Month: December 2019

For many of us, New Years marks a time to begin a fresh starts. Fresh starts are important.

But the New Years portion is a human invention, a social construct. There is nothing actually significant about it except the story we tell ourselves.

It’s just another day, another opportunity.

Which means we don’t need to wait for a special day to give ourselves permission to make the change we seek to make.

It’s your turn, regardless if its the New Year, a new month, a new week…

Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around.

How liberating to know that we don’t have to wait to begin.

Credit cards have set up a game. A game where, if you choose to play, will offer flight discounts and cashback with every purchase.

It’s so tantalizing, isn’t it? I mean, Why not? You are going to pay for groceries anyway, so you might as well capitalize on the purchase.

But I think the better question to ask is, “If I am going to say Yes to this, what am I saying No to?”

Credit Card companies have set up a system that will eventually win. They win just after missing one payment. They win when they steal your attention.

And that’s just it. Your attention is worth more than a few flight points.

The simple truth is, you improve what you measure. You also make worse whatever it is we don’t pay attention to. You can’t pay attention to everything.

To optimize is different from efficiency. Efficiency is in simplicity. 

It isn’t about maximizing returns or having the most money as possible in your bank account.

Not having a credit card, freeing yourself from one game, will allow you to play another. You get to choose what that is.

At first, many won’t listen to what it is you have to say.

Over time, however, the words we say become louder. Especially, with action.

When others can begin to see the benefit of what it is you are teaching it will be harder to ignore.

We don’t always get to know the end of the story but we can see it through.

Perhaps the better question to ask is:

Where do all the bad ideas coming from?

Not every song Bob Dylan wrote was a hit. But he kept making them until some songs began to resonate.

This blog is full of bad ideas, but now 3,000+ blog post in, some good ideas begin to surface.

The thing is, you never know which ideas will take off because good taste is subjective.

That’s why the work of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Shepard Fairey, or a Jackson Pollack isn’t going to resonate with everyone.

There is no formula, no map to follow to become famous. But is famous really the goal?

Psy is popular but you can’t argue that the work he’s done is important.

Jaqueline Novogratz, on the other hand, has done important work to help lift 200 million people out of extreme poverty and you’ve probably never heard of her.

Quality is important. No one is saying that we shouldn’t ship quality work.

But spending all of our time polishing our work, never shipping it or interacting with the community, is another form of hiding.

We delay shipping because we are afraid to be judged. The ideas have to be perfect beforehand because if we publish and no one reads it; what does that say about us? What does that say about the best we can do?

“We are not good enough.” That’s the killer of all joy. It’s the internal dialogue that is the killer of all creativity and joy.

If you have something to say, say it. Say it because we must.

Giving something away may not be perceived as valuable. In other words, you have to figure out a way to raise the stakes to get people to buy-in.

It has to cost people something. Cost is part of the narrative we tell if something is worth it.

If you are not going to charge money, then you can charge a lot of time or effort.

They say that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The people you seek to serve expect it. Use that.

Instead of listening to the noise in our head—the incessant chatter about our fears and doubts—try talking to yourself in a deliberate matter.

“This might work.”

“I can do this.”

“You’re almost through.”

While we can’t make the noise go away, surprisingly, we can interrupt the thought patterns just enough to do what must be done.

When Henry Ford launched the Model T, Ford became one of the most stable jobs in the world.

Fast forward to today, 23,000 workers at Ford could be losing their job this next year.

Let’s not pretend that stability is a thing anymore.

Those factories workers did everything they were told to do and could be suffering because of it.

Being told to follow the map, follow the step-by-step set of instructions isn’t going to bring us the safety we seek.

The world is changing. Fast. And when we are changing, by definition things are different. If things are different than they can no longer be safe.

Because we don’t know what is coming next.

Embrace instability. Embrace the unknown.

[Merry Christmas. Thank you for all that you do.]

We tend to create a lot of unnecessary friction when we criticize how someone conducts themselves.

We focus on how they are driving “the wrong way” or prepping for the meeting inefficiently.

The problem is that we are spending far too much time thinking about how to make this person be more like us. We are convinced that the way we do things is the right way to do things.

Yet, there are 1,000 ways to skin a cat but we usually tend to do it one way. The way everyone else does it though just seems too inconvenient for us to learn.

Different is not the same as weird.

Demanding compliance as an answer to improving performance doesn’t work.

If it were that easy, you could ask the addict to put their drug of choice down.

It’s easy to look at one metric and make it improve.

Consequently, other metrics will fall by the wayside.

So…

If you do believe that people are doing the best they can, then find a new metric to measure.

If you don’t, then you might want to think more deeply about the system you have set up.

Maybe the better questions to ask is:

What choice do I have?

Fear will always remind us that the odds are against us. Making it even easier to choose to run and hide.

But, we have to be clear, that’s a choice. And if you are always running and hiding, that isn’t much of a strategy either to get to places you want to go.

Perhaps, today is the day you stand up and stand out.

Make your ruckus.