, how can … Once you know where things need to go, where you  want to go, is taking the responsibility to get there, and get them there, and help other peoples get there. The way to do that is just to take more  action faster, sooner, more decisively, not be afraid of any mistakes along the way, not  be afraid of any negative results or feedback because that’s going to … That should  speed you up even more because it means learning and the ability to adjust, versus  slowing you down. If you take on that responsibility, I feel like you’ll, in every  meeting in every conversation, every single day, you’ll try to ask yourself, how can I  help move the universe forward, and doing so by taking action. I think that’s it from us for this episode.

Hiten Shah:

Yup. Later. Take some action.

Steli Efti:

Take action right now. All right, bye bye.