guy kawasaki

• How to Change the World: How to Not Choke
  kabir
  Dec 11 2007
  

  1.

  Avoid negative people. This refers to the folks who are likely to express the negative stereotype that first-time entrepreneurs don’t know what to do. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to avoid venture capitalists because they never tell you what they really think.) Certainly you should avoid “proven” older entrepreneurs who don’t remember how clueless they were when they were “your age” and now consider themselves experts.
  2.

  Ignore the people you cannot avoid. As George Orwell should have said, “Ignoring is bliss.” If you think about what they said, it could lead to what they said, so figuring out what to ignore is as important as what to listen to. The best way to ignore negative people is to bury yourself in your work—to prototype like hell. When I’m writing, nothing enters my brain but the need to eat and pee—and sometimes not even that.
  3.

  Invoke positive stereotypes. Positivity can enhance performance according to the article—it’s “fighting fire with fire” as the saying goes. For example, entrepreneurs could invoke the positive stereotype that a couple of guys/gals who love technology and aren’t “proven” entrepreneurs can start companies like Apple, Yahoo!, Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Perhaps this is one reason that Silicon Valley rocks as a place for young people to start companies: the wunderkind stereotype is a very positive one here.
  4.

  Frame, or reframe, yourself. Finally, you can control how strongly you identify with any social group. For example, you don’t have to identify with “first-time entrepreneurs.” You could more strongly define yourself in terms of being a mom, dad, wife, husband, scholar, programmer, marketer, or whatever works for you. Or, in my hockey experience, not as a lousy beginning skater, but a 53-year-old guy from Hawaii whose peers are mostly playing golf if they are exercising at all.

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• How to Change the World: In Search of Inexperience
  mohit - Nov 15 2007
  
  3 FaversViewed: 13 Times
• How to Change the World: No Plan, No Capital, No Model...No Problem
  mohit - Jun 25 2007
  
  1 FaverViewed: 24 Times