Josh Allred's Blog

We all have a need to be needed.

But what happens to truck drivers when cars become smart enough to drive themselves?

And when there are no accidents on the road, why will we need insurance agents?

This is going to be the toughest challenge we have ever faced in history: When that thing you do for a living is gone, how are going to feel needed?

Here’s a start:

• Instead of looking for your purpose, fulfill a purpose.
• Solve an interesting problem.
• Help someone do something you could never do.
• Embrace the impossible. Think bigger.
• Now think bigger than that.
• One by one. Drip by drip by drip. Connect. Build Trust. Earn our attention.
• Show us your best work. Doesn’t matter if you get paid.
• Be generous. It’s a gift.
• Ship it. Spread your ideas.
• This might work. This might not work. That’s what makes it worth doing.
• Learn to see. See the world as it is.
• Be missed when you’re gone.
• Play the infinite game.
• Use Resistance as a compass. Don’t run away from fear. Dance with it.
• When it’s not working, make better art.
• Quit before you start or commit to pushing through the Dip.
• Stand up. Stand out.

Are all tied together.

[See what it looks like plotted on a graph.]

If you live in scarcity, it can be difficult to experience joy when your sole focus is on survival. I am talking about extreme levels of poverty. The kind of poverty where if you dropped a carton of eggs someone at home goes hungry.

There are more than 3 billion people today, living on less than $3 a day.

Yet, there are more people that have their needs taken care of than ever before. If you are reading this, you live in one of the safest countries in the world and have access to healthcare, sanitation, education, transportation. Many of us have opportunities to recreate. We can worship freely, speak up and we have a right to assemble. We also have access to information and the internet and connection. Our literacy rate is higher than ever before.

This is the best time to be alive in human history.

So why are we seeing levels of joy decrease in a world that is increasing in abundance?

It turns out the endless treadmill of accumulation, we are finding out, is actually endless. There are studies that have shown your level of happiness can begin to decrease at $75,000 per year.

But I think the thing we are missing the most is desire.

A desire to be needed and to discover. A desire to make a difference in someone’s world. A desire to fulfill our purpose—the things that God wants us to be so we can become.

Before choices comes a desire.

If you’re lacking a desire this Thanksgiving, start with The Three G’s.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for reading. I hope it has made an impact.

So do people and organizations.

Sometimes we drift apart.

That’s okay though.

Because you were there for them when they needed you the most.

Although the time together was short, we will miss you when you are gone.

• Break our trust.
• Come up short.
• Make promises and don’t keep them.
• Judge a book by its cover.
• Have a lapse in judgement.
• Are biased.
• Loose their tempers.
• Refuse to change their minds.
• Get lost.
• Misplace their keys.
• Have personal agendas.
• Are irrational.
• Ignore the data.
• Create urgency.
• Make emergencies.
• Lie, cheat, steal.

People make mistakes.

We are people too.

Perception is reality.

Reality is perception.

The thing about bad behavior is that we know it’s wrong. But some of us are spending an enormous amount of time thinking of ways to justify it.

So when we see someone jaywalking, we think that it gives us permission.

It doesn’t make it okay though. Its still wrong, even though “everyone is doing it”.

The future holds more possibilities to do work that matters—to make a difference.

With more opportunities and more time on our hands comes more distractions. Making it easier to justify bad behavior.

If there’s one thing that is keeping you from being your best version of yourself, stop it.

Today.

Right now.

This is as good as time as ever to quit the one thing that’s holding you back.

For those who think they’ve strayed too far: It’s not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light coming from above.

Yahoo’s time line:

• 1998: Yahoo refused to acquire Google for $1 million.
• 2000: Yahoo’s value peaked at $100 billion.
• 2002: Yahoo realized they made a huge mistake not acquiring Google and offered $3 billion. Google wanted $5 billion. They weren’t able to make a deal.
• 2008: Microsoft offered $50 billion to acquire Yahoo. Yahoo rejected their offer.
• 2016: Verizon is looking to acquiring Yahoo for less than $5 billion. Meanwhile, Google has been valued at $550 billion.

What happened?

You can point to a lot of different things:

• Mismanagement: There are plenty of people to blame.
• The economy: The 2000 tech bubble didn’t help.
• Their identity: Were they a search engine? Did they sell ad space?
• No innovation: We haven’t seen any new hardware or software for quite some time.

In the end, Yahoo spent too much time thinking about how to fix their company instead of focusing on solving interesting problems for its customers.

It became clear when 500 million accounts were reportedly stolen this year; and there is evidence to suggest that Yahoo knew about this in 2014.

That’s what happens when you lead from behind. Eventually, the world catches up.

But there is a lesson to learn: No organization is too big to stop caring for the people they are serving.

[Bonus lesson: Nothing lasts forever. The Beatles, arguably the biggest rock band of all time, are becoming less relevant each day. If you’re a teenager, can you name one band member?]

You’ve done your research, analyzed the data and your ready to present. The facts are undeniable. You’ve built a strong case. It’s some of your finest work.

But the board makes a bad call and goes a different direction.

Sometimes, we don’t get picked.

It’s not the results we were hoping for. But you can learn from this experience.

Work on telling a better story. One that resonates with people.

It took twenty years for Ignaz Semmelweis to convince the medical community to wash their hands.

What a shame that your best work has been put on hold.

But it’s hard to beat the person who never quits.

The other day, I saw my neighbor sitting on his porch. As I approached him to say hi, I could hear this awful moaning sound coming from within the house.

Concerned, I asked him what was going on.

He said that his dog was lying on a nail.

So I asked the obvious, “Why doesn’t he just move?”

My neighbor thought about it for a moment. He then replied: “Doesn’t hurt enough yet.”

(Of course, this story didn’t really happen to me.)

Sometimes, we get stuck. We don’t want to move because we’re afraid. And we’re afraid because we think there’s something out there that’s going to be the end of us.

But we’re wrong.

We second guess ourselves because, hey, we’re the ones that got us in this mess in the first place. So we figure as long as we can tolerate this pain, why bother rocking the boat.

That’s the cycle of bad decision-making: You don’t want to make things worse, so you do nothing. By doing nothing, you make things worse.

The obvious decisions seem like the easiest ones to make. Yet, we all know someone who is unwilling to move from a painful situation.

It doesn’t hurt enough yet.

You’ll never have the perfect product for the perfect person at the perfect place for the perfect price with the perfect promotion.

So why do we insist on everything having to be perfect?

Without defects perfect becomes boring, predictable and unremarkable.

You’ll never make a difference if you insist on everything having to be perfect.

So instead of making something perfect, find the perfect problem.

The perfect problem that only you (or your company or your brand) can solve. Then when it’s good enough to ship, ship it.

Perfection doesn’t exist in a world full of imperfect people.

But you can make the world a little better with your contribution.

Don’t wait for the tide to be just right.

We need you.