One guest lost weight on red meat. The next cleared his skin. A third got his energy back.
I gave it a shot. Within days I had headaches so sharp they felt life-threatening. My body handles cholesterol differently.
It’s the same with sales. “Cold-call your way to revenue. Push through the discomfort.” That advice works for people who get energy from direct outreach. I can still convert and persuade. I learn how from people whose brains work like mine.
I call it grain. My cholesterol response is grain. Cold calls drain me. That’s grain.
- Stage
- Energy
- Skills
- Capital
- Location
- Personality
- Risk tolerance
You can work with your grain or against it. Two founders chasing the same outcome with different grains need different playbooks.
Most advice is correct in a vacuum. It becomes destructive when you install someone else’s playbook without checking who wrote it. A bootstrapped introvert studying a venture-backed extrovert’s go-to-market is like running the wrong code on the wrong hardware.
Swipe files work best when they’re filtered by grain. Pricing strategies from solo founders in their first year. Sales playbooks from someone who hates cold calls and still closed deals.
Study success through the lens of people who share your grain.
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What’s a strategy that works for you precisely because of how your brain operates?
