why some people have a "WOW" effect?
“I believe startups and religion have quite a bit in common. In many ways startups seem irrational. There are many better ways to make money, especially risk adjusted. Investing in startups also seems irrational. They almost all fail. Everything is always broken; every day is a mess.
Despite this, I still help build startups, and I still invest in startups. Why? Because every once in a while I become spiritually converted. Every once in a while I find a founder who has the truth. And every once in a while, a startup gets so big that it makes up for all the failure. In other words, it wasn’t irrational after all.”
For the last 3 months, I've been putting a lot of effort into understanding why some people have a “WOW effect”. By “WOW effect” I mean people who repeatedly get people out of their seats to follow their vision of the world.
They do it by adding energy to the room, inspiring ambition and excellence, having a presence impossible to ignore, being contagious. People listen to their thoughts with hunger. They can even be perceived in a god-like way.
It's hard to describe the feeling when you meet one of these. You just feel there's something rare.
In the last months, I talked to several people about this. (thanks Dani, Valber, Nic, Pedro, Rafa. You guys helped me a lot). My goal was to move from the unorganized feeling of “WOW” to a structured approach of: He is WOW because of traits x, y, and z. Segmenting the principles that drove the conclusion someone is WOW helps with clarity to replicate it.
Here are my takeaways.
Principle 1/3: They're the manifestation of simple yet generational messages
“WOW people” are the manifestation of unique messages. The messages tend to be easy to understand and contagious. WOW people die, but their message remains alive for generations.
Naval: chase uniqueness. Wealth and happiness are achieved through authenticity.
Buffet: Patience. Nobody wants to get rich slowly.
“The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient.”
Elon Musk: Embrace the impossible. Let's build a new civilization on Mars.
“Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.”
Peter Thiel: think independently. Question inherited principles.
“Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.”
Steve Jobs: Dare to think differently. Break up with conventional wisdom.
“The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Martin Luther King: Fight injustice.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
There are two interesting things about these messages: i) they're simple and ii) the people who manifest it have a unique “angle of inspiration”. They inspire people in a way nobody else can.
Musk inspires us to chase the impossible, Jobs to think differently, Buffet to be patient, Dubugras could be something like: Young Brazilians can conquer the world, Michael Jordan: Don't run away from big moments.
Then comes the question: Which message am I a manifestation of?
I don't have the answer for myself. This is a red flag. Having no message attached to you is also a message. A terrible one, though. It means I failed at building a message greater than myself. This is mediocre, not WOW.
Finding one sentence that will be the message that will last longer than yourself is a decade-long work. But, that's what WOW people do.
Principle 2/3: They're intense
“Not all fires are intense, but we know an intense fire when we feel and see it.
Not all work ethic is intense, but we know an intense work ethic when we see it.
Not all communication is intense, but we know intense communication when we hear it.
Not all missions are intense, but we know intense missions when we hear and live them.”
For me there are two principles for intensity: i) intensity is manifested in two ways: preparation and presence, and ii) when assessing intensity, look at the details.
Preparation makes your message sharp and clear. Presence makes your message contagious. Only intense people care about mastering details.
When telling their story, “WOW people” are relaxed and clear. You know they have things under control. They tested different ways to tell their story, know what to highlight, clearly articulate the rationale behind decisions.
When describing what their startup does things seem obvious. They can explain in simple words and in one sentence what they do. They can go deeper and deeper with the same clarity.
At work, they are brutally logical. They're logical because they structured their thoughts 30 - 45 minutes before the meeting.
They follow up with progress after advice. They ship quickly. They follow up to thank intros. When meeting again after some time, you can tell their bar is higher, they're sharper, and think more clearly than before. They are always in motion.
Principle 3/3: They quickly move people from “Default no” to “HELL YES”
“Default frame is just not to do anything and you have to be compelled out of your seat. If you're excited about it, then you do it and if you're not, you don't, and I find that you can really avoid doing bad deals that way.
The main thing that mattered the most was when you leave the conversation, do you feel energized or not.
I think good investments get you really excited. A good investment, we would suddenly start moving extremely quickly and get really excited and go from working far less than eight hours a day to working 14, 15, 16 hours a day and because it was just like this great thing that you had to do and then going back to just waiting around.”
“WOW people” have the superpower to compel people out of their seats. By “compel people out of their seats” I mean they can move people from a "Default No” to an energizing “HELL YES” state.
“WOW people” makes you feel they will build it with or without you. But, they're so sharp and contagious that people proactively want to leave things behind to work alongside them.
Final Thoughts
Throughout these 3 months, I investigated people I consider WOW through reading, listening, and talking to others.
I learned not only about them but also a lot about me. Above all the principles I mentioned earlier, these WOW people also have one divine principle: they respect time. And I learned I'm a guy who's still learning to respect time.
All the principles above need time to either get to a conclusion or develop. Respecting time means letting time do its job while I obsessively do mine.
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