We’re almost six months into 2023! Where has the time gone?

How are you doing? What have you accomplished? What is taking longer than planned initially?

Being halfway into the year puts some fire under my ass. It’s time to keep pushing. We’re getting near that 3rd quarter rush – can’t back down now.

Newsletter #20. How can I improve? Do you want more links? More stories? What topics would you like to hear about? Hit me up, I always respond.

Factory Life is a process-focused, in-the-trenches weekly newsletter detailing the labor of love that is building businesses.

This week I spent most of my days meeting potential candidates, managing projects, and reviewing work. It was very different compared to last week, where I mostly put out fires and kept work moving.

As I’ve focused more on hiring, talent strategy, talent operations, and everything in between, I’ve learned a lot about the different kinds of workers.

Amanda (my business partner) broke most talent to “executors” and “strategists – I’ll call them “explorers.”

I think that’s a pretty good simplification. Executors do great work when the job is straightforward, instructions are provided, and there’s little room for interpretation. They’ll get the job done and probably very efficiently.

Then there are explorers. These folks come alive in ambiguity. The sheer possibilities of the work get them jazzed.

Executors do not thrive in ambiguity; explorers feel trapped in execution and operational work.

We’re finding more and more that the core work we do requires explorers and not just executors. We need people who can be thrown into problems and begin to pave paths forward – and this is no easy task.

Sometimes our clients can’t even fully describe the problems at hand. They need help organizing the chaos and merchandising it as opportunity.

After years of working with dozens of these explorer-type people, here are some commonalities I’ve noticed about them:

I’m sure there are many more, but this is the list so far.

How do these distinctions land with you?

This one is quite difficult to write about, which leads me to believe it’s the right thing to write about.

One of the topics my coach and I have been working through recently is the idea of rising to the occasion.

As you know, I’ve been “training” for the San Francisco Half-Marathon. It’s been rewarding and challenging and pushes my limits. That said, it doesn’t even come close to the difficulty, dedication, and discipline required for someone training to run in the Olympics.

Although it’s the same core movement, one foot in front of the other, the goals require entirely different sets of actions. My purpose of completing the SF Half-marathon can be done somewhat casually and in a low-pressure way. Someone else’s dream of winning an Olympic medal requires that entire person’s being.

This is also applicable in business. The end goals largely determine the intensity of the actions.

My goals have been simplified into three:

We can talk about how I got to these goals in a later newsletter, but the size of those goals can’t be accomplished with normal actions.

That being said, pursuing big goals has ripple effects that I didn’t anticipate.

The easiest way to put this is that I just had to learn to be more of a shark.

One thing I’m realizing is that I fear the change required to achieve the goals I have. The fear is that I’ll become someone I don’t recognize or maybe I don’t like.

Even though I logically know it’s nearly a prerequisite to success, it’s still hard to face and observe happening.

All that said, I don’t think I like myself any less now than before.

Like most things – it’s probably mostly just in my head.

After 20 weeks, I have no new routine trials, haha! I think it’s a good thing. There are only so many things I can try.

That being said, are there any habits you guys have been doing that have been beneficial/impactful to you?

I would love to give it a go!

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