Post-Mortems, Growth Stress, And Validating Business Ideas Early

1) Post-Mortems

One of the most powerful tools for growth is the post-mortem—an honest reflection on past actions and behaviors. The goal is to understand what went well, what didn't, and what can be learned from the experience.

Here's a simple framework I use:

1. The Idea: Start with a clear idea of what you were trying to achieve.
2. Summary: Write a brief two to three sentence summary of the situation.
3. What Didn't Go Well?: Identify the missteps or areas where things didn't go as planned.
4. What Went Well?: Highlight the successes and positive outcomes.
5. Main Takeaways: Distill the lessons learned and how they can be applied in the future.

Post-mortems are about continuous improvement.

It'd be foolish if all we did in life was to take action and not reflect on our past action.

There's wisdom in our life experience.

All of it.

Sure, we cannot make sense of what may be happening right now or what's to come...but you can when reflecting back.

Taking time to write out a post-mortem allows us to learn from our mistakes, build on our successes, and approach future challenges with greater insight and preparedness.

Neglecting them is a missed opportunity.

2) Growth Stress

Growth stress is all about pushing ourselves intentionally, stepping into discomfort to drive personal and professional growth. Our bodies naturally seek comfort—they're wired to conserve energy and stick to routines. But if we're not conscious about our choices, we risk letting habits take over, leading us to drift through life without real direction.

Without growth stress, we risk becoming passive participants in our own lives, merely going through the motions. To truly grow, we have to break out of our comfort zones. It's this discomfort that forces us to adapt, builds resilience, and ultimately makes us stronger—like a hydra that grows back stronger with each challenge.

Procrastination is often our biggest obstacle here. It's easy to put off the difficult things, but breaking goals into manageable steps can help us stay on track. Small, consistent actions lead to significant progress over time.

Recognize when there's an inconvenience in front of you. All that signals is that there's room for growth and opportunity at hand.

No one said anything was going to be easy.

This inconvenience is what you signed up for in the first place and here we're calling it growth stress because it takes you out of a place you feel comfortable.

Each time we take on a challenge, we build more resilience and add to our self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.

To make sure we're not just going through the motions, it's crucial to regularly assess our progress. Taking time—whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly—to reflect on our actions helps us stay aligned with our goals.

If you're looking to add some growth stress into your life, here are a few ideas:

• Move to a new location to shake things up.
• Spend a bit more than usual to push yourself to earn more.
• Dive into deliberate practice to hone a skill.
• Find accountability partners who will keep you on track.
• Set ambitious goals that stretch your capacity.

Growth isn't easy, but it's essential. Consciously introduce growth stress into your life.

3) Validate Business Ideas Early

One of the hardest lessons I've learned in business is the importance of validating ideas early.

It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new idea, investing time and energy into building something without knowing if there's a real market for it.

Earlier this year, my tech startup idea (Rebirthly) failed because I created a solution in search of a problem.

I hypothesized that since a faceless YouTube video I created got 100k+ views on addiction, I can create a startup using a similar format to charge people and add value in their lives through meditations.

TL;DR: Four months after February it went nowhere.

I created a solution and hoped for customers to come running to my door (never happened).

The biggest lesson here is to validate the idea early on by charging people for what you're about to or are creating. Noah Kagan is a big online voice who talks on validating your business idea fast (under 48 hours with 3 paying customers for him).

For me, I spent 4 months with 0 revenue constantly iterating on feedback from people who had no skin in the game.

That got me quite literally nowhere.

On top, I nearly raised $100k+ from investors to fund an idea that isn't even proven to work or would work. That would've be a huge disaster.

Instead, for my new project I'm working on called Enliiight, I validated the idea before I created anything such as the name, logo, actual product, and etc. It was just an idea.

I first stumbled across a problem I had.

Next, I researched the problem and competitor space in under an hour.

Following—the same weekend—I rang up a few people if such a product existed if they'd pay for it and if so, I went for the sale by charging them.

Next thing you know in under 24 hours, I had a validated business idea with 3 pay customers and revenue without a product created.

Is it going to be a big success? I don't know. But at least this time I have more confidence by people paying me early on to prove this is a worthy pursuit BEFORE I CREATED ANYTHING.

If you're into business, do not take this with a grain of salt. Validate early on by charging people (especially if you like to move fast) to prevent wasting time and effort.