🔑 1 - Be the best “you”

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Everyone has fear and anxiety. I get nervous. Beyoncé get’s nervous. And I’m sure you get nervous too.

Talking to a stranger at a bar, or going on stage can feel scary.

But are those truly dangerous activities?

What’s the worst-case scenario? You act foolish, and you feel embarrassed. But people will forget quickly. So there’s no real harm in it.

To overcome these fear, imagine life as your stage.

Practice character invention.

Character Invention is the act of inventing a character you embody in a given moment. It allows famous people like Beyoncé to come out of their shell, and perform to the best of their abilities.

Before you go to your next networking event, try Character Invention. You can invent a character or seek to emulate someone you admire. You have to really imagine and make the experience feel real.

Here are the 5 steps to Character Invention:

1. Envision the Character - how do they respond in moments of stress? fear?
2. Find a Name - it has to feel real.
3. Source the Trigger - what specific action or situation brings this character to life?
4. Develop Physicality - define what postures this character takes, and how they move.
5. Practice - practice at events, practice with friends, practice at your next meeting or pitch

But what about being your authentic self?

F*ck authenticity.

Your authentic self is holding you back by inventing fears that are not real.

Use Character Invention to break out of your shell and be comfortable early in your career. Then a magical thing happens. Your brain realizes that the things it thought were scary are not hurting you.

That’s when you can shed your Character Invention and bring your true self to these situations.

The same thing happened to Beyoncé.

Over the years as she became comfortable on stage, she dropped Sasha Fierce. She no longer needed her and could blossom as her true self.

This is why I think theater is critical to the development of kids.

Kids need to get out of their own bodies. They need to explore a variety of characters to truly discover themselves. Theater gives you the tools you need to be the brightest, boldest version of yourself.

I grew up a sports and theater kid - but wish I had spent more time in theater :)

If you try Character Invention in your life, I’d love to hear about it.

🔑 2 - Optimism and investing

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There are two categories of business in my world:

1- execution businesses

2- innovation businesses

Execution is the most common type of business. It includes most real estate, franchises, and service businesses (landscaping, consulting, agencies…etc).

Innovation is incredibly rare. It applies to technology or Biotech companies (think Google, Facebook, Pfizer…etc)

As a former start-up founder, I was in the business of innovation.

To succeed in an innovation business you have to be over-optimistic. Why? Because when you start a technology business it’s insanely hard. The odds are against you.

Even if you get something working, your competition will try to eat your lunch. And they have a lot more money than you. So to keep going you are required to be either delusional or naive. You have to convince yourself despite the odds, you will succeed.

As a business buyer of execution businesses, it’s the opposite.

You must avoid zeros in your portfolio.

(a ‘zero’ is where you lose all your money on an investment)

If you avoid zeros, buy at reasonable prices, and over a long enough runway, you will be successful.

My founder instinct when I look at a business is to think of all the wonderful ways we can grow it.

But instead, now, I create a laundry list of reasons this investment could fail and go to ‘zero’ after I buy it.

I know it’s pessimistic but it gives me a list to check against as we learn more about the business.

It also allows us to be more creative in deal structures.

We may buy a company that other groups would not because we’re able to clearly align and explain the downside with a business owner who wants to sell.

As long as I can manage away zeros, I’m confident the rest will come.

🔑 What I’m reading this week

📫 Favorite Newsletter Article - The VA Delegation list from Nick Gray

Nick shares a list of how he works with VAs and EA to delegate certain tasks.

It may seem a little silly…but here’s why I’m sharing this with you.

Most people aren’t born natural delegators. Delegation is a skill that you need to develop.

I’m always looking for insights into how other people delegate out parts of their life.

Working with Virtual Assistants and Executive assistants has been transformative for my career. My EA is awesome 😊.

I try to delegate as much as possible to my EA. One of my challenges is I sometimes lack imagination in ways my EA can help me.

Reading Nick’s list this week put a sheepish smile on my face because I realized how limited my worldview has been on ways my EA can help me day to day (I felt inspired).

If you look at his list, I think you’ll be surprised at how much he’s able to delegate out.

His list includes: making updates to his Youtube channel, managing his social channels, prioritizing emails, managing his website…etc

Here are a few ways I’ve worked with my EA recently:

• plan a trip to Italy with my partner. My EA proposed cool hotels and unique outdoor activities to try.
• shop for an apartment. My EA organized all the meetings with brokers and planned my itinerary for the day to minimize drive time (awesome)
• find my grandmother a Russian-speaking house helper. This is a perfect example. It was non-urgent, and on my long list but for weeks I didn’t have time to do the research.
• car repair. My EA researched the best mechanics and set up an appointment for me.

Finding a great EA/VA can be fairly challenging.

I’ve tried UpWork, and also posted on job boards which have worked.

A few of my friends have recommended Shepherd as a hiring resource for international VAs. If you use it, and it works let me know.

You can check out last week’s newsletter here.

Have a fantastic week,

~ Sieva

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