34) Harada Method

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to figure out its mission. Please pardon the stream-of-consciousness style. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, AI Command Center, I put forth the vision for a fully autonomous operations hub within the context of lawn care. The core “insight” (if you can call it that), is that all modern businesses are built on data; we use data to keep track of activity in the physical world. Historically, the digital world has followed the physical world. But, as AI learns from data patterns and as its general intelligence grows, it will be able to manipulate the digital world to drive change in the physical world. I also emphasized the importance of collecting data around the first-derivative of the data-state, meaning why changes occur—which will serve the basis for AI gaining “situational awareness” and “operational intuition” for autonomous action. Fun stuff!

Harada Method

In today’s post, I intend to fulfill a new year’s promise by sharing an annual / longer-term planning exercise as it relates to the company. I came across a tweet at the end of last year that discussed the Harada Method, which Shohei Ohtani used to help guide his push to be the #1 overall draft pick in the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan.

It’s basically an 8×8 chart used to build 64 concrete pillars in support of 1 concrete goal. You start with the core goal, then identify 8 supporting pillars for that goal, and then list 8 actions / habits / attitudes that support that supporting pillar. It worked for Shohei, so I figured why not give it a go.

I lay out my responses below (with brief—and I mean brief!—justifications).

Main Goal & Support Pillars

$100M incremental earnings by end of 2030.

This gives me 5 years to generate $100M in incremental earnings for clients (as well as through my own incubations). The idea here is that, ultimately, value shows up in earnings—and I have to make sure that all my work is rooted in economic impact. So it became clear fairly early on that incremental earnings is my north star. And incremental earnings can be achieved via revenue lifts on the same cost structure and/or cost savings. So that’s the main idea here, how can I drive $100M in incremental earnings by increasing revenue and/or reducing costs for clients.

Support Pillars

I’ll go into each of the pillars for these pillars below, so this will be brief. (In no particular order…)

• Technology. Important pillar here, because it drives how I improve the efficiency and sophistication of how I work as well as the efficacy and sophistication of solutions I deliver for clients.

• Toughness. Building a company is hard—harder than I possibly could have imagined. I need to be tough, mentally, physically (lol), emotionally to weather the ups and downs and continue moving forward (with joy).

• Mental Acuity. I’m effectively renting out my brain, so it’s important that I keep it in tip-top shape. I think “acuity” also goes beyond pure intellect, because it encompasses preparedness, sleep, substance use, screen time, etc.

• Team. What is the culture of the collective and how do I think about building a team? The who in any endeavor is critically important—and I want to work with people that inspire me.

• Mind/Body Health. I can’t do anything well without a vibrant mind/body ecosystem. Regularly tending to my physical and mental gardens can only boost my professional performance.

• Real Solutions. Am I actually solving problems for people? Or am I just buildnig stuff to build stuff because it’s fun? That’s no bueno.

• Relationship Building. We’re a social species, and the supporters, advisors, colleagues, and customers I surround myself with matter more than anything. Nothing is worth doing if you’re not doing it in a supportive, collaborative, and enjoyable environment. (The Into the Wild guy said, “Happiness is only real if shared.”)

• Customers. Who am I doing work for and do I enjoy working with them? Can I be effective for them? Am I well-suited to the tasks at hand?

Technology

• early adopter (experiment!). I purport to help businesses adopt frontier-adjacent technologies—so I better be as frontier-aware as possible! This includes knowing who to follow, willingly experimenting, and embracing new.

• age should not prevent technical competence. This is more a warning to myself, as I get older, I don’t want to ever fall out of the technological leading-edge.

• change is the only constant, always be ahead. Things are moving quickly—and the rate of change is only accelerating. In the vein of the above, I have to aggressively adopt early and always be open to new and better ways of doing things.

• there are levels here; know who is elite. There’s a metaphorical technology “hall of fame;” there is a New York Yankees of technology; there are elite technologists and AI thought leaders. I have to know who the best are to follow the best. There are infinite levels to skill and I want to learn from and listen to those as close to the top as possible.

• use tools that are delightful. An archer is only as good as his bow [I don’t know if I really believe that]. I want to use tools that are fun for me to use—and I want to do “silly” things that make me happier. For example, I color-coded my terminal for Claude Code so it’s specific to each project I’m working on. It’s small, but really fun for me.

• no excuse to not learn how something works. I have enough baseline technical competence to, with the assistance of AI and Deep Research, get some fundamental understanding of how anything works. It doesn’t have to be dissertation-level, but I should get the gist and be able to discuss it fluently.

• value is on economically-adjusted basis. AI is amazing because it’s powerful yet cheap. I must judge technology on an economically-adjusted basis when assessing buildouts for clients and for my own personal tools.

• question norms / ask why. Never accept the reason for the status quo being the status quo as “it’s the status quo.”

Toughness

• own and don’t hide from mistakes. I am accountable to my actions and the work I do—and I’m sure I will fail and come up short. Negative situations are when it’s most important for me to own the mistake and acknowledge my role in the mistake.

• breakthroughs come with time; never give up. I want to have patience with myself as I work. There will be days where it feels like nothing comes easy and I’m banging my head against a wall. But those will lead to days where it feels like I couldn’t be more productive. It’s all part of the equation.

• be accountable to goals, results, beliefs, outcomes. Similar to above, but have to be accountable to everything I say, every goal I set, every promise I make.

• comparison is futile. it’s a YOU vs YOU battle. There’s no point in comparing myself relative to anyone or anything external—all that matters is that I’m improving and growing each day, and that I’m always trying my hardest.

• never say no to a real growth opportunity (fight fear). When there are serendipitous opportunities to get my name out there or win new business, I will always say yes, no matter how scary it might feel. The only way to improve is by doing, and so I need to embrace those growth opportunities and not live in my fears.

• stand up for yourself and your work. I need to feel confident in and readily acknowledge the value of my work. If I think I’m good at this stuff (which I mostly do) then it doesn’t do any good to undersell myself or my utility.

• know thyself {strengths AND weaknesses}. There are things I feel good at and areas where I’m probably weak. Over time, I think hiring is meant to fill gaps in my personal skillset which lets me double-/triple-down on my strengths. In general, I believe that people should maximize strengths as opposed to minimizing weaknesses, and so that’s the longer-term human plan here, I think.

• detach from outcomes, be resilient through roadblocks {there will be many}. With all of this said, all I can do is try my hardest, each and everyday, and try to be authentic and genuine and kind and honest, and I need to trust that the rest will work itself out (however that ultimately manifests). It’s easy to obsess about specific outcomes, but that’s counter-productive to the demands and the urgency of the day-to-day.

Mental Acuity

• set clear, achievable goals. I have to be honest and clear with myself in goal-setting. I have to establish boundaries and rules in the game I want to play before I can succeed at that game.

• ask: “is this why I expected? why or why not?”. Always question results and make sure that some output aligns with my intuition, and if it doesn’t, I should understand why it doesn’t—and then let that data inform new intuition.

• joy is nature’s greatest stimulant—have fun!. I believe we’re at our best when we’re having fun—and I think fun comes from doing appropriately challenging things with a collective. I want to lean into fun as a guide for the type of work and type of experiences that I want to be part of.

• pursue excellence / be excellent. I believe we’re put on this planet to be the very best we can be, across whatever vectors we pursue (and there’s some necessary discernment there). I want to be excellent at what I do, and want to be constantly pressing and pushing to improve and grow in the pursuit of excellence.

• plasticity. The brain is the most powerful organ ever developed, and it is amazingly agile and responsive to change. I want to push myself to build new neuro-pathways and think creatively. This can be operationalized in the form of brushing my teeth with my offhand, switching the order with which I put on socks, etc.

• thinking hard is a muscle; train it. We know that feeling of really, really thinking. That is a learned and trained mind-state that I want to consciously cultivate throughout my day-to-day.

• find flow. Flow state is one of the best feelings in the world. To the extent possible, I intend to cultivate environments and focus-levels that lend themselves to being in flow, because that’s when I’m at some optimized equation for work-quality, enjoyment, and critical thinking.

• always ask: “is this delivering value—tied to the problem?”. It’s easy to get lost in the work and then experience scope-drift, so I have to make sure I know what the objective of any work-product is and how it addresses some specific client-expressed problem.

Team

• intentional about culture, even when solo. Culture forms implicitly, if I’m not intentional about it then it will take on a life of its own. Who I am, how I behave, and how I show up now plants the seed of culture once there is a team.

• we control what we can control, and relinquish the rest. Similar to previous ones, but we can only focus on how well we perform, how deeply we think, and how we show up each day. The rest we shouldn’t worry about too much.

• good people. I want to be, and I want to work with, people who are genuinely authentic and kind. I want to work with people who care about the work they do, want to be better, and want to be a force for good in the world.

• groupthink is tantalizing and dangerous. It’s much easier to be wrong and in the majority than right and in the minority (of any belief). This is true for the population, as well as a 5-person organization. We have to consciously push against groupthink to make sure we’re not taking easy routes just because it’s popular.

• diversity breeds a more robust collective. Diversity of backgrounds and opinions is hugely important in examining all angles of a problem or figuring out the best solution for something. I intend to consciously cultivate a diverse work environment.

• bet on a person’s learning curve and willingness to grow / people are not fixed. I want to work with people that smile in the face of adversity and want to boldly face challenges that don’t have a guarantee of success. Growth is made possible by the threat of failure, and I want to work with people that are excited by that risk. And people are dynamic and constantly changing—if you find alignment on core cultural pillars, then I believe a lot of the other stuff can be taught.

• passion for business and technology. This is specific to the company, but I want to work with people that understand business and technology are inextricable in the modern landscape.

• ownership and high agency. I want to work with people that embrace ownership over issues and their work-product and are willing to bear the burden of that responsibility gracefully.

Mind/Body Health

• gallon/water/day. Hydration is critical to function. Water is the core foundational pillar of a vibrant physiology.

• meditation/journaling/mindfulness. Minds are meant to be explored and understood. I want to be cognizant of my mental health and wellbeing, and cultivate that exploration and mental calm via mediation, journaling, and other mindfulness.

• more than 60 mins exercise 4 days/week (min.). Physical wellbeing is also critical to a vibrant existence, and I want to nourish and cherish the gift of my body through movement and exercise. I want to work to get faster, stronger, and more dynamic as I age.

• early to bed early to rise. Sleep is the foundational pillar of a vibrant mind and spirit, and I want to ruthlessly defend sufficient sleep each night. There’s no honor in tiredness and needlessly late nights. On the flip side, quiet mornings help me seize the day, and I value those quiet mornings.

• minimize social media and non-constructive screen time. Screen time is terrible for mental health and wellness, and social media fuels the destructive comparative human impulses that I addressed earlier. I have to be thoughtful about my media diet and the impact it has on me

• identify and pursue unrelated, spiritually constructive passions. There are many different passions we can have in life, and I want to find other things that I really enjoy or am passionate about, and then I want to throw myself into those passions. I think having multiple passions helps excel in all areas; passion isn’t a zero-sum game; we don’t have a fixed amount of “passion” to exert in life.

• 8 hours sleep; 9 hours bed; no phone in room; reading. This reinforces the importance of sleep, and also memorializes my favorite habit of not having my phone in my room at night and reading every night before bed. The books I read help engage my imagination and setting aside that time lets me more peacefully and energetically enter the dream-state.

• nutrient-dense and nourishing melas, 2x/day. My body must be adequately fueled to be at its best and to best support my mind. I want to eat nourishing and enriching meals so that I can be at my best.

Real Solutions

• explicitly tie any widget to known and stated problem. I don’t want to build just to build. I need to always be asking myself if what I’m doing is directly tied to a known problem, why that problem exists, and how what I’m doing addresses that problem.

• boxes were made to be thought outside of. I want to be creative in my approach to problem-solving. Just because things have been done a certain way doesn’t mean they should be done that way. I must arrive at conclusions in an independent manner.

• how widespread is this problem I’m solving?. Are there others experiencing this problem? How similar is the tone and texture of the problem across multiple market-participants?

• could I explain this to a 5-year old?. Do I know enough about what I’m doing, technically and economically, to distill its essence into a 2-minute snapshot that a child could understand? If not, then why not? I have to dig deep to be able to present a simple picture at the surface.

• don’t swim against the current of human nature and human behavior. It’s really really hard to change behavior and to bet on shifts in human nature. I want tools I build to ride the waves of human nature and to fit nicely into the puzzle of human behavior.

• don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good enough. I have to apply the 80/20 rule in the work that I do. I also need to acknowledge that my perfect is probably overly complex, and there’s a balance there. But I also can’t compromise on critical capabilities.

• clearly define, and track project KPIs; explicitly state ROI in $ terms. This is similar to one above, but I need to be diligent and thoughtful at the start about how I’ll measure the impact of that work, and how I’ll dollar-denominate that impact.

• what does it mean to “solve” the problem? does this do that? how?. Similar to stuff I’ve said above, what is the problem I aim to address? It could be: “estimates are manual and take us 6 hours to do.” Then it’s understanding that process and decomposing it into distinct phases and seeing where solutions can accelerate that flow and/or address that pain.

Relationship Building

• lead with kindness and curiosity. It’s easy to sense when people are being transactional or overly rapacious about their “knowledge.” All business is mostly human (even if it’s digitally intermediated) and kindness matters; and it shows up over time. I want to be kind and curious in every interaction I have.

• smile, laugh, don’t take it too seriously. People want to work with fun people, and everyone wants to have fun. I want to have fun with the work I do, enjoy the people I support, and engender gratitude for the opportunity to do this type of work. It really is a privilege to be trying to start my own thing and helping people with business-critical stuff.

• pay it forward to younger folks / others that I like/admire. Be kind to those seeking advice or time or who are just interested in talking. Opportunities can be of surprising origin, so never dismiss someone out-of-hand as being “not worth your time.” Your time is only worth something because of the kindness shown by elders, customers, etc. Don’t turn your back on this ecosystem of goodwill.

• always time for family and close friends. Family is the foundation of our social existence, and there’s no such thing as “too busy” for family and close friends. Those lifelong relationships are all you really have when your time on this planet expires, so cultivate and cherish them.

• use judgement w/ whose advice to trust; never take an advisor’s word w/o questioning. It’s nice when people offer support and mentorship—and value those opportunities. But don’t take their word as gospel. They never have as much insight into the opportunities as you do, and so I must acknowledge the incompleteness of the data upon which they’re basing their assessment.

• economics follow knowledge. I really believe that money follows knowledge, curiosity, and results. If I’m learning, and growing, and delivering, then money, affluence, and abundance will follow. But if money is the primary objective, then I’ll never have enough / never feel like enough.

• karma is real // people must want to give you money. People have to want you to succeed and ultimately have to want to give you money (not necessarily 100% true, but life is much much easier if this is the case). Be kind, pay things forward, and do good.

Customers

• do I want to help this person succeed?. If I’m successful in what I intend to do, then that will contribute to the success of the client. Fundamentally, do I want this person to succeed? Do I think they’re worthy stewards of the corporate spoils? I don’t want to be too hoity-toity here, but this is something that matters to me.

• would I be proud to tell my grandparents about this?. Am I proud of the work I’m doing and the people I’m doing it with / for? Would I be proud to tell my grandparents about it? Are they smiling down on me or casting me a disapproving and trepidatious raised eyebrow? I know the difference.

• does this feel right in my gut?. I can’t turn my back on my intuition and gut instinct. It is a real muscle and a real indicator of success—and this has been demonstrated empirically time and time again. I have to listen to it early and often, especially when I most want to ignore it.

• can I be THE BEST at this, for this customer?. Can I deliver what this customer needs in a high-quality and effective manner? Can I be the best at this for them? Why am I the best at this? How do I shoulder that responsibility and identify opportunities where those are the stakes?

• is this problem sufficiently challenging and is the category intellectually engaging?. To be at my best, I must be learning and on the edge of my sphere of competence so that I can grow and expand my skillset and add new experiences to my life. Are the problems I’m addressing interesting and challenging enough to excite me throughout the course of the engagement?

• do I want the skills that success would require?. I want to learn new things and develop new skills—and so I’m out ahead of my skis with most engagements. Do I want to ride down those hills and learn the skills required to succeed? Will they help position me for future success?

• am I involved in the core profit centers / value drivers of the business? (NO nice-to-haves). Is the work I’m doing highly-relevant and impactful to the core economic performance of this company? It’s not that exciting or impactful to solve problems that exist in marginal cost centers; and I’m not in the business of doing work just to add little feathers to my cap. I want to do work that matters, in workflows that matter, for companies that are motivated to embrace change.

• can I drive significant impact? (~10+% earnings). I want to be a key contributor to a company’s success and improvement. Can I drive significant impact and meaningfully boost the earnings potential of the company? I want to embrace difficult challenges that can have real, meaningful results. Other opportunities are marginal, and therefore the work I do becomes marginal.

Looking Forward

Alright, I’m textually out of breath. That was a lot more writing than I expected. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Sincerely,

Luke