Which is worse…
Failure or fear of failure?
Fear or fear of fear?
Trying and failing or not trying at all?
Speaking up and not being heard, or suffering in silence?
Caring and losing, or not caring at all?
Doing or wondering?
Whose meeting is this? A simple checklist
Can your next meeting (not conversation, not presentation, but meeting) pass this test?
There's one person responsible.
The time allocated matches what's needed, not what the calendar app says.
Everyone invited is someone who needs to be there, and no key party is missing.
There's a default step forward if someone doesn't come.
There's no better way to move this forward than to have this meeting.
The desired outcome is clearly stated. The organizer has described what would have to happen for the meeting to be cancelled or to stop midway. "This is what I want to happen," and if there's a "yes," we're done.
All relevant information, including analysis, is available to all in plenty of time to be reviewed in advance.
If you score a seven, count me in.
[Join us for a Facebook Live at 3 pm today. We'll be discussing mindfulness and making an impact with the remarkable Susan Piver. Also! Application deadline for the next altMBA is next week, April 9th.]
Happy Anniversary
Today's the seventeenth anniversary of the founding of Acumen, a groundbreaking non-profit that's changing the way the world sees poverty (they've already made a difference to 100,000,000 of the poorest people on Earth.). In addition to a great idea and passionate leadership, the secret is obvious–showing up.
Showing up day after day after day.
Today's the first anniversary of Sam joining our team at the altMBA. Sam's secret: Her consistent contribution, showing up day after day after day.
And today, give or take, is the sixteenth anniversary of this blog. Not quite on April Fool's Day a bunch of years ago, but close enough. I feel badly that so many people were fooled by this morning's post, and I'm grateful to those that wrote in with concern. But no, I was making a point, not telling the truth. It turns out that showing up is a great way to find new ideas, and I have no plans on stopping.
It's easy to come to the conclusion that someone's generous or inspired and so they do the work. But it's more likely that doing the work makes you generous or inspired.
Go make your ruckus. See you tomorrow.
I used them all up (a warning to creatives)
When I was 12, I brought 100 comic books with me to summer camp. That's a lot of comic books, an essentially infinite number.
So, if someone wanted to borrow one, I said, "sure."
Within a week, they were all gone. I was comicless for the rest of the summer.
Well, I didn't think it would happen, in fact, I said it would never happen, but now, in April 2018, after so many blog posts, after 18 books, dozens of projects and a bunch of ebooks and videos and podcasts, I'm now completely out of ideas. Big ideas, small ideas, any ideas. All gone. Used up.
I have none left.
I always believed that creativity was generative, that one led to two, that holding back was selfish and foolish. More connection begets more value begets more creation. A virtuous cycle for the ages.
And yet, here I am, sixteen Aprils in a row on this blog so far, and now, finally, zilch. Empty. Nothing even close to a new idea, a generous insight or a whisper of novelty. Nothing to say that might prompt you to do more important work. I don't even know what to make for dinner tonight.
So, be warned.
Apparently, all each of us get is seven or eight thousand ideas. I wish I'd known in advance, perhaps I would have been more circumspect with them. Hoarded them. Watched them more carefully.
There you go. Better be careful not to waste yours.
[PS for those of you not looking at the calendar… happy april]
What is and what might be
They have much less in common than you might expect.
The key step in creating a better future is insisting that it not be based on the assumptions, grievances and dead ends of the past.
The future won't be perfect. We won't be perfect. But we can be kind. We can listen. We can give opportunity the benefit of the doubt.
The future won't always work. We won't always succeed. But we can be alert and seek out the possible instead of the predicted.
The future won't always be fair. But we can try. We can care. We can choose to connect.
It can be better if we let it.
[Have you read about The Marketing Seminar? This is our last session before the fall.]
The Podcast Fellowship (a summer program)
[If you know a full-time student in need of a worthy summer project, please share with them…]
Summer internships are a problem. Too often, you’re working for free, doing very little of value and learning less. Two out of three might be okay, but that’s a lousy combination.
Too often, careers are shaped based on too little input from a busy office. And far too often, privilege and existing relationships play a role in who gets to do something productive.
In real life, after college, you’re less likely than ever to have a real job in a real office. You’re also hoping to be doing a job you actually like, where people aren’t telling you what to do all day. Why train for the worst outcome all summer in a dead-end internship?
Alex DiPalma and I are pleased to invite you to consider an experiment, open to a hand-picked group of students this summer. A virtual program, available wherever there’s a laptop and an internet connection. Alex is a successful podcast producer, who has worked on Akimbo, with Minnesota Public Radio, with Cal Fussman, with Food4Thot, among other shows. She knows what’s up.
The idea: You should build a podcast. A thirty-episode series, a podcast that captures insights and experiences in an area you care about.
Are you hoping for a career in urban planning? Make your podcast about that. Over the course of the thirty episodes, you can interview leaders in your field. You can capture your thoughts on the big (and small) issues of the day. You can lead and you can teach. And no one can stop you.
It doesn’t matter how many people listen to it. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t have a sponsor. It matters that you made it.
By the end of the summer, you’ll have published your work to anyone who cares to subscribe. You’ll have developed assertions, made connections and most of all, shared with generosity. You won’t be a technical wizard, you’ll have something better than that–the confidence that comes from having built and shipped generous work.
The (updated) program itself can be found right here.
Throughout the program, we’ll be teaching you useful techniques, challenging you to invent new ones, and most of all, connecting you with other students who are going where you’re going. This online mastermind group will take a real commitment, a few hours a day at minimum. But if you put in the time, you’ll earn the body of work you’ll end up creating.
The program costs about $10 a day, because we want people to have skin in the game.
Video/podcast roundup
Some interviews and talks you might enjoy:
Podcast: Project Management with Rocketship.fm
Podcast: Talking with Anthony Iannorino.
Podcast: With Lisa DeLay.
Daily Grind podcast.
Don't Quit Your Day Job with Cathy Heller.
Podcast with Heneka Watkis Porter
Podcast with Joe Ferraro.
Tropical MBA podcast.
Podcast: Design Matters with Debbie Millman (a backlist classic).
When your ideas get stolen
A few meditations:
Good for you. Isn't it better that your ideas are worth stealing? What would happen if you worked all that time, created that book or that movie or that concept and no one wanted to riff on it, expand it or run with it? Would that be better?
You're not going to run out of ideas. In fact, the more people grab your ideas and make magic with them, the more of a vacuum is sitting in your outbox, which means you will prompted to come up with even more ideas, right?
Ideas that spread win. They enrich our culture, create connection and improve our lives. Isn't that why you created your idea in the first place?
The goal isn't credit. The goal is change.
[A new episode of Akimbo is out today, with riffs about infinite and finite games. Feel free to subscribe, and please steal these ideas. Ready to spread your ideas? Check out The Marketing Seminar… don't forget the purple circle.]
It’s time
Time to get off the social media marketing merry-go-round that goes faster and faster but never actually goes anywhere.
Time to stop hustling and interrupting.
Time to stop spamming and pretending you're welcome.
Time to stop making average stuff for average people but hoping you can charge more than a commodity price.
Time to stop begging people to become your clients, and time to stop feeling badly about charging for your work.
Time to stop looking for shortcuts and time to start insisting on a long, viable path instead.
Time to start contributing.
There are lots of ways to embrace modern marketing, but the there's no doubt that you'll be better off once you do.
Modern marketing is the practice of making something worth talking about, developing empathy for those you seek to serve and being in the market in a way that people would miss you if you were gone.
Today's the first day for signups for the proven, effective Marketing Seminar. We've worked with more than 5,000 students so far and they've made a substantial impact with their work. The Seminar is not just videos–it's an ongoing cohort, months of working directly with your peers, engaging, challenging and learning what works (and what doesn't.)
It might be just what you need to transform your work. If you click the purple circle on the bottom of the page, you'll save a bunch of money, but hurry, as the discount gets a little less valuable each day.
And, if you're the sort of student who would prefer to skip the discussion board and binge watch, we've just made the Seminar available in an all-video highlights format as well.
It's time to change the way you engage with the market. I'm hoping we can help.
Secure and respected and engaged and risky
Some people want their workplace to be like an artist's studio. A lab. A dance with the possible. Engaging. Thrilling. The chance to take flight, to be engaged, to risk defeat and to find a new solution to an important problem.
And some people want a job that's secure, where they are respected by those around them.
The essential lesson: These are not necessarily different people, but they are very different attitudes.
It's a choice, a choice made once a lifetime, or every year, or perhaps day by day…
When you sit with an employee who seeks security and talk to them about "failing fast," and "understanding the guardrails," and "speaking up," it's not likely to resonate.
It's worth finding the right state of mind for the job that needs to be done.