Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . starting next week.
In this issue:
- Thoughts on Progress
- Being Human
- Random Stuff
Thoughts on Progress
- Look around. You're surrounded by imperfect things and it's still going well. Don't demand perfection. Ask for action. Any start should be called successful, and progress should be celebrated. Get in motion, stay in motion.
- There are times when saying no is making progress. Some new business just doesn't fit. It may look good in the short run, but over time it will get in the way. Recognizing it quickly is progress and should be celebrated.
- Tracking is the easiest way to know if you're making progress. I just told a group, "if you're already measuring activity, publish it. If you're not, start measuring something. Anything." If we track it, it tends to get done.
- How do you make progress if you don't like the activity? Figure out a way to do it in a way that fits your strengths. The more we believe we're using our strengths, the more likely we are to report having ample energy, feeling well-rested, being happy, and learning something interesting. Making progress.
Being Human – Hyperbole
"The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you’ve seen before that you can’t possibly forget it."–Joshua Foer, "Moonwalking with Einstein"
In 1988 Public Enemy advised us to not believe the hype. It's hard to ignore, right? We're attracted to the unusual. It's how they teach the supermemory people to do amazing things like memorizing a deck of cards. One might say our brains are built to remember hype. "Tell me all the salacious details," it says. And if we hear those inappropriate bits, we remember them.
Marketers know this. Salespeople know this. It's why legislatures make "cooling off period" laws. Exaggeration gets us excited and we willingly participate, only to regret the decision later.
The best defense against hyperbole comes in two parts. First, be on the lookout for the little things you agree on. A good practitioner of influence will find small areas of agreement to hook their exaggerations to. Second, take a pause. It's hard to do, but when you find yourself getting fired up, take minute to trace the steps that led you there. This makes it easier to separate the small facts from the exciting exaggerations. It also makes it easier to remember what you want. Separating what you want from what others want you to want is almost a superpower.
On the flip side, if you're marketing you should consider using hyperbole in small doses. It helps trigger emotional responses and, as has been said here before, emotion is what shakes the trees and moves mountains. Use it carefully.
Random Stuff
"How do you know that the fruit is ripe? Simply because it leaves the branch."
– Andre Gide
Earlier this week I spilled coffee grounds and it almost sent me into a rage. I berated myself a bit, then started cleaning, then smiled to myself. These little bouts of out of control emotion have subsided in the years as life's lessons have taken hold and my testosterone has lowered. Keep some perspective, I whisper.
We have a little potting table I drag in and out of the garage when the weather is going to be nice for a couple of days. It's topped with a black plastic tray to hold spills and in the spring it's filled with seed packets, shovels, plant markers, and other things that go on horizontal surfaces. When there is rain the forecast, it's small enough that I can pick it up and put it inside the back of the garage, protecting it from weather.
Last spring I forgot to bring it in and woke up to the black tray filled with rainwater. Floating in the wet mess were gloves, garden tools, and unplanted seed packets. The water logged envelopes had opened and little seeds were floating everywhere. Lucky for me, I had built an extra raised bed to be used for flowers. Most of these seeds were flower seeds, so I picked up the tray, balancing it as I walked across the yard, and dumped the contents in the new bed. Whatever was to happen was out of my hands and up to nature.
In that mix of seeds were giant sunflowers. We tried to grow them when the kids were little without success. This time, we grew five. Four of them clustered together, and a fifth one planted by the pumpkins. They lived up to their name. The tallest was easily 14 feet tall, but its head didn't form. Four of the giant stalks formed giant, rainshower-head-like flowers, easily over a foot in diameter. I would look up at them and wonder, where are the sunflower seeds? The flower head didn't look promising from the ground, but once I cut it off, it was clear where the seeds were hiding. After scraping off the tiny yellow flower bits, I could see hundreds and hundreds of seeds lined in up a Fibonacci sequence. Free bird food!
I have no idea what to do at this point, but the interwebs say let it dry. I leave them out and go to check their progress this morning. Picking the first one up, it was noticeably lighter. On the table were a giant pile of sunflower seed shells, just like the ones my sister used to make after school when sitting in front of the TV. I guess they're ripe, or whatever. Cussing varmints! They've eaten half my winter supply!
I have a flash of anger and scatter the seed shells into the landscape. Looking at the remaining giant sunflower heads, I calm down and consider my next step. What am I getting upset about? There's hundreds of seeds left. I wasn't going to eat them or anything. Why am I being such a jerk? I mean, I didn't even expect them to grow.
Silly man. Keep some perspective.
