JM Nickels

It's still insane how many product managers, leaders of all kinds just run the schedule of back to back meetings, 30-minute review, big meaty topics, you run out of time, run to the next thing. It doesn't work.

I don't have a to-do list of 20 things. I try to have a to-do list of three of the most important highest leverage things that could have impact broadly across the company.

The more I focused on how I show up and optics and having a good deck and all this, the less I got promoted. The more I dropped focusing all that and really focusing on the work, that's when I started moving through the product ladder.

I like to just close my eyes and imagine the future as far out as I can. It's like five years from now, 10 years from now, whatever. And develop a really salient picture of what that looks like.

Step one is, am I working at a place and in a product area in which I have a tremendous amount of passion? Because for me, that is the fuel and the motivation that helps me break through to getting the strategy.

I think it's hard to come up with a great strategy if you've only been working in an area for six months. Especially things like this, they're super nuanced.

What you resist will persist and what you fear will appear. When I think a thought like, Dara might think I suck and then I have a thought that I suck, that can become a self-enforcing negative feedback loop.