感到停滞不前?如何判断该不该辞职 | Ada Chen Rekhi
Feeling stuck? Heres how to know when its time to leave your job | Ada Chen Rekhi
Ada Chen Rekhi: It’s a terrible outcome to wake up one day and be late career and feel trapped because you have a certain lifestyle or a certain expectations of the people around you that you have to go work this job, but then you look at yourself in the mirror and you’re not happy going in there. I think that’s a terrible trap that we should all try to avoid as we navigate our career paths and find the thing that’s most optimal for us. Which is usually a mix of career success, but also meaningfulness and alignment in the work that we’re doing with our values.
Origin of the Curiosity Loop
Lenny: Welcome to Lenny’s Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard [inaudible 00:00:42] experiences building and growing today’s most successful products. Today my guest is Ada Chen Rekhi. Ada is an executive coach and also the co-founder of a product called Notejoy. In her coaching practice, she focuses on helping founders scale themselves. Before starting her company, she was senior vice president of marketing at SurveyMonkey. Before that, she started a contact management startup that was acquired by LinkedIn where she ended up leading LinkedIn’s marketing efforts for their growth team. Two fun facts about Ada. One, she started her current company with her husband, which we chat about whether that’s a good idea or not. Also, her brother is Andrew Chen of a16z fame. In our conversation, it explains how to make better decisions with a framework she calls Curiosity Loops.
We do a live exercise around my own personal values. She shares a bunch of advice on how to intentionally and practically build your early career path. How to thrive as a woman in Silicon Valley, when to get a coach and what you can do on your own without one and a ton more. Enjoy this episode with Ada Chen Rekhi after a short word from our sponsors.
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Ada Chen Rekhi: Thanks. I’m excited to be here.
The Values Exercise
Lenny: So I’ve heard such great things about you from a lot of people, including a bunch of guests that have been on the podcast. And you also have this really great event diagram of maybe an ideal guest for the podcast. You’ve done growth. You’ve done products. You’ve started a company. You’re also an executive coach to founders. So there’s a variety of topics I’m excited to begin too. So thanks again for being here.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, I’m excited to be here.
Learning to Subtract
Lenny: An interesting thing that I’ll start with is that when we were chatting about what to focus on in our conversation, where you’re emailing about this, and you did something that I thought was really interesting. You ran something called a Curiosity Loop where you pinged a bunch of your friends and asked them for input in this really structured way. So I thought I’d start there. Could you just share what this process is, so that we can learn how to maybe do it ourselves, this idea of a curiosity loop?
Ada Chen Rekhi: A curiosity loop is essentially going to a whole bunch of people. In this case, I sent out an email very quickly to about 10 or 11 people and asking them, “Hey, here are nine topics for Lenny’s Podcast. What are two or three of the topics that resonate with you and why?” And I got back such an incredible amount of information for about 20 minutes of work. I don’t normally do this, but I actually showed you some of the anonymized feedback from people really just talking about what resonated and what didn’t. So I came out of it just so much smarter, and curiosity loops are my method of doing so.
Decision-Making Through Values
Lenny: Often, people ask friends for advice on just like, “Hey, what should I do here? What can I maybe talk about on this podcast?” Your approach had a lot of structure to it. So maybe two questions just like, what is the actual structure to this concept? And then two, just people… You can often ask friends for advice, but you also don’t want to over bug them with questions. How do you think about just not over asking everyone questions all the time, but all decisions you want to make? So I guess the question is, when do you use this versus just not?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I think that there are heavyweight and lightweight ways to use this. So the heavyweight way was what I just exemplified by saying, I sent an email and I made a doc. And on the other side, I had all of this really interesting and rich data. The lightweight way to do this is really just make it your ongoing theme of what you’re curious about as you interact with people. So maybe it’s this thing where every single day as you talk to people, if you have a social topic, you might just bring up the same question over and over again and start looking for are there any differences or surprises in what people are telling you? One of the big reasons why I think curiosity loops are really useful is that it really fights the fact that there’s a lot of bad advice out there.
And it’s not bad because it’s not well-intentioned, but it’s bad because it’s not contextual. So when someone tells you to quit your job and chase your dreams, or they tell you to sit tight and grind through and build some experience before you go off and go start the company that you’ve always been thinking about starting, which piece of advice do you actually take? Right? A lot of it depends on your situation, what you’re considering, what skills and experience you actually have, and curiosity loops actually are this way of really thinking about how do you make your advice contextual. So I’ll break it down a bit in terms of how I think about structuring it. So the first piece of a curiosity loop is really just thinking about asking a good question. In the time when I was working at SurveyMonkey in the past, I had this opportunity to spend a lot of time with the survey researchers, and we really talked a lot about what makes a question good.
So in this case, a question’s good if it’s specific, if it solicits rationale, and it’s not biased. You don’t want to start a question with, here’s what I think because people have this tendency to want to please you or to agree with you. So a good example… Well, let me start with a bad example of a question. A bad example of a question is, what should I do with my career next? It’s just such a poorly formed question because it’s really vague, it’s not specific. It puts a lot of cognitive load on other people, and the output that you’re going to get from it is probably going to be similarly bad. Garbage in, garbage out. A better example of a question might be something like, “Hey, you know me. I’m a marketer. I’ve been thinking about doing this webdev thing. So my plan is to quit my job, do a webdev bootcamp and then go find a job elsewhere. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
There’s just so much rich data to actually explore with that. First, are you suited to being a developer? Are webdev boot camps effective? What’s the state of the economy in the hiring market right now for junior web developers? And that’s an example of maybe a question that’s a little bit more specific and gives people something to anchor on. So that’s the first piece. The next piece is really around how do you curate who you ask? I think there are two dimensions of this. The first one is the obvious one, which is a subject matter expert who really knows something about the topic at hand. So maybe a webdev themselves, for my example question. Another one, and this dimension I think is really important, is someone who knows you really well and can provide insight on how well does that work for you. And then after that, you really want to ask the question. And this touches on what you said about how do you make it really lightweight?
Ask the question in a way that really gets you a useful constructive answer, but doesn’t put too much weight on people. So what I usually like to do is just make it very lightweight. So in your case, I said, “Here are nine topics. Can you pick your top two and tell me why you like them?” Some people went above and beyond and scrolled through and gave me feedback on every single topic. Some of them just said, “Here are my top two, and here’s one I think you should avoid.” I wanted to design it in a way where if you’re a busy founder, you’re a busy product person, which is the list that I chose for this curiosity loop, you would be able to sit down on your couch at the end of the night, read this interesting email and tap out a quick reply and give me that answer. Because the risk that you’re running is either you’re getting poor answers or you’re getting a really low response rate because you’ve given them way too much cognitive load in terms of answering it.
And then finally, to close the loop, I think a big piece of it is processing that information and then thanking them for it. So a big misconception that people have when they’re really getting into this work of asking for advice or input from other people in the community is often that it’s really one-sided. I’m asking you for help and you’re getting nothing out of it. The reminder that I would have for all of you is that it feels really good to help someone. It feels really good to be heard and give input. And a big piece of that is, if someone comes to you and they said, “You gave me this advice, it changed my life. Maybe it’s not at that level, but it really affected my decision and here’s how it turned out. Thank you so much.” That feels so good, especially if you only spent a few minutes giving them the input that enabled them to make a better decision.
Values as an Iterative Process
Lenny: So to summarize, I wrote these pieces down. The concept broadly is if you want advice on a decision you’re trying to make, pick some friends and this is… I guess I’ll go through the four things you just mentioned. And part two is actually pick the right friends. But one is just, come up with a question that’s specific. As in just like, what should I do with my life? But more, should I take the specific role at the specific company? Figure out the people that know you well and maybe have some context on this decision. How many people do you usually email for this sort of thing? What’s a number?
Early Career Explore vs. Exploit
Ada Chen Rekhi: I would try to optimize for getting at least three or four responses. It just depends on the nature of the loop. And then you think about what is your response rate. So if you’re emailing really busy people that you don’t know very well, maybe you would assume that you only get half of people to respond. If you’re emailing people really well and it’s really lightweight like, yes or no, and here’s why, then you might just send out a handful.
Lenny: Okay, awesome. So it’s five to 10 people, broadly sounds like. Oh yeah, you want to make it really quick and easy. So it’s like, here’s 10 things, which of these two do you think I should focus on? So it’s a quick ask as something you recommend, and then just thank them for it after you finish. Is that broadly the approach?
Transitioning to Small Teams and Startups
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yep, that’s the approach. One thing I want to note is that it’s actually really useful for personal things as well. So we framed it in this professional context of, I’m trying to change a job. But one example that I have is when we had our daughter who’s now three years old, one of the debates that my partner and I were having was how do we actually set up our estate planning in terms of if, God forbids, something happened to both of us. How should she inherit the state? And my partner was basically saying, “18 years old, she gets everything fully unlocked.” I was saying, “Oh, well maybe 25.” And we’re at this impasse. And we actually just started to tell each other, why don’t we, in our day-to-day conversations with folks that we trust in our family, people that we think are smart, that have kids ask people what their perspective is on it.
One thing was really telling, no one out of everyone we asked said 18. So that really dragged my partner up. And then the other thing that was really interesting was that we learned a little bit about executive function and the research around it. So executive function, which is your ability to make decisions and plans and be thoughtful peaks at the age of 30, and it’s all downhill from there. So bad news for people like me that are older.
Lenny: And then I’m getting [inaudible 00:12:54] or game over.
Deliberate Learning at LinkedIn
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, exactly.
Don’t Be the Boiling Frog
Lenny: Just like I’m-
Taking Initiative With Your Time
Ada Chen Rekhi: But if you’re thinking about 18, you are so far from your peak. So it dragged us both up in terms of what our set point was to make a decision like that. But we wouldn’t have figured that out without a curiosity loop because it’s too much work to dig through papers or research or whatever else to try to come to a good decision on it.
The Catalyst for Reevaluation
Lenny: So the core lesson here is just, versus just emailing a bunch of people, asking for advice, which I imagine people often do, just what should I do here? Creating a little bit of the structure and even calling it a curiosity loop, I bet, helps people feel like they want to be a part of this and participate and help.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, definitely. One of the things that I always try to do is I try to explain to people in my ask, here’s why I picked you. So for example, I picked you because I really trust you to be a sound source of truthful advice and give me some feedback. So I really value that. Do you mind spending a couple of minutes and just giving me some thoughts on this?
The Inner Scorecard
Lenny: And how often are you pinging people? If you’re a friend of Ada, are you getting curiosity looped every week, or how often? What’s your rate limit?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I usually reserve it for bigger things. So probably quarterly or anything where I’m having a big debate, and I’m feeling really indecisive.
Value and Use Cases of Coaching
Lenny: Awesome. It also makes me think about this idea of a personal board of directors, and this feels like an asynchronous approach to that concept where instead of a call every, I don’t know, quarter month with small group, it’s asynchronous. Here’s an ask I have-
How to Choose a Coach
Ada Chen Rekhi: Totally. Yep. I think this is really based off of the marketing concept of customer advisory councils. So when I was working in marketing and product at a startup, one of the things we would always have is a group of our top customers on DM, basically. And if we had really interesting product conflicts, we would actually just go ping a couple of them and ask them, “Hey, we’re debating this. Do you mind just giving us your quick thoughts and telling us why?” And then being able to as a marketer come back to the product conversation and say, here is the literal voice of the customer and four or five different verbatims on what people think about this really enabled me as a marketer to have a seat at the table. And the insight and the helpfulness of that was really something I wanted to bring to my personal life as well.
Lenny: That’s really interesting. It’s basically user research for your life. User research, you’re told don’t do what people tell you to do. I guess it’s the same thing here, where it’s just like, here’s advice and then you end up making the decision for your own own life.
Being a Female Leader in Silicon Valley
Ada Chen Rekhi: Right. Right. Yes. That is the big caveat. Don’t do what people tell you to do. Take it as an input and look for the hard feedback. Look for things that you strongly disagree with or are surprises to you. Because to me, I think these loops are more about looking around the corner and seeing if there’s anything you missed in terms of the integrity of your decision making process.
Lenny: Sweet. You said that people told you what we should not talk about. They’re like, “Don’t cover this.” What was in that list?
Learning and Growing From Feedback
Ada Chen Rekhi: So I think there were two topics on the list. The first one, it was just how do you onboard and hire and bring people onto the team? And the feedback I got there was like, “There’s just so many people who have done this. I’m sure you have some interesting concepts, but I personally wouldn’t be that interested in hearing it. And that was really useful to me. And then the other one was actually just about being a woman in Silicon Valley and the experience of that. I actually had someone write, and you probably read this, Lenny, “No. Stay far away from this. There’s no winning on this topic."
"Eating Vegetables”: Practicing Discomfort
Lenny: Oh, my God. Okay, let’s touch on that topic rather than, it’s going to be great.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. So let’s ignore the advice?
Other Ways to “Eat Vegetables”
Lenny: Yeah, let’s ignore it. Before we get to that, I wanted to first talk about you. You gave me some homework also ahead of this chat. And the homework was around helping me figure out values and personal values for myself. I did the exercise. So first of all, can you just maybe talk about what this exercise was, and what the goal of it is? And then I’ll share what I come up with.
Ada Chen Rekhi: So the homework that I gave you is similar homework that I give to everyone that I work with in coaching, and it’s this values exercise. It’s this 10 to 15 minute exercise where you’re presented with a list of words that might encompass potential values. It’s pretty lightweight. You just go down the list, and you pick out all the words that resonate with you, and then we filter them down into groups of values, and then we filter them down into a stack rank and a list. And the output on the end is basically three to five sentences that cover what are the values stack rank that are important to you right now in your personal and professional life? And what I really like is, it’s this internal scorecard of what really matters to you in your decision making process as opposed to the external scorecard of status, money, wealth, how other people perceive you, that often we feel really pressured by. So it’s this great way to look back and see how well do decisions, or how well do my situations in life align with my values?
LinkedIn 30-Day Challenge and Content Mindset
Lenny: Sweet. And what I liked about it is, if someone were to be like, “Hey, come up with your values.” I’d be like, “Oh, my God. I’m just sitting here thinking about words and concepts.” And it was really helpful because it was basically multiple choice. Here’s all the options across tons of categories, just keep picking and then helps you whittle them down. I ended up with six. I feel like that’s one too many. Actually, I added a bonus one because it’s just one that I really like. But should I read through what I came up with?
Starting a Business With Your Partner
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, that sounds great.
Keys to Working With Your Partner
Lenny: So here’s what my values, I guess. Choose adventure, stay optimistic, treat others you want to be treated. Classic. Keep getting better, act generously. And added one that my grandma taught me back in the day that has stuck with me, that had nothing to do with this exercise, but I just wanted to have on this list, which is, first do what you need to do, and then do what you want.
Ada Chen Rekhi: I love it. What a great list of values and what stands out to me from that list too, Lenny, is this idea of achievement or status or success. A lot of the things that we talk about publicly, what your LinkedIn feed might look like don’t actually show up in your values. And it must reflect in some of the choices that you’ve made in your life.
Rapid Fire Questions
Lenny: Yes, I hope so.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Let me ask you this. Let’s try to apply some of the values in real time as an experiment.
Lenny: Oh, boy.
Ada Chen Rekhi: If you think about a recent decision that you’ve had to make or a decision that you’re facing coming up, can you share what that decision might be? And then let’s try to apply the values to it to think about if you were living up to these values, what choice would you make and maybe some of the pressures you might feel to choose otherwise.
Lenny: So an ongoing decision I have is I have all these opportunities of things I can be doing. Additional things I can be doing. The podcast, this actually was a good example of I never wanted to do a podcast because I really wanted to… Life is good. I was writing this newsletters, doing great, making a living, doing one great email a week. And I was like, “Why would I do anything more? This is good.” So I’ve constantly resisted, I resisted the podcast for two to three years, and then eventually succumbed. And it was a great decision in the end. But now, I have other things that I’m trying to not do, but they’re always pushing into my mind space like, a book for example. Of course at one point, and I paused that just so I could have more time for the podcast. So I guess the decision is just like, what should I say yes to versus say no to?
I’m looking at my values a little bit, and one of them is choose adventure, which you would think would be just do stuff, just try stuff out. But I feel like maybe it’s just a missing bullet point here of, I just want to do less. I’m trying to take on less and do less and cut out and-
Ada Chen Rekhi: That’s really interesting.
Lenny: … simplify. Yeah. Because there’s just endless things I could be doing, and I want to spend time with my wife. And now, my new child is coming in a couple of months, if all goes well. So that’s where my mind goes when you ask that.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe if you were to decompose adventure, what adventure actually means to you and you go into that word list, you might actually just find that some of these opportunities like writing a book, at some point, it doesn’t feel like an adventure.
Lenny: Right. That’s so true. The beginning of it is an adventure. And then that’s such a good point because yeah, once you start a thing… Something I always say about this content creation life is like, it’s easy to start. It’s hard to keep it going, and it becomes just this treadmill of just, you have to keep creating awesome stuff basically for the rest of your life. I don’t know how you get off the treadmill. Not that I’m complaining, but that’s just a reality of this path. So that is such a good point that it becomes not adventurous very quickly. So that’s really interesting.
Ada Chen Rekhi: I love it.
Lenny: I guess the other thing is just, what’s a cutoff? What am I… I do a bunch of angel investing and so I’m thinking about just stopping that for a while just so I get up more time with my new child and just carve out things that maybe aren’t as essential.
Ada Chen Rekhi: So on the values exercise, I think what you’ve done a really good job of is just really delineating, here are some examples of choices that you have to make. I think that there are some points in our lives where writing a book, it just seems really obvious. It’s good for your career. It’s the next level in terms of where you go from the community, the newsletter, the podcast and getting to that next level. But where I think there is value is these lists of values can help ground us from those obvious decisions. So in my life, to share a mini example of this, there have been a lot of cases where the next obvious step for me might be to go an executive at a big company and to go chase the dream and continue on the latter climb of my career.
As I’ve examined my own personal values, a big piece of it has really been around prioritizing relationships and really pursuing knowledge and growth on my own terms. And things like independence and autonomy have started to creep up over time, especially once I started a family. It became very clear to me that sometimes the external scorecard of what people think you should go do is very much an opposition of what I actually want to do. Even though it might be objectively better, depending on what scorecard you actually use, I would actually be less happy with some of those outcomes. So I think values are this really nice useful tool to think about how do you make better decisions again to maximize for your own alignment with life.
Lenny: That’s such an important point. It connects back to the course that I taught and then this potential book of, it just feels like an obvious thing I should do. It was great, but it just didn’t bring me joy. And other things bring me more joy. So it was a really good reminder of just like, do I really want to be doing this, or is this just a thing that feels like a smart thing to do but maybe isn’t for me psychologically? So I love just the reminder of coming back to values as a lens to decide if you want to do a thing versus just, what are people telling you? Smart or… Which just feels like the natural thing to do.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, and it’s really self-aware of you too. I think too. Cut it off because you start realizing that you’re doing this course, and it’s not giving you energy or it’s not quite the right thing. It’s really hard to say no to things.
Lenny: It is. It is.
Ada Chen Rekhi: And I don’t think we focus on that enough.
Lenny: Yeah, I’ve learned how to do that better. I have all these auto templates of ways to say no in different ways. Actually, ChatGPT, somebody’s tweeted this that it has all kinds of good suggestions. If you could ask it, how do I say no to my manager who wants me to prioritize a feature? And has all kinds of clever words to [inaudible 00:24:30].
Ada Chen Rekhi: Oh. Yeah, that’s a great use for it.
Lenny: The other thing that I realized as we were going through this exercise that I imagine you find also is when you come up with an initial set of values, I was realizing I maybe another value of just keeping things simple, simplifying. And I imagine that’s part of the process of narrowing in on what’s important to you is you take this first pass and then you try to use it in making a decision and then you realize, oh, there’s this other thing that’s really important to me and that updates your values.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, I think you could definitely use that process to force yourself to make a stack ring and to be really clear, and also change it. Change it. It’s yours. So change it over time as it suits you.
Lenny: All right. It feels like there should be a curiosity loop AI bot with your values that you email, what should I do with this decision? And then it’s like, oh, you think simplicity is great? You should not do this.
Ada Chen Rekhi: The next big idea.
Lenny: There we go. Somebody build that. Okay, so it’s funny we went into reverse interview, and then I have to asking questions again. So let’s do this. You talked about your career and how you resisted these shiny object opportunities to focus on the thing that you were excited about and wanted to do. So maybe a couple questions there. One is just early career advice. You coach a lot of founders. You had a really in incredible career doing all kinds of interesting things. What have you learned about what works best for optimizing in your early career?
Ada Chen Rekhi: My early career was pretty wild. So I had a really fast run. Over the course of seven years, I went from my first job, which was basically this entry level sales job at Microsoft, working on Microsoft adCenter to SVP of marketing at SurveyMonkey, leading a global team. And when I reflect back on what works across my early career, it really comes down in a nutshell to this career concept of explore and exploit, which actually sounds dark now that I’m saying it out loud, but-
Lenny: Yeah, sounds great. I love it.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Explore and exploit, if you’re familiar with it from growth background, is really just around what mode you’re in. You’re either in a mode of explorer where you have a bunch of unknowns and you’re testing to see whether or not you like it, how well it works, whether or not it fits for you. Or you’re exploiting, where you actually have found something that’s really rich and really deep and then you’re just trying to get more. And when I think about explore and exploit for early career, it’s all about exploration. You really haven’t experienced that much, but you’re doing it with a thesis. You’re doing it with that growth mindset where you have a hypothesis. So coming out of school, my first job was at Microsoft. I was at adCenter. The big thing I learned from the 367 days that I was there was that corporate life at that point in my career was just a little bit too slow-paced for me, and I was really hungry to go do something else.
But I also learned quite a lot about marketing and advertising. And I had the suspicion that not only did I want to try something smaller, but I also wanted to try marketing. So I moved to this series a startup where I had to sample my desk on the first day called Mochi Media. And I was in a marketing role at a startup and had this great run there over three years, where I learned all kinds of things and even tried product at some point. What I learned from that experience was then I love marketing, games was pretty fun and being in a smaller team was really dynamic. It was this choice on, do I exploit and go deeper into the industry or do I explore more? I was 23 at the time, so I decided I have so little to lose, let me continue exploring. My big thesis was, let me try being a founder. So then I founded Connected, and Connected was this personal CRM that’s a little bit like Clay.
If you’ve seen Clay now recently, in terms of how do you do a better job of managing and building your professional and personal network and-
Lenny: Yeah. It’s a beautiful product.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, it’s a beautiful product, much more beautiful than what we built at the time. It was such a great learning experience to discover what it was like to be a founder of a company and an entrepreneur. My personal learning out of all of those things was really just that I was continuously optimizing that I loved marketing. I loved being a founder. I really like small teams. There are pros and cons to this corporate life, where maybe things are really slow paced, but the scale is really important. So that was really what carried me through a lot of my early career. After Connected was acquired by LinkedIn, I moved into this exploit mode.
So I was at LinkedIn for a period of time while I was investing, and I really wanted to be intentional about the time that I spent there in terms of how I wanted to exploit it. So unlike a traditional path where you’re really focused on trying to get the biggest title, a big team, set yourself up to run a big org, my role at LinkedIn was really explicit. I even told my manager this when I first came in, “I’m here to learn to be a better founder.” So there were a lot of things when I started connected, which I didn’t know how to do very well, I didn’t understand growth. I was fair to middling at pricing. I really didn’t understand how to build a subscriptions business and how to price it. So if I can make my LinkedIn experiences match to that, that would be a huge win for me independent of promotion, or compensation or a whole bunch of those things because the plan afterward is actually to go off and start another company.
So I managed to get into this great role leading gross marketing for LinkedIn, working with their growth team from a hundred million to 200 million members, read every experiment brief that I could, spent a lot of time with the team, really understanding their process, and then shifted into the subscription side where I worked on LinkedIn subscriptions and ran their sales subscriptions business at scale through the online channel. And saw how all of those pieces and worked together from a financial planning and analysis stage to all of the optimizations that they did. It was just such a rare opportunity, but I wouldn’t have gotten those opportunities if I just let them promote me or I followed a strategy where I was just focused on trying to get the biggest title.
Instead, I was focused on those learnings and those experiences. Ultimately, the fact that I was a startup founder. I had big company experience. I had growth experience, and I had subs experience. And I was a product marketer. That was actually the winning combination that caused SurveyMonkey to send me a LinkedIn InMail, start a conversation and ultimately bring me in as their head of marketing at the age of, I think I was 27 or 28 at the time. Because their rationale was, you have all these experiences that we really need and you don’t have the management experience, but we have plenty of that. We’re happy to teach that to you.
Lenny: I really like this framework. I’ve never heard it described this way. Explore and exploit connects a lot with what I always recommend which, early on, is to optimize for a variety of experience so that you can figure out where you actually have a good time and what you’re interested in versus getting stuck on the first thing something. I don’t know if you’ll have an immediate answer to this, but I’m curious. Many people don’t know how long to stick with something that maybe doesn’t feel good but may lead to something. Like, someone may be in a job right now, or just like, “I really don’t like this job, but I feel like it’ll lead to something great. And I don’t want to give up too quickly.” So I guess the question is, what are heuristics that tell you to stick it out and stick with something that you think will lead to something great versus hold the recording and get out?
Ada Chen Rekhi: That’s a great question, and it’s a really tough one that is contextual on the person that you are. So one of the things that I like to share is this idea of, it’s a little gory, don’t be the frog. So if you are familiar with the story of the frog, it’s this idea of boiling the frog. So if you take a frog, and you throw in a pot of boiling water, it’ll jump out. But if you take a frog and you put in a pot and you increase the temperature degree by degree by degree, the frog doesn’t notice and before it knows, it’s boiled alive. And how I apply this to your question to come back and circle back to it is that, it’s really easy to be a victim of inertia. It’s really easy for all of us to be the frog where there are little things that make us uncomfortable, and we sit with them or we think, “Gosh, it’ll get better. The next manager will get better. I’m always one conversation or one promotion away from getting to that next step.”
But you really have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to be aware of which way is the direction of the temperature of the water trending. That’s what makes the advice really contextual. I really look at it from the lens of learning. What can I learn here, and how am I growing and developing? So there might be an argument for you to stay at a job for two decades. If it turns out that every single day you’re being really challenged, you’re learning new things, you’re deriving a lot of meaningful enjoyment out of your work and you’re this happy frog that’s hanging out, realizing that things are good and the temperature is not rising. But there are also situations where you might encounter just some really hard walls, where you don’t get along with the thesis of the company. You don’t agree with the direction of the company that you’re in.
There are fundamental aspects of the role which are limiting to you or you’re not learning a lot, frankly. I think that happens a lot, where you providing a lot of value and doing a good job at a company, but you might not be learning things that stretch you and grow you to achieve your ultimate goal. When you are aware of that learning, I think that’s the point at which you have to say, “How do I change that? How do I be an agent in my own career and make a difference in that?” And it doesn’t necessarily mean that the strategy is to quit your job and do something catastrophic, and then go do something else, take a course or sign up for something new. It might actually mean a proactive conversation with your manager or the leadership to say, “I love what I’m doing here, and I would also like to learn a little bit more. And here’s what I’m interested in.”
And then try to find a way to either land the right projects. So in my case, it was really growth and subscriptions, that experience that I really wanted. Let’s say, you hit a blank wall there, even take it as a gift of time, which is great. I’m not going to be able to get this from my company, but now that I have this extra time because I’m so optimized at this job, how am I going to choose to use that time? And it might be around building relationships with some of the key people at the company or learning something new on your own time that you can leverage in another way.
Lenny: I like that. Make the most of the time, even if it’s not the best opportunity for you. Also love the frog boiling metaphor.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Little gory.
Lenny: No, it’s great. So I guess the lesson there is think about are you that frog being boiled right now and think ahead, is this going to be the end of the-
Ada Chen Rekhi: Right. Keep an eye on your environment and which way is it trending?
Lenny: Yeah, the temperature on the thermostat in your office. The other thing this makes me think about is, it’s so easy to get caught up in making your resume look amazing and continuing to just like, “Oh, if I get this next role, my resume’s going to look so great.” And this other logo and this cool title and role. I find that just like, you do that long enough in your life, you end up… You retire, and then you die. Life is that resume. Right? That is your life, you’re living, and there’s not going to be a point at which you have to realize, okay, I’ve done all the things to make my resume. Also, I’m like, “What do I actually want to do? Am I enjoying this?” Because it’ll never end. You’re never going to end trying to make a better resume and a more awesome background for yourself. Do you experience that with yourself or other people you work with of just over optimizing to make an awesome series of roles and logos and then forgetting, do I actually enjoy any of this? What am I doing?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I have experienced that personally a lot. I think that it may be a generational thing or it just may be my background, but having grown up with the Asian tiger parenting, it’s very focused on logos or certain accomplishments or certain achievements like, going to an Ivy League school, working in a company that someone’s heard of, being able to have a certain title. At a certain point, I bailed out a bit and I really started to think about who am I trying to please and optimize for? That values exercise that I had you do, Lenny, is actually a big piece of that. So I probably took it for the first time over a decade ago, at this point. I looked at those values and I said, “Well, if I draw a straight line from where I am right now and just extend it forward and play the rest of the movie as it plays out, given the current plot line, how well does that optimize for those values?”
That’s great. My parents might be happy about my resume or other people might look upon me in a certain way because I’ve managed these achievements, but in my day-to-day life, what really matters to me, what’s really meaningful to me, only some of this stuff really matters. So getting very intentional about that and being clear about who your audience is as you navigate your career. I think it’s a terrible outcome to wake up one day and be late career and feel trapped because you have a certain lifestyle or a certain expectations of the people around you that you have to go work this job, but then you look at yourself in the mirror and you’re not happy going in there. I think that’s a terrible trap that we should all try to avoid as we navigate our career paths and find the thing that’s most optimal for us, which is usually a mix of career success, but also meaningfulness and alignment in the work that we’re doing with our values.
Lenny:
What triggered your reevaluation of that path? Was there just like a, “Oh, man. I need to really rethink where I’m going.” And then I have a follow-up question.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Really just a career opportunity. And it was this step where I could do something that was, at the time, really high profile and really exciting and felt great, but also involved demanding travel and grueling hours. And wasn’t in a space that I was excited about, but it looked amazing on my resume. And I was talking to a friend about it, and they actually introduced me to this values exercise to say like, “Ada, go through and fill out this values exercise, and apply it to this job.” What I realized at the time, after I did it, was that my top three values, the things that I cared about this job would categorically just fail at because I would be gone all the time, in pursuit of glory that I didn’t really care about. Instead, my current path at the time was something that if I persisted in, it would actually be able to potentially fulfill all of those values.
Lenny: It reminds me of a friend who has this metaphor of this ego monster sitting in the corner of the room that’s always yelling at them, when they’re… To do the thing that’s impressive and take on the really cool role, and just get an awesome title, and do something really impressive, that’s just like yelling at them from the corner. And my friend’s just learned to just like, “Okay, that’s the ego monster pulling at me. I don’t have to listen to that. Doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy if I listen to this guy.” And that’s been really helpful to my friend just to disassociate that part of the brain.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. The ego monster is a great way to put it. I use something that Warren Buffet has talked about, which is inner scorecard versus outer scorecard.
Lenny: Tell me more.
Ada Chen Rekhi: So he talks about how there’s an outer scorecard, which is how the rest of the world evaluates you, how you keep score in terms of external factors. So top 10 lists, wealth status, title, maybe things that people really care about. And then your inner scorecard is things that actually matter to you, how you spent your day, how good of a person you are. Did you have an adventure today, Lenny? Were you kind? And there are a lot of things that maybe are in opposition to each other. So really thinking about did you win at the cost of kindness? Did you succeed at the cost of losing access to the adventure that you really wanted? I think really thinking about it in that lens helps you trade off against some of that external pressure and the ego monster.
Lenny: This might be a good segue to chat about coaching. I imagine a lot of people listening to this like, “Yes, I want to do that. I want to measure myself according to my values and check in on this. And am I doing the wrong path?” It’s hard to do just on your own, I find. And I think that’s one of the benefits of an executive coach. So maybe we just chat about what should people know about coaching and getting a coach, and does everyone need a coach and how to think about the idea of getting a coach at some point in their career.
Ada Chen Rekhi: I’ll have a hot take on this, and it’s something that I share to people when I talk to them about coaching. But my hot take is that for the vast majority of people, they probably do not need a coach.
Lenny: Great.
Ada Chen Rekhi: And what I often push people on is if you’re thinking about getting a coach, which is usually an indication that they have a feeling of being stuck or they have a problem that they’re trying to solve, I ask them, “What are your goals when it comes to coaching? Roll it forward six months, what have you gotten done in your coaching experience. What have you accomplished, and you’re just… It’s like, a home run. And then look at all of the potential alternatives in terms of how you could have spent your valuable time and often pricey fees to achieve the same goal, but maybe in a better way.” The thing that people don’t really think about is if you’re looking for a mentor, a coach is actually a terrible mentor in some ways because it’s this one person’s opinion. It’s actually way better to run a curiosity loop, for example, and get the benefit a couple different minds on a specific topic and hit their wheelhouse of things that they know about. Than to go ask one person, what do you think I should do in this situation?
If you’re trying to learn about a topic in a really robust way, let’s say you want to learn about growth, maybe you should take are Reforge course and get access to all of the resources and the insights of the EIRs and the growth advisors that Reforge and get an overview and survey of the landscape instead of one person’s experience and the handful of companies that they might have worked with. Likewise, if you’re just feeling like you’re a little emotionally overcome, I think coaches are this great resource around that, but it’s actually better to pay it forward and build a tribe and a community of people around you that you can rely on for support because that’s the thing that lasts you for years and years.
So one of the first things that I do when people talk to me about coaching is I challenge them and say, “Have you explored all of these other opportunities first, and do you really need a coach? And is a coach actually the best option for you?” Like an anti sell, just so that they know what they’re getting themselves into because I don’t necessarily think that it’s useful for all things, even though it can be helpful.
Lenny: And then when do you find that it’s actually important and valuable and something someone should try to get?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I wouldn’t be a coach if I didn’t think that it wasn’t important and valuable. I think that in certain contexts it can be super helpful. So when you have situations where you’re in a state of hyper growth, and you need very accelerated learning, and you need someone who can point you in the right direction, I think coaches can be really helpful. So I work with founders for example, and founders are just in this unique state where everything is chaos. They have no structure. They don’t know what their jobs are. They have fully justified imposter syndrome where no one in their right mind would objectively have hired them for the position that they’re in. There’s really intense highs and lows. So for a founder, it might make a lot of sense to get a coach because they have to learn a lot of stuff really quickly, and time is of the essence.
So a coach might be a really helpful shortcut for them to get there. Related to that, I think it’s also really helpful on sensitive topics. So there are a lot of things that we want to be coached on where either it takes a lot of time for us to work through and progress because it’s a long-term project, for example, or it’s something very sensitive. People issues and interpersonal conflicts. Coaches can be especially helpful in those cases because it’s this really safe space for you to work through things, but also have someone who’s really rational to help guide you through them with potentially some frameworks and extra advice.
Lenny: So I had a couple coaches in my career and what made me feel like I should pursue that is when you think about a sports athlete or, I don’t know, athlete. No one does not have a coach, the best athletes have coaches and they get great because they have somebody helping them get better. It’s not just like an accident. They don’t just learn on their own. It just makes you realize that other people in their profession that have a coach helping them out are just going to be more successful because innately, they have someone helping them learn how to do the job better. So that made me realize, man, I should probably get a coach to help me out with stuff. Even though there wasn’t anything super specific, I’m like, “Oh, I need to fix this problem.” It was just like, wow, this just intellectually make sense. So it was actually really important and transformative for me.
Ada Chen Rekhi: If you go to my site, I actually have this guide that I’ve written over time on both my take on how do you find a coach, and the TLDR there is actually that I strongly recommend to everyone. If you’re thinking about getting a coach, talk to two or three different coaches. And really get a sense of their vibe and how well you get to know them. It’s surprising because I did this piece of research, which I also wrote about, and we could link to, but I talked to over 80 people about their experiences with a coach. I talked including coaches, including founders, including executives and there’s this shocking data point in there where half of people that founder their coach literally went with the first coach that they talked to. It’s that your buddy said, “I work with this great coach.” And then you go and you hire your buddy’s coach.
I think that’s a totally fine way to go find a coach, but I would actually really just urge people to talk to a couple because what works for your friend may not work for you. And just being able to see some of the variance in terms of the style and how people get along, I think that can make a huge difference in terms of this reflection of how do you learn best? When you think about acquiring a new skill, do you love structure? Do you not like structure? Do you like it when someone really teaches you and walks you through specific examples, or do you frameworks? Coaches come in all of those different flavors. So I think it’s really worth it to explore before you get into such a deep relationship with someone, just so that both people can feel really sure about it.
Lenny: What’s one thing that people may not think about or just something that you find really important that maybe is unexpected when you’re looking for a coach?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I thought that credentials and the relevant experience of the coach was a huge factor in terms of how you should go about your coach selection. But part of the interviews that I did was talking to founders that had had experiences with coaches and asking them to reflect back, and these founders and executives when they thought about it, they actually said so much more about, it was actually this amorphous sense of vibe with the person, how safe you felt with them, how deeply you would explore with them, and how well they got you, and remembered the pieces of the conversation and help you put it together. Way more than potentially some experiences that they’d had, where this person had the perfect background, but they just never really connected on that level. So it was unintuitive to me that there was such a big piece of it that was around personal connection, which is why I’ve now pushed people to try to talk to a couple different people.
And then the other thing which comes back to the sports coaching analogy is that there are different coaches that are really good at different things. So just like how, if you’re a star tennis player, you might actually have multiple coaches working with you, maybe an offensive coach or a defensive coach or working on a particular swing. It actually makes sense when you’re really performing at a high level to consider having coaches that work with you on shorter term basis to really just work on your speaking or help you with getting into your groove on writing or help you achieve a specific goal. You shouldn’t think about it as this long-term commitment to stay with one person, but instead more choosing off of a menu and thinking about what goal are you trying to achieve right now?
Lenny: Does anyone ever get multiple executive coaches that… I like how we went from, you don’t need a coach to maybe need a month [inaudible 00:50:46] hamstrings.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yes. I know of multiple people that I’ve talked to, usually CEOs, that either have had a series of coaches or have multiple coaches. It makes a lot more sense, Lenny, when you think about someone who’s getting a pitch coach because they’re about to get into fundraising.
Lenny: Got it. Right. Niche skills.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Right. For niche things because they’re about to enter a process or someone who’s trying to get into a writing coach-
Lenny: Got it. Yeah.
Ada Chen Rekhi: … in addition to some of their executive and leadership work that they might be doing.
Lenny: Okay. That makes sense. I love it. I’m going to get four coaches. One for everything I do
Ada Chen Rekhi: A podcast coach.
Lenny: Podcast coach.
Ada Chen Rekhi: A newsletter coach.
Lenny: A writing coach, and a-
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yes. And then a parent coach. Don’t forget that.
Lenny: Parent coach. A job board coach, and then just a life coach. Okay. I’m on it. Okay. So let’s touch on the thing that your friends said we shouldn’t touch on, which is being a woman in leadership in Silicon Valley. I guess I’ll just frame it simply. Imagine there’s many young women listening to this podcast, and many may dream of a career like yours, all the things you’ve shared. What advice do you have for young women just starting out in their career hoping to find a similar path?
Ada Chen Rekhi: This is a really delicate subject, and it’s interesting because when I try to decompose why people gave me the feedback they gave me on this topic, I think a big piece of it is just that you want to have respect for the inherent challenges of being a non stereotypically great fit for leadership roles or certain career success roles in Silicon Valley and acknowledge that. And also try to push for some of the agency of the things that you can do. So I’m going to start with just this quick story about someone that I worked with who’s given me permission to share this, in a coaching context and then back out. So I was working with a seed stage founder, and she’s so smart. She is really dynamic, very, very focused, really, really great at taking feedback and actioning it. She’s one of those people that is just stellar, and I have no doubt that she’s going to make a huge dent in the universe.
We’ve been working together on Zoom for a couple of months, and I’d built this great respect for her competence as an operator, and the way that she thought and took apart problems and then acted on them. And then we met together for the first time in person at lunch. I feel almost nervous talking about this here. The disparity between my sense of who she was as an operator and how she came across to me initially at this lunch was really striking in that it was a weekday lunch and she was dressed as if she was hanging out on the weekend. So old T-shirt, hair back and in a claw, bra straps were showing. She was just incredibly casual in terms of her physical appearance. It took me almost like a little bit of a step back to reevaluate and think, “Oh, this is the same person, but she actually just presents so differently.
So then I took the step after we met and I gave her that feedback in one of our next coaching sessions where we invited each other to give each other feedback. I shared a lot of my impressions with her and I told her, “I respect you so much as an operator. I want to tell you that in the physical meeting that we had together, there was this disparity on how I would’ve potentially perceived you when I first met you in person versus what I’ve come to know about you from the months that we spent together.”
Her reaction was like, “Oh my God, Ada. No one has ever connected the dots for me. Thank you so much. It has never explicitly been told to me that some of these elements which you describe, and they’re very easy for me to fix and I’m motivated to fix them, are things that might actually trigger certain impressions or biases. No one’s actually said it to me before, and I’m about to go into fundraising. It’s actually super helpful for me to hear this, that these are controllable elements of my physical attire or my appearance that might actually just affect the way that people perceive me. And then it gives me this extra hump to get over, in terms of getting to this point of credibility for them to see me as a seasoned operator that I am.” She took it so well. But what was interesting about it was actually that she’d made it all this way in her career. She’d even raised funding, and no one had ever given her this feedback.
So this is, I think one of the big challenges of being a woman in Silicon Valley because getting to an executive role or getting to a funded founder role, it’s like an Olympic level sport. You have to get all the way through the funnel and become one of the few that are really chosen to do that. But the difficulty of this game is that no one tells you the rules of the game. You actually don’t really know what are the rules on how to get intros or give intros. What’s the right way to follow up? What are the impressions that people have about you? It turns out that in a career context, it’s so unsafe for your manager to turn to a young woman on the team and say, “Here, let me give you feedback on your physical appearance, and how it affects your competence and how you’re perceived in the workforce.” That the vast majority of them will just never do it because there’s no winning, which is similar to the feedback that I got.
SO where I lean in is to say, we’re not powerless and there’s something that all of us can do if we’re in a position where we feel like not even about being female, it’s about being perceived as too young or too old, too tall, too short, not the right race. Whatever reason that you feel people may be disqualifying you or not seeing you. We’re not powerless, even though this game is rigged. We can study the game, we can help each other, and we can actually start to call out some of those rules and then find ways around them. In this case, for the founder in this example, she really turned to her friends and did a mini makeover and amped up her appearance.
And she came back and she reported, “A lot of people have been giving me really positive feedback, that something about me feels more confident and more energetic, and they can’t figure out why.” But actually, she was getting a ton of people noticing that something was really different about her in a positive way simply because I was in this great position as her coach to give her some of these pieces of hard feedback that she had never heard before. So it’s really on us to try to find those and then try to adapt ourselves to play that game if you want to play at that level.
Lenny: How nervous were you giving her that feedback?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I was so nervous. I actually almost didn’t do it, and then took a deep breath and then decided, what the heck? I think she’s great. I think she would really benefit from doing it and I gave it. Even in a position where I’m in a relationship with her where I can have that trust, it was super, super difficult. So I can only imagine how hard it is for people to give feedback like that in another context, but how else are people going to hear it?
Lenny: I think there was a company culture where they talk about how you’re being selfish, not giving someone hard feedback because you don’t want to be stressed or risk causing damage to your own reputation. But you’re not helping them. So it’s a really interesting insight of just like, don’t be selfish. Do something that’s hard when you think it’s going to help someone else.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Right. But I think on the topic of being female or on the topic of physical appearance or maybe even some of the topics around being an immigrant, if you’re in a position where you can give that feedback, I think the struggle is often will it be well received? And that’s where the feedback comes from me from the curiosity loop for this piece, which was there’s almost no winning in doing it because the upside is something great happens for them. But there’s just so many downsides to giving advice or giving someone input like that the default course is just to avoid. But then that person never learns the rules of the game.
Lenny: Yeah, absolutely. It makes me think also a little bit about Radical Candor, basically. I don’t know if you read that book, but
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, Kim Malone Scott, I think.
Lenny: Yeah. And Sheryl Sandberg had a similar story where she… I think Sheryl Sandberg gave her a really hard feedback and she didn’t take it that well, actually. I think you did a better job, or your friend actually took the feedback and did something with it. I think the whole book was just like, “Hey, I actually do this where people actually listen.” I think the framework is, you got to communicate that you care deeply about that person, but you want to challenge them directly also at the same time.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, it’s a great story. I think Sheryl Sandberg took her aside after one of her meetings and basically told her that, “If you say um, it makes me sound stupid.” And she didn’t take that well, but at the same time, later on in retrospect, she reflected that it was so brave and so helpful of someone like Sheryl to go give that feedback because there’s a real cost to it. There’s real risk to it.
Lenny: Any other thoughts or advice along these lines that you want to leave people with?
Ada Chen Rekhi: The biggest piece of advice that I have that comes to mind is really around trying to be really thoughtful on something I call eating your vegetables. So I have all these branded terms for things, but-
Lenny: That’s great.
Ada Chen Rekhi: … eating your vegetables is really this idea around how little kids don’t really develop an appreciation for vegetables until they’re 10 or 12 exposures in. So the researchers say, “Expose kids to vegetables 10 or 12 times, even if they don’t like it, because that’s what it takes to get someone to like something.” So when I think about career strategy and when I think about improving yourself and I think about how do we look for some of the hard feedback, eating your vegetables is this really important component of it because it’s about how do you identify dislike for something because you’re bad at it or you’re new to it or you’ve never done it before, compared to genuine dislike where you’ve done it and you really don’t like it. So to make it a little bit real, if we think about the world of podcasts, Lenny, I think it’s something like 75 or 80% of podcasts never make it past the first podcast.
You have to do things a number of times before you really develop an affinity for it. Because the first time you do it, you’re just not going to be good. So my mini example of that was early on in my career, I was really awkward and not very good at networking. I moved to Silicon Valley and one of the things that people told me about Silicon Valley was that it’s really important to grow your network. It’s all about the people. Totally agree about that. However, I didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t really understand this networking thing. So I gave myself this rule where I had to go out once a week for a couple of months, go to an external event, and I would count out 10 business cards. And the rule was, I had to hand out all 10 of those business cards by introducing myself to people that were new, and touch the back wall of the venue of that event and then I could leave.
I did that a couple of weeks in a row, and it was horrible. It was really awful, but it got a lot better. What I realized about that was actually two things. One that, as I started going and I saw familiar faces, it became a lot easier for me to just break in and meet people, just by seeing who people I knew already were talking to. And then second, I got a lot better at just breaking in and introducing myself and understanding how this intro and networking thing worked in terms of meeting people and moving through a crowd. Some of those relationships now from that first job and those first couple months are pretty much foundational to the network and the people that I know today. So it really paid off for me because I really focused on eating my vegetables and powering through that initial discomfort.
So to title back when it comes to thinking about how do you progress in your career, think about the obvious things that maybe you’re not very good at, and then think about what are some of the actions that you can do to be very deliberate and intentional about practicing it to get to the point where you have some faculty at it because it’s just really important in some cases to be good at certain skills.
Lenny: I really like that. I also really like the physicality of that rule of touching the back wall. It just forces you to go through a room, and I just escape really quickly. Is there any other examples of things you’ve seen or recommend for doing things like, eating vegetables? That was a really good example of just forcing yourself to go to a networking event, touch the back wall. Is there anything else, any other examples that come to mind that you’ve recommended or found useful, doing something really hard that was really impactful?
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. So there are actually a few of them. A lot of them around content creation because it’s just so hard. So one of them that comes to mind is, I know a lot of people have talked about doing a LinkedIn 30. So 30 days of posting something on LinkedIn in terms of content every day for 30 days straight, and just getting past that barrier of sharing. And then looking at it over time and seeing out of the things that you posted, what really resonated. I also think it’s helpful to start thinking about things like getting into DMs. Right. It takes a lot of work to think about, “Oh, this person’s really smart, let me DM them. Let me try to strike up a conversation because we’re well out of the world of physical business cards. I don’t think anyone has those anymore.
Lenny: No.
Ada Chen Rekhi: But modern networking is finding people that are really interesting on the internet and then finding some way to connect with them. It takes a certain amount of extroversion in that case to start meeting up with people and having conversations with them. So forcing yourself in some way to really think about, “Well, instead of having one outreach and then failing at it and saying, ‘I’m never doing that again.’ How do I actually create a pattern where I can learn or a sequence of trying to do this 10 or 12 times, and see what I get out of it?” Because that’s really how you learn and how you grow.
Lenny: The LinkedIn 30 idea, I like a lot. Something that I’ll share as a tip is when you hear that, I bet a lot of people are just like, “Oh, my God. Going to link post on LinkedIn. So cringey. I don’t want to be this self-promotiony LinkedIn person.” But what I find is if you reframe it to, “I just want to crystallize a thought that I have and just share something that is useful to me or an insight I’ve had, and not think of it from, I’m trying to get as many likes. I’m trying to go viral with this post, or I’m trying to just build some following.” Just don’t think of it that way. Think of it as just want to communicate a thought I have and use this opportunity to crystallize it in a really simple way. That helps motivate. That, at least, works for me. It also ends up being useful for me. It’s not like I’m trying to grow some following as a result of that.
Ada Chen Rekhi: I find that really helpful as well. One piece of advice that’s similar to that that I’ve heard is, write for an audience of one. Imagine you’re just talking to a friend or you’re trying to talk to someone that’s a trusted colleague, and just write for them. I think that’s really helpful, and it helps us with the problem of getting in over your skis, really over fixating on the outcome of, I did a post and I didn’t get my 5,000 followers. And instead, just thinking about I did a post because I wanted to share an interesting idea, and then how cool, some people resonated with it.
Lenny: Yeah, I love that. You could just even say, something I found useful day one and just approach it that way. That’s the stuff that end up being most interesting to people. The less it feels like you’re trying to be thirsty for followers and likes and all that stuff. And the more it’s just like, here’s the thing I’ve found useful. Enjoy it, if you can.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. Yeah. People can really tell when you’re being genuine and authentic online.
Lenny: Absolutely. More and more. Maybe a last question. You started a company with your partner. You’re both co-founders, you and your husband. I’m curious, what’s your take on that approach to starting company? Would you recommend for other folks or not?f
Ada Chen Rekhi: If you had asked me when I first started the company, it would’ve been an enthusiastic hell yes. I totally recommend. Now, I have a couple asterisks on top of it, and-
Lenny: Go on.
Ada Chen Rekhi: … I think it really just goes back to what I was talking about earlier where being a founder is such a traumatic and crazy experience with all these intense highs and lows and lack of structure that when you throw romance into the mix, it’s just this really volatile combination. So what I’ve found is that it seems like it either goes really well or it goes really badly, and there’s no in between. And asterisks are there because we’ve actually had a couple of friends try it, and it’s been such a mixed bag of results. So my personal experience is I love it. My partner Sachin, and I work really well together. And the main benefit that we have is that the active founding is such an active obsession that you spend so much of your time thinking about your business and the concepts of your business and whatever problem you happen to be facing.
That when I had this thesis of I want to be a founder too, we played it out and said, “Well, okay, now we’re going to walk around being obsessed about two completely different things. We may never see each other, and so why not try the same thing?” So our first experiment was actually trying it together, and we were nuts. I actually had a 30, 60 and 90 day plan where we would have check-ins. And some of the explicit questions in the check-in, is this affecting our relationship? Because I just wanted to make sure we were putting our relationship first. It worked well for us to the extent that we’ve done two companies together. And then when we were at LinkedIn, we actually moved across multiple teams in the company and continued to be counterparts and product and marketing together. So it’s been phenomenal. The thing that I would say really helps us in terms of making it a successful relationship was things that I think apply to anyone that’s thinking about, should you work with a person and should you be a co-founder with this person?
We had a very, very good set of complimentary domains and skillsets, so we had really clear decision making rights. Sachin does product design and engineering. I focus on marketing, operations, finance, everything else on the business side. And because of that, it’s really clear that we take input from each other, but ultimately who makes the call and who’s driving and owning that project. So that was really helpful for us. And then the big part that I think is the murky Meyer for couples and maybe even for close friends working together is how do you engage in constructive conflict? How do you get to the point where you’re attacking the problem and not each other? So if your partner comes to you and says that work was not good, that marketing plan or that product roadmap that you put together, not good, do you take it as the plan is not good and let’s talk about what we can actually do to fix it?
Or do you take it as, “Oh, gosh, they think I’m not good. They think I’m too lazy. I saw that look that they were giving me.” And take it as this personal offense. So the ability to be really truth seeking and take the most respectful interpretation when you’re giving feedback to focus on trying to get to a smart good outcome that benefits the business, I think that’s actually one of the most crucial things that you have to think about. If you’re going to work with anyone. Much less your partner or a close friend on starting a company and what’s really worked for us,
Lenny: I am very impressed with how you’re able to execute on this. I don’t think I could do this with my wife. That would not go well, I think. You should probably write-
Ada Chen Rekhi: That’s self awareness.
Lenny: Yeah. No, we’re aware. You should write a post on how to successfully build a company with your partner. That seems like you have a lot of really interesting frameworks and insights on how it’s worked. The fact that-
Ada Chen Rekhi: That’s a good idea.
Lenny: … [inaudible 01:10:58] for so long. Yeah, it could be its own little book. Is there anything else you wanted to share or touch on before we get to our very exciting lightning round?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I think you covered most of it, Lenny.
Lenny: With that then, we have reached our very exciting lightning round. I’ve got five questions for you. Are you ready?
Ada Chen Rekhi: I am ready.
Lenny: What are two or three books that you’ve recommended most to other people?
Ada Chen Rekhi: Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. I think it’s a great book, if you’re a marketer. It’s a great book, if you’re a founder or product person. But it really is a breakdown of what are the different strategies to get people to say yes and help persuade them toward things. I think it really helps in terms of thinking through that and designing a product or a business around it.
Lenny: I’ve got that in my bookshelf behind me.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Oh, yeah. It’s a great book. Yeah. The next book that I also recommend is a book called Designing Your Life, and it’s out of the Stanford Design School. And it’s by, let me look, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. They’re two Stanford D School professors, and what they’re doing is they’re applying design principles to life design. So how do you actually map that next level career that’s both meaningful and fulfilling and also achieves maybe some of the success factors that you really care about, and brainstorm and be really creative about it. So when people are stuck or thinking about career strategy, that’s actually one of the books that I always point out for them.
Lenny: What’s a favorite recent movie or TV show?
Ada Chen Rekhi: So Ted Lasso is back, so I’m watching that, the newest season. I am also a Star Trek nerd, so I’m watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Lenny: I didn’t know there’s a new Star Trek. That’s good to know.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Oh, It’s so good. I think the thing I love about Star Trek is just that, unlike some of the classic storylines that you see right now on TV coming out now, sometimes the episodes are just happy. They explore a planet. Nothing bad happens. They see something really wondrous. They all leave happy, and they pat themselves on the back for having explored something. It’s something that’s missing in the genre of TV that they still have, this happiness factor where sometimes life is good and sometimes life is bad.
Lenny: I like the sound of that. Although, I’ve learned about storytelling for a story to be interesting. There needs to be some conflict or problem. So I imagine there’s something going wrong somewhere in the middle.
Ada Chen Rekhi: But it’s not wrong. It’s something interesting happens.
Lenny: Oh.
Ada Chen Rekhi: And then it’s resolved, and it’s happy. Right. But it just doesn’t always need to be, something tries to kill you.
Lenny: I got to watch that. That sounds great. I was a huge Star Trek fan back in the day. Didn’t know they were still making new ones. What’s a favorite interview question you like to ask when you’re interviewing people?
Ada Chen Rekhi: What’s a common misconception people have about you? I usually like to throw that in toward the end of the interview, and the reason why I think it’s really useful is it’s a way for me to reset my bias. I may have had a certain impression about them, and this is their opportunity to speak up and say, “Hey, a lot of people think this about me, but it’s not true.” It’s also this reflection of their self-awareness.
Lenny: Great. What are some products that you’ve recently discovered or use regularly, SaaS products or even consumer fun random products that you want to share?
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah. I can’t go through this podcast without giving a shout-out to Notejoy. So Notejoy is a fast and focused notes app for individuals and teams. So that’s the company that I work on. So I use it for everything from Noora product roadmaps to my coaching notes, to even prepping for something like this podcast. I use Notejoy all the time. Another one that I really use a lot is Captio. It’s been around for a while, but it’s a little iOS app. I don’t know if it’s on Android, but basically it’s a blank notepad. You can dump your brain into it, and there’s one button, and it emails it to you. So when I find that I’m really distracted, or I just want to remember something, I use Captio all the time just to quickly capture my ideas. And then I process it later in my inbox.
And then something that I just downloaded this week is Arc, the new browser. I’m actually really excited about its vision. I’m not sure if I’m going to work it into my workflow yet or how it fits in, but it’s really beautiful and it’s really cool to see someone iterating on the cluster that is browser tabs.
Lenny: Yep. Love Arc. Went deep on Arc in the previous episode and I used Captio, however you call it. And I found another app, actually, the similar thing that I found even more simple. It’s called Note to Self, just sits on my doc. Anytime I want to email myself a thought, I open it up and this type of thing. Somehow, it ends up being even easier. So that’s another one to check out, Note to Self. Final question. You’re really big on productivity. What’s one tip that you found that has been really helpful for you in your day-to-day life, being more productive?
Ada Chen Rekhi: Figure out, maybe the night before, the one thing that you want to get done in your day, and then at the earliest opportunity, just try to give yourself five minutes on it. Just five minutes. And the reason why I say five minutes is that there is this challenge that I experience and maybe other people experience as well, which is really just productive procrastination. Even though I know something is really important that needs to get done, I will often do other things that are useful and need to get done simply because I’m avoiding that one thing. And then before you know it’s the end of the day and I’m like, “I still have to go do that thing.” By really focusing on what’s the number one thing and then just getting started on it a little bit. It just makes it really lightweight. And usually, what I find is that five minutes turns into a solid hour just knocking that thing out early in my day, and I feel really accomplished. But it’s a mental hurdle that I really struggle with.
Lenny: I really like the approach of the five minutes because that’s such a trick to get you to like, “All right, I’ll just do five minutes. I got to get this done.”
Ada Chen Rekhi: Right. It’s quick.
Lenny: I need to bring it. Yeah. There’s a book that many people on this podcast have recommended called Make Time, and there’s a framework within that called The Highlight, where you pick the highlight of your day, and that’s the thing you got to do first and make… That’s like, if you do nothing else, do your highlight and-
Ada Chen Rekhi: Yeah, really similar then.
Lenny: Yeah, and they don’t do the five-minute thing, so I think that’s a clever element of it. Ada, this was amazing. This chat was full of feelings, and frogs, and vegetables, and frameworks and insights. Thank you again so much for being here. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to learn more, reach out and how can listeners be useful to you?
Ada Chen Rekhi: You can find me online. On Twitter and LinkedIn, I’m Ada Chen, A-D-A-C-H-E-N. I have a website, adachen.com, and you can always just shoot me an email, adachen@gmail.com. In terms of how listeners can be useful to me, any feedback and riffs on some of the ideas and topics that we’ve shared. I’m always eager to learn from other people. So feel free to drop a note and say hello. And if you’re a founder and you’re interested in learning more about coaching, I’m always happy to talk.
Lenny: Awesome. And then Notejoy, how do they check that out?
Ada Chen Rekhi: Notejoy.com.
Lenny: So easy. Great domain. Ada, thank you again.
Ada Chen Rekhi: Thank you.
Lenny: Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| a16z | 机构名,保留原文 |
| Ada Chen Rekhi | 人名,保留原文 |
| Andrew Chen | 人名,保留原文 |
| Arc | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Bill Burnett | 人名,保留原文 |
| boiling the frog | 温水煮青蛙 |
| Captio | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Clay | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Connected | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Curiosity Loop | 好奇循环 |
| customer advisory councils | 客户顾问委员会 |
| Dave Evans | 人名,保留原文 |
| Designing Your Life | 书名,保留原文 |
| eating your vegetables | 吃蔬菜(刻意练习不适之事的隐喻) |
| executive coach | 高管教练 |
| executive function | 执行功能 |
| experiment brief | 实验简报 |
| explore and exploit | 探索与利用(explore and exploit) |
| external scorecard | 外部记分卡 |
| financial planning and analysis | 财务规划与分析 |
| growth marketing | 增长营销 |
| head of marketing | 营销负责人 |
| heuristics | 启发式原则 |
| hot take | 有争议的看法 |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征 |
| internal scorecard | 内部记分卡 |
| Kim Malone Scott | 人名,保留原文 |
| Lenny | 人名,保留原文 |
| 公司名称,保留原文 | |
| LinkedIn InMail | LinkedIn InMail |
| Make Time | 书名,保留原文 |
| Mochi Media | 公司名称,保留原文 |
| Note to Self | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Notejoy | 产品名,保留原文 |
| personal board of directors | 个人董事会 |
| personal CRM | 个人 CRM |
| pitch coach | 路演教练 |
| product marketer | 产品营销人员 |
| product sense | 产品感觉/产品直觉(product sense) |
| productive procrastination | 高效拖延 |
| Radical Candor | 《彻底坦率》 |
| Robert Cialdini | 人名,保留原文 |
| Sachin | 人名,保留原文 |
| Sheryl Sandberg | 谢丽尔·桑德伯格 |
| stack rank | 排序 |
| Star Trek | 剧名,保留原文 |
| Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 剧名,保留原文 |
| subject matter expert | 主题专家 |
| SurveyMonkey | 公司名,保留原文 |
| Ted Lasso | 剧名,保留原文 |
| The Highlight | 概念名,保留原文 |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
感到停滞不前?如何判断该不该辞职 | Ada Chen Rekhi
对话记录
Ada Chen Rekhi: 有朝一日醒来,发现自己已处于职业生涯后期,却因为某种生活方式或身边人的期望而感到被困住——不得不继续做这份工作,但照镜子时却并不快乐。我认为这是一个我们都应尽力避免的可怕陷阱,在探索职业道路、寻找最适合自己的方向时尤其如此。那个最优解通常是职业成就的混合体,同时也意味着工作与自身价值观之间的意义感和一致性。
Lenny: 欢迎来到 Lenny 的播客。在这里,我会采访世界级的产品领袖和增长专家,向他们学习在打造和增长当今最成功产品过程中积累的宝贵经验。今天的嘉宾是 Ada Chen Rekhi。Ada 是一位高管教练,同时也是 Notejoy 的联合创始人。在她的教练实践中,她专注于帮助创始人实现自我升级。在创办自己的公司之前,她曾任 SurveyMonkey 营销高级副总裁。再之前,她创办了一家联系人管理领域的创业公司,该公司被 LinkedIn 收购后,她最终负责了 LinkedIn 增长团队的营销工作。关于 Ada 有两个有趣的事实:第一,她和丈夫一起创办了现在的公司,我们后面会聊到这是否是个好主意。第二,她的哥哥是 a16z 的 Andrew Chen。在我们的对话中,她介绍了如何通过一个她称之为 Curiosity Loops(好奇循环)的框架来做出更好的决策。
我们还围绕我个人的价值观做了一次现场练习。她分享了关于如何有意识地、务实地规划早期职业路径的大量建议,如何在硅谷作为女性蓬勃发展,什么时候该请教练、没有教练时自己能做些什么,以及更多内容。请欣赏这期与 Ada Chen Rekhi 的对话。
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Lenny: Ada,欢迎来到播客。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 谢谢,很高兴来到这里。
Lenny: 我从很多人那里听说了关于你的好评,包括一些上过这个播客的嘉宾。你还画了一张非常棒的活动图,大概是这个播客理想嘉宾的样子。你做过增长,做过产品,创过业,同时也是创始人的高管教练。所以有很多话题我想和你聊。再次感谢你的到来。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 是的,我很高兴来到这里。
好奇循环的由来
Lenny: 一个有趣的切入点——我们刚开始聊要在对话中聚焦什么话题的时候,你发邮件讨论这件事,做了一件我觉得非常有趣的事。你运行了一个叫 Curiosity Loop 的东西,给你的一群朋友发消息,以一种非常有结构的方式征求他们的意见。所以我想从这里开始。你能分享一下这个过程是什么样的吗,让我们也可以学着自己做——这个好奇循环的理念?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 好奇循环本质上就是去找一大群人。在这个案例中,我快速发了一封邮件给大约十到十一个人,问他们:“嘿,这里有九个 Lenny 播客的话题,哪两三个让你有共鸣?为什么?“我只花了大约二十分钟的工作,就得到了极其丰富的信息。我平时不会这样做,但我实际上给你看了一些匿名的反馈,人们真实地谈论什么有共鸣、什么没有。做完之后我感觉自己变聪明了很多,好奇循环就是我做到这一点的方法。
Lenny: 人们经常问朋友建议,就像”嘿,我这种情况该怎么办?我在这个播客上可以聊什么?“你的方法很有结构。所以也许有两个问题:第一,这个概念的实际结构是什么?第二,人们……你当然可以向朋友征求建议,但你也不想过于频繁地打扰他们。你怎么看待不要过度向所有人不停地提问,同时又想对各种决策征求意见这件事?所以问题是,什么时候用这个方法,什么时候不用?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 我认为有重量级和轻量级两种使用方式。重量级的方式就是我刚才举例说的那样——发一封邮件,建一个文档,然后在另一端得到这些非常有趣和丰富的数据。轻量级的方式则是在与人的日常互动中,让你好奇的事物成为一个持续的主题。也许是这样:每天与人交谈时,如果你有一个社交话题,你可能会反复提出同一个问题,然后开始寻找人们告诉你的回答中是否有差异或令人惊讶之处。我认为好奇循环之所以真正有用,一个重要原因是它确实能对抗一个现实——那就是世界上有很多糟糕的建议。
这些建议糟糕,不是因为出于恶意,而是因为缺乏语境。当有人告诉你辞职去追逐梦想,或者他们告诉你安下心来、埋头苦干、积累经验再去做你一直想创办的那家公司——你到底该听哪一条?这在很大程度上取决于你的具体情况、你在考虑什么、你实际拥有的技能和经验。好奇循环实际上就是这样一种方式,让你真正思考如何让建议变得贴合你的语境。让我进一步拆解一下我对如何构建它的想法。好奇循环的第一个要素,其实就是思考如何提出一个好问题。我之前在 SurveyMonkey 工作的时候,有机会花大量时间和调查研究人员在一起,我们深入讨论了什么让一个问题成为好问题。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 在这种情况下,一个好问题应当是具体的、能引导出理由的,且不带有偏见。你不应该在问题开头先说”我是这样想的”,因为人们有一种倾向,想要取悦你或附和你。举一个好例子……嗯,让我先举一个坏问题的例子。坏问题的例子是:“我接下来该怎么规划职业生涯?“这是一个非常糟糕的问题,因为它太模糊、不具体。它给他人施加了很大的认知负担,而你得到的回答大概率也会同样糟糕。垃圾进,垃圾出。一个更好的问题可能是这样的:“嘿,你了解我。我是做市场营销的,我最近在考虑转行做 Web 开发。我的计划是辞职,参加一个 Web 开发训练营,然后再去找一份工作。你觉得这个想法怎么样?”
这里面有很多丰富的信息可以挖掘。首先,你适合做开发吗?Web 开发训练营有效吗?当前初级 Web 开发人员的就业市场状况如何?这就是一个更具体的问题的例子,让回答的人有东西可以锚定。这是第一个要素。第二个要素,是关于如何筛选你的提问对象。我认为这有两个维度。第一个是显而易见的——找对这个话题真正了解的主题专家(subject matter expert)。比如就我刚才那个例子来说,可能是一个 Web 开发者。另一个维度我认为非常重要,就是找那些非常了解你的人,能就”这个选择对你适不适合”提供洞察。然后接下来就是真正去提出问题了。这跟你刚才提到的有关——怎么让它变得轻量?
以一种既真正有用、能获得建设性回答,又不给对方造成太多负担的方式提问。我通常的做法就是让它非常轻量。比如在我找你的那个例子中,我说:“这里有九个选题,你能挑出你最喜欢的两个,告诉我为什么喜欢吗?“有些人超额完成了——逐条浏览,对每个选题都给了反馈。有些人只说:“这是我选的两个,还有一个我觉得你应该避开。“我希望这样设计:如果你是一位忙碌的创始人,或者忙碌的产品人(这正是我这次好奇循环选择的受众),你能在晚上坐在沙发上,读一封有趣的邮件,快速敲个回复,把答案给我。因为如果你不这样做,风险就是——要么你得到的是低质量的回答,要么你得到极低的回复率,因为你给对方造成了太大的认知负担。
最后,要完成这个闭环,很关键的一步是处理这些信息,然后向对方表示感谢。很多人刚开始尝试向社区中的人请教建议或意见时,有一个很大的误解,就是认为这事完全是一边倒的——我在向你求助,而你什么也没得到。我想提醒大家的是:帮助别人的感觉其实很好。被倾听、能给出自己的意见,感觉很好。其中一个重要的部分是,如果有人来找你说:“你给了我那个建议,改变了我的人生。“也许不到那个程度,但”真的影响了我的决定,结果是这样的。非常感谢。“这种感觉太好了,尤其当你只花了几分钟给出意见,就帮对方做出了更好的决策。
**Lenny:**我来总结一下,我记了几个要点。这个理念大致是——当你在某个决策上想要建议时,找一些朋友。我按你刚才提到的四个要素来梳理。第二部分其实是选对朋友。但第一点就是,提出一个具体的问题。不是”我该做什么”,而是更具体的,比如”我该不该接受某家公司的某个具体职位”。找到那些了解你、并且可能对这个决策有一定了解的人。你一般会给多少人发邮件?大概是多少?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我会尽量优化到至少能收到三四份回复。这取决于好奇循环的性质。然后你要考虑你的回复率是多少。如果你发给的是你不太熟悉的、非常忙碌的人,那你可能只能预期一半的人会回复。如果你发给很熟的人,而且问题很轻量——比如”是或否,说说原因”——那你可能只需要发出去几封就够了。
**Lenny:**好的。所以大致就是五到十个人,听起来是这样。对,你要让它非常快速简单。比如”这里有十个选题,你觉得我应该关注哪两个?“所以是一个简短的请求,是你推荐的做法,然后在结束之后感谢他们。大致就是这样的方法?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,就是这个方法。有一点我想补充的是,它在个人事务上其实也非常有用。我们刚才是在职业语境下讨论的——比如换工作。但我有一个例子:当我们女儿出生(她现在三岁了)的时候,我和我伴侣之间有一个讨论——如果不幸发生了什么事,我们两个人都不在了,遗产规划该怎么做。她应该怎么继承遗产?我伴侣的观点基本上是:“18岁,全部解锁。“我说:“嗯,也许25岁吧。“我们就这样僵持不下。后来我们就开始在日常生活中跟信任的人——家里的亲人、觉得聪明有孩子的人——闲聊时顺便问问他们怎么看这件事。
有一点非常说明问题:我们问过的所有人,没有一个人说18岁。这直接把我伴侣的预期拉高了。还有一个很有意思的发现是,我们了解了一些关于执行功能(executive function)的研究。所谓执行功能,就是你做决策、制定计划、进行深思熟虑的能力,在30岁时达到顶峰,之后就是一路走下坡了。所以对我这样年纪更大的人来说是个坏消息。
**Lenny:**然后就开始走下坡路,或者说就完蛋了。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**没错。
**Lenny:**就像我——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**但如果你考虑到18岁的话,离你的巅峰还差得远呢。所以这个发现把我们两个人的基准预期都拉高了,从而做出了更好的决定。但如果没有好奇循环,我们是不会发现这些的,因为去翻论文、查研究、或者做其他什么来得出一个好的决策,太费工夫了。
**Lenny:**所以这里的核心经验就是——相比于直接群发邮件问建议,我猜很多人就是这么做的,就是问”我该怎么办”——稍微搭建一些结构,甚至给它起个名字叫好奇循环,我猜这会让人们更愿意参与进来、愿意帮助你。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**是的,确实如此。我一直尝试做的一件事是,在请求中向对方解释为什么选择了他们。比如我会说:“我找你是因为我非常信任你能给出真诚、可靠的建议和反馈,我非常看重这一点。你介意花几分钟给我一些想法吗?”
**Lenny:**那你多长时间会找一次人?如果你是 Ada 的朋友,你会每周都被好奇循环吗,还是多久一次?你的频率上限是多少?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我通常把它留给比较大的事情。大概每季度一次,或者遇到什么重大抉择、感觉特别犹豫不决的时候。
**Lenny:**很好。这也让我想到了个人董事会的概念,而这感觉就像是那个概念的一种异步方式——不是每隔一个月或一个季度跟一小群人通个电话,而是异步的。比如”我有一个请求”——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**完全同意。我觉得这其实是基于营销中客户顾问委员会的概念。之前我在创业公司做营销和产品的时候,我们总会做的一件事就是把我们最顶级的客户拉到一个 DM 群里。如果我们有比较棘手的产品争议,就直接去私信其中几个人,问他们:“我们正在讨论这个问题,你介意快速给我们一些想法并说说理由吗?“然后作为营销人员,我可以拿着这些回到产品讨论中说,这就是客户的真实声音,这里有四五条原话说明了人们对此的看法。这真的让我作为营销人员在决策桌上有了一席之地。这种做法带来的洞察和帮助,也是我想带到个人生活中去的。
价值观练习
**Lenny:**这很有意思。基本上就是对你的人生做用户研究。做用户研究的时候,别人告诉你不要照着用户说的话去做。我觉得这里也是一样的——这些建议你听听就好,最终还是要自己为人生做决定。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,没错。这一点要特别提醒:不要照别人说的去做。把它当作一个输入,去寻找那些尖锐的反馈,去寻找那些你强烈不同意的或者让你意外的东西。因为对我来说,这些循环更多是为了帮你看到拐角之后的东西,看看你的决策过程中有没有遗漏什么。
**Lenny:**很好。你之前说有人告诉你哪些话题不该聊,他们说”别聊这个”。那个列表里有什么?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**列表上大概有两个话题。第一个就是如何让新人入职、招聘并把人带入团队。我收到的反馈是:“做这件事的人太多了。我相信你有一些有趣的观点,但我个人不会有太大兴趣去听。“这个反馈对我很有用。另一个话题是关于在硅谷做女性以及相关经历。实际上有人直接写——Lenny 你可能也看到了——“不,离这个话题远远的。这个话题没有赢家。”
**Lenny:**天哪。好吧,那我们就聊聊这个话题,别管那些建议了,一定会很好的。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**好,那我们就无视那个建议?
**Lenny:**对,无视它。不过在那之前,我想先聊聊你。你这次对话之前也给我布置了作业,是关于帮助我厘清自己的价值观和个人价值观的。我做了那个练习。所以首先,你能谈谈这个练习是什么,目的是什么吗?然后我再分享我得出了什么。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我给你布置的作业,和我在辅导中给每个合作的人布置的是一样的,就是价值观练习。大概十到十五分钟,你会看到一份词汇列表,上面可能涵盖各种潜在价值观。很轻量,你只需要顺着列表往下看,挑出所有让你有共鸣的词,然后我们把它们分成几个价值组别,再进一步筛选、排序。最终输出基本上是三到五句话,涵盖在目前的个人和职业生活中,对你最重要的价值观排序是什么。我特别喜欢的一点是,它是你的内部记分卡,衡量的是在你的决策过程中什么真正重要,而不是外部记分卡——地位、金钱、财富、别人怎么看你——那些我们经常感受到巨大压力的东西。所以这是一个很好的方式,让你回过头来看看自己的决策,或者说生活中的处境,与你的价值观有多契合。
**Lenny:**很好。我喜欢的点在于,如果有人跟我说”来,想想你的价值观”,我会觉得天哪,我就干坐在这想词想概念。但这个练习很有帮助,因为它基本上是选择题——这里有所有选项,横跨各种类别,你就不断挑选,然后帮你逐步筛选。我最后留下了六个,感觉多了一个。其实我额外加了一个,就是真的特别喜欢。要不我把我的结果念一下?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**好,念吧。
**Lenny:**所以我的价值观大概是这样的。选择冒险,保持乐观,像你希望被对待那样对待别人——很经典的那条。持续进步,慷慨行事。然后加了一条,是我奶奶以前教我的,一直记在心里,跟这个练习完全无关,但我就是想把它放在列表上,就是——先做你必须做的事,再做你想做的事。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我太喜欢了。多么棒的一份价值观清单。而且 Lenny,这份清单让我注意到的一点是,成就、地位、成功,很多我们公开谈论的东西,你 LinkedIn 动态上可能出现的东西,实际上并没有出现在你的价值观里。而这一定也反映在了你人生中做出的一些选择上。
**Lenny:**是的,希望如此。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**那我这样问吧。我们来做个实验,试着实时运用一下这些价值观。
**Lenny:**哎呀,来吧。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**你想想最近需要做的一个决定,或者即将面对的一个决定,能分享一下是什么吗?然后我们试着把你的价值观套上去,想想如果你真的践行这些价值观,会做出什么选择,以及你可能会感受到哪些让你偏离的压力。
**Lenny:**我一直在纠结的一个决定是,我有各种各样的机会,各种可以去做的事情,额外的事情。播客其实就是一个很好的例子——我一直不想做播客,因为我觉得……生活挺好的,我在写 newsletter,做得不错,靠这个养活自己,每周发一封高质量邮件。我就想,“为什么还要做别的?这样就很好了。“所以我一直在抗拒,抗拒了播客两三年,最终还是没扛住。最后发现这是个很好的决定。但现在,又有其他事情不断挤占我的注意力,比如写书。当然在某个阶段——而且我已经暂停了那个计划,就是为了给播客腾出更多时间。所以我的决定大概就是,什么该答应,什么该拒绝?
我看了一下我的价值观,其中一条是选择冒险,你可能会觉得这意味着放手去做、去尝试。但我觉得这里可能缺了一条,就是——我只想少做一点。我在努力少承担一些、少做一些、砍掉一些——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**这很有意思。
Lenny:……简化。对。因为能做的事情是无穷无尽的,而我想花时间陪我妻子。而且再过几个月,如果一切顺利的话,我的孩子就要出生了。所以这就是你问这个问题时我脑海中浮现的。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,对。然后也许如果你把”冒险”这个词拆解一下,看看它对你到底意味着什么,回到你的价值观词表里去看,你可能就会发现,有些机会比如写一本书,到了某个阶段其实就不算冒险了。
**Lenny:**对,说得太对了。开始的时候是冒险。这个观点特别好,因为确实,一旦你开始做一件事……我经常说关于内容创作这条路就是——开始很容易,持续下去很难。它会变成一个跑步机,你基本上得一辈子不断创作出精彩的东西。我都不知道怎么从这个跑步机上下来。我不是在抱怨,但这确实是这条路的现实。所以你说的很对,它很快就不再有冒险感了。这真的很有意思。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我喜欢这个说法。
学会做减法
**Lenny:**我想另一件事就是,什么是可以砍掉的?我在做一些天使投资,我在考虑暂时停掉,这样我就能腾出更多时间陪新生儿,把那些不那么关键的事情砍掉。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**关于价值观练习,我觉得你做得非常好的一点就是清晰地勾勒出了——这里有一些你必须要做的选择的例子。我觉得在我们人生的某些时刻,写一本书看起来是非常显而易见的选择。它对你的职业发展有好处,是你从社区、newsletter、播客迈向下一个层次的阶梯。但我觉得这个价值观列表的价值在于,它能帮我们在面对那些看似显而易见的决定时,让自己脚踏实地。分享一下我自己的小例子,在我的人生中有很多次,下一个看起来顺理成章的步骤可能是去大公司做高管,去追逐那个梦想,继续攀登职业生涯的阶梯。
当我审视自己的个人价值观时,很重要的一部分真的是围绕优先经营人际关系,以及按照自己的方式追求知识和成长。像独立和自主这样的东西,随着时间推移开始变得越来越重要,尤其是当我组建了家庭之后。我越来越清楚地意识到,有时候别人认为你应该去做什么的那个外部记分卡(external scorecard),和我真正想做的事情是对立的。即使客观上来说那可能更好——取决于你用哪张记分卡——但我实际上会在某些结果中感到更不快乐。所以我觉得价值观是一个非常好用的工具,帮助你做出更好的决策,最大化你与自己人生的契合度。
回到价值观做决策
**Lenny:**这一点太重要了。它和我教的那门课、以及那本潜在的书联系了起来——它就是感觉像一件我应该做的事。课程效果很好,但它没有给我带来快乐。而其他事情给我带来更多快乐。所以这真的是一个很好的提醒——我是真的想做这件事吗?还是说这只是一件看起来很聪明、但心理上并不适合我的事?我很喜欢这种提醒,回到价值观作为一个视角来决定要不要做一件事,而不是仅仅看别人怎么说——这看起来很聪明……或者这感觉像是顺理成章的事。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,而且你也非常有自我觉察。你中途停了下来,因为你开始意识到你在教这门课,但它没有给你带来能量,或者它不太对。拒绝事情真的很难。
**Lenny:**确实。确实。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**而且我觉得我们对这一点重视得不够。
**Lenny:**对,我学到了怎么做得更好。我有各种自动回复模板,用不同方式说不。其实有人发推说 ChatGPT 在这方面有各种好建议,你可以问它”我怎么拒绝我的经理让我优先做一个功能?“它有各种巧妙的措辞——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**哦,这个用法真好。
价值观是一个迭代过程
**Lenny:**我在做这个练习的过程中还意识到一件事,我想你肯定也发现了——当你初步得出一组价值观的时候,我发现可能还有一个价值观就是保持简单、简化。我想这也是聚焦于什么对你重要这个过程中的一部分——你先做第一轮,然后试着用它来做决策,然后你发现,哦,还有这个其他的东西对我也很重要,于是你就更新你的价值观。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,我觉得你完全可以用这个过程来迫使自己做排序(stack rank),让自己非常清晰,而且也可以改。改吧。这是你的。随着时间推移,适合自己的时候就去改。
**Lenny:**好的。感觉应该做一个”好奇循环”AI 机器人,把你的价值观输入进去,你给它发邮件说”这个决定我该怎么办?“然后它回复说,“哦,你觉得简单很重要?那你应该不做这件事。”
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**下一个大创意。
**Lenny:**就是这个意思。谁来做一个。好了,说来好笑,我们本来是反向访谈,结果我又开始提问了。那我们来聊聊这个吧。你谈到过你的职业生涯,你是如何抵抗那些闪亮的机会,专注于你真正兴奋和想做的事情。所以这里可能有几个问题。一个是关于早期职业建议。你辅导了很多创始人,你自己也有一段非常精彩的职业生涯,做了各种有趣的事情。关于在早期职业阶段如何优化,你学到了什么?
职业早期的探索与 exploit
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我的早期职业生涯挺疯狂的。我有一段非常快的上升期。七年间,我从第一份工作——基本上是微软的一个入门级销售岗位,做 Microsoft adCenter——做到了 SurveyMonkey 的营销高级副总裁,带领一个全球团队。当我回顾早期职业生涯中什么最有效时,归根结底就是一个职业概念——探索(explore)与利用(exploit),虽然现在说出来听起来有点暗黑——
**Lenny:**听着挺好的,我喜欢。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**探索与利用,如果你有增长背景的话应该很熟悉,它说的其实就是你处于什么模式。你要么处于探索模式——你有很多未知,你在测试看自己是否喜欢、效果如何、是否适合你;要么处于利用模式——你已经找到了一个很丰富、很深的东西,然后你就是想从中获得更多。当我把探索与利用应用到早期职业阶段时,核心就是探索。你真的还没有经历过太多,但你是带着一个论题去探索的。你是带着成长型思维去做的,你有一个假设。所以刚毕业的时候,我的第一份工作在微软,在 adCenter。我在那 367 天里学到的最重要的一点就是,那个阶段的职场生活对我来说节奏太慢了,我非常渴望去做点别的事情。
转型小团队与初次创业
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**但我也学到了很多关于营销和广告的知识。我有一种直觉,不仅想尝试更小规模的东西,还想尝试营销。于是我加入了一家创业公司,第一天上班还得自己拼桌子——那家公司叫 Mochi Media。我在那里担任营销岗位,在那三年里经历了一段很好的时光,学了各种各样的东西,甚至还尝试过做产品。从那段经历中我学到的是——我热爱营销,游戏行业很有趣,小团队非常有活力。这时候面临一个选择:是进入利用模式、在行业内深耕,还是继续探索?我当时 23 岁,觉得自己没什么可失去的,决定继续探索。我的核心论题是:试试当创始人。于是我创立了 Connected,一个个人 CRM,有点像现在的 Clay。
如果你最近见过 Clay 的话,就是那种帮你更好地管理和构建职业与个人人际网络的产品——
**Lenny:**对,那是一个很漂亮的产品。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**是的,很漂亮的产品,比我们当时做的要漂亮得多。这是一次非常棒的学习经历,让我发现了作为公司创始人和创业者是什么样的体验。从所有这些经历中,我个人的收获其实很简单——我一直在不断优化,发现自己热爱营销,热爱当创始人,非常喜欢小团队。大公司的生活有利有弊,可能节奏很慢,但规模真的很重要。这就是贯穿我早期职业生涯的核心思路。Connected 被 LinkedIn 收购后,我进入了利用模式。
LinkedIn 期间的刻意学习
所以在 LinkedIn 期间,我一边工作一边做投资,我非常想有意识地利用在那里的时间。传统的晋升路径是专注于争取最大的头衔、带大团队、为将来管理大组织铺路,但我在 LinkedIn 的角色定位非常明确。我甚至入职时就直接跟经理说了:“我是来学习如何成为一个更好的创始人的。“当初创办 Connected 时,有很多事情我做得不好——我不懂增长,定价能力也只是中等水平,我真的不理解如何构建订阅业务以及如何定价。所以如果我能让 LinkedIn 的工作经历恰好匹配这些学习需求,对我来说就是巨大的收获,无论晋升、薪酬还是其他什么东西都不重要,因为之后的计划其实是离开再去创办一家新公司。
于是我争取到了一个很棒的角色——负责 LinkedIn 的增长营销,和他们的增长团队一起将用户从一亿做到两亿,读了所有能读到的实验简报,花了大量时间和团队在一起,深入理解他们的流程,然后转到了订阅那边,负责 LinkedIn 订阅业务,通过线上渠道大规模运营他们的销售订阅业务。我看到了所有这些环节如何协同运作——从财务规划与分析阶段到他们做的各种优化。这是一个极其难得的机会,但如果我只是顺其自然地接受晋升,或者只追求最大头衔的策略,我不可能获得这些机会。
相反,我专注于那些学习和经历。最终,正是因为我曾是一名创业公司创始人,有大公司经验,有增长经验,有订阅业务经验,又是一名产品营销人员——正是这个组合让 SurveyMonkey 通过 LinkedIn InMail 联系了我,开启了对话,并最终在我大约 27 或 28 岁的时候把招我进去担任营销负责人。因为他们的逻辑是:你具备我们真正需要的所有这些经验,你没有管理经验,但我们这里有充足的管理经验,很乐意教你。
别做那只青蛙
**Lenny:**我非常喜欢这个框架,之前从没听人这样描述过。探索与利用和我一直以来的建议很契合——早期要优化经验的多样性,这样你才能弄清楚自己真正在什么地方做得开心、对什么感兴趣,而不是一开始就卡在某个东西上出不来。我不知道你是否能马上回答,但我很好奇一点。很多人不知道在一个可能感觉不太好但也许会通向某个结果的事情上该坚持多久。比如有人现在可能正处在一份工作中,心想”我真的不喜欢这份工作,但我觉得它会通向某个好结果,我不想放弃得太早。“所以问题是,有哪些启发式原则可以帮你判断是该坚持、相信它会通向好的结果,还是该及时止损退出?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**这是一个很好的问题,也是一个很难的问题,因为它取决于你是什么样的个体。我想分享的一个概念是——说起来有点残酷——别做那只青蛙。如果你熟悉那个故事,就是温水煮青蛙的说法。如果你把一只青蛙扔进沸水里,它会跳出来。但如果你把一只青蛙放在一锅水里,然后一度一度地慢慢升温,青蛙不会注意到,等它意识到的时候已经被煮死了。我把这个类比应用到你的问题上,回到核心——我们很容易成为惯性的受害者。我们所有人都很容易变成那只青蛙,有些小事让我们不舒服,我们忍受着,或者想着”天哪,会好起来的。下一个经理会好一些。我离下一步永远只差一次对话或一次升职。”
但你真的必须对自己的处境保持觉察。你必须注意水温的趋势方向。这也是为什么这个建议因人而异。我确实是从学习的角度来看待这件事的——我能在这里学到什么?我在怎样地成长和发展?所以也许有理由让你在一份工作上待二十年——如果每一天你都在接受真正的挑战,都在学习新东西,从工作中获得很多有意义的享受,那你就是一只快乐的青蛙,悠然自得,意识到一切都不错,水温也没有在上升。但也有些情况,你可能遇到一些真正的硬墙——你不认同公司的核心论题,不认同公司的发展方向。
角色的某些基本面在限制你,或者坦率地说,你没在学到什么。我觉得这种情况很常见——你在公司里创造了很多价值,工作做得很好,但可能没有学到能让你拉伸和成长、最终实现目标的东西。当你意识到这种学习上的停滞时,我认为那就是你需要问自己的时刻:“我该怎么改变这一切?我怎样才能成为自己职业的主导者,在这方面做出改变?“这并不一定意味着策略就是辞职、做些激进的事情、然后去做别的、报个课程或参加什么新项目。它可能只是一次主动和经理或领导层的对话:“我很喜欢我在这里做的事情,同时我也想再多学一点。这是我的兴趣所在。“
主动争取,善用时间
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**然后想办法争取到合适的项目。以我为例,我当时真正想要的是增长和订阅方面的经验。假设你在那碰了壁,那就把这当作一段被赠予的时间,这其实挺好的。我无法从公司获得这些,但既然我对当前工作已经游刃有余,多出了这些额外时间,我打算怎么利用它呢?也许可以利用这些时间去和公司里一些关键人物建立关系,或者在业余时间学习新东西,以便在其他方面加以运用。
**Lenny:**我喜欢这个思路。即便这不是最适合你的机会,也要充分利用这段时间。也很喜欢温水煮青蛙那个比喻。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**稍微有点血腥。
**Lenny:**不,很好。所以那个故事的教训大概就是想想你现在是不是那只正在被煮的青蛙,提前想一想,这样下去结局会不会是——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对。留意你所处的环境,水温在朝哪个方向变化。
**Lenny:**对,就是办公室恒温器上的温度。这让我想到的另一件事是,我们很容易陷入让简历看起来光鲜亮丽的陷阱里,不断想着”如果我拿到下一个角色,我的简历会特别漂亮”。又一个知名公司的 logo,又一个炫酷的头衔和职位。但我觉得,如果你这样做了足够久,最终……你退休了,然后你死了。人生就是那份简历。对吧?那就是你的人生,你正在活着,永远不会有一个时刻你突然意识到——好吧,我已经做了所有让简历漂亮的事情。而且我也会想,“我到底想做什么?我享受这些吗?“因为这永远不会结束。你永远不会停止追求一份更好的简历、一个更耀眼的履历。你自己或者你共事的人中,有没有那种过度优化、追求一系列耀眼角色和 logo,却忘了问自己——我真的享受这一切吗?我到底在做什么?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我在这方面有很深的个人体会。我觉得这可能是一种代际现象,也可能只是我的家庭背景使然。在亚裔虎式教育下长大,非常看重 logo、特定的成就和头衔——比如上常春藤名校,在别人听说过的公司工作,拥有某个级别的头衔。到了某个时刻,我有点退出了这条赛道,开始认真思考:我到底在取悦谁、为谁优化?我让 Lenny 你做过的那个价值观练习,其实就是其中很重要的一部分。我大概在十多年前第一次做了这个练习。我看着那些价值观,问自己:“如果我从我现在的位置画一条直线向前延伸,按照当前的剧情把余下的电影放完,这能在多大程度上优化这些价值观?”
结果很好——我父母可能会为我的简历感到高兴,或者别人可能因为我的这些成就而对我另眼相看。但在我的日常生活中,真正重要的、真正有意义的事情,只有其中一部分才真正关乎这些。所以在这件事上要非常有意识,在规划职业道路时要清楚你的观众是谁。我觉得最糟糕的结局莫过于某天醒来,已经是职业生涯后期,却感到被困住了——因为你维持着某种生活方式,或者身边的人对你有某种期待,你不得不继续做这份工作,但照镜子的时候,你走进办公室时并不快乐。我认为这是我们所有人都应该在职业道路上努力避免的陷阱,去找到对自己最优的选择——通常是职业成功与工作的意义感、与自身价值观的一致性的某种结合。
**Lenny:**我很喜欢这个话题。谢谢你分享这些。
重新审视的契机
**Lenny:**是什么触发了你重新审视这条路?是有一个”天哪,我真的需要重新想想自己往哪走”的时刻吗?然后我还有一个后续问题。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**其实就是一个职业机会。当时有一个我可以去做的事情,非常引人注目,非常令人兴奋,感觉棒极了,但也意味着频繁出差和漫长的工作时间。而且它所在的领域并不是我真正感兴趣的,但放在简历上会非常漂亮。我跟一个朋友聊起这件事,他们实际上向我介绍了这个价值观练习,说:“Ada,去做做这个价值观练习,然后把它套用到这份工作上。“做完之后我意识到,我排前三的价值观——我真正在乎的东西——这份工作从根本上就无法满足,因为我会一直不在家,追求的是我并不真正在乎的荣耀。而相比之下,我当时所在的路径,如果坚持下去,反而有可能满足所有这些价值观。
自我与内心的记分卡
**Lenny:**这让我想起一个朋友,他有个比喻——角落里坐着一个自我怪物,总是在冲他喊叫,让他去做那些看起来很厉害的事,接下超酷的角色,拿到超棒的头衔,做些令人印象深刻的事情,就像从角落里对他喊。而我的朋友已经学会了就这样对自己说:“好吧,那是自我怪物在拉扯我。我不必听它的。听了它我也不会更快乐。“这个方法对我朋友帮助很大,让他能把自己大脑中那部分剥离出来。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,自我怪物这个说法很贴切。我用的是 Warren Buffett 谈到过的一个概念——内部记分卡和外部记分卡。
**Lenny:**说说看。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**他谈到外部记分卡,就是外部世界如何评估你,你如何用外部因素来计分。比如各种前十榜单、财富地位、头衔,那些人们很在意的东西。而内部记分卡则是那些真正对你重要的事情——你这一天过得怎么样,你是不是一个好人。Lenny,你今天有没有冒险?你善良吗?其中很多东西可能是相互矛盾的。所以要认真想想:你是不是以善良为代价赢得了胜利?你是不是以失去你真正渴望的冒险为代价取得了成功?我觉得用这个视角来思考,有助于你在外部压力和自我怪物之间做出权衡。
教练的价值与适用场景
**Lenny:**这可能是一个很好的过渡,来聊聊教练这件事。我想很多听众现在会想,“对,我想那么做。我想按照自己的价值观来衡量自己,定期检视自己。我有没有走错路?“但我发现光靠自己很难做到。我觉得这也是高管教练的好处之一。所以也许我们可以聊聊,关于教练大家应该知道些什么,如何找教练,是不是每个人都需要教练,以及如何在职业生涯的某个阶段去思考请教练这件事。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我有一个比较有争议的看法,每次我和别人聊教练的时候都会分享。我的观点是,对绝大多数人来说,他们可能并不需要教练。
**Lenny:**有意思。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我经常追问那些想找教练的人——这通常意味着他们有一种被困住的感觉,或者有一个想解决的问题——我会问他们:“你对教练的期望目标是什么?往前提六个月,你在教练经历中完成了什么?取得了什么成果,让你觉得物超所值?然后再看看所有可能的其他选择——你可以用同样宝贵的时间和往往不菲的费用去实现同样的目标,也许还能以更好的方式实现。”
人们不太会想到的是,如果你需要的是导师,教练在某种程度上其实是个很糟糕的导师,因为这终究只是一个人的意见。比如,跑一个好奇循环其实要好得多,你可以就某个特定话题获得不同人的智慧和见解,而且是在他们最擅长的领域。这比去问一个人”你觉得我应该怎么做”要好得多。
如果你想以非常扎实的方式学习某个领域,比如你想学增长,也许你应该去上一门 Reforge 的课程,获得所有资源,接触 Reforge 的 EIR 和增长顾问们的洞见,对整个领域有一个全面的概览,而不是只依赖一个人的经验和他们工作过的那几家公司的经历。同样,如果你只是觉得情绪上有些难以承受,我觉得教练在这方面确实是个很好的资源,但更好的做法是提前投资,在你身边建立一个可以依靠的支持圈子和社群,因为那才是能陪伴你很多年的东西。
所以当有人找我聊教练的时候,我做的第一件事就是挑战他们:“你有没有先尝试过所有这些其他途径?你真的需要教练吗?教练对你来说真的是最好的选择吗?“就像是一个反向推销,让他们清楚自己将要投入什么,因为我觉得教练并不是对所有事情都有用,尽管它确实可以有帮助。
**Lenny:**那你觉得什么时候教练是真正重要、有价值、值得去尝试的?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**如果我觉得教练不重要、没有价值,我就不会做教练了。我认为在某些特定情境下,教练可以非常有帮助。比如当你处于高速增长阶段,需要加速学习,需要有人为你指明方向时,教练可以非常有价值。比如我与创始人合作,创始人就处于一种独特的状态——一切都是混乱的,没有结构,不知道自己的工作职责是什么。他们有完全合理的冒名顶替综合征,因为任何理性的人客观上都不会雇佣他们来担任他们所处的职位。 highs and lows 非常剧烈。所以对创始人来说,请一个教练可能非常合理,因为他们必须在极短的时间内学会很多东西,时间就是生命。
教练可能是帮助他们快速到达目的地的一条重要捷径。与此相关的,我觉得教练在处理敏感话题上也很有帮助。有很多我们希望得到指导的事情,要么需要花很长时间去逐步推进,因为这是一个长期项目,要么是非常敏感的事情。人员问题和人际冲突就是典型。教练在这些情况下特别有帮助,因为它提供了一个非常安全的空间让你去梳理问题,同时也有一个非常理性的人来引导你,可能还会提供一些框架和额外的建议。
**Lenny:**我的职业生涯中请过几位教练,促使我去做这件事的原因是——你想想运动员,嗯,不对,就是运动员。没有人没有教练,最优秀的运动员都有教练,他们之所以出色,正是因为有人帮助他们变得更好。这不是偶然的。他们不是自己摸索出来的。这让你意识到,在职场中有教练帮助的人会更成功,因为本质上他们有人在帮助自己学会如何把工作做得更好。所以这让我觉得,天哪,我大概也应该找个教练来帮帮我。虽然当时并没有什么非常具体的问题让我觉得”我需要解决这个问题”,只是觉得这在道理上说得通。结果这对我来说确实非常重要,也非常有变革性。
如何选择教练
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**如果你去我的网站,我其实写了一份指南,记录了我对如何找教练的看法,其中简而言之就是:我强烈建议每个人,如果你在考虑请教练,至少跟两到三位不同的教练聊聊。真正去感受他们的风格,看看你和他们相处得怎么样。说来你可能觉得意外,因为 I 做了一项研究,我也写文章分享过,我们可以放上链接——我跟超过 80 个人聊过他们的教练经历,包括教练、创始人、高管,其中有一个令人震惊的数据:一半的人找教练时,居然直接选了他们谈的第一个教练。就是你朋友说”我的教练很好”,然后你就去雇了你朋友的教练。
我觉得这作为一种找教练的方式完全没问题,但我真的建议大家多聊几位,因为对你朋友有效的未必对你有效。了解不同教练在风格和相处方式上的差异,我觉得会产生巨大的影响——这也能反过来帮你反思:你是如何学习的?当你学习新技能时,你喜欢有结构吗?还是不喜欢结构?你喜欢有人真正教你,带你走具体的案例,还是更喜欢框架?教练有各种不同的风格。所以在与某人建立如此深度的关系之前,值得多探索一下,这样双方都能对这段关系感到踏实。
**Lenny:**有什么是大家可能不太会想到的,或者你觉得特别重要但可能出乎意料的事情,在找教练的时候?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我原本以为教练的资质和相关经验应该是选择教练时最重要的因素。但在我做的访谈中,我跟那些有过教练经历的创始人聊过,请他们回顾自己的体验,这些创始人和高管仔细回想之后,实际上说得更多的是一种很难量化的感觉——你跟这个人在一起觉得安全吗?你们能深入探讨到什么程度?对方有多理解你?能不能记住你们对话中的要点并帮你串联起来。这些远比有些人找的那个”背景完美但就是无法在深层建立连接”的教练重要得多。所以对我来说有点出乎意料的是,个人之间的连接竟然占了如此大的比重,这也是为什么我现在鼓励大家多跟几个不同的人聊聊。
回到体育教练的类比,另一个要点是:不同的教练擅长不同的东西。就像一个顶尖网球运动员,可能会同时有多个教练——进攻教练、防守教练,或者专门打磨某个击球动作的教练。当你在高水平上表现的时候,其实可以考虑请不同的教练,以短期合作的方式帮你专门训练演讲、帮你进入写作的节奏,或者帮你达成某个具体目标。你不应该把它看作对一个人的长期承诺,而更应该像从菜单上点菜一样,想清楚你现在要达成的是什么目标。
**Lenny:**有人会同时请多个高管教练吗……我喜欢我们这个话题的走向——从”你不需要教练”到”你可能需要一个来帮你拉伸”。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**是的。我认识的不少人,通常是 CEO,要么先后请过一系列教练,要么同时有多个教练。Lenny,你想想就明白了——比如有人要开始融资了,专门请一个路演教练。
**Lenny:**明白了,对,针对特定技能。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,针对特定领域,因为他们即将进入某个流程。或者有人想找一个写作教练——
**Lenny:**明白,对。
Ada Chen Rekhi:——在他们的高管和领导力教练之外,再额外请一位。
**Lenny:**好的,这很合理,我喜欢这个思路。我打算请四个教练,每件事都配一个。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**播客教练。
**Lenny:**播客教练。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**Newsletter 教练。
**Lenny:**写作教练,还有一个——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,还有育儿教练,别忘了这个。
**Lenny:**育儿教练,招聘板教练,再来一个人生教练。好,我这就行动。好的,我们来聊聊你朋友说我们不该碰的那个话题——在硅谷做女性领导者。我就简单这样问吧:想象有很多年轻女性在听这期播客,其中很多人可能梦想拥有像你一样的职业经历和所有你分享过的成就。你对那些刚刚开始职业生涯、希望走上类似道路的年轻女性有什么建议?
作为女性在硅谷做领导者
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**这是一个非常敏感的话题。说起来也挺有意思,当我试图拆解为什么朋友会给我那样的反馈时,我觉得很大一部分原因是你需要对作为非典型领导者形象——或者在硅谷某些职业成功角色中非典型匹配——所面临的固有挑战保持尊重,承认这些挑战的存在。同时也要努力推动自己去掌控那些你能做的事情。我先讲一个小故事,关于一个我曾合作过的人,她已经同意我在此分享,是在教练场景中的事,然后再展开来说。
我曾经跟一位种子阶段的创始人合作,她非常聪明,非常有活力,极其专注,而且特别擅长接收反馈并付诸行动。她是那种极其出色的人,我毫不怀疑她未来会产生巨大的影响力。我们在 Zoom 上合作了几个月,我对她作为经营者的能力建立了极高的敬意——她思考问题的方式、拆解问题然后付诸行动的方式。后来我们第一次在线下共进午餐。说到这个我甚至有点紧张。我对她作为经营者的认知,和她在那次午餐上给我的第一印象之间的落差,真的很惊人——那是一个工作日的午餐,但她的穿着打扮像是周末在家闲逛。旧 T 恤、头发用爪夹随意夹着、内衣肩带露在外面。她的外在形象非常随意。我几乎需要退后一步重新评估,心想:“哦,这是同一个人,但她的外在呈现完全不同。”
后来在我们下一次教练会议上,我给她提了这个反馈——我们的教练关系中本身就包含互相给予反馈的环节。我分享了很多我对她的印象,我告诉她:“作为经营者,我非常尊重你。我想告诉你,在我们那次见面中,我对你的潜在认知和我在过去几个月中了解到的你之间,存在这样的落差。”
她的反应是:“天哪,Ada,从来没有人帮我把这些点连起来过。太感谢你了。从来没有人明确地告诉过我,你描述的这些事情——而且它们对我来说非常容易改正,我也有动力去改——可能会触发某些印象或偏见。以前真的没有人跟我说过。而我马上要开始融资了。听到这些对我来说真的非常有帮助——这些我的穿着打扮、外在形象中可以控制的要素,确实可能影响别人对我的看法。这意味着我需要额外翻过一道坎,才能让他们看到我作为一个资深经营者的实力。“她的接受态度非常好。但有意思的是,她在职业生涯中已经走了这么远,甚至已经融过资,却从来没有人给过她这样的反馈。
我认为这就是在硅谷做女性面临的一大挑战——因为做到高管职位或者成为获得融资的创始人,就像奥运级别的竞技一样。你必须一路通过整个漏斗,成为极少数被选中的人之一。但这场游戏的难度在于,没有人告诉你游戏的规则。你其实并不真正知道如何获得引荐或给予引荐,什么是正确的跟进方式,别人对你有什么印象。事实证明,在职业环境中,让一位管理者对团队中的年轻女性说”来,我给你一些关于你外在形象的反馈,以及它如何影响你被感知到的能力和职场形象”是极度不安全的。绝大多数管理者根本不会这么做,因为怎么做都吃力不讨好——这和我收到的那条反馈本质上是类似的。
从反馈中学习与成长
Ada Chen Rekhi: 所以我的立场是,我们并非无能为力。如果我们觉得自己——不一定是身为女性,也可能是因为被认为太年轻或太老、太高或太矮、种族不对——无论什么原因让你觉得人们在否定你或看不见你,我们都可以做些什么。即使这场游戏被操纵了,我们也不是无能为力的。我们可以研究游戏的规则,互相帮助,真正开始指出其中一些规则,然后找到绕过它们的方法。在刚才这个例子中,那位创始人后来转向朋友,做了一次小小的形象改造,提升了自己的外在形象。
她后来向我汇报说:“很多人都给了我非常积极的反馈,说我身上散发出某种更自信、更有活力的感觉,但她们说不出具体是什么变了。” 实际上,有很多人注意到她身上发生了一些积极的变化——而这一切仅仅因为我在她教练这个有利位置上,给了她一些她从未听过的、艰难但真实的反馈。所以,找到这些反馈并尝试调整自己去适应这个游戏,真的是我们自己的责任——如果你想参与那个层级的竞争的话。
Lenny: 给她那个反馈时你有多紧张?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 我非常紧张。我其实差点没说出口,然后深吸了一口气,心想管它呢?我觉得她很棒,我觉得她真的会从中受益,所以我就说了。即使在我们这种已经建立了信任的关系中,这事也超级、超级困难。所以我可以想象在别的情境下,给人这样的反馈有多难——但不然的话,他们还能从哪里听到呢?
Lenny: 我记得有一种公司文化,他们会说你这样做是自私的——因为你不愿承受压力或冒着损害自己声誉的风险,而不给别人提供艰难的反馈。但你其实并没有帮到他们。所以这是一个非常有意思的洞见——别那么自私。当你认为这能帮到别人的时候,去做那些困难的事。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 没错。但我觉得,当话题涉及性别,涉及外在形象,甚至涉及移民身份时——如果你处在一个可以给这种反馈的位置上——挣扎往往在于对方会不会接受。而在这方面,我那个好奇循环的概念就很适用了,因为做这件事几乎没什么胜算——好的结果是对方受益了,但给这种建议或反馈的潜在代价太多了,默认的选择就是回避。但那样的话,那个人永远学不到游戏的规则。
Lenny: 是的,完全同意。这也让我想到了《彻底坦率》(Radical Candor),基本上就是那套理念。不知道你读过那本书没有?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 读过,Kim Malone Scott 写的,对吧。
Lenny: 对。谢丽尔·桑德伯格也有一个类似的故事——我记得谢丽尔给了她一个非常严厉的反馈,而她当时其实接受得不太好。我觉得你做得更好,或者说你的朋友确实接受了反馈并付诸行动了。那整本书的核心就是说,“嘿,我这样做了,而且人们真的会听进去。” 我记得那个框架是——你必须让对方感受到你深切地关心他们,同时又直接地挑战他们。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 是的,这是一个很好的故事。谢丽尔·桑德伯格在一次会议结束后把她拉到一边,基本上告诉她:“你说’嗯’的时候,会显得你很蠢。” 她当时没接受好,但后来回过头来,她反思道,像谢丽尔这样的人愿意去给这样的反馈,是多么勇敢、多么有帮助——因为这确实有代价,确实有风险。
“吃蔬菜”:刻意练习不适之事
Lenny: 沿着这个方向,你还有什么想法或建议想留给大家的吗?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 我能想到的最大的建议,是围绕一个我称之为”吃蔬菜”(eating your vegetables)的理念,要认真对待它。我给很多东西都起了专有名称——
Lenny: 挺好的。
Ada Chen Rekhi: “吃蔬菜”的理念是这样的:小孩子对蔬菜并不真正产生欣赏,直到他们接触了十次或十二次之后。研究者说:“让孩子接触蔬菜十到十二次,即使他们不喜欢,因为那正是一个人开始喜欢某样东西所需要的次数。” 所以当我思考职业策略,当我思考如何提升自己,当我思考如何寻找那些艰难的反馈时,“吃蔬菜”是其中一个非常重要的组成部分。它的核心在于——如何区分你对某件事的厌恶是因为你不擅长、因为你刚接触、因为你从未做过,还是说这是一种真正的厌恶——你已经做过了,确实不喜欢。举个具体的例子,如果我们看看播客这个领域,Lenny,我记得大约有百分之七十五到八十的播客做了第一期就停了。
你必须多次做某件事,才能真正对它产生好感。因为你第一次做的时候,你就是做不好。我自己的一个小例子是,在职业生涯早期,我非常笨拙,很不擅长社交。我搬到了硅谷,人们告诉我硅谷的一条重要法则就是拓展你的人脉网络——一切都在于人。我完全同意这一点。然而,我谁都不认识,也不太理解社交这回事。所以我给自己定了一个规矩:连续几个月,每周出去一次,参加一个外部活动,我会数出十张名片。规则是——我必须通过向陌生人自我介绍,把那十张名片全部发完,并且走到活动场地的最里面那堵墙,然后我才能离开。
我连续这样做了几周。一开始非常痛苦,真的很糟糕,但后来就好多了。我从中意识到两件事。第一,当我反复参加活动并看到熟悉的面孔时,融入并认识新人变得容易了很多——只需要看我认识的人正在和谁聊天。第二,我在切入对话、自我介绍、理解这种认识人和在人群中穿行的社交方式上变得好多了。其中一些从第一份工作、最初那几个月建立起来的关系,基本上构成了我今天人脉网络的基础。这对我来说真的非常有回报,因为我真的专注于”吃蔬菜”,坚持熬过了最初的不适。
所以回到如何在职业中取得进步这个话题——想想那些你可能不太擅长的显而易见的事情,然后想想你可以采取哪些行动,非常刻意地、有目的地去练习它,直到你对它有了一定的掌握能力。因为在某些情况下,擅长某些技能真的很重要。
“吃蔬菜”的其他实践方式
Lenny: 我非常喜欢这个做法。我也很喜欢”摸到最里面那堵墙”这个规则带来的身体上的强制性——它逼着你穿过整个房间,而我总是想赶紧溜走。关于”吃蔬菜”这种事,你有没有见过或推荐过其他例子?刚才那个强迫自己去参加社交活动、摸到最里面那堵墙的例子非常好。还有没有其他你推荐过的、或者你觉得有用的、做了某件很困难但很有影响力的事情?
Ada Chen Rekhi: 有的,其实有好几个。很多都围绕内容创作,因为这确实很难。其中一个我想到的是,我知道很多人谈过 LinkedIn 30 天挑战——也就是连续 30 天每天在 LinkedIn 上发布一条内容,跨过那个分享的心理障碍,然后过一段时间回过头来看,在你发的内容里,哪些真正引起了共鸣。我也觉得开始尝试进入私信交流很有帮助。这需要花不少心思去想:“这个人真的很厉害,让我私信他吧。让我试着开启一段对话。“因为我们早已远离了实体名片的世界了,我觉得现在没人再用那东西了。
Lenny: 确实没有了。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 现代社交网络的方式是在网上找到那些真正有趣的人,然后找到某种方式与他们建立联系。在这种情况下,主动去见人、与人交谈需要一定的外向性格。所以要强迫自己真正去想:“与其只做一次尝试然后失败了就说’我再也不会做这种事了’,我如何真正建立一个学习的模式,或者一个连续尝试十次、十二次的序列,看看我能从中收获什么?“因为这才是你学习和成长的方式。
LinkedIn 30 天挑战与内容创作心态
Lenny: LinkedIn 30 天这个想法,我非常喜欢。我可以分享一个小技巧——当你听到这个建议时,我猜很多人会想:“天哪,要在 LinkedIn 上发帖子,太尴尬了。我不想成为那种自我推销的 LinkedIn 人。“但我发现,如果你重新定义它——“我只是想把我的一个想法整理清楚,分享一些对我有用的东西或者我的一个洞察,而不是去想’我要尽可能多地获赞”我要让这条帖子病毒式传播’或者’我要涨粉’。“不要那样想。把它想成:我只是想表达我头脑中的一个想法,利用这个机会用一种非常简洁的方式把它整理出来。这会帮助你获得动力。至少对我来说是有效的。它最终对我来说也是实用的,而不是为了借此涨粉。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 我也觉得这个方法很有帮助。我听过一个类似的建议是:为一个读者而写。想象你只是在和一个朋友说话,或者你在和一个信任的同事交流,就为他们而写。我觉得这真的很有帮助,它可以帮助我们避免好高骛远——过度执着于结果,比如”我发了一篇帖子但没有涨到五千粉丝”。取而代之的是,去想”我发这篇帖子是因为我想分享一个有趣的想法,然后看到有些人产生了共鸣,这多酷啊”。
Lenny: 对,我特别喜欢这个说法。你甚至可以直接说”这是我在第一天觉得有用的东西”,用这种方式去发帖。这类内容最终反而是人们最感兴趣的。你越不让人觉得你在渴求粉丝和点赞之类的,越只是简单地呈现”这是我发现有用的东西,能用就用吧”,效果就越好。
Ada Chen Rekhi: 是的,是的。人们在网上的真诚和真实是可以感受到的。
Lenny: 绝对如此,而且越来越明显。也许最后一个问题。你和你的伴侣一起创办了公司,你和你的丈夫都是联合创始人。我很好奇,你对这种创业方式有什么看法?你会推荐给其他人吗?
与伴侣共同创业
Ada Chen Rekhi: 如果在我刚开始创业的时候你问我,我会非常热情地说:绝对推荐,我完全推荐。但现在,我会加上一些附加条件——
Lenny: 请继续。
Ada Chen Rekhi: ——我觉得这其实就是回到我之前说的,做创始人是一种如此剧烈而疯狂的经历,有那么多极端的高潮和低谷,又缺乏结构感,当你再把浪漫关系掺和进来,这就是一个非常不稳定的组合。所以我发现,它似乎要么发展得非常好,要么发展得非常糟糕,没有中间地带。之所以加附加条件,是因为我们实际上有几对朋友试过这种方式,结果参差不齐。就我个人经历而言,我很喜欢这种方式。我的伴侣 Sachin 和我合作得非常好。我们获得的主要好处是,创业本身就是一种如此强烈的执念——你会花大量时间思考你的业务、业务的方方面面,以及你正在面对的任何问题。
而当我有了”我也想成为一个创始人”的想法时,我们推演了一下,说:“好吧,那我们就要各自沉迷于两件完全不同的事情了。我们可能根本见不到面,那为什么不试试做同一件事呢?“所以我们的第一个实验就是一起合作,而且我们当时挺疯狂的。我实际上制定了一个 30 天、60 天和 90 天的计划,我们会定期做回顾检查。其中一些明确的问题包括:这是否影响了我们的关系?因为我只是想确保我们把关系放在第一位。这个方式对我们很有效,以至于我们一起创办了两家公司。后来在 LinkedIn 的时候,我们在公司内部跨了好几个团队,继续在产品和营销方面搭档合作。所以这段经历非常棒。我想说,真正帮助我们维持成功关系的因素,我认为也适用于任何正在考虑”我是否应该和这个人一起工作、成为联合创始人”的人——
我们有非常互补的领域和技能组合,因此我们有非常清晰的决策权划分。Sachin 负责产品设计和工程。我专注于营销、运营、财务以及其他所有业务方面的事情。正因如此,谁来做决策、谁来主导和负责哪个项目,是非常清晰的。我们互相听取意见,但最终决策权明确。这对我们帮助很大。然后,我觉得对于伴侣——也许还包括亲密朋友——一起工作来说,最棘手的部分是:你们如何进行建设性冲突?如何做到对事不对人?如果你的伴侣过来说你的工作做得不好——那份营销方案或产品路线图做得不好——你是把它理解为”这个方案不好,我们来讨论一下怎么改进”,还是把它理解为”天哪,他觉得我不行,他觉得我太懒了,我看到他刚才那个眼神了”,然后把它当作一种人身攻击?
所以,保持真正追求真相的态度,在给出反馈时采取最善意的解读方式,专注于达成一个对业务有益的明智结果——我认为这是你必须思考的最关键的事情之一,如果你要和任何人一起工作的话,更不用说和你的伴侣或亲密朋友一起创业了。而这正是对我们来说非常有效的方式。
与伴侣共事的成功之道
**Lenny:**你对这件事的执行力让我印象非常深刻。我觉得我没法和我的妻子这样做,我觉得效果不会好。你或许应该写——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**这是自我认知。
**Lenny:**对。不,我们有这个自觉。你应该写一篇关于如何成功与伴侣一起创业的文章。你似乎有很多非常有趣的框架和见解,关于这件事是如何运作的。事实上——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**好主意。
**Lenny:**你们一起工作了这么长时间。对,它甚至可以单独成一本小书。在我们进入非常令人兴奋的快问快答环节之前,你还有什么想分享或聊的吗?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我觉得你基本都覆盖到了,Lenny。
快问快答
**Lenny:**那么,我们已经到了非常令人兴奋的快问快答环节。我有五个问题要问你。准备好了吗?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**准备好了。
**Lenny:**你向其他人推荐最多的两三本书是什么?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**Robert Cialdini 的《影响力》。如果你是做营销的,这是一本很棒的书。如果你是创始人或做产品的,也是一本很棒的书。它实际上是拆解了有哪些不同的策略可以让别人说”好”,帮助说服他们接受某些事情。我觉得这真的有助于你围绕这些原则去思考、去设计产品或业务。
**Lenny:**我书架上就有这本书,就在我身后。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**哦,对,那是一本好书。我推荐的另一本书叫 Designing Your Life,出自斯坦福设计学院,作者是 Bill Burnett 和 Dave Evans。他们是两位斯坦福 d.school 的教授,他们做的事情是把设计原则应用到人生设计上。所以,你如何真正规划出下一阶段的职业,既有意义又有满足感,同时还能实现你真正在意的那些成功因素,并进行头脑风暴,真正有创造力地去构思。所以当人们陷入困境或思考职业策略时,那是我总是推荐给他们的一本书。
**Lenny:**你最近最喜欢的电影或电视剧是什么?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**Ted Lasso 回来了,所以我在看最新一季。我也是个 Star Trek 迷,所以我在看 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds。
**Lenny:**我不知道有新的 Star Trek,好消息。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**哦,太好看了。我觉得我喜欢 Star Trek 的地方在于,和现在电视上一些经典叙事线不同,有时候它的某一集就是单纯的快乐。他们探索一颗星球,没什么坏事发生,他们看到一些非常奇妙的东西,然后所有人都开开心心地离开,还为自己的探索感到自豪。这是现在的电视剧类型中缺失的东西——那种幸福感,有时候生活是美好的,有时候生活是糟糕的。
**Lenny:**听起来很不错。不过,我学过叙事学的理论,要让一个故事有趣,需要有一些冲突或问题。所以我猜中间还是会有什么地方出点什么状况吧。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**但不是出问题,是发生了有趣的事情。
**Lenny:**哦。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**然后问题解决了,皆大欢喜。对。只是不需要每次都是有人要杀你。
**Lenny:**我得看看这部剧。听起来很棒。我以前是 Star Trek 的超级粉丝,不知道他们还在出新剧。你面试别人的时候,喜欢问什么面试问题?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**别人对你有什么常见的误解?我通常会在面试快结束的时候抛出这个问题。我觉得它非常有用的原因是,这是让我重置自己偏见的一种方式。我可能已经对他们形成了某种印象,而这是他们站出来说”嘿,很多人这样看我,但其实不是这样”的机会。这同时也反映了他们的自我认知。
**Lenny:**很好。你最近发现或经常使用的产品有哪些?可以是 SaaS 产品,也可以是消费端好玩的产品,想分享的都可以。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**我没办法上这期播客不给 Notejoy 打个招呼。Notejoy 是一个快速、专注的笔记应用,面向个人和团队。这就是我在做的产品。我用它做所有事情——从产品路线图,到我的教练笔记,甚至为像这样的播客做准备。我一直在用 Notejoy。另一个我非常常用的工具是 Captio。它已经存在一段时间了,是一个 iOS 小应用。我不确定它有没有 Android 版本,但基本上它就是一个空白记事本。你可以把脑子里的东西倒进去,然后按一个按钮,它就发邮件给你。所以当我发现自己很分心的时候,或者只是想记住什么东西的时候,我就用 Captio 快速捕捉我的想法,然后之后在收件箱里再处理。
然后这周我刚下载的一个东西是 Arc,新浏览器。我其实对它的愿景非常兴奋。我还不确定会不会把它融入我的工作流程,也不知道它怎么适配,但它真的非常漂亮,看到有人在浏览器标签页这个一团糟的东西上持续迭代,真的很酷。
**Lenny:**是的,我很喜欢 Arc。上一期节目我深入聊了 Arc,而且我也在用 Captio,不管它怎么发音。不过我发现了另一个应用,其实类似的,但我发现它更简单。叫 Note to Self,就放在我的 Dock 上。任何时候我想给自己发个想法邮件,打开它就行,这种东西。不知怎么的,它用起来甚至更简单。所以这是另一个可以试试的,Note to Self。最后一个问题。你在生产力方面非常有心得。你在日常生活中发现的一个对提高生产力特别有帮助的小技巧是什么?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**在前一天晚上想好你这天想要完成的那一件事,然后在最早的时机,就试着给自己五分钟时间去做它。就五分钟。我之所以说五分钟,是因为我遇到了一个挑战,也许其他人也会遇到,那就是所谓的”高效拖延”。即使我知道有一件非常重要的事情需要完成,我经常会去做其他也有用、也需要完成的事情,仅仅因为我在逃避那一件事情。然后不知不觉就到了一天结束,我心想:“我还有那件事要做。“通过真正聚焦于最重要的一件事是什么,然后只是稍微开始做一下,这让事情变得非常轻量。通常我发现,五分钟会变成整整一个小时,一早就把那件事搞定,我就会觉得非常有成就感。但这确实是一个我很难克服的心理障碍。
**Lenny:**我很喜欢五分钟这个方法,因为这是一个很巧妙的小技巧,让你觉得:“好吧,我就做五分钟,我得把这个事情做了。”
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,很快。
**Lenny:**我得试试。对。有一本在本播客中被很多人推荐过的书叫 Make Time,里面有一个框架叫 The Highlight,就是你选出一天的重点,那就是你必须先做的那件事,就像,如果你什么都不做,也要做你的重点——
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**对,确实非常类似。
**Lenny:**是的,而且他们不做那个五分钟的做法,所以我觉得这是其中很巧妙的一点。Ada,这次对话太棒了。这场聊天充满了感受、青蛙、蔬菜、框架和洞见。再次非常感谢你能来。最后两个问题。大家如果想了解更多或者联系你,可以在哪里找到你?听众们怎样能帮到你?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**你可以在网上找到我。在 Twitter 和 LinkedIn 上,我是 Ada Chen,A-D-A-C-H-E-N。我有一个网站,adachen.com,你也可以随时给我发邮件,adachen@gmail.com。至于听众们怎么能帮到我,欢迎对我们今天分享的各种想法和话题提供反馈和发挥。我一直很渴望从他人身上学习。所以随时可以给我发消息打个招呼。如果你是创始人,对了解更多关于教练的内容感兴趣,我也很乐意聊聊。
**Lenny:**太好了。那 Notejoy,他们怎么查看呢?
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**Notejoy.com。
**Lenny:**这么简单。域名真好。Ada,再次感谢你。
**Ada Chen Rekhi:**谢谢你。
**Lenny:**大家再见。非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你最喜欢的播客应用上订阅。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助其他听众发现这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于这个节目的信息。下期再见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| a16z | 机构名,保留原文 |
| Ada Chen Rekhi | 人名,保留原文 |
| Andrew Chen | 人名,保留原文 |
| Arc | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Bill Burnett | 人名,保留原文 |
| boiling the frog | 温水煮青蛙 |
| Captio | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Clay | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Connected | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Curiosity Loop | 好奇循环 |
| customer advisory councils | 客户顾问委员会 |
| Dave Evans | 人名,保留原文 |
| Designing Your Life | 书名,保留原文 |
| eating your vegetables | 吃蔬菜(刻意练习不适之事的隐喻) |
| executive coach | 高管教练 |
| executive function | 执行功能 |
| experiment brief | 实验简报 |
| explore and exploit | 探索与利用(explore and exploit) |
| external scorecard | 外部记分卡 |
| financial planning and analysis | 财务规划与分析 |
| growth marketing | 增长营销 |
| head of marketing | 营销负责人 |
| heuristics | 启发式原则 |
| hot take | 有争议的看法 |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征 |
| internal scorecard | 内部记分卡 |
| Kim Malone Scott | 人名,保留原文 |
| Lenny | 人名,保留原文 |
| 公司名称,保留原文 | |
| LinkedIn InMail | LinkedIn InMail |
| Make Time | 书名,保留原文 |
| Mochi Media | 公司名称,保留原文 |
| Note to Self | 产品名,保留原文 |
| Notejoy | 产品名,保留原文 |
| personal board of directors | 个人董事会 |
| personal CRM | 个人 CRM |
| pitch coach | 路演教练 |
| product marketer | 产品营销人员 |
| product sense | 产品感觉/产品直觉(product sense) |
| productive procrastination | 高效拖延 |
| Radical Candor | 《彻底坦率》 |
| Robert Cialdini | 人名,保留原文 |
| Sachin | 人名,保留原文 |
| Sheryl Sandberg | 谢丽尔·桑德伯格 |
| stack rank | 排序 |
| Star Trek | 剧名,保留原文 |
| Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 剧名,保留原文 |
| subject matter expert | 主题专家 |
| SurveyMonkey | 公司名,保留原文 |
| Ted Lasso | 剧名,保留原文 |
| The Highlight | 概念名,保留原文 |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)