The First 90 Days
What I'm Up To (Reading & Flying), What I Reflected On (The First 90 Days), and What's Occupying My Mind (Denver)- all part of Allen's Friday Flights
Hello Professionally Curious One!
Welcome to my Friday Flights, a collection of seemingly random things.
Cheers,
Allen
Past Publications
What I’m Up To
TL;DR: Reading & Flying
The Things:
I tried a VA service for the first time on some specific tasks - it’s as easy as looming it and sending it over. It’s GDS!
Started using Quickbooks to do 2022 financials for myself + personal finance management. We’ll see if it meets my lazy needs.
I did a less than 24 hour trip to SF just to hear Christopher Tin’s new album and it was glorious, and in the process discovered these two great eats: Maison Alyzee and Masala Desi Cafe.
I also ended up in Denver for part of ETH Denver.
Caught the Colorado Avalanche vs New Jersey Devils Hockey game - Avalanche lost but it was still fun.
I am exploring several calendar apps including Motion, Reframe, etc. I’m not yet sold.
Hey Ben, rooting for your DevOps Personal Content Monopoly for CTOs!
Caught some time with THE MARK.
I finished Rich Dad, Poor Dad - a lot of “you can do it too" and “everything you were taught is poor”, but not a lot of “here’s what you need to do”.
I almost finished The First 90 Days in 2 days; it’s a great book that is extremely tactical and specific about transition risks people face in any role, in any place. Must read for all.
Started Book 7 of 9 of the Expanse series with Persepolis Rising via Audible. Solid series.
Btw I started a new thing. It’s the reason I went to ETH Denver.
What I Reflected On
TL;DR: Transition Risk is the biggest risk to us all.
The First 90 Days
I’m reading The First 90 Days. It’s a book that gives you a tactical plan to crafting and executing your transition plan into a new role. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it’s a book you can pick up 3 to 7 days before starting a new role.
Transitions
A career transition can be anything from taking on a new role, to a new promotion, to a new company, to a new geography.
Transitions take 6 to 7 months, and that assumes you were successful on your own; with a proper plan, you can cut it down to 4 months - or 90 days.
What you do in the first 90 days will determine what your career will be for the duration you hold it, until the next transition
Some Stats on Careers & Time
I once read a stat that a millennial will have held 11 different jobs, including promotions, by the age of 31-33. The average held job for a millenial would then be about 1.5 years, assuming they started at 18.
In this book, it cites a study of 580 of leaders, directors to c-suite, with average working experience of 18.2 years faced. Factoring promotions, lateral moves, moving companies, moving across business units, and geographic moves, these leaders had on average 13.5 major transitions across 18.2 years, with a major transition every 1.3 year.
Some of those transitions are sometimes in parallel such as a new role at a new company, or a new role in a new country.
Vicious Cycles
Vicious cycles get created when we assume that our old habits and way of working can indeed carry us forward. Strong evidence suggests this to never be the case, and if you don’t unlearn how you do things and adapt to the people and situations you are expected to face, you will create vicious cycles.
Think of a vicious cycle as your own passive system of momentum that works against you. It’s like passive debt - the opposite of passive income. You don’t want that - the creation of vicious cycles happen in the first 90 days when you fall repeatedly into a transition trap.
Transition Traps that Lead to Vicious Cycles
Here are the transition traps - many of which I’ve been guilty of doing throughout my career.
Sticking with what you know
Falling prey to the “Action imperative”
Setting unrealistic expectations
Attempting to do too much
Coming in with “the” answer”
Engaging in the wrong type of learning
Neglecting horizontal relationships
Falling into these traps can lead you to create a Vicious Cycle. I have done #1, #2, #4, #5, and #6.
What happens when you fall into these traps?
At some point very soon, the vicious cycle is so taxing on you that you can:
burn out (personal)
get axed out (performance)
lose credibility (political)
lose all momentum (opportunity)
Those are objectively bad.
How do you not fall for these traps, and what’s the opposite of a vicious cycle?
The book very much focuses on a few things you can do to create your own Virtuous Cycle:
Focused learning
Effective Relationship Building
Good Decisions
Informed strategy and vision
Increasing credibility
Supportive Alliances
Early Wins
Virtuous cycles are good.
Boiling this down to 3 points:
Bootstrap things first, get some measure of success, and then ask for resources
Horizontal relationships are insanely effective at contributing to your passive branding at a company that the relationships you make in the first 90 days, will set the tone for the rest of your time at the division or company.
Underpromise, overdeliver; don’t rush.
I highly recommend the book and you will 100% be highlighting or tagging all the tables and frameworks it offers.
If you enjoyed this read, do pick up this book: The First 90 Days.
What’s On My Mind
TL;DR: Denver. But the non ETH-Denver part.
I went to Denver this week and the altitude took a while for me to adjust to. That said, I did enjoy Denver for what it was - it’s like a bigger San Diego gaslamp, except no one actually lives there and would prefer to be in the mountains on the weekend.
I stayed in “The Dairy Block” at the Maven Hotel, which is a fantastic hotel if you want a lot of food downstairs, a lot of activities, and a modern contemporary setting. And also being central to literally everything.
There are an infinite amount of pastry and coffee shops, and oddly more Portugeuse and Spanish restaurants than expected. I went to one: Ultreia. Get their stew, pass on their dessert.
I also went to a coffee shop called Little Owl Coffee for a great warm drink and an authentic Pasteis.
I also enjoyed a steakhouse and also ended up catching a hockey game watching the Colorado Avalanche play against the New Jersey Devils. There were more away fans at the arena than home fans.
Some of the last things I did was enjoy the Rino district which is like LA’s Venice Beach or Arts District, except a tad cleaner. The Denver Central Market is a must see and eat, and behind it is an alley of gorgeous murals.
Good times.
Btw I think Seattle is still better than Denver.