Consequences to failure
Safety (or risk) Regret Creativity Learning Trying feel more like a consequence of failure, than the opposite to failure. As friend-of-the-list Genevieve Hayes says [brackets mine]: “If you succeed at the first thing you do (aka don’t fail), then why ever try anything different?” The only way to know you’re failing is when you set a goal to achieve. How you take the outcome of that process —whether you fail or not— is what builds you up. How you grow. Because all of those words at the start…
Delighting cold calling
Have you ever gotten a cold call and felt fantastic about having that conversation? Weird, isn’t it? Today i just got one like that from Strategic Coach. Even when I knew I was going to say no, there was no pressure on the other side. No shame. No sneaky tactics to pull Noes into Yeses. Even better, no trying to frame me to say yes to get into a buy. It went like this: – Hey Rod. I’m X from Strategic Coach and thought I’d call you to go through some things smoother than over an email. I…
The right mix
Ron Baker, host of The Soul of Enterprise and author of Implementing Value Pricing and Time’s Up sustains that you (paraphrasing him): “need to look at clients like an investment portfolio. Some might have more risk, and be more profitable; some more conservative, and safer”. In that way you can start finding balance in how you play and how you reach prospects and the ones you want to work with—which just made me think of poker and how, if you always play risky, your odds to lose are…
The ugly one
“How do i wanna present myself? Do i wanna try to be like everyone else or do I want to try to make myself look as ugly as possible so that I can stand out and be stick out like a sore thumb amongst all these other people?” Oliver Tree That’s how Oliver Tree was created. His interview with Steve-O (yeah, the guy from Jackass) is filled with gems: How he sees everything someone does as art. How taking (calculated) risks can propel you to what you want. How not to take yourself too serious. His…
Changing why into how, what and when. And why.
Asking Why turns things personal AND complex. It requires that the one asked justifies and explains a thing, behavior, event. If it’s too close to them (eg. the owner and their decisions re: their “ugly” website), it becomes a judgment on what THEY decided. They get defensive. Reframing Why. Do think (to start) with why, just reframe it into How, What, When. Why do you work like this? → Explain to me. Justify, TO ME, YOUR decision. Get defensive. Another ways: What made you take this approach…
Product-Market Fit exercise
“They have an idea for a machine, and they build the machine and then, “Hmmm. Who would want this? We think it’s cool, but who wants this?” So they go do this Product-Market Fit exercise.I don’t like that. That’s how I’ve ended up launching to crickets. And that’s not fun at all.” Jonathan Stark on The Business Of Authority [02:24] Jonathan, in his now reverse-engineering of how to approach the market makes 2 main questions: How to do the thing so it keeps the promise to the person? How do I…
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…
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…
A Gap
After receiving and having a few conversations on these 2 questions: What’s your ONE thing? What makes your ONE thing unlike to what others might say about the same thing? Something stood out: The first question (What) was simple to elaborate and understand. On the second question though, articulating the How seemed more complex. There was a gap between those 2 concepts and how to connect them organically. Do you feel the same when asked about what’s your ONE thing?
The thing about your ONE thing
What’s THE thing about your one thing? What makes it unlike to what others might say about the same thing?