Your positioning can’t be fixed.
Having this gap between the what you do and how you do it is what often times feels like a positioning problem. However, your positioning can’t be fixed. Not in a one-time event. Or simply filling blanks in a template. That will help, for sure. But it goes way deeper. It requires: Structural changes Mindset changes Business changes It asks (and forces) you to question how you see things and what you’re able to see. It’s in-depth work. It’s painful. It takes time. It’s a long game —but not…
Here to convince you
When you read that, did you feel a strong impulse to say “Hell, no!”? And you’re right. That’s a natural response to “being convinced”. Which brings us to… are you using this in your comms and messaging? That you’re supposed to convince someone of [doing X]? Here’s the thing Often times, convincing tends to make you ready to counter arguments. To wait in silence for your time to speak, without being present. Instead of listening to understand and see if / how you could help. Helping your…
The problem with purpose
The problem with purpose is that most business owners think every business needs one. And it’s not the case. Thinking that every business needs to have a purpose takes lots of people to “craft” one in hopes (aka aspiration) of being relevant. So that it’ll magically create loyalty. That it’ll make the biz profitable. It then becomes something like any other PR stunt such as being ESG, SDG, B-Corp certified and so on. Looks good on paper, but it doesn’t really make it through. It looks like a…
Point of no return
Going into things and thinking there’s a point of no return, where you just need to keep going. That’s another definition for sunk costs. When you feel you’ve already invested so much it’s not worth quitting so you hope for the best, despite all the red flags. When you know you’re desperate, but think it doesn’t show. When you think you need to prove something. When you think that prospect will be turned off by you reaching out. Here’s the thing You can return. Regroup. Retreat. Is it hard?…
Fairness
“If someone is working more, they deserve more. That’s fair” [Overheard in a conversation.] That’s not necessarily true. It generalizes that more effort (aka work) is tied to more rewards. If that were the case, interns should be millionaires by now. A book that took 11 years to get written, should be the most awarded. Or… It could have nothing to do with it. Like this song, by Beastie Boys “It was summer 1986. We wrote it in about five minutes. We were in the Palladium with Rick Rubin,…
Everything’s been said
Jain. [German expression for Yes and No at the same time (Ja+Nein)] If you have this feeling that when you’re writing (daily), you’ll get to a point where you’ve said it all. You might be right. Or not. Everything’s been already said (mostly) by someone else. However, you have a perspective very few people (if any) have. Your own experiences. Your own fails. Your wins. And your burns. Being original is an spectrum. Like life, it’s not all black and white. So, go ahead and repeat. Plus, if you…
The hard choice
If you’re jumping from idea to idea, making all of them a priority as they show up, they’re not a priority. In fact, they might feel as emergencies, taking over each other constantly. And that’s not emergency anymore. It’s simply chaos. Here’s the thing Most of this happens because making the hard choice is… well, hard. As creatives, visionaries, or innovative people, we LOVE the new shiny object. But unless we get ruthless with ourselves and make the hard choice to pick and stick to the…
The age of A.Y.
Just like artificial intelligence is not really intelligence, it’s a way of pattern recollection —intelligence needs the capacity to make decisions based on those pattern-recollections, -filtering and -recognition. We’re also in the age of A.Y. The Artificial You. Where, to succeed in a market, you treat yourself as a product. Taking approaches that work for things, to apply on people. Seeing what sticks and molding this AY into something that would be a fit. A construct (an artificial one)…
What about testimonials?
Friend of the list Genevieve Hayes came back with a question after yesterday’s email on one thing you don’t need to build your authority: a personal brand. (shared with permission) What about testimonials? I know that, ideally, it would be great to have quotes from dozens of people who love your work but that’s not always possible early on. Furthermore, I’ve always suspected some of the testimonials on some websites aren’t actually real. How important do you think testimonials are in building…
Elevating others
Yesterday’s email took these points on Womack’s conception of leadership: Leadership equals heroic leadership. Leadership equals authority. Leadership is about convincing others. Here’s why this view can’t be sustainable. Leadership equals heroic leadership. It’s there to save the day / put the fires out. Heroes don’t scale. So at the moment there’s no more “heroic leader”, things go down south. Quickly. Leadership equals authority. They’re both independent from each other.You can have…
