Brianne Garcia

There’s a misconception that the most successful business leaders achieve greatness because they’re insanely smart—geniuses, even. 

But the truth is different. Most highly successful leaders really aren’t the smartest people in any room. Rather, they have something that sets them apart. That something is sponge and stone. I’d argue that for any entrepreneur or leader, sponge and stone is the critical differentiator that defines his or her likelihood of success. (And I’d take success over smarts any day.)

In the business world, a sponge is someone who is tirelessly driven to seek and absorb new information. In general terms, this means someone who is highly curious, possibly even somewhat obsessive, about gathering data and learning from it. 

A business leader must also be a stone. There are two main characteristics of stone behavior: First, these determined individuals aren’t the smartest people in the room, but they work harder than everyone else. Secondly, stones have incredible strength of conviction. They are tough-minded and believe in whatever they are pursuing or doing, regardless of the challenges, hurdles, naysayers, and failures they encounter.

The world needs more people who don’t care to be particularly serious. If you like Katy Perry, listen to Katy Perry. If you want to tell someone they did badly, just tell them how and why, don’t write them a ‘progress report’ and break them down with scores of 5. If you want to like a movie, like it, but don’t worry about being wrong or right. If you’re at a work function, and it’s late, and you’re tired, and you’re not feeling like drinking, don’t drink, go home, get snuggly and watch Braveheart. If you want to ask a sales prospect whether they want something, just tell them how it’ll work and how it’ll help them, don’t give them eighteen bullet points about it. Be serious at funerals. Be serious in the court room. Be serious when you’re in hospital. But don’t be when you are writing an email to a friend, or a client you’ve known for years. I’m not suggesting turn every professional email into a 15-year-old’s Livejournal scrawl, but good lord, loosen up a bit. The pang of seriousness that permeates our very existence is one borne of anxiety – let go, be free, be yourself, and most likely nothing bad will happen to you. In fact, most people will appreciate being talked to directly. Or not, and you’ll know you’re in the wrong field or have the wrong friends

If you look at many of the companies we invest in, sure they have traditional marketing activities, but most of their growth and momentum comes from delighting their users. I have shifted my mindset in terms of how companies should… focus on building amazing products. If you have amazing products, the marketing of those products is trivial. If you have $hitty products, the marketing is impossible. Instead of focusing on marketing as an activity… integrate it into (your) products.”

When the entrepreneur is obsessed with the product and the company has organized all of its activities around that, it’s very powerful.”