The other side of suck

Table of Contents

• Focus: Camel or Horse?

• Mindset: Define Success on Your Terms

• Life Skill: Other Side of Suck

• Career Advice: Be a Systems Thinker

• This is Cool: Bagel Fund Micro Grants

FOCUS OF THE WEEK
Decision <> Confidence Correlation

I've been listening to a few conversations lately with Evy Poumpouras. She’s the author of Becoming Bulletproof, former secret service, and all around bad ass.

She identified a connection between a persons ability to make decisions and their ability to build confidence that I hadn't fully appreciated before.

It's a self-reinforcing loop: the more decisions you make (and own), the more confident you become. And the more confident you become, the easier it is to make decisions.

But you don’t need to already be confident for this to work. Evy argues, and I agree, that consistently making decisions for yourself will build self-confidence. Even if you’re starting from a place of low confidence.

Not every decision will work out. That’s life.

But that’s also why this works.

When you make the correct decision, you pat yourself on the back.

And when you inevitably make the wrong ones, you learn that it’s okay, you can course correct, and ideally reflect on information what led to the wrong decision so you’re not making the same mistake twice.

Either way, it’s on you. You own that decision. And that’s powerful.

How many times have you delegated a decision to someone else, only to resent them when things didn't work out?

Or be upset at yourself, for outsourcing your life consequences to someone watching from the stands.

You wouldn't give strangers the keys to your future. So why are you letting others make the decisions that shape your life?

The real mindset shift comes when you adopt Evy’s approach: "Okay, I did what I thought was best. Right or wrong. But if it doesn't work out, there is no one else to blame but me."

This isn't about shouldering blame in a negative way. It's about taking ownership - which is precisely where that powerful mental attitude (and confidence) comes from.

Indecision is exhausting. It drains your mental energy and creates this weird limbo where you're neither here nor there. You're stuck, waiting for permission or validation from someone else.

But when you make the decision yourself, even if it's wrong, you're moving.

Action creates information.

You're learning.

You're building that decision-making muscle that will serve you for life.

Make the decision. Take action. You got this.

Here’s a timestamped clip of Evy talking about it if you’re curious.

MINDSET OF THE WEEK
Define Success on Your Terms

Success is one of those words that everyone has an opinion about.

Society has crafted these elaborate vision boards for us - the corner office, the fancy car, the prestigious title, the overflowing bank account.

But in reality, success is completely personal to the individual. I likely want and value something very different than you. Yet we often treat it like there’s only one standard.

We consume other people's definitions the same way we scroll through Instagram, double-tapping on lifestyles that might look appealing in a filtered square but have nothing to do with what would actually make us fulfilled.

Marc Randolph, the co-founder of Netflix, shared his personal definition of success.

His definition of success was building companies while maintaining a solid marriage, raising kids who actually know and like him, and making time for his other passions.

Marc wanted to win. But not just at business. At life.

For over thirty years, he had a non-negotiable Tuesday date night with his wife. At 5 pm sharp, he was out the door, whether there was a crisis, an important meeting, or a last-minute request. Those Tuesday nights were sacred.

The hustle culture narrative would have us believe that true winners must sacrifice everything else for their companies – relationships, health, hobbies – all on the altar of business achievement.

But what if we've been getting it backward? What if true success isn't binary, but is instead a personalized, dynamic concept that we get to define for ourselves?

Make that decision for yourself. Don’t let the committee that is society build you a camel you don’t want.

The default settings of success that we inherit aren't serving most of us. They were never meant to.

They're residual programming from a different era, often designed by people with completely different values and circumstances than our own.

Take some time to define what success means for you. It will likely change as you change.

But it’s important to know which direction you want to want to drive towards and why, or else you’ll find yourself following a map that was never meant for you.

LIFE SKILLS
Other Side of Suck

We've all been there. Scrolling through Instagram or TikTok when we should be working on that project. Grabbing that bag of chips when we know we should be prepping a healthier meal. Avoiding that difficult conversation, because it's difficult.

The older you get the more you realize the answers you seek are found in the actions you avoid.

Every single thing you want in life is on the other side of something that sucks.

It's a simple equation really, but one we try to outsmart constantly. We look for hacks or shortcuts, that will let us bypass the suck.

I’ve been there. Long term, that doesn’t work.

• The business you want to build? It's waiting for you beyond those 100 hours of focused work. The ones where you're figuring things out, making mistakes, taking action, and learning what actually works and what definitely doesn’t.
  

• That relationship you're dreaming of? It's on the other side of 100 hard conversations. The awkward ones, the vulnerable ones, the ones where you have to admit you were wrong.
  

• The body you want? You'll find it after those 100 challenging workouts and bland meals that don't taste anywhere near as good as that poutine you’ve been flirting with lately.

There's a pattern here. The suck is the cost of entry. It's the barrier that separates the dreamers from the doers.

Pro tip. Learn to love the suck. Or at least respect it.

When you embrace the suck, it starts to suck less.

Not because it gets easier (though sometimes it does), but because your relationship with discomfort changes. You start to see it not as something to avoid, but as a signal that you're on the right track.

Something I often tell the young people I’m coaching is that when you feel that pit in your stomach telling you that you don’t want to do it, that’s a sign you have to do it.

Lean into the suck. If you can train that muscle, you’re going to put yourself in a good position to win at life.

The next time you find yourself avoiding something that you know would move you closer to your goals, remember, that's exactly where your growth is waiting.

The answers you seek are found in the actions you avoid.

CAREER ADVICE
Systems Thinker

The most valuable skill in this new AI ecosystem isn't necessarily being the person who can write perfect prompts or explain the technical intricacies of a large language model.

It's the systems thinker.

Someone who sits comfortably at the intersection of three critical domains:

1. Deep knowledge of business processes

2. Comprehensive AI understanding

3. Growth mindset

The magic happens at this intersection. This person can look at your business holistically, understand what's technically possible with AI, and approach the transformation with experimentation, iteration, and continual learning.

Knowing how to use ChatGPT is one thing. Understanding how to redesign your company's entire customer service workflow using AI to create genuine business value? That's where the real gold is.

Without understanding the business context and processes, even the most technically brilliant AI implementation can end up being a solution in search of a problem.

AI is just another tool at the end of the day. A beautiful, powerful tool. But without domain knowledge, it’s a hammer looking for nails.

For young people reading this, there's a massive opportunity here. While everyone else rushes to become prompt engineers, consider developing yourself as a systems thinker.

Learn business (or your domain of interest) fundamentals. Learn first principles. Understand workflows and processes.

Then layer your AI knowledge on top of that foundation.

This shift isn't just about the technology - it's about reimagining how work gets done.

And that requires systems thinking.

I spoke to Breanne Pitt from the World Economic Forum recently to talk about systems thinking and how classrooms can prioritize the teaching of it.

You can hear her explain the concept here in this timestamped clip.

THIS IS COOL
Bagel Fund Micro Grants

As of a few hours ago, Stage 1 of the myBlueprint x DMZ micro grant applications have now closed.

I'm excited to share some of the output from the applications we received as they head into stage 2, which is more like a shark tank pitch for some of the more interesting applications.

Also planning on sharing what I’m working on that should scale the program nationally this fall. Safe to say the proof of concept was a success.

Micro grants are a growing trend, and I love to see it.

There are a lot of young people in the world who don't need to wait for permission post-secondary to build really interesting projects.

Funding helps remove a lot of the barriers that are stopping young people from doing really impressive, and often important work.

The Bagel Fund is one of a few organizations that I know of that specifically and consistently fund young people to build really cool stuff, no strings attached.

Look at these recent projects, and the ages of the people building them in the screenshot below.

This isn’t part of a program. It’s not for marks.

This is pure curiosity and ambition. And Bagel Fund is helping bring that to life.

Learn more about these projects and about Bagel Fund by exploring their Q4 updates here.