"Swinging the Pendulum" is my favourite operating principle @Shopify. I learned it here and used for many years in leadership.

It's a metaphor we used to communicate when we need teams to start optimizing for the other end of the spectrum.

Here's how it works: We'd often oscillate on telling teams to, eg:

- optimize for speed vs. focus on quality
- everyone needs KPIs vs. only qualitative goals
- don't think about revenue vs. generate revenue!

This seems needlessly confusing - why weren't we consistent, why didn't we choose?

While I've always loved investing & have managed my portfolio for 20 yrs, I wouldn't call myself a good investor.

It's so hard to be good that I don't even try - instead, I've devoted most of my learning to how to avoid being bad.

1/x How to Not be a Bad Investor (thread) 💸: 2/ "Son, don't focus on investing. You have so little money. Earn more"

Early in your life, your earning power is far more important than your investment returns. Don't get distracted by learning to invest, focus on increasing your income.

Went down a Reddit rabbit-hole on: "What quote has always stuck with you?" (bit.ly/2VcW2Zg)

Couldn't help thinking how much better it would be in Tweet form, so here's the top 25 after 50k post upvotes:

"well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions" "Growing up, I didn't have a role model. I just had people I didn't want to be like."

PM is an awesome job: make big decisions about the product, often be the face of it in presentations/meetings, etc.

I haven't been one for years now and have since led almost every other function, so I feel like I can share a different perspective freely... PM is the worst job: 1. Thankless

When a designer/eng produces work (the product), it's objectively exciting and ppl on the team celebrate (esp the PM)

When a PM produces work, aka figuring out what to build, on avg they get - "ok... [you better be right]" or "by when?"

best case you get a nod😐

Leading large teams over the past few yrs - the most in my career - has been rewarding, but also very challenging

I'm lucky to have been given that opportunity, but it's still hard, and walking an infant around the kitchen counter 1000x on pat leave helped me reflect on why 👇 1. The scale of responsibility to employees is serious - people's lives are in your hands, and it's not just their income. People move across the world and uproot families for a role you create. People take massive risks in their careers for an opportunity you pitch them.

I just published "Product Management Mental Models for Everyone", a latticework of ideas for building products blackboxofpm.com/product-manage…

Also coming to you in tweet form:
1⃣-4⃣: 💰 Figuring out Where to Invest
5⃣-🔟: 🎨 Designing and Scoping
🔟➕: 🚢 Shipping and Iterating 1. Return on Investment

A finance concept: for every dollar you invest, how much are you getting back? In product, think of the resources you have (time, money, people) as what you’re “investing”, and the return as impact to customers.