Greetings, future visionaries and dynamic leaders! Today, let’s embark on a journey through the profound insights shared by Matt Abrahams on the HBR IdeaCast with Alison Beard, exploring the essence and mastery of spontaneous speaking—a skill often overshadowed yet crucial for every startup founder, leader, and product manager.

This blog, inspired by David Goggins' transformative journey, explores the essence of personal and professional evolution, emphasizing resilience, humility, and continuous learning. It highlights the impact of a leader's attitude on team dynamics and underscores the importance of quick, informed decision-making, self-reflection, and embracing discomfort for growth. The narrative, interspersed with personal insights and experiences, advocates for transitioning from good to great and stresses the pivotal role of surrounding oneself with individuals who foster growth and the pursuit of excellence. The core message is one of relentless self-improvement and the pursuit of higher standards in all life’s facets.

David Goggins' books outline his journey of overcoming extreme adversities using unique mental tactics. Among the strategies he shares are the 40% Rule, emphasizing that people often tap into just 40% of their capacity; Callousing the Mind, which involves seeing challenges as growth opportunities; the Accountability Mirror, which stresses self-reflection and goal-setting; the Cookie Jar, which encourages drawing strength from past achievements; and Taking Souls, which focuses on turning negativity into motivation. These principles, drawn from Goggins' personal experiences, offer valuable insights for personal and professional growth, especially for those dealing with anxiety. Goggins' teachings emphasize resilience, self-accountability, and continuous self-improvement.

I’ve worked for 5 small startups as a Product Manager, and when a company is in its nascent stages, your role is profoundly influenced by the CEO and founders. 🚀 Thus, finding leaders that complement your work style is crucial for your mental well-being and professional success. 🤝 Each CEO has their own strengths and weaknesses. As a PM, it's essential not only to recognize these but also to navigate them effectively. 💼 Recognizing the pressures and challenges of such a role, it's equally crucial to prioritize your mental health, ensuring that you remain resilient and adaptive in the face of varying leadership styles. 🧠 I've compiled a list of common issues I’ve encountered over the years, along with tactics that can support you on your journey.

Being a Product Manager transcends just understanding the nuances of products; it delves deeply into human connection, understanding, and leading with intention and empathy. This perspective isn't drawn from textbooks but from a deeply personal space - my struggle and journey with generalized anxiety. Guided by insights from Ray Dalio's "Principles: Life and Work" and "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership" by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp, I've molded a leadership approach that recognizes vulnerability as strength.

Being part of the startup world, especially during the pre-seed stage, is akin to riding a roller coaster – there are highs of excitement, drops of uncertainty, and twists of challenges. My experience as a product manager advising pre-seed startups has shown me not just the operational nuances, but also the emotional strains founders and teams go through.

To succeed at this stage while maintaining mental well-being, especially if you're grappling with anxiety or other mental health challenges, here are some pointers interwoven with mental health tips:

After launching 10 products in a decade as a PM, I can state with 100% certainty that it's no easy feat. My primary aim with this post is not just to offer you general guidelines for a product launch but also to provide mental health tips for each phase. This ensures that you remain enthusiastic and invigorated every day you work on a game launch. Launching a product might be the most challenging task you undertake as a PM. Therefore, it's crucial to prioritize your mental well-being throughout the process, ensuring you emerge even stronger. I genuinely care for all of you and wish you immense support. After all, this journey, though challenging, is also incredibly rewarding. ❤️

This book profoundly influenced my perspective and approach to managing people. I've outlined some of the key learnings below. Essentially, being an effective leader is crucial for a project's success, and there are six fundamental pillars that every leader must adhere to and continually refine.

I listened to a podcast this morning, and the interviewee mentioned that she didn't believe anxiety was a superpower. I had recently written a blog post advocating the opposite viewpoint, so I was intrigued. Being a Product Manager with a love for frameworks, I decided to use the SWOT analysis framework to determine if generalized anxiety could be seen as a superpower for a PM.

When I first started my career as a Product Manager, my boss said to me, “What action can I take with this data?” I asked, “What do you mean?” He replied, “If I can’t take an action that gets us closer to our target goals, then this data is a vanity metric, meaning it has no purpose. Don’t show me data just for the sake of showing data; show me something that I can act on.”

I’ve made a basic list of what I think is required to be a good PM. If you are interested there’s a great quote from “The Hard Things About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz that goes into detail about what makes a good PM but here’s my take and I added a little extra flair on what gives someone with Anxiety that extra bit of flair labeled with the 🧠. I got nothing but love for all of you! Stay spice my friends 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Good product managers know the market, the product the product line, and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the product. Good product managers take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the product. 

Remember, you are all fantastic and amazing people, every company is looking for something slightly different and rejecting you is not a rejection on yourself. Be your true self, be authentic and don’t be afraid to show those true colors, someone will fall in love with that and you’ll shine through all the other candidates because of it.

If you're expecting some typical PM advice from someone with an Ivy League degree, pristine grades, and the world's most predictable path to success... well, you’re in the wrong part of the internet.