Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
Sharing is truly caring.
And we need more people who care.
Share what you learned. Share what you made. Share what others created.
Currency in the connection economy comes from what we share, not what we have.
Start a blog. A pseudonym Twitter account. A neighborhood weekly meetup. Whatever you need to craft your place to share.
Stay Positive & Care More Often
Photo credit
Definitely seek out employees that have fantastic customer service qualities, but they also need to be capable of physically doing the job you need them to do.
Definitely use interest based targeting to hone in on the type of people that will resonate with your offering, but also include basic demographics to thin out your base.
Soft skills and hard skills. Interests and specifics.
You need them both.
Stay Positive & Zero In
Photo credit
Little stories are the absolute best.
The hint about a hidden message behind the beer label of a brewery or the brief story of how the crayfish jerky is made (heads up, it’s not with actual crayfish, it’s with the water that they used to boil the crayfish) or the song of how Zeus’s bolts created the craters in the land we see today – they are all snippets of narratives that provoke emotion.
To boot, you don’t need to know all the things about everything to charm, convince or connect with someone. A few tiny narratives often do the trick.
Stay Positive & Have A Few In Your Back Pocket
Photo credit
It’s incredible, the laundry list of reasons and excuses we can put together that stall us from doing the work.
I’m hungry.
I should answer our emails first.
If I put a load of laundry in now, it’ll be ready when I’m done.
Ope, did I just get another email? Better respond to it.
And, take writing a novel for example, there are some really good excuses, too!
Should probably figure out the plot first.
And maybe write some backstories.
And read what other authors in my lane have written.
Then let’s google about writers block. I think I have it.
And so on…
But here’s the reality: if you have enough time to do the distractions before you do the work, then you have enough time to do them after.
If it’s really that important to you (as rationale of an action as your brain is telling you it is) then do it – but after you do the work that needs to be done.
Stay Positive & We Need Your Art First, Excuses After
Photo credit
You can have all the right people at the table: the CFO, the lobbyist, the alderman, the landlord, the marketer, the lawyer.
They all play a role in getting an idea approved for execution, no doubt.
But there’s no one more convincing than having the target at the table.
The audience that everyone can rally around, the tribe that everyone else is there to serve.
If you’re struggling to convince a gatekeeper, bring the one person they have to let in.
Stay Positive & Even Better, Start With The Target
Photo credit
There’s the GAA model in tech for getting better at innovating.
Gather data: In order to gather data, you have to take action, deliver and present. There must be an actual forward movement for data to be created. No data is created when standing still, so no data can be gathered in a state of zero motion.
Analyze it: Not just some of the data, but all of the data. The trends as well as the anomalies. Meditate, ruminate and discuss the data with others for a complete analysis.
Adjust your work, your path, your mission: You’ve learned, not it’s time to do the touch work of pivoting.
The model doesn’t just apply to technology products or services, it can apply to our work, our relationships, our own missions.
Stay Positive & Gather, Analyze, Adjust
Photo credit
There are two moments in life that we need to get better at recognizing.
The moment when we’re pitching an idea, sharing a narrative, selling our change to someone and they’re not having it, they’re not reacting the way we want, they’re not buying in.
By all means learn what you can from the moment, but more importantly understand “this must not be for them” and then carry onward with your mission.
No need to let a “no” undermine all you’re working for.
The other moment is when the critic, naysayer and someone you never pitched speaks up with disdain for what you’re working toward.
It must not be for them, either.
Recognizing who it’s NOT for is as important as recognizing for whom it is.
Stay Positive & On Path
Photo credit
