World of Venn

While we are bootstrapping our startups, it’s worth bootstrapping our lives simultaneously. We should be building projects with overlaps, to the extent that we end up living in a ‘World of Venn’. For the ‘un-nerds’ who can’t quite remember the Venn diagram, here’s a simple explanation:

Venn Diagram:
n.   A diagram using circles to represent sets, with the position and overlap of the circles indicating the relationships between the sets.

[After John Venn (1834-1923), British logician.]

The reason for doing this is simple. By living in a ‘World of Venn’, we are building intellectual assets which have synergy. Assets which are connected metaphysically. Constructs with similar ideals which can be shared, borrowed or stolen. The people in these worlds often overlap too. They’re often interested in learning about and helping in other areas of our Venn worlds. And importantly when one set dies or withers, it has an overlapping intersection on which we can refocus our efforts without having to start from the beginning.

Here’s a sample of parts of my world and the Venn relationships.

ss-venn-diagram

As you can see my worlds overlap and all build revenue streams.
–    Ideas and experiences from rentoid.com, give me great writing fodder and intellectual stimulation for this blog you are reading right now.
–    Startup blog has lead to more professional business writing I do for magazines and journals
–    My academic career at Melbourne University has lead to more Business writing and an upcoming book on marketing & investing.

The point is – they all feed each other, build on one another and leverage my personal areas of expertise.

Each success in one section adds credibility and strength to an overlapping area. The more overlaps we have, the larger our sweet spot becomes. When we have a great number of overlaps, life gets sweeter and the rewards are greater. This is why ‘work life balance’ is simply a hoax. Work is a large part of our life and should be joyous. To try and find time for things outside of work we actually ‘enjoy’, means we’ve got our life wrong. Once we live in a world of Venn our personal and financial growth is inevitable.

Venn is Zen. How Venn is your life?

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4 thoughts on “World of Venn

  1. I agree that overlapping is important. Since you may spend 35 or more hours a week working, it should be an enjoyable part of your life, which can be on your mind even outside of work and vice-versa. Although there is a line of separation that must be made, overlapping also should be an important feature to everyone’s life.

  2. I personally had not heard of the Venn Diagram before, however it does make a lot of sense. At the moment the overlaps between different area’s of my life and work don’t have a great synergy, as my job would be sitting way off to the side. However this post i think will motivate me to try and bring it a little more together.

  3. I Love how youve mapped this out. Its true, all facets of your life should overlap if you want to reach your goals, ensuring your energy output is used to be fruit.

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