Allow yourself to rant
It all starts as a rant. What you find nuts, ridiculous or outrageous. Pour your words into it. Be pissed. Be upset. Call out the nonsense. Then, ask ONE question: How could this help the ones I serve? Now, Flip. Brain dump. Reframe. Write and create.
Prepared-unpreparedness
When going into running a workshop, having a sales call or getting to know a new prospect’s situation, I’ve come to get prepared-unprepared. WTH you mean, Rod? That you come with a rough idea of the context, so you can better grasp the nuances of the situation. However, going in at the same time with the unpreparedness to approach things with curiosity and in spirits of having a conversation. In a convo, you get to listen to understand, to make deeper questions, to challenge what you and your…
Balance or Harmony?
Balance. It pulls one side on, or from the other to make things even. It takes from one to give to the other, so it keeps an equilibrium. And sometimes it feels like juggling. Business, work, fam, leisure… Harmony. Many points happening at the same time and working together. Friend of the list Jonathan Stark (musician, coach and on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing) shared this definition of harmony: “Two or more notes played at overlapping points in time that, in combination,…
A different view to hiring (and leading).
Most of the advice you find about hiring is focused or tailored for big corps. For a startup or a growing team? Not really. How do you get to nail hiring and find (and keep) top performers? That’s kind of the million-dollar question. Recently had a talk with friend of the list Anthony Holloway, lead of Talent Acquisition at Woebot Health. His views on how to approach hiring are quite refreshing and clean of HR-BS. And there’s something here I found captivating: Anthony’s directness and…
Giving others power.
Empowerment. How it’s commonly understood: to give others power. And just like that, it becomes a tool for command and control, because just as you can give power, you can take it away. It turns into a way to keep people within rails and expect that someone else will take responsibility for them at the end. It comes from the ego “I can empower others”. However… Here’s its definition: Empowerment. “The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life.”…
The extra mile
Talking about underpromising and overdelivering, here’s an exercise for you. 🙂 Take 5 brands/companies you LOVE. Not that you like very much or that they’re quite good. That you LOOOOVE. → Do they underpromise to you? → Or do they make you a promise, keep it and deliver on it? When they go the extra mile for you is not underpromising and overdelivering. It has to do more with their values and capacity. Here’s the thing If/When they can’t go that extra mile, they tell you and you’re OK with…
Where you at?
Knowing your context. Now that you have a base to make comparisons, between you and your customers, it’s time to see the playground —and how you could find the gaps. Start with these questions: What’s already there? What does the playground look like? Is it leveled? Is it inclined towards someone/something? Is there someone too big? Is it atomized? Is it crowded? What’s my access here? What’s my reputation here? Who’s playing in it? Who are my direct competitors? Who are my indirect…
Who are you?
To see and find gaps in your market begins with setting a baseline. To know yourself, ask questions to give yourself an articulate idea of who you are and what you do and being able to do the Before & After. Can you answer this questions and find yourself being different? What do I offer? Who’s the specific group of people I’m trying to serve? What makes me different from the others? What do they buy instead of what I sell? Do they know who I am? Do they know what I do? What drives their…
Choices
It’s a choice. Everything. You get to decide. It’s your business. Nobody else can put a vision to it. Nobody else is (truly) risking things for it. You get presented with options and it’s for you to choose. There are no shoulds. It also means you take responsibility and ownership. When you’re told what to do (or the lovely “you should do this”), making that choice carries judgement —which might slow you down. But what’s the Anti- to being told what to do? Being able to decide. To have agency….
The Anti-How-To Guide
Most guides are to tell you How-To do things. Step-by-step processes that are great to do the actionable thing. Of great help when you’re stuck or trying something new. They help you DO the thing. You get to train your hands skills. An Anti-How-To Guide? To train your head skills. To train your judgement. To help you see the bigger picture. To make your own guides. What if instead of being told what to do, you get see what’s behind it? That’s what an Anti-How-To Guide’s for. And you only get…
