Ask IH: What is the most underrated piece of advice you've been told?

Consistency is key. Being consistent with how you show up every day and move the needle is half the battle. Whether you are marketing your business or you are iterating on your product/service offering, keep showing up each day and push to improve 1% from the day before. It all adds up and compounds over time. Simple, yet very effective advice that I strive to implement each day and each week.

I have received a lot of advice and one of the most impactful was from a founder friend of mine. He said at some point things should feel easy. When things feel like you're pushing a boulder up a hill all the time, I think it's fair to assume something fundamental needs to be changed.

Give up thinking that you will build something special (i.e. that others will find special) and build something that you are passionate about. Usually, that turns out to be quite special.

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

Just launch.

So simple, so true.

I am a filmmaker and entrepreneur.

When I was assisting a very popular film director he said to me, "Learn to enjoy the process, not the outcome."

1. You should only compare yourself with your past self. Don't compare yourself with the others.

2. You need to internalize every advice which can help you. It means that you need to try to follow it actively day after day, till it becomes a habit. Even at that point, it's not over: be careful not to lose it.

Delegate. I've learned that as creators, many of us are used to doing it all, especially at the beginning. But as businesses grow and mature you can't handle everything and more importantly: you can't do it as well as an expert. So as you start to scale, think of all the tasks you really don't like doing or aren't the best at, and start hiring to meet those needs.

About an hour ago, I was advised to read "The Infinite Game" by Simon Sinek.

Delayed gratification vs instant gratification and how it is relevant in things we do on a day-to-day basis. It is quite easy to do things for there's an instant reward/impact, but to do anything worthwhile, it will require focus and belief in delayed gratification (ex. icecream vs exercise)

And things compounds - both bad and good.

We always tend to overestimate what we can do in a day or a week, but combined with delayed gratification, the power of compounding can be really used to gain big wins.

Do the right thing always when you have to choose between right & easy.

Don't spend your own money on your startup. If you can't find a friend to punt a grand on your idea then you aren't explaining the idea very well or it's a bad idea. Plus there's lots of things you can do for free before spending a penny (GitHub pages for landing as an example) Maybe this will end up being the best investment you gave away but the external accountability, requirement to keep track of your budget and a point to stop (when the money runs out) are all very useful.

My guitar teacher once told me, "Don't be the next Eddie Van Halen. Be the first Jake Voytko."

"Context over content"

I started out my career in a marketing and PR agency as an assistant to the creative director who then became my mentor as I progressed higher and one piece of advice that he gave me while I was pretty green in the industry was "context over content". That has literally stuck with me to this day and it has helped me so much.

It's been 5 years now. I hope you're doing well Mr W.

I know this isn't the platform for this advice but quite easily this was the best advice ever given to me about working at a company. And especially for working in Los Angeles in entertainment.

Be the first one in AND the last one out.

That's it. It's not about working hard. It's not about being the smartest, the kindest, the most experienced. Just be there. It's very very hard for many people to do this.

If you do, you are way way way ahead of everyone else.

And truly where this shined is that, when you start a new job.. you don't know who the superstars are. You don't know who are the decision makers in the office. You won't know the leaders that everyone looks up to. They could be the people who show up early (and leave on time). They could be the ones who show up whenever they want but stay hours later.

And to be quite honest this is amazing advice almost only for those who don't know what they are doing. As long as you're around you can pick up on what's going on

Oh, and now that nobody works in an office, this advice is pretty moot.

If I started on a remote only team now, and wanted to execute this advice, I would say "Talk to Everyone" Literally everyone in the company. Make sure to spend time before and after "working" time to get to know literally every single person. (Absolutely impossible if there's 100 ppl or more. But you should talk to every single person in your department, and division and anyone you can.

And even if there's 100 people. It'll take you less than six months if you talk to one person per work day. Schedule 2 hours a day, 1 before work and 1 after work to meet with each person.