All tagged The path to success
When things are going well, we naturally focus our time doubling down on the things that have made us successful. Our offering are resonating, so we focus on raising awareness, pitching to those who haven’t bought yet and investing on expanding our reach, so that we can sell more.
All of that makes sense – why wouldn’t we double down and capitalize on what’s working?
I was having a conversation the other day about what it takes to drive change within a community and the person I was chatting with made an interesting point.
She said that people often think that, in order to shift behaviors, we need to focus on those who don’t believe and are diametrically opposed to our ideas.
A measure of ambition is a critical ingredient of success. We have to want what it is we’re after.
But too much ambition is a turn-off - and I don’t just mean for others, but to ourselves especially.
There’s probably many measures of this and we all have our own bar for what constitutes “too much”. For me, one of the most critical is when we calculate every interaction in terms of its payoff.
It's tempting, when we've achieved some measure of success, to believe that we've arrived.
The Greek philosopher, Epictetus, counseled against this idea of "arrival" and believing we are important, as I discuss in today's episode.
When we lose an opportunity (a sale, a promotion, a job offer, etc.), it’s normal - and OK - to feel down, especially if it was something we really wanted. After all, if we’ve really given it everything we had, we’ve made a commitment (emotional and otherwise) which, ultimately, has not been rewarded.
So, we take the lumps.
At some point, I think we all have to decide if we’re “For-Profit” or “For-Purpose”.
Yes, we can and should be about both, but one has to take precedence in defining who we are and what we’re doing.
To be “For-Profit” is to be focused on the numbers.
We tend to think of successful people as alternate beings - people who come to their work with a mindset that is always on, always without doubt. In other words, not like the rest of us mortals.
The truth, in my view, is different. Successsful people are more like the rest of us than we think. There's just one intentional difference, as I discuss on today's episode.
Years ago, I was developing a website when someone I worked with asked me what I was doing about SEO. As I explained my thoughts, it became clear that he was less interested (if at all) in the fundamentals of SEO (strong content) than he was in how we could best ‘game’ the system.
I suggested that tricking the Google algorithm wouldn’t be a great strategy, and certainly not one that could be considered long-lasting.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are those characters in video games that cannot be controlled and are driven by the program itself to deliver specific pre-defined lines or actions, either playing a very specific role or no role at all. They don’t participate in any meaningful way, can’t be directed and more often than not, are there to simply make up the numbers.
Jerry Seinfeld was once asked by a young comic if he had any advice to help him get better.
His answer was simple: write better jokes - and the only way to do that, was to write every day. In fact, not only should he write every day, but he should keep track of this work:
The idea of ‘secrets’ is a funny thing. I’m not talking about secrets in a personal sense but in a work related sense. Our tactics, our approaches, our tools and knowledge. Our so-called secret sauce that ‘helps’ us achieve our professional goals.
We tend to hold these secrets dearly, with the idea that they are indeed unique to how we operate and what we do. And then the idea that if they were to get out, then our ability to achieve is doomed.
Today's episode focuses on a story from Live Aid back in the mid-Eighties and a moment that set the band U2 on the path to global stardom.
But on the day, it didn't seem like it to the band - and represents a lesson about risk-taking that we can all learn from.
Today's episode focuses on the age old debate of nature versus nurture. We love to argue whether talent is innate or developed, or whether entrepreneurs are born versus made.
In the show, I argue that it doesn't matter - our only choice is to move forward to strive to achieve what we want. The alternatives aren't worth considering.
I believe endurance is the most critical ingredient of success.
Conventional thinking, fueled by everything we read in the media, suggests the key ingredients are far sexier: great ideas or talented teams or plenty of funding. Those are far more ‘romantic’ ideas and they certainly make for more enjoyable water cooler conversations.
This month's podcasts deal with matters of culture.
In today's episode, I speak to the value of assessing cultural fit when we're bringing new people into our teams, and when we're evaluating the long term impact of existing team members. It's not easy and it's tempting to look at hard metrics, but these soft ones can be the most critical to our success.
This months podcast deals with matters of culture.
In today's episode, I speak to the Sumo concept of Hinkaku - that is, how being a champion is about more than tangible measures of performance. It also has to do with how we behave.
I don’t know if there’s a single maxim by which we should live our lives. Life’s too complex for that, but there’s probably a few that are useful.
I do know that, in general, any advice that encourages us to think before we make a life choice is likely to be on point. I came across one such maxim recently:
This month, I'd like to speak to a few fundamental ideas about how we work and the implications of our behaviors when we work.
In today's episode, I talk about our tendency, as we get older, to focus less on what we do well and more on what we don't. It's a curious thing, because it's our strengths that will drive us forward and, therefore, what we need to build on.
To become a Yokozuna (or Grand Champion) in Sumo Wrestling, there are, broadly, two sets of criteria that have to be met.
The first relates - as we might expect - to power and and skill, specifically performance in recent tournaments with a standard of two consecutive championships as an Ozeki (or an equivalent performance). This is reasonably objective, quantifiable criteria, one that is reasonably objectively measurable.
It seems to me that being smart isn’t enough.
Not when you’re trying to get something personal, something important, done.
You can intellectually understand what you need to do. You can comprehend why you need to do it. You can even detail how you need to get it done.
But there’s still no guarantee that you’re going to do it.
