Dominating 2024
Note 028: A_TE: your master key
A_TE … ?
Yum, yum!
That sounds silly….
Sure does!
… But now you won’t forget it when you need it :)
Now here’s the great news. A_TE is my personal key for how you are going to actually achieve your 2024 plan, where 2023 may have fallen short…
New Year New You!
I’ll get straight to the point.
You don’t need these Notes to succeed.
You know what to do!
The missing piece is not your knowledge…
This is in stark opposition to when I was calling on my network to help me understand the business valuation underlying my partnership offer in my previous life, or calling on trusted, experienced mentors then meeting in person for that 1st step, next step, to starting ADAD over a decade ago.
You, by contrast, have an abundance of information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for free, in the palm of your hand
There are only a handful of meta skills you need to make exponential use of this infinite, free, creative business and entrepreneurship knowledge out there…
1. Curation
2. Validation
3. Comprehension
4. Application
Now, your beautiful, synthesising, creative, optimistic architectural brain works for you, and against you here.
Let’s briefly be grateful for the former – and tuck right into rewiring the latter so you can dominate 2024.
1. Curation
Head start!
The basis of all design thinking, sorting, judging, synthesising, testing, serves you just as well in the business of creativity, projecting what you need to know before you know it, and quickly separating the wheat from the chaff.
You have your go to sources of information in business books, online, in person, or otherwise, and our beautiful design-thinking clever-as architecture brains serve us well here, opposed to many other skilled employees that decide to turn their skill into a business in other sectors of business.
No problem sourcing and curating the likely best information.
Go you!
Archi-Brain benefit score – 9/10
2. Validation
Now you’re really tearing away!
This is of course easy-as for you to deploy your critical thinking apparatus honed through architecture school and creative employment prior to studio launch, you are very equipped review books and articles with your literature review skills from university, but:
Be warned, this can get murky in the 2024 online world…
You need to validate the fire-hose of online ‘information’.
As you focus more and more attention on your business, and less and less attention on all the awesome renders and projects out there, (which is a good thing - you are serious about this!) your social media algorithms are likely forcing a whole lot of ad-driven ‘coaches’ to your feeds and inboxes.
Stay Vigilant!
This is very important, as taking bad advice through the expensive and painful process of business application hangs around after the action.
This is a huge part of why I write these Notes – as hopefully 1 of your trusted sources… even if infrequent!
Rule of thumb:
Check your potential source of potential information’s actual business or studio for validation
Have they actually done what they teach?
(n.b. - this is very different to those of you launching younger studios and documenting your process online as you go – this is a great idea and inspirational to others on the journey with you – keep it up!)
For the perceptive amongst you, this is why I only ever write a note on what I have actually done in my studio, actually am doing in my studio, or a hard earned lesson actually endured and learnt from.
Go you!
Archi-Brain benefit score – 8/10
3. Comprehension
This is where it gets counter-intuitive.
This is the first half of where my A_TE tool needs to be deployed!
There is no question your beautiful Archi-brain puts you squarely in the ‘clever’ camp.
Unlike university, and unlike even your previous pre-studio employed life, your predilection for:
near-perfect comprehension (expertise mindset)
insistence on wheel-reinvention (creative process)
coupled with delayed action (procrastination)
While rewarded in your Design Process, Is severely punished in your design business - you must train yourself to avoid it.
As someone who lives, breathes and loves design thinking it certainly is my Achilles Heel.
You need to replace that design thinking with business thinking when working on your business, key difference is:
Partial but focused comprehension - enough to get going (diagrammatic mindset)
minimal tweaking to kind-of-suit your situation (iterative process)
then immediate action (the power of now)
Reality check:
Archi-Brain disadvantage score – 2/10
4. Application
This is the difficult part. Fear and procrastination must be conquered.
Like yourself, I find that design inspiration, new ideas and latest inspiration instantly, effortlessly and subconsciously make their way into all my current creative works.
Because is all ‘you’, and a pleasurable extension of ‘you’. The magic of our profession!
Business knowledge, inspiration and its application to your business is much more difficult. It can be very uncomfortable as in complete opposition to natures wonders effortlessly making their way into our design creations.
In business I found myself incorrectly guessing at almost all business related components, dragging them kicking and screaming into my business, then often, discovering:
Ah. That, was wrong.
Add to the mix that we are often our own harshest critic of all, as it is just you-v-you, staring the Bank Account / Fee Proposal unaccepted / unpaid invoiced / shortlisted awards entry…
You tend to let yourself off.
It was a 1-off.
It was the client’s fault.
The Market.
Council.
Interest Rates.
You give yourself a break, and put off permanently fixing a real problem.
Reality check:
Archi-Brain disadvantage score – 5/10
The Permanent Solution
The answer is to give yourself a break, but a different kind of break.
In fact, decide now to permanently give yourself breaks into the future, through your new, essential method of action, peace of mind, and self-generated momentum.
When I say give yourself a break, this is no head in the sand business.
Brutal reality is the essential 1st step, because everything is literally riding on this – your livelihood, and by extension, family, well-being, and future.
What I am about to describe in the next sentence, is your new, (business related – don’t funk your design process) method of applied reflection in action which is the How to all of the Whats.
Forget Perfection.
Forget total understanding before going.
I have distilled it iteration after iteration, for myself, over the years and have it down to a handy acronym – a tool.
A_TE
A_TE … ?
Yum, yum!
That sounds silly….
Sure does!
… But now you won’t forget it when you need it :)
To summarise this new year’s rant that was going to be a straightforward ‘Planning out your 2024 to dominate’ (which is important! Essential! I’m doing mine now!) – but I respect you all too much for that.
There are many methods to planning your year, ( I will put mine as a postscript), but it really got me meditating on the deeper challenge which is the huge separator:
We all know what to do.
We all more or less know how to do it.
The challenge is parking fear and committing.
So yes there is infinite, free, unbelievable wisdom out there – for free - in the palm of your hand. Your beautiful archi-brain makes curating, then validating the best possible method for what you are looking to improve in your business a cinch!
Steps 1 and 2 are easy and natural. 3 and 4 are counter intuitive and humbling. A_TE is your Swiss-army-knife to complete 1-4 continuously and permanently.
A = Active
_ = (fill in the activity, most commonly: Listening, Reading, Watching)
T – Then immediate
E – Execution
It looks simple - but this is in complete contrast to paralysis by analysis, complete contrast to any form of procrastination, and it is hard at 1st. Keep with it, daily. It is a skill, a discipline that will only be formed by force and repetition in the beginning, and will perish again without repetition.
For example:
Active Reading, then Execution.
Active Listening, then Execution.
Active Observation, then Execution.
Active means you are alert and subconsciously scanning what you are reading / listening to… I’ll use the example here of reading.
Say, cash is too low.
And subconsciously you are aware that there are OK fees in the mix, and it is partially to do with very delayed deadlines on your part, but you are not ready to consciously examine that just now.
Active reading might mean you are reading something completely unrelated but them something lights up - a small “hmmm that’s kind of like…“ - a small something internal.
It could be an example of XYZ company who talks of essential Monday morning meetings with 2 week sprints to chunk up that big work.
Active reading is not thoroughly literature reviewing everything related to cash flow. It is not quantitively comparing every meeting schedule to ascertain optimum efficiency.
The ah-ha! may bear no relation (seemingly) to your subconscious challenge (of which you will have many!), but something lights up, in this instance:
“… hmm… maybe a more regular check-in and shorter chunks of self imposed deadlines could assist with the cash balance over time…”
It is simply, like a design brief, in the back of your mind, and when something sort-of-analogous lights you up. You Take note. Actively received (Read, Observed).
Now for the Golden Key > Then Immediate Execution.
It is essential to Execute your actively received possible solution.
It is very beneficial to be immediate, although imperfect in that execution (action).
This doesn’t mean we don’t edge towards total comprehension and expertise if possible over time… it is the way in which we need to do that in business… immediately, then iteratively, in the field of play.
So through action, repeatedly (ie, Monday meetings begin) continue to increase comprehension – real battlefield comprehension – what works, through action, result, reflection, adjustment, and next action.
This is the actual knowledge.
Business knowledge is 100% experience - your experience
0% experiential knowledge comes from theoretical comprehension.
100% experiential knowledge comes from Action
Just remember:
Active Reading (and if something lights up your spider-sense for tangential application in your business) Then immediate Execution.
For example, if at any point you find something within any of these notes possible useful, and you immediately apply it, even imperfectly, at the expense of not fully reading other Notes - that is infinitely more valuable for your business. I won’t be offended :) I’ll be stoked!
Happy New Year everyone, thank you so much for all your positive feedback, I love hearing how this is helping you follow your dreams - its what I love for!
p.s. Podcast Planning is underway!
p.p.s How Much Can I Charge? Note is coming!