This should only take about 8 mins to read.

My struggles with hiring a few years back were painful.

This issue is focused on the importance of hiring proactive team members that will help you grow your business and be an asset for a long time to come.

Proactive people are badasses, and once you work with someone with that quality, you quickly realize how much more effective they are than reactive people.

Quick backstory:

My first hiring experience was back in 2012 and I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. On top of everything I was hiring developers; I was a complete noob. If you made it to the interview and you told me that you write code, you were (pretty much) hired on the spot. The scary thing is: that it wasn’t even my business; I was just a project manager.

I started my agency in 2018, and that’s when the hiring became crucial. Still have no idea what the fuck I am doing. As expected, I ran into a lot of hiring issues over the years by not prioritizing proactivity.

Most of the people I hired, I had to babysit:

• Constantly tell them what was needed to get the project done correctly.
• Where to find information (online) about a specific topic.
• How they should approach a problem (I repeatedly had to revisit this).
• It was frustrating and burning so much of my time; my days were anxiety-driven.

I had no idea that most people can’t be taught to be proactive.

I always assumed, “If I show them how to do something, coach them, mentor them, they will be(come) proactive.” I gave people autonomy and the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that doesn’t solve the problem; it’s tough to hire someone and know at that very moment if their working style is a good fit. It’s extremely hard to find people that think one step ahead 99% of the time.

Here is an example of what goes through the proactive-thinkers head: “if I do this, then what happens next, and is it something that I can solve now instead of waiting until it becomes a problem or need?”. This sort of thinking makes a big difference in the long run for you and your business—fewer touch points and micro-managing for you, more autonomy, and better results for them: win-win.

How did I solve this:

During the interview process (for me), three things need to happen for me to feel comfortable with bringing them on board:

• I have a good feeling about the person (good energy, good conversation).
• They claim that they are proactive.
• They gave me a few real-life scenarios of how they solved problems before they were problems.

From those three points, you can tell a lot about a person. If those check out, we kick off a project. I prefer to do a 2-4 week project, that gives me enough time to see how we work together and if they walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

Remember: you might connect with the person on a personal level, but if you notice that they cannot find their stride and are not showing signs of proactivity at work - that’s a red flag.

→ I’d rather have someone be proactive and make a mistake than someone that doesn’t try to conquer that next step without me telling them.

Next time you are hiring a contractor or employee keep this in mind:

• Be clear about your expectations for the contractor or employee.
• Be clear about your working style and mitigate as many surprises as possible.
• Be clear on what your expectations are for the project and beyond.

Transparency is key.

When you find that person, keep them around, pay them well, and make sure they understand their value. Everyone wants to be heard and noticed when they do good work, so give credit where credit is due.

Your filtering system improves over time and you start to surround yourself with a power team, it’s a big piece of your future success. Good luck out there finding your next super-human.

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Top of mind topic: habit building.

Ever since I read Atomic Habits by James Clear about three years ago, I started thinking about my day-to-day life a bit differently. Good habits are impactful, but bad habits are crippling. When you’re ready to build good habits, I recommend:

• Starting small (take vitamins every morning)
• Do it daily, not weekly.
• Use your reminders app on your phone.

One habit I am working on is flossing my teeth every day.

I had this dialed before, and then I fell off. I brushed my teeth every day but wasn’t consistent with flossing.

Challenge:

Start building good habits for yourself, such as: eating healthier, writing consistently, flossing, etc. Small things that make a significant impact.

3 of the tweets from the week.

Tweet 1: This was an eye-opening Twitter thread by Kasey Jones about burnout.

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Tweet 2: An awesome thread from Nicolas Cole about writing

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Here is one of my tweets from the previous week.

This was a little appreciation post for creators out there.

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Podcast stuff:

During the latest episode of What is my Brain? I talked with a solopreneur Adi Verma. We talked about his background, his journey to writing, and the success he has been having with it.

• Adi started off as a computer science graduate, got his MBA in finance, and worked in investment banking for 9 years. Despite things going well on the surface in his career, he realized that this was not what he wanted to do. He was burnt out, and it was taking a serious toll on him. Eventually, Adi decided to take a sabbatical and focus on his well-being.
• During his sabbatical, Adi was trying out a lot of new things and started going to therapy. As he began to feel better, he decided to go back to his job. He quickly realized that he wanted to do something else. But doing it next to a stressful job was impossible. He decided to quit and discovered what he wanted to do. Writing.
• As he was writing more, Adi noticed that he was getting better. He wanted to write about his life, but he was putting it off for a long time. He felt that he wasn’t good enough to do it yet. In July, he decided to finally post it on Twitter and received extremely positive feedback. His thread went viral, it even got picked up by an online publication and helped countless people with their lives.

It was an awesome opportunity to talk in-depth about his experiences with Adi. We also talked about how to understand and improve Twitter threads, the advantages of therapy, and the impact that publicity can have on a person. I’d recommend checking out the full episode to listen to learn more about the inspiring brain of Adi Verma.

Listen to the full episode here

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One tool I like or use:

Tool of the week: ilo.so

URL: https://ilo.so/?via=Zbijelic (affiliate)

Why ilo.so is so awesome:

It’s a really easy way to see all of your Twitter analytics. Real-time stats on all your content, how many followers you gained, and the number of impressions you got. If you need a good analytics software, check out ilo.so. Oh and you can publish tweets from there too.

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