Summary
I strongly believe that 80% of our life should be done by using commodity solutions. The remaining 20% is where we create something unique, customized, value-added, and differentiated. There is no point in inventing another search engine, the reliable city car, a laptop that just works immediately, the phone that helps us to connect to the world, a place to store our documents, emails. Best to use commodities, means standard products to EVERYTHING we just need to use. Best to focus our mental and emotional energy to learn who we are, why are we here, and where our dreams draw us.
In your life and in your organization buy, rent or lease everything that is not a core differentiator or critical resource for your operation or doesn’t give a special advantage = means it is a commodity.
Introduction
My wife has a small business and she used to complain a lot about her laptop. It was slow, not wife-friendly, and complicated. I usually gave her my old work laptops, so they were not the latest models. But more importantly, she found it hard to navigate to and in the apps, getting the jobs done to organize her young kids, silly husband, and the small business inquiries, subcontractors, and clients.
Then gradually I bought her an iPhone, a MacBook Air, a Toyota Prius, subscribed to Google Suit, moved social marketing to Facebook, the website to WordPress, her client database to Salesforce and I manage tasks in Atlassian tools for her.
Since then, no noise, no complaints, no major issues from her.
She starts her day, as a multitasker wife would from her coffee mug. She checks her phone, drives kids around, turns the laptop on to promote her business, gets leads from her website, and stores all important information in her customer database.
Because we bought commodities, tried and tested platforms. So we don’t need to struggle daily with custom-built, “special” maybe solutions.
WHY use belief systems?
There were many smart humans before you were born. Some of them dedicated their lives to find the meaning and the coordinate system for life. The ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Mayas, Greek, Romans, etc lived their lives using their belief systems. This is how civilizations are created, expand and die.
So if you want to save time to be wiser faster, you can learn about history, civilisations, religions. Just be open to the colorful world of past and present people. I am keen to meet and keep interesting people, ideas and worldviews. Why, because these are tried and tested commodities. They save time and pain for me.
HOW to use best practices?
There are many solutions to most of the problems you will experience in your life. There is no point reinventing the wheel, hot water and sliced bread. These are commodities that are available to learn and leverage. So using Design Thinking, Lean Startups, Agile Teamwork, DevOps, Customer Experience, and Innovation Accounting can save you heaps of time and frustration.
You can find, learn these and adjust YOUR thinking, processes, and data, instead of spending time and money to reinvent them.
WHAT do you need to leverage technical platforms?
Google knows a lot about serving search results on the internet. Facebook knows a lot about social media. Amazon knows a lot about e-commerce. Salesforce knows about customer relationship management. Apple knows a lot about consumer devices. Toyota knows a lot about hybrid cars. Xero knows a lot about small business accounting. And Atlassian knows a lot about managing teams and tasks.
Why would you build all these tools yourself? You can’t compete with the thousands of hours and millions of dollars they already spend on their solutions. If you are smart, you learn and utilize these technical platforms the most you can.
Conclusion
I use mental frameworks for accelerating so I UNDERSTAND the world, so I can BE whom I want to be. I use best practice frameworks to get to my goals quicker, so I DO the right things. I use technical platforms to HAVE what I need as resources and outputs. Just to be clear, almost everything has a commodity, generic version of it. There are only 3 things that are specific: you, your relationships, and time. You are unique, so your journey is. Your family and friends are unique to you. Your time is unique as it is just an observation of your perceptions.
So use your talent and time wisely. The rest, you can buy or rent. They are commodities.
Why? In my theory 80% of people are born, they work and die. 16% are born - they work, they live a bit and they die. 3% of humans are born, they live, they create something new, unique (maybe not original, but improved). Only 1% of people are born, they create, impact the word and they don’t die, but live much after they are gone. So if you simplify your life by getting 80% as a commodity, you can focus on the 20% that will make an impact in your life and after.
About the Author
Laszlo Csite is a business coach who helps gifted and keen leaders and teams to be extraordinary and fulfil their potential. He is also a digital product owner, who helps great ideas to grow into admired digital/physical products.
If you enter a new field, want to grow, acquire, transform or exit successfully - using proven methods can save you time and frustration.
When you are interested, I can show you how to use COMMODITIES. I will share my 24 years of consulting experience and my carefully selected network of professionals with you.
You can contact me for a complimentary chat or feedback on my articles here: lacix.co