When I’m facing a challenge, I’ve learned to ask credible people to tell me about their experiences and give me feedback. I’ve left some of these conversations, though, feeling like I didn’t get what I was looking for. I was talking with a founder yesterday and this topic came up. He shared a great insight with me. When asking for input, he aims to leave the conversation with a single golden nugget. No to-do list or pages of takeaways. He’s looking for one insightful thing that he hadn’t considered before.

This clicked with me. It made perfect sense. We chatted about how he landed on this approach. He made some great points. One was that most people are likely to act on only one thing from a conversation (for a variety of reasons). I agree. And if you’re going to act on only one thing, why look for ten?

I began replaying conversations in my head that I had deemed somewhat unproductive. I was able to identify a single golden nugget in most of them. Some of those nuggets had already proved helpful in navigating challenging situations, but I hadn’t given those conversations the credit they deserved because my expectations for them hadn’t been realistic.

I love this founder’s approach to getting feedback. Early founders have a never-ending to-do list and they often talk with lots of people. How beneficial would it be to learn one thing or get one idea from most if not all these conversations? When you leave a conversation, ask yourself: what’s the golden nugget?

Today marks the end of my fifty-eighth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-eight:

• Unfocused start – This week was productive, but I don’t feel like I got the month off to the start I’d planned. I’m behind on some things and need to refocus next week.
• Deadlines – Sometimes a hard deadline helps me get through a large amount of work in a short amount of time. It’s stressful, yes, but my brain clicks into another mode when it’s facing a hard deadline. I had an unexpected one this week and was able to meet it.
• Helping founders – I enjoy helping founders fill gaps and overcome obstacles. Sometimes, to reach their full potential, people just need a lucky break. I had a chance to give someone a lucky break this week, and it felt great! I’m looking forward to watching the founder’s journey.

Week fifty-eight was super busy. Next week I plan to be more focused and intentional to get back on track for the month.

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Today marks the end of my fifty-seventh week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-seven:

• April – Time is flying. I can’t believe the month is over already. Or that a third of the year is behind us!
• Thinking time – Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of my time doing and not as much as I would like thinking. So I blocked out time to think this week. It was good to have some bandwidth to reflect. Hopefully I can do more of it going forward.
• Learning new things – I spent a decent amount of time learning something new this week. It’s always fun and exciting to learn new stuff that I’m interested in. I love the challenge, and it feeds my curiosity.

Week fifty-seven was a paced week. Four months down, eight to go. Looking forward to the rest of the year.

Today marks the end of my fifty-sixth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-six:

• Jam session – I had a great conversation with a founder friend. We’re both passionate about helping very early-stage companies, and we came up with some really good ideas that I’m excited about working on. I enjoy jam sessions like this one where I can talk through problems and ideas with someone who’s interested in similar things.  
• Monthly goals – I set a few monthly goals in March and shared them with some other people. I didn’t write them down and actually lost track of what the specific goals were. An acquaintance asked me about them today (luckily, he had written them down). Surprisingly, I’ve achieved each of them or come very close. Achieving goals that I hadn’t recorded or revisited for a month was a sign: they originated from an authentic place. Authentic passion kept me moving in the right direction all month. Looking forward to setting more authentic goals (maybe I’ll write down the next set!).      
• Admin – I didn’t have as much admin time as I needed this week. It feels like some things have gotten away from me. I plan to address this next week.  

Week fifty-six was a busy and exciting week. Lots of things in the works and lots of activity overall. Hopefully next week will have a more normal pace.

In the early days of my company, I had to figure everything out. I was often doing things in areas where I had zero experience. Some tasks were intimidating and complex. Other were simple but time consuming and tedious. All of it had to get done if I wanted my company to be a success, so I dug in. The tasks themselves weren’t always fun, but I enjoyed learning about new things. That’s true to this day.

I spoke with a former founder who’s now in corporate America. When he started his company, he too mastered learning new things. That skill has been invaluable over the years. It helped him take on new challenges in his own company and now in a large organization. Time and time again he’s been successful. When we spoke, he mentioned learning and executing new things as one factor that’s gotten him where he is today.    

I believe curiosity is a trait that helps founders succeed. It helps a lot to have a genuine desire to learn about new things and get things done by applying that learning.

If you’re considering entrepreneurship, ask yourself, “Am I naturally curious?” If the answer is yes, it might be a perfect match.

Today marks the end of my fifty-fifth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-five:

• Transferable skills – A friend asked me to help with something. I initially said I didn’t have the experience to do it (which was true). He pointed out that I have skills that are transferable and that qualify me to help him. I don’t often think in terms of transferable skills, but my friend was right, and I was able to add a lot of value to his project.
• Good enough – This week was a reminder that sometimes things just need to be good enough to check the box. Done is better than perfect. I have to continually remind myself of that.
• Journeys – Everyone has a story. It’s so interesting to learn about someone else’s. This week I was totally surprised by the journeys that some have taken.  

Week fifty-five was a rewarding one. I was able to move the needle on things that matter to me and help others too. The week was a win–win.

Today marks the end of my fifty-fourth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-four:

• New ideas – I had some great new ideas this week. I’ve already shared them and gotten some good feedback. Excited to dig into them more over the coming weeks.
• Connections – Made some great connections this week. It’s always nice to chat with smart people who have different perspectives on things.
• Pace – I was more intentional about the pace I worked this week and about managing my calendar. It worked well. I feel like I had a balanced week.

Week fifty-four was pretty normal. No extreme highs or lows. Straight down the middle.

Demonstrating traction is important for any company, and especially an early-stage one. A lot of founders communicate it through standard metrics like revenue, number of customers, number of users, etc. Those are fine, but they aren’t the only indicators of traction. If you’re still trying to find product–market fit, giving people insight into your journey can be a great way to show that your company is gaining traction.

If you don’t have product–market fit, you’re no doubt talking to customers often to better understand their problem and what they need in a solution. Ideally, what you learn leads to changes in your product or service. Customers react to those changes positively or negatively. If you’re getting closer to what customers want (and will pay for), that’s traction. It’s not as easy to get across as, say, revenue—because it’s not quantifiable—but it’s still great traction.

If you’re an early founder and someone asks about your traction, consider sharing what you’ve learned during your journey toward product–market fit. Your customer and revenue numbers may not be going up yet, but what you’re learning could signal that you’re on to something big!

Today marks the end of my fifty-third week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-three:

• Expect the unexpected – Life throws curveballs sometimes. That’s OK; it’s just the way life goes. This week life threw one at me, but in the end, the situation worked itself out for now. Can’t let these set me back or put me off my game.
• Process – Whenever I do something involved on a fairly regular basis, I like having a process. When I don’t, I get frustrated and feel like I’m not making the best use of my time.  
• Admin time – I spent time this week doing admin stuff that I was behind on. I even got to inbox zero. I like having a chunk of time every week for this kind of work. Decluttering makes me feel like I’m on top of things.
• Spring – The sun shone a lot this week, and I loved it. Lots of pollen in Atlanta, too, but I can deal with that when it comes with great weather.

Week fifty-three was productive and upbeat. The month and quarter started out on a good note. I hope they end on one too!

Today marks the end of my fifty-second week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week fifty-two:

• Off days – Over the years, I’ve learned to embrace off days. This week I had one of those days, and I didn’t fight it. It put me behind workwise, but I was in a better place mentally the next day.
• Q1 – The quarter is almost over and it feels like it’s flying by.
• Feedback – I’ve been getting lots of feedback this week, which has been a good learning experience. I enjoy hearing others’ perspectives even if I don’t see things the same way.

Week fifty-two didn’t go as planned, but I made the most of it. Looking forward to closing out the quarter next week.