As an entrepreneur or business leader or, really, anyone who is a human, you're never going to stop being bombarded with advice from all kinds of people from all angles. It can be impossible to figure out what's great advice that's coming from actual experts versus what's bad, biased advice from people who are cosplaying at success on LinkedIn (unless you look for the watches and cars that are 'accidentally' in the background of their hustle posts - always a telltale sign). 

You've probably heard of unconscious bias, but are you familiar with David Rock's work on the subject? He's a neuroscientist, author, expert in organisational psychology, and founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute. He's very well known for his work on applying neuroscience to leadership, workplace performance, and the understanding of unconscious bias.

Through his work, David promotes the belief that our unconscious bias stems from our brains' natural mechanisms for simplifying and categorising information to help it process the overwhelming amount of data it encounters daily.

His thoughts on the subject are pleasingly similar to what's covered in one of my favourite books of all time Thinking, Fast and Slow by the late Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his long-time collaborator Amos Tversky. Their book explores the two systems of human thought - fast, intuitive System 1 and slow, deliberative System 2 and the overarching premise of the work is an understanding of how how cognitive biases and heuristics shape our decisions and judgments.

If I can sum up both of these ground-breaking pieces of work into one way too over-simplified sentiment (because it's January and what is an attention span?), unconscious bias is essentially a series of shortcuts that our brains have evolved with to rapidly assess danger in order to stay alive. Hence the term 'unconscious' - you're not conscious of your bias. 

Unconscious bias gets a lot of coverage when it comes to things like DEI but it's important to all kinds of decision-making. The kicker with unconscious bias is not just that you're not aware of it happening, it's that you can be so unaware that you passionately believe that the decisions it powers are driven instead by objective facts. 

Ever read one of those self-aggrandising posts from a hiring manager who says 'I don't make hires based on demographics, I make them based on who is best for the role and the people who are best for all the good roles in my team just happen to be straight white men'? That's unconscious bias at play - and that's also why the comments sections of most social media platforms will make you strain your eyes from rolling them so much. 

As an entrepreneur or business leader, you'll need to develop strong frameworks to help you spot the good advice from the biased, bad stuff. As a starter, here are five classic pieces of business advice you can ignore in the coming year and what to do instead. 

How To Thrive in 2025: 1 - Ignore anyone who tells you 'always be hustling'

Give yourself grace and remember that you're trying and that's what matters. Remind yourself that no-one is perfect and a lot of shit you see on social media is faked beyond belief.

Instead of feeling bad that you're not 'always hustling', why not set time aside each day for deep focus, any uninterrupted time that you can get, even if it's 30 minutes.

Hustle for 30 minutes a day and that's 3.5 hours a week of focus time. You can get a lot done in 3.5 hours when you're not beating yourself up for not being perfect.

How To Thrive in 2025: 2 - Ignore anyone who tells you to 'always do what the customer wants'

A lot of customers don't even know what they need, let alone what they want.

Part of your role as an entrepreneur is to understand customer problems, not wants. Understand areas of friction in customers' lives and build to remove that friction. Real product-market fit comes from providing the best solution to a problem, not from twisting yourself into a pretzel to build endless reams of features.

How To Thrive in 2025: 3 - Ignore anyone who tells you that 'you (always) need a product, not a service'

There are pros and cons to each. And how many popular product-centric businesses are actually product-led?

If you're selling a product but doing it by spending large on sales teams and on the post-sale customer support options you offer, are you really running a product business or are you running a service business that's masquerading as one?

How To Thrive in 2025: 4 - Ignore anyone who tells you to 'target the biggest market possible'

You unfortunately don't automatically start to win big by going after a bigger market initially.

Taking the time to define an initial target market for your startup doesn't mean that you're not going to be able to build a solution that eventually has mass-market appeal (if that's something you want to aim for), it just means that your very first efforts, the plans that you make for the early stages of your business, are as efficient and effective as possible.

As we head into 2025, remember that not all advice is created equal, and much of it is steeped in unconscious biases or outdated paradigms. Learning how to thrive in 2025 isn’t going to be about adhering to rigid rules or chasing the loudest voices - it’s going to be about strategising and prioritising what truly works for your unique circumstances.

Embrace focus over hustle, solve real problems, understand the nuanced relationship between products and services, and define your target market strategically. Build a resilient, forward-thinking approach to business and leadership and let 2025 be the year you trust your instincts, sharpen your frameworks, and sidestep the noise.

Want to kick 2025 off with a bang? Book a free, no-strings Discovery Call below to learn how we can help.

Pay As You Go COO Discovery Call

Book Now