GarthBox

A past colleague of mine would always remind me to follow-up with reporters about a story, even after I had called four times and sent 5 emails. I didn’t want to bug the reporter any longer. I had every excuse to quit, to move on, to acknowledge the reporter wasn’t interest.

Yet, I tried reaching out again.

That time the reporter responded and said he wished he had my persistence and that he would try the product with no guarantee of writing about it. The latter didn’t matter, it’s a great enough product that I knew he would publish a piece on it (and will in July of this year). What has stayed with me is his initial comment about persistence.

He wasn’t supporting the way I stayed persistent, because I kept changing my pitch, my emails my messages. I followed him closely enough to know what was going on at that time and angled my communications differently each time until I resonated with him.

What my colleague and this experience taught me was persistence isn’t doing the same thing again and again. No. It’s maintaining the same goal. My friend didn’t say, “Send the email again.” She said, “Remember our goal.”

The reporter didn’t say, “Your words convinced me.” He said, “You care enough to keep trying.”

Yes, how you deliver matters, but more importantly is you do what you promise again and again.

 

Stay Positive & Remember Your Goal

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Easy to see that when what you think, feel, say and do all align then you’ve reached business nirvana. Of course, it’s more rare than a child finding the remnants of a balloon she let go of outside on her birthday.

Fortunately for the both of us, I’m not writing about nirvana. I’m writing about authenticity, which just so happened to be on the list of 2015 buzzwords to stop using. Screw it. It’s important enough.

Back to what you think, feel, say and do.

Only one of them really matters.

If you think you can fly, but you don’t fly, no one will call you a bird. If you feel guilty about gambling, but still gamble, no one will believe you’ve let go of your addiction. If you say you’re a dog person, but you only own an iguana, then you’re not a dog person no matter how often you say it or at what vocal level you express it at.

Being authentic is doing… what you say, what you feel, what you promise.

You can wonder if what you say you are is really you. You can question how you feel and what you think about option A as opposed to option B. Or you could put yourself in motion, into action, into doing those things.

The most authentic artists of our time aren’t short of self-doubt and fear.

But they get up and perform anyway.

Consider placing a mental door to each physical room you enter. People enter the stage crew only room, not to think about being part of the stage crew or to talk stage with one another — they enter the room to run the lights, get costumes ready, hand out props, set the mood with sound, and so much more. They are doing. What rooms will you enter today?

You are the most authentic you when you are doing — regardless of the guilt, fear, uncertainty you may have and regardless of what you say, feel or think about your ability of doing.

People will think more highly of you when, beyond all else, you do.

More importantly, you’ll think more highly of yourself.

 

Stay Positive & Promise, Deliver, Promise, Deliver, Promise, Deliver

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A friend said to me the other day, “you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.”

After the initial, “that’s a good one, man,” I thought about the concept that to create something, you often have to destroy something. I think the idea of destroying to build is passe.

I’ve written about people’s fascination with starting (and Michael and I will be talking about it on our 49th Podcast episode) and I think the mentality of cracking eggs coincides with the mental desire to start something fresh.

If you consider alchemy, until we have new raw ingredients (say, a new animal that produces eggs) I believe we’ve used all the raw material to start an omelet in a different way. Now the calling is how we can make that omelet better?

Of course I’m not speaking of only omelets. What add-on could you attach to your product? How can you make this service that works for that person also work for that other person? How can you make it better, not necessarily new.

It’s less a matter of cracking a few eggs to make an omelet; It’s about what you can put into that omelet to make it special? What story does it tell? What story will resonate?

An omelet in the kitchen is a lot different from an omelet on a propane stove out in nature.

What story hasn’t your product, service or industry told?

 

Stay Positive & Focus Less On The Start And More On The Thousand Ways To End A Story

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When I was younger, I would take a bit longer in the bathroom after my dad and I finished our workday so I didn’t have to move all the painting equipment into my dads truck. He would do it. (Sorry, Dad)

It was hard work. The buckets were heavy. I was weak. More so, though, I was lazy.

I think hard work and laziness has really changed since then and not just for me.

These days we would rather do physical labor that pushes us to our limits than the emotional labor of creating something meaningful, something that has an impact, something that puts us out there, vulnerable, exposed.

After all, doing something physical provides the perfect excuse to not do work that creates real change – you’re exhausted, tired, energy depleted.

The new lazy is manual labor.

It’s meaningless tasks like cleaning the home, moving objects from point A to point B, and running unnecessary errands to kill time.

The new hard work isn’t of  physical strength; It’s emotional tenacity, resilience, determination to do something that makes a difference.

 

Stay Positive & Do The New Hard Work

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I visited a beer writing friend the other day. He had a Zombie Dust phone case. It made me wonder…

If your blog was a phone case, would people buy it?

It’s a simple test to see if you’re creating something valuable.

Works for more than just blogs too.

Would someone buy it if it were a phone case?

If not, what would it take?

 

Stay Positive & Improve Until It’s Phone Case-Worthy

Telling customers you care and then giving free samples to your friends first sends mixed signals.

The president telling employees the company blog is important but then not writing a post herself sends mixed signals.

Increasingly, I’m coming to the conclusion that the best signals you send are consistent ones – no matter how much you grow in your space.

If you get promoted. You still park in the back.

If you win a prestigious award. You still share that recognition.

As for me, I still replace toiletries at work, do dishes, and clean up the workspace. I don’t race out of a meeting before helping put the chairs away.

You have to decide on what signals you want to send and then stick to that.

If you care about customer service, you better be on the phone when the customer service team gets slammed.

If you believe in “we before me,” you don’t leave the office until you’ve made someone’s day just a bit easier.

 

Stay Positive & Never Underestimate The Power Of Consistency And Frequency

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It can take you one minute to type up a little email telling someone what you appreciate about them.

One minute of your time to drive by their desk and say something nice.

One minute to send a text, a snap, a tweet.

It only takes a minute to turn someone’s day around or make it better than it has been.

 

Stay Positive & Little Things Like Minutes And Kind Words Make A Difference

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