Theme.

In this edition of #founderhacks we look at the metaphorical gears of life: we discuss the importance of being in the right gear at the right time, finding your top gear and knowing yourself well enough to drop down a gear or two to stop the engine blowing up.

Seen.

Being stuck in first gear

Antony has been facilitating quite a few face-to-face workshops again recently - one of these took place in a hotel where they used to happen regularly. He was struck by how out of practice this venue was at doing something they used to do so well. It was as if this business had forgotten what they were good at.

Was this hotel trying to run before they had learned to walk again properly? Does the key to re-opening a business successfully mean acknowledging the need to start slowly, to go back to doing the basics well, and then go up through the gears steadily?

Read.

Finding your top gear

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits and the 3-2-1 newsletter recently shared a quote we all thought interesting - but maybe also a bit judgemental. It was all about the "crime" of not pushing yourself hard enough to find out how many gears you have.

Maybe as a founder of a business you're forced to do this anyway? For me, I have always found going further than I think I can go to be particularly rewarding and energising.

That said, if you know you have a 6th gear but are happily cruising along in 4th, what is the price you pay when you push up to that 6th gear?

Once you know how many gears you have should those gears be cyclical? By varying your gears as you travel down the potholed road of life will you go further and have more fun along the way?

Learned.

Choosing the right gear at the right time

We finish this week with a true founder hack that Ben thought was a wonderful way to re-boot a team; it's a brainstorming process called Stop, Start and Continue.

If you're not familiar with it then here's a quick summary of how it works. Step 1: Assemble your team in a room, Step 2: Get everyone in this room to discuss all the things in the business that they should collectively stop doing, start doing and continue doing, Step 3: Implement.

An honest, simple and collaborative process that, when done well, can help a business make sure they are in the right gear at the right time!

And finally.
I thought we'd end this week with a quote from the Dalai Lama. Why not?

When asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Don’t forget to check out the accompanying podcast version of #founderhacks for a tantalising live experience of team atomex!