Here’s a tip you can keep in consideration next time you’re self-evaluating yourself after just starting a new project or venture.
If you’re just starting out, trying something for the first time, if you really are a noob, then be sure to take the learning curve into account when you self-evaluate.
Critiques, improvements, self-assessments are simply a distraction when you’re first learning something. It’s a distraction because it takes real effort, focus and energy to assess yourself; attention and spirit better put toward playful progress.
In other words, when you’re told to “play around first,” take it seriously. The playing, that is. Instead of so much feedback, why not seek out the feedbag?
Stay Positive & You Don’t Always Need Feedback To Advance
Eyes, money, subscriptions, they only matter when you act on the results of them. The number of clicks, views, RTs don’t matter unless you can develop a progressive strategy from the results. As Seth Godin notes, if you’re not prepared to change your diet or your workouts, don’t get on the scale.
The challenge of any PR analyst isn’t just to measure the measurable and adjust accordingly, but to find a way to measure the unmeasurable. How can you measure the trust you’ve accumulated with viewers? How can you measure the conversation you have on Twitter beyond impressions? How can you measure the brand impact, word of mouth, and references?
If you don’t get on the scale, how will you know how to change your diet or your workouts?
More importantly, if you don’t measure your habits, your body composition, your support system, how will you know how to change your lifestyle?
I used marketing to five year-olds for McDonald’s as an example of a poor place to start if you are actually passionate about the elderly being active.
I missed the opportunity to mention that poor places to start are often excellent places to excel, so long as you are adamant enough to withstand resistance and up to challenge of creating cultural change. For example, there is a push for McDonald’s to become a more healthy option – and to advertise as such.
I’ve mentioned a million times before that there is always room for improvement. You can decrease inequality, you can lower the number of obese people in the country, you can create cultural change from the bottom up.
It starts with saying no.
No to advertising unhealthy McDonald’s products to five year-olds.
The real worker, the true productive worker gives herself two options when in the zone, in the workplace. Break or Hack
Break a few rules. Break the status-quo. Break the task into smaller steps. Break the consistency and add some more mistakes. Break her back to make it work. Break it down to understand it better. Break away from reality.
or
Hack the job to make it more efficient. Hack your work so you can do more of what makes you happy. Hack away at everything that is holding you back. Hack into the flow.
Both options lead to a productive – very productive – work day.
Stay Positive & You Just May Not Even Consider It Work
These are the top 5 blogs I kept up with throughout the year. Admittingly, Seth Godin’s is the only one that I read nearly every single blog post from. The other blogs I stop by every week or two.
People have a problem with making something good into something great. They get contempt with it being good so they never change their minds when offered a chance for improvement. That’s why so many people who want change, have to argue so much why the thing they want to change is bad as it is. When really they don’t think it’s bad, it’s merely standard. Standard is okay, but it could be better. Unfortunately, if you want change, you can’t admit that.
To persuade those to quit being contempt, you have to show them why something is bad. They can argue all they want that things can always be worse, but I say that things can also always be better. So how do you construct an argument for improvement? Simple.
What both parties can agree on is that change is constant and everything else in the world keeps changing, and you can’t hold on to being contempt with something because the laws of life don’t allow it. The time between you being content and the world forcing it to change is a waste of time. It’s a race for improvement, either you can lead it or the world around you will.
Tough choice.
Not so much.
Stay Positive & Keep Changing And Testing For Improvement
I have never seen or heard of these until I went to Seth Godin’s Pick Yourselfevent and had one.
Then I had another, this time the milk chocolate kind, as opposed to the dark chocolate.
Then I had another, the same day within a span of four hours.
Then I grabbed two more and put them in my journey bag, I gave a third one to someone else and grabbed a fourth to eat while I grabbed a fifth one to eat on my way out of the event after I finished the one I was holding.
I then presumed to eat the two that I stored in my journey bag throughout the evening. Note: By “one” I mean the two chocolate peanut butter cups in the “one” package.
Total: 16
Depressing? I could fight and say they were organic although it doesn’t help my case too well. (More on organic in a moment)
To say they are delicious is an understatment which is something people often say about Reece’s peanut butter cups.
However, to say that Reece’s peanut butter cups are the most delicious ones in the world would be half-true. (As is the case for Justins) They are the best if you ask the niche audience that they are marketed to and consumed by.
Whereas, if you ask the niche group Justins markets to, they would say Justins chocolate peanut butter cups are the best.
What I’ve learned about products, not just chocolate peanut butter cups is that:
1. You can always improve but what you can improve on may not be exactly the product itself, the chocolate. It may be the shipment, how the ingredients are grown, the graphics of the wrapper, the mission statement on the box or in this case, the audience you are targeting.
2. All in all, precision meets profit. You can always find a niche market to make a profit, especially in organics. In other words, there is always a way to make it different for that special tribe who likes it that way.
Justin’s chocolate does just that. They reach out to the audience who doesn’t buy just cheap chocolate.
Afterall, for some people, going big means buying not just buying any kind of chocolate. If they are going to go big buying chocolate, they are going to spend an extra 40 cents or a dollar for the good chocolate, the rich chocolate, the organic chocolate, the chocolate that makes them feel they are benefiting the world by eating.
This is a small niche audience and Justins makes their chocolate different so it’s target is precise.
