ADAPT #7 - there's something about buttons

Author

Gus Balbontin
October 13, 2023

By Gus Balbontin

Yew!

I promise to provoke you in less than 5 min once a week :-)
Stay adaptable and on top of your game!

Let´s go!

Today:

  • Awe: what an iPhone screen can only dream of

  • Deal Flow: do you know what perovskites are?

  • Action: push through discomfort

  • Personal: a conversation with my grandkids in the year 2061

  • Throw: novelty needs space

Read time: 4 min 42 sec

BEFORE WE START: the question of the week!

Thanks for sharing your questions :)

Please send me topics, problems, challenges you are facing at work (startup or corporate), opportunities you think we all need to think about and I will weave them into my newsletters.

Simply reply to this email! And check in next Friday to see if yours was chosen to be featured!

This week we selected one from Melissa:

Melissa: 
I saw you speak a few years ago and loved it! I spent the next few months telling everyone about you 😃 

I saw your email said to ask anything so here it is:

My work dream is to be self employed, it is something that I feel and think about everyday. I have drive and such a desire however I can’t settle on what to do, do you have any suggestions on how to find what I am meant to do.

Thanks

Gus:
Ok a couple of things on being self employed…. remember that like everything in life, nothing comes without compromise.
Self employed or dependent or a combination, are only versions with pros and cons of exchanging your time (your most precious asset) for money…as soon as this money (combined with other elements) covers your basic Maslow hierarchy needs, you can then start exchanging your time for other self actualising things.
I digressed.

So, to go from employed to self employed my suggestion is that you do it bit by bit. If you have a cushion to cover your basic needs you can certainly jump!

But if you don’t, then try to convince your employer to go part time - say 3-4 days a week, tighten up costs at home a little, and use the 1-2 days plus the weekend to figure out what you can do on your own - startup, business, consulting, freelancing etc.

Try lots of stuff, give yourself plenty of time to figure it out as it won’t happen over a few weeks or a few months - be bold, be brave, be patient and prepare to compromise! :-)

Thanks Melissa!
Now let’s dive into today’s newsletter 🤘

AWE

Some of you who follow me on Instagram would know how obsessed I am with buttons.

A good button with a good click can provide feedback and pleasure that tapping on an iPhone screen can only dream of.

Often buttons in lifts fascinate me, especially the decision making process the people in the lift company must have gone through to, for example, make one single button in the entire panel bigger or in different shape or add different colour lights to it.

I am always thankful to those people because I am sure it wouldn’t have been easy to convince the CFO of the lift company to spend extra for a button that really does the same as all the other buttons.

Anyway, button appreciation week, please tag me on Insta or send me a picture of your favourite buttons - I love love love to see them!

Here are some of my faves:

DEAL FLOW

Turns out solar cells have kinda reached their round-trip efficiency limit.
ie: the sun provides 100 units of energy and the solar cell captures and passes through the converter ~22. Probably the max sits at ~34.

Good news, the sun can keep providing units so this efficiency is not that important… but, given that we have such a huge infrastructure built around solar already, the only ways of improving this space will be through setting up fewer solar farms or spending less money to get the same or more energy.

Swift Solar is a company we met recently who are trying to do this, and they are doing it by doubling up the solar wafers in the cell (tubes to slightly different energy wave) and using perovskites. The first time you hear this word perhaps…?
Get ready, because in the future most solar cells will be perovskite cells.

We can get better yield from them and perhaps even more flexibility.

Check it: www.swiftsolar.com 

This machine replicates the sun shining on a cell!

ACTION

Pick a book by an author or topic you don’t think you’ll like or enjoy and read it!

Stick with it!

Diversity and perspective are important in life and this is one way of pushing through the discomfort of stepping outside your comfort zone.

Go!

PERSONAL

Likely conversation with my grandkids in the year 2061:

Me: “Back in the day, if you wanted to get from A to B you had to jump on an animal called a horse...this was not simply transport...you had to feed them and keep them safe and speak a language of whistles, clicks and pats...you literally had a relationship with your transport!”

Grandkids: “whaaat? Did your transport poo??? Haha”

Me: “yes yes hahaha - As fun as it may sound, we then got tired of animal relationship based transport and we decided to explore new ways of getting from A to B.
While we investigated various different types, two seemed to be the best options....one powered by a super flammable liquid hard to find and refine, and the other option was an electric engine fuelled basically by the energy of the sun which, as you know, is what we use today and we will never run out of”

Grandkids: “surely you picked the clean, safe, infinite option over the flammable, toxic, finite one right?

Me: “I know, common sense would suggest that…. but… sadly we didn’t, we picked the toxic one and run with it for like 100 years... until we realised the fuck up and it was almost too late to do something about it and yeah, you are dealing with the consequences. Sorry 😞”

Me: “but look, here is a fun photo of nanny and I when we drove out of Melbourne and there were still random electrical chargers around to plug your car, I know right? crazy!!”

#futureapology

THROW

In the same way that we struggle to throw away stuff, and our bedrooms and cupboards and sheds get fuller and fuller of stuff…. we also don’t let go in our careers and our businesses.

We hold on to and maintain technology we shouldn’t, we keep products alive we shouldn’t, we keep doing things in our lives we shouldn’t.

It is impossible to pull the future towards you if the future has no place in which to land.

Innovation needs you to stop doing shit just as much as it needs you to do new shit!

Remember I am a massive fan of novelty, I am also a fan of stopping stuff to create space for it :-)

My recommendations:

I’m still sharing with you the amazing crew at neu21.com who will help you make work not suck!

So if you need help in your organisation ping me, ping them!

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