A Year Is Composed Of 31,556,926 Seconds

Being intentional matters.

A Few Crucial Points From Malcolm

When work is truly satisfying it meets 3 key criteria:

1. Work must be Autonomous:  You must be responsible for your own decisions and direction.
2. Work must be Complex:  It must engage your mind and your imagination
3. Work must display an intrinsic Connection between Effort and Reward:  The more you put into the work, the more you get out of the work.

Great, Humble Leadership Always Wins

No matter what, lead with humility. Great leadership opens doors to fresh and invigorating opportunities in every field all while simultaneously satisfying the points stated above.  No matter what position in life you are currently in–whether you have been working for 1 year or for 40–know that there is no greater position to fill than that of humble leader.

I get this “letter” from my friends down in Austin, Texas, every 2-3 weeks.  It’s the same situation every time.  I open the mailbox, and this genuine Hallmark letter falls gently into my eagerly awaiting hands.  I think to myself, “Oh, it’s a friendly letter from a friend for something that I must have forgotten.  Is it Christmas?  My birthday? hmmm Whatever could this be…for… (insert heart breaking here).”  After I open it (like a little school boy opening up a birthday card from Grandpa & Grandma!), I am quickly disappointed (to tears!) as I discover that it’s just another advertising scheme (I mean tactic) from AT&T, trying to get me to buy their U-Verse Package.

Q: So, why is it broken?

A: Because I already have a U-Verse account. I bought my AT&T U-Verse account nearly 6 months ago, yet I have still not stopped receiving advertisements nearly every single day in some form or another.  My interpretation:

1. Extreme waste of resources, time and paper
2. Someone at AT&T is not communicating.
3. It’s nice to get a Hallmark card…just not from your Internet/TV provider.
4. Continually provide me with the best Internet and TV service (ever!), email me the bill once a month, and then,…leave me alone.  My heart has had enough.

A good friend of mine once gave me this advice on getting rich (however you choose to define rich).

Here’s the quick version:  Build deep, meaningful, authentic relationships and help a lot of people.

That’s it.

Recognize a need (it’s an opportunity). Serve or meet that need. Provide a continual stream of service to perpetually meet that need in lots of peoples lives. Get rich intentionally while simultaneously freeing up your time.

For more fancy insights on how to break the old rules of business and happily embrace the new rules, go here and here.

Darwin just had a birthday.  I have been asked to explain Darwin’s theories on numerous occasions (I know, me of all people!), especially during  my college years.  ”Parke, what do you think of evolution?  I just don’t get it.  Can you explain it to me?”  Well…sure…

Two minutes later the conversation ended in further frustration. Why?  As a science major, I had heard the message of Darwin hundreds of times before over the course of 4 years.  I had become an expert on The Theory of Evolution (and by expert I mean that I knew more than the average college student only taking intro biology because she had to).  Even though I knew more than the average, this didn’t make my explanation of evolution or Darwin (or anything!) any easier to understand.  My message was too complex. My “student” had heard her professor’s lecture, she didn’t comprehend it the first time, yet there I was trying to give her the same information in the same way all over again.  Silly.

Marketing follows the same rules.  Any message that is worth giving must first be packaged properly in order to be heard, seen, understood, payed attention to or remembered.  Here are some rules by Chip & Dan Heath from Made To Stick that will help.

You can choose one of the first two, or you can wait for #3:

1. Choose accuracy first at the expense of accessibility
2. Choose accessibility first at the expense of accuracy
3. Choose neither.  Instead, understand this:

If a message can’t be used to make predictions or decisions, it is without value, no matter how accurate or comprehensive it is.

Did my message help my fellow student make good decisions come test time?  Probably not.  I sacrificed accessibility for accuracy.  A less complex message would have been better.  My message had zero value.

What messages are you sending out?  What messages are you buying into?  If these messages are useless, it won’t matter how accessible, how entertaining, or how complex they are; they will get lost in the crowded world of unlimited messages.  I think Darwin would agree.

I am having a Robert Frost moment.  

You know, one of those “two roads diverged in a wood, and I,  I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” type of moments.  However, in this case I find myself almost yearning for only two roads!  Not the 4 I must choose between.

Ever been there?

Of course you have.  We all have.  We all make choices every day that propel us towards greatness or cause us to shrink into mediocrity.

Ever been great?  Ever been the greatest?

Ever been mediocre?  Barely there? Unnoticeable?

The choice is ours of course.  Greatness.  Excellence…OR… Average. The good-but-nothing-special ordeal.  Here is my advice: When faced with a choice…choose greatness!  Choose that which you can be the greatest in the world at.  Deny mediocrity!  Make little decisions every day that propel you towards great endeavors and adventures and challenges.

Still not buying the choose greatness, being average is overrated plea?  Here is an in-your-face passage from Seth Godin’s book The Dip.  This book puts things into greater perspective, and, along with a lot of sincere prayer, helps make the decision making process that much simpler.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional.  Average is for losers.

Am I being too harsh? Isn’t your time and your effort and your career and your reputation too valuable to squander on just being average?  Average feels safe, but it’s not.  It’s invisible.  It’s the last choice–the path of least resistance. The temptation to be average is just another kind of quitting…the kind to be avoided.  You deserve better than average.

-Seth Godin, The Dip

Think about it.  Help a lot of people.  Choose greatness.

Your product sales are not DEAD they’re just FLAT.  Don’t shed a tear.  Simply ask yourself…

…why?

Some reasons and subsequent solutions expounded upon by me, originally taken from Dan Roam:

1. Your clients are not themselves growing.  If your clientele isn’t pushing upward and onward (or even attempting to) than they probably won’t be looking to upgrade your product.
2. Your clientele doesn’t need your product any more.  Do you offer the most comprehensive product in a growing industry?  Are you at least a year ahead of your nearest competitors?
3. The most common reason: Your clientele is uninspired by your product.

If struggling with #3:

1. You are either not making your customer happy OR
2. You are not targeting the right clientele

How do you solve both challenges?  

• Come to a better understanding of who your customers are and a better understanding of what they want.

It doesn’t matter if you CEO a Fortune 500, run a small business, sell t-shirts on eBay or pastor a new church; you need to know who you are reaching, who you are selling to, who you are trying to serve.  Know them inside and out.  Know what they need.  Know what they want.  Inspire them.  Blow them away.  Help a lot of people.