Greg's Right FIT #459

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Today
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Today

• Relevant details move projects forward. When asked to describe your work, say, "Let's not be theoretical. Give me an example of what you are dealing with now and I can tell you how we help with that." Relevant details, rooted in today.
• Circumstances change, and as they change, relative value changes too. A problem my company can live with today may be worth paying a king's ransom to solve a year from now. Keep in touch.
• We are great at interpreting the past, but not good at forecasting the future. As you make plans, take stock of where you are now. Immediate-assessments are useful because they aren't in a Utopian future. Deal with today. 
• Great customer testimonials recreate their past "current" state, before engaging with you. Those stories are where your best future customers are today, right now. 

Being Human - The Map

"Here be dragons." – Hunt-Lenox Globe, ca. 1508

When I left my job at the big bank to sell tropical shirts for a living, some of my co-workers gave me going away presents. Among these was a special item from a dear friend in San Francisco. 

I go to pick her up for dinner, and she insists that I come up to her apartment for a drink to take in their view of the city. Plus, she and her husband have a special gift for me. The drink is great, their view of the city incredible, and the gift is revealed to be a six-foot by six-foot map of the world. As they unfurl it on their kitchen table, they look at me with knowing smiles and ask, "Do you notice anything about it?" 

It looks like a map. A little different, but the same. The more I look at it, besides a lot of water, my little area of the world seems a little smaller, but so does everything else. I shrug my shoulders. 

"When we lived in Hawaii," she said, "this was the map in my office. Look closely, and you'll notice that Hawaii is at the center of the map."

And there it is. Right in front of me. The world I've always known about, but from a different point of view. Boom. Mind blown. 

We all have maps inside our head. The one thing they have in common is we're all at the center of it. To communicate effectively, we have to know where we and our co-communicators overlap.

Great communicators find our common underlying bits. 

Random Stuff

“Beware of the young doctor and the old barber."
– Poor Richard's Almanac

"Psst. I've got something growing on. . ." I turn my head to check the room, "on my zinnia."

The fungus is growing other plants too, but it's more fun to say it that way. I will probably open with it when I get my physical. My lovely bride suggests I make an appointment often. She slips it into conversation like, I'll say, "do you think we'll have any more tomatoes ripen on the vine this year?" and she'll say, "you should really get a physical." 

I don't blame her. It's one of the key preventative actions I suggest in my book, "The Sales Momentum Mindset." When our health is bad, momentum is hard. Plus, when bad things happen to our health, we'll want to have good information about when we felt good. A baseline. The best way to get this is to develop a good relationship with a doctor, I wrote.

If my bride knew it was in my book, she could dog-ear that page for me, set it on my keyboard, and tap the book cover when she sashays through the room.

I have no problems with my doctor. He's one of my favorite people. I'm just not a fan of the rest of it. From picking up the phone to talking to the office, to scheduling months in advance, to the inevitable laundry list of followups, it's a drag. Then come the bills. In the USA, the amount of mail I get from a simple doctor's visit is impressive. It takes months for the bills to settle. 

Now that I type it out, I'm being whiny. It's not that bad. The process is more an annoyance than anything. My friends are starting to talk about health a little more as we get older. It's on our minds. No one gets out alive, so regularly checking the expiration date is a good idea. 

My doctor is getting older, though, so I need to start thinking about a new one. One that will probably be younger than me. A millennial, or GenZ doctor. They're coming. Taking over. I'll use it as a good excuse to catch up with popular culture so we have common underlying proficiencies. A little TikTok and maybe Snapchat or whatever. I mean, if I don't prep, how will we have above average communication abilities? 

Besides talking about the thing growing on my zinnia.

That's evergreen content right there. Gold, Jerry! Gold! (though I wonder if new doc will get that reference. . ."oh yeah! I used to watch that with my paw-paw when he was in the home". . .ugh)