strategic.li: Recent Episodes
Tyler and Brandon Collins
The strategic.li podcast is a casual conversation where we dive deep into the concepts behind thinking strategically in life, business, or whatever you care about. From gaming to marketing to self-improvement, we'll explore how to be more intentional and ultimately more successful.
In this episode, we explore several reasons that someone might want to to avoid strategic thinking or planning all together. We’ll hit on the idea of naval gazing as well as exploring whether a strategy makes you more or less agile.
In this episode, we explore several reasons that someone might want to to avoid strategic thinking or planning all together. We’ll hit on the idea of naval gazing as well as exploring whether a strategy makes you more or less agile.
Let's get practical. In this episode we walk through actionable ideas to help you discern what trajectory is best for you, your team, or your organization.
In this episode, we dive deeper into when it might be beneficial to choose a lower level of success. Society often pressures us to make sure we're living up to our potential, but is that always the right call?
In this episode we talk about the idea of determining what level of success you’re aiming for. We’ll share several examples and demonstrate how that level of success can sometimes feel like it’s chosen for us (and how to push back against that tendency). YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: Level of success can often be seen in a moral ... Read More
In this episode we look at how easy it is to get off-course or distracted while developing a strategy. We’ll examine how to avoid common pitfalls and the potential cost if you don’t.
In this episode we evaluate how to proceed if you feel stuck when trying to find your end destination. We’ll discuss the importance of holding your ideas loosely and give some practical suggestions on using the sample method for confirming your hunches.
In this episode we explore a hidden influence that impacts every person and organization. We’ll look at some practical examples, discuss what to watch out for, and show how it can end up having a major effect on our strategy.
In this episode we cover method 5 for finding your desired future. Then we talk through examples of how it would work for both individuals and organizations. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: How conflicting values can cause problems. Method 5 – The Five “Why’s” to find a desired future. Examining Steve Jobs’ purpose statement in light of this method. ... Read More
In this episode we jump into the third and fourth method for finding your desired future which are all about finding resonance and learning from your history. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: Method 3 – The Resonance Method – look outside of yourself and ask what has resonated with me. Consider true and fictional stories that resonate with you. ... Read More
In this episode we explore how much time and money you should invest in finding your end destination. We’ll touch on life coaches and consultants, strategic planning retreats, and pushing past the challenges when you get stuck in the process.
In this episode we cover method 2 of finding your end destination as well as talking through why and how you might want to invite a third party into this process with you. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: Method two: The Snapshot Method What is right? What is wrong? What is missing? What is confused? This is a ... Read More
In this episode we wrap up our walkthrough of the first method for finding your end destination. Then we get into specific examples of how that method would work for individuals and organizations.
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Episode Notes: * Starting something that many other people are already doing. * You need to know how you’re going to do it differently. * Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul * Saying thing with your own voice, your own personality, or for your own generation. * Organizations can aim to have a different “personality” than other similar companies. * If you care about something, first check and see if there’s someone else out there already doing that thing and see if you can/should join them. But if you find you want to do it differently, then that helps you differentiate how YOU think it should be done. * Timing: people have life-spans, so do organizations! * Example: Atari, PanAm * We can often get caught up in the weekly grind that can sometimes displace what we’re really after. * Example of this project: strategic.li * Timelines often become meaningless, they are just chosen arbitrarily without any significant reason of why things should happen that quickly. * What about false or fake wins? Not the “true” end destination. * The most important thing isn’t a specific answer but a pattern that they form when you look at them all together. Looking for and revealing connections you didn’t see before. * Signal vs. Noise * It can help to show your answers to other people to get outside perspective.
In this episode we start exploring five different methods for how to narrow down what your end destination should be. We’ll introduce the methods and then begin talking through method 1. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: Finding the destination is the most important step by far. Different methods are like different tests for the same medical issues. Each ... Read More
In this episode, we discuss how burnout comes from working hard without knowing if you’re headed towards something you truly care about and how sometimes getting what you always wanted could be the worst thing that ever happened to you. We also dig into how not having a higher-level purpose can trip you up during the strategy-building process. YouTube Channel ... Read More
In this episode, we look at the chess prodigy, Josh Waitzkin, and what his example teaches about being clear about your end destination. We also hit on the idea of “navel gazing” just deep long introspection and how sometimes that can be helpful and sometimes it’s just distracting. Finally, we discuss the role that instinct plays in finding your desired future.
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Show Notes
- The story that the movie “Finding Bobby Fisher” is based on, Josh Waitskin was a chess champion. Then he became a champion in Akiado. The Art of Learning. How Josh built strategies into each tournament he entered.
- Goals are like checkpoints along the way. Is goal a less helpful way of thinking about checkpoints on the way towards your end destination?
- 4 Hour Work Week shows us how to think about what we really want, and think about why are we striving for that specific goal? Could we have that goal now rather than waiting until later?
- The prerequisite for Goals is vision and knowing why you want that goal. What is the vision you are trying to achieve?
- We don’t mean to get into some Philosophical naval-gazing here where all you do is spend your time thinking about large goals and waxing poetically about the purpose and life meaning.
- Range – David Epstein. This book pushes back on the idea that if you haven’t started by the age of 4 on something that you’ll be useless.
We’ll talk about how having a plan helps you waste less life and discuss one of the biggest pitfalls in building an effective strategy: NOT having a clearly defined end destination. We also talk about whether goal-setting frameworks are helpful or harmful. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Show Notes Reviewing the definition of strategy: the guiding principles to get you ... Read More
In this episode we examine the different levels of strategy and how it can sometimes be better to lose in the short-term to win in the long-term. YouTube Channel Email us: info@strategic.li Episode Notes: Is choosing your destination part of strategy? Or outside of it? Could defining “growth” be thought of strategically? e.g. stock price, number of quality employees, overall ... Read More
In this episode we grapple with the concept of luck and randomness and how those interact with strategy.
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Episode Notes: * Can you have a good strategy without having a destination? + No. A strategy is a way to get from somewhere to somewhere else. So you can’t build a strategy to get somewhere without knowing where that somewhere is. + You have to have an objective. + You can’t ask directions if you don’t know where you’re trying to get. + “If you aim for nothing you’ll hit it every time.” * You can be a skilled strategist, but if you don’t know what you want or you’re not good at figuring out where you want to go, strategy can’t help you with that or save you from that. + Strategy can’t tell you where you SHOULD go (like a map or a compass) + Apple in the early 90’s – had many strategies, launched many products, but they weren’t hits. They may have been good strategies (getting quality products created), but the destination wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t what their customers really wanted. * Strategies can be applied or built at various levels in your life (e.g. BC having a strategy for college that incorporated his strategy for family) + Strategies for a department, must incorporate the overall organizational strategy * Strategy, at it’s most foundational level, is simply having consistency in your choices. + You could be making consistently wrong choices, but it’s always better to have consistency than to not have it. + Analogy: Brandon’s drive to work + Not having intentionality leads to a functionally random life + Intentionality is a key ingredient in the life of almost everyone who is successful (aside from random chance and so on) + Our brains are wired to see patterns. Seeing patterns is closely connected with intentionality. + Example: sailing a ship without using the steering wheel + PewdiPie reacts to millionaires – video by Jubilee – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INuJXrUQJB0 + People think that luck is everything. * Locus of control + Sometimes our locus of control can influence the outcome, because our confidence “speaks” to the people around us. And most external factors are people factors. + If you don’t believe that you can effect the outcome, you will never create a strategy. So Creating a strategy depends upon at least a little bit of internal locus of control. + In general, statistically, people can influence their lives more right now than they ever could all throughout human history. + Having a historical perspective can lead to having a stronger internal locus of control, realizing the time of opportunity that exists right now. * Defining Strategy: consistency in choices, guiding principles.
In this episode we start off by exploring an important question: What do we mean when we say strategy? We look at several common false ideas about strategy and a few things that often holds people back from being more strategic. We also address one of the most common critiques of thinking strategically: is it possible to be strategic and ... Read More
In this episode we talk about how someone goes about learning to think more strategically and how that might impact the way live, work, and make decisions. We’ll also cover our goals for this project and how we hope it helps the people who engage with it.
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Notes: * See the principles behind common wisdom and knowledge. * There are books that lay out strategic principles, but there is no resource that holistically shows how all of the principles interact and layer on top of each other? * What are we trying to do with this book? + Think deeper – principles are true as long as you rise to the higher level thinking, open your eyes to what’s deeper, behind that same truth + Teach someone to think that way – we won’t cover everything in detail, we’ll miss some for sure. Learning to navigate gaps and unique strategic challenges. * This will end up as both a process or step-by-step guide AND a toolbox full of tools that you use in walking through that process. * What’s the vision of this project? + Empowering and equipping people have more influence over their lives. + Teaching someone to know how to go from point A to point B effectively. + This leads to hope, energy, drive, etc. + Equipping people to change and influence their lives more effectively. * Ways to use this process: + Empowerment in your life + Becoming more valuable to your company * How strategic thinking can improve your life (personally and professionally) * Self-determination, make choices about your life. * The “Getting Things Done” of strategic thinking and planning
In this episode, we talk about an important question: are their strategic principles that are always true? If so, what about conflicting guidance? As we go, we’ll evaluate whether or not it’s actually better to be the first one to do something. They say the “early bird gets the worm”, but is that actually right? Apple, Nintendo, and Uber are ... Read More