Moving forward with lateral thinking (Edition #100)
Moving forward with lateral thinking (Edition #100)
A new format crashing in your inboxes like that balloon we won't talk about
Greetings from the other side of the internet, lateral thinkers! I hope you’re ready for a long read.
First of all, I guess it’s time to celebrate.
This is the 100th Lateral Thinking email hitting your inboxes. We’ll be starting off today with 3 questions. More on that below.
The burning questions:
Feel free to take a swing at them yourself before you read their take on them.
If you would have to start a totally different career today, what would you do? (bonus: how do you think you would you take the news that you have to change careers?)
What are you absolutely brilliant at? How did you find that out?
Do you have things figured out? What’s your definition of “figuring things out”?
There’s 3,300 of us here trying to look at things differently and laterally. In total, you’ve all opened about 140,000 emails (so about 1/5th of the spam messages I get daily on LinkedIn) with an impressive 49% average open rate (I knew you guys were open minded, but woah!).
Since this is an anniversary edition, I think it’s the perfect time to do some housekeeping.
As you may or may not know, almost every email I’ve sent has had a different lateral thinking puzzle or exercise attached to it. I know a lot of you enjoy these and I’m happy to share them, but there’s one downside: the number of good lateral thinking exercises is limited. At this point, it’s taking me longer to search for or think up an exercise than writing the actual email, which makes this experience daunting for me and as much as I like you all, I care for my mental wellbeing.
This is why, moving forward, we’ll be dropping the lateral thinking exercises, at least in their traditional format. If you have to see almost 100 different exercises we’ve went through in the past, you should check out the archive.
Moving on to the main course.
The new Lateral Thinking format
I’ve talked to a lot of you over the past months to really try to figure out how I can build this newsletter in a way that is enjoyable for me to write (my working hours are fully dedicated to Blindspot, so this is just something to keep me on my toes, but I do want to bring value through it).
Without building it up too much, I’ve realized a huge advantage I have when it comes to lateral thinking is my diversity in experiences - from growing up in Bucharest to living in Dubai/Seoul/New York/Miami and having a career that put me in a position to experience both the agency, client and now supplier side.
Over the course of the years, I’ve met a lot of different people from different background. And it’s because of them I’ve been able to see things differently (or should I say laterally) when it was needed.
It makes sense to put that advantage to work and share some of that experiences with all of you.
That being said, moving forward, Lateral Thinking will now have a blitz-interview format. A few people that come from very different backgrounds will get the same questions and try to share their own unique perspective on them. Finally, I’ll do my best to act as a moderator and enabler for people to express their honest, unabridged opinions on stuff like life, business, growth and whatever else we land on.
But they say one should play to their strengths and I’ve never been great at explaining concepts, but I have been decent at bringing them to life.
Without further ado, Lateral Thinking #100 is here. Enjoy.
Today’s cast:
Victor Kapra - I met Victor more than a decade ago when I was working in a PR agency. Even then, he was already a legend in the local industry. He’s honestly been an inspiration in terms of dedication and work ethic.
When I asked what bio I should put down for him, he told me to just put down “journalist” - which speaks volumes.
If you can read Romanian, Victor writes one of the best local tech newsletters - Civilization - you can check it out here.
Andrew Yeung - I met Andrew in New York through Kyle Hagge (who’s simply an overall awesome human being - hopefully more on that in a future newsletter).
Andrew Yeung is a tech operator (Global Product Lead at Google, Facebook-alum), community builder, and startup advisor.
Since 2020, he’s hosted 100+ tech and business events for over 10,000+ founders, investors, operators, and creatives in New York City, Miami, San Francisco, and Toronto, helping hundreds of people land jobs, secure fundraising, access deal-flow and investments, recruit candidates, and expand their networks.
His events were featured on Bloomberg and on Jason Calancanis’ podcast, This Week in Startups, to talk about the events and community strategy. He also runs a deal-flow newsletter for a NA-based investor community, advises community and consumer social startups on GTM, and is a career coach for early career professionals.
Chelsea Han - I met Chelsea when I was living in Seoul and expanding Blindspot there.
She has been involved in the global startup ecosystem for 7+ years both on the government side and private side. Chelsea has assisted global startups to do business in South Korea before as a government project and now investing in and helping Korean startups grow at a private accelerator. Born and raised in Seoul. Connect with Chelsea here.
The burning questions:
Try to compare your answers to what other people are answering - it should provide some valuable insight.
If you would have to start a totally different career today, what would you do? (bonus: how do you think you would you take the news that you have to change careers?)
Victor: I would try a tourism project based on a historical reenactment concept. A retreat that would replicate the conditions of the 1600s, without any modern facilities. Tourists would have to carry water from the well, chop wood, sit in the evening by candlelight, etc. It would be a fun adventure but also therapy, as we would better appreciate the comfortable living conditions of today.
Bonus: I'm puzzled by the complaints of some people who say ”I've been with the company for 16 years and now they've fired me.” A predictable career in the same organization is no longer possible as it was 50 years ago. The sooner one understands it, the better.
Andrew: If I had to start a completely different career, I’d probably go into media. I’d learn how to write, create content and build a content business. Media is one of those things that has infinite leverage (your impact is limitless.) From there, I’d open doors into different business realms to nurture other important skills like product design, operations, and sales. Oh–and when I say media I don’t be traditional publishing or advertising, but media from an entrepreneurship angle (e.g. be a newsletter writer, podcaster, etc.)
Chelsea: I would go with the idea of being a marketer as I’m lately interested in looking into people’s minds. “You can get whatever you want if you get people’s minds.” This is not wrong if you look closer. Isn’t marketing about controlling people - making people do what you want them to do, such as clicking the link and purchasing the product? Just like a magic trick; using A/B tests and all that. I would love to explore the human mind, sociology, and psychology to understand people better. I believe it’s essential to understand one another as we’re living in a society where we constantly interact with each other.
Bonus: Well, I would be surprised to change my job as I have not much knowledge in the marketing field, but wouldn’t be devastated. Actually, I would rather be happy to work in a different field so that I could learn new things. It's like looking at the other sides of a dice that I never got a chance to look into - maybe I could be as talented in marketing, who knows?
What are you absolutely brilliant at? How did you find that out?
Victor: I'm very good at dreaming up action plans. I can dream for hours without undertaking anything, zero. Seriously: I think the ability to reinvent myself with a new project is essential - and so far I think it has served me pretty well.
Andrew: There’s two things I’m great at. One is bringing interesting people together and creating an environment where they’re able to comfortably connect and build deep relationships. This is a broad skill that can be broken down to many components including finding the people, creating a physical space, enforcing culture, designing mechanisms for serendipity, and so forth. The other thing I’m great at is general operations. I’m very disciplined, organized, and rigorous in how I execute. The combination of these two skills is how I was able to host 100+ events in two years for 10,000+ people, and build my brand from that.
Chelsea: I’m great at learning new things and getting new information by talking with people. Well, I was told that I have genuine curiosity/interest in people while people are indifferent to others. Whenever I have something on my mind - such as things happening at work or personal issues - I turn to my friends and be all open about it. (Sometimes it could be a work-related person I met for the first time.) I don’t hesitate to explain the situations and ask their opinions on the matter - and as a result, I get to borrow people’s wisdom for free. My friends have different perspectives and will provide individual, unique solutions to my problem. I can collect as many suggestions as possible and take what I like the most.
Do you have things figured out? What’s your definition of “figuring things out”?
Victor: Only few people have the ability to decipher reality, to disassemble it like you do with an engine, so as to understand all its component parts, and thus to predict developments that aren't at all obvious or set directions for future development in your field.
The best example of being able ”to figure things out” is Steve Jobs, who understood that people wanted a little computer in their pocket - the smartphone of the day, even though people didn't quite realize exactly what they wanted.
Andrew: I don’t have things figured out. I have a general calling and direction I’m running toward, and some assumptions that have steered me well in the past. I’m comfortable with the idea that I am likely a beginner–and student–in many aspects of my life, and I’m adopting a “day one” mindset to continue to be humble and curious. Although I will say in the analogy of life being a video game, I have found some cheat codes that I can continuously spam. These make the game easier… but I know I have many more levels to go.
Chelsea: Still figuring things out after 6 months of changing to this new job. But there will never be the phase of “figured things out!” as ‘figuring things out’ means to me : I’ve prepared everything in every scenario so things will go perfect as I planned.
Holy smokes, you made it this far.
Now, I realize this is a very different format from what you’ve seen so far. Personally, I’m loving the idea of bringing new people into the mix and getting their insights on topics.
I’ll be sharing my thoughts on these questions in the next newsletter, since we’ve already covered a lot in one email and we do need to keep you hooked for the next one, don’t we?
Remember to check out Victor, Andrew and Chelsea. They’re all working on great stuff.
And one final note - if you think you or someone you know should answer my next burning questions, drop their name and contact using this form (or just reply to this email if you’re feeling lazy).