Read This If You Think You Should Be Yourself
"Be yourself and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"Stick to your guns."
"Not everyone will like you, just keep doing you."
Have you heard any of these before?
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being yourself--sort of.
I mean, let's get real here.
What if you're a jerk?
Here's an example:
Steve Jobs did some impactful work, but there are 2 things that Jobs fans often forget.
- Steve Jobs didn't do anything by himself, he had Steve Wozniak as his chief integrator to get stuff done.
- Steve Jobs was a jerk to a lot of people.
What's important about this is the outcome and then also "how" the outcome was achieved, specifically, I'm talking about working relationships.
It's great if you're making an impact, but it's not great if you're not treating others with respect. Impact and respect are NOT mutually exclusive!
So, do you think "keep doing you" is good advice for Steve Jobs? Maybe in part.
I think better advice might be "be true to your beliefs and empathize with others."
Or maybe something like "be genuine, honest, and respectful."
So, be yourself AND make sure you're auditing the feedback that's around you.
This gets harder if you've built a lifetime reputation of being difficult to work with because, at some point, the feedback people are willing to provide you might not be honest since honest feedback has gotten them nowhere with you in the past. But that's a deeper story.
2 Minute Action:
Every couple of years, I put together an anonymous feedback form and send it to the folks who know me best or who have worked with me closely.
Some people fill it out. Some of them just call me and say "let's talk through this in person."
There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's, here.
In 2 minutes, you can call a trusted friend or create an anonymous Google form that you can send out.
Do you (iterate). Get feedback (measure). Understand the feedback (learn). Revise your approach (reiterate).
Here are some questions you can steal from me, for your own feedback form:
- What are 3 of my superpowers?
- What might be 3 of my biggest weaknesses?
- What do you think is the best part of working with me?
- What might be the most challenging part of working with me?
- If you had telekinesis, what would you make me automatically understand?
Read This If You Think You Should Read This
So, you may have noticed that I started writing my subject lines a little differently.
For the past few years, it's been clickbaity headline after clickbaity headline.
You know what I'm talking about.
Headlines like:
"One Bulletproof Way To Change Your Life," and "The 5 Little Known Things That Will Make You 150% More Productive," and "Do This Surprisingly Simple Daily Habit To Improve Your Mindset."
I wrote them every day for a year and I still wonder if that helped me gain attention or pushed away readers who would like what I actually had to say.
Either way, I've been focusing on a more simple approach.
I'm not sure it's helping me gain more readers yet, but I do know that it neither adds nor takes away anything from the rest of the content I'm writing.
So, why?
Because I feel better about it.
Yep. That's the big realization.
I feel more straightforward and more honest--and that's been the promise the whole time, right?
I promised simple, to-the-point, no fancy-pants, quickly digestible, mission-critical, delicious, family-friendly, actionable, knowledge-nuggets?
These headlines feel even more stripped down. So, that's what I'm doing.
So, I'll be looking at open rates and read through rates to see what kind of actual, measurable impact this small, seemingly insignificant change has made, but as of right now, it feels like the right thing to do.
How does that relate to you?
Of course, I want to hear your feedback about this, but more importantly, I want to model a behavior for you.
Takeaways:
Change is good if it's good.
If the change you made achieves a desirable result (not necessarily the specific result you initially desired), then it's probably good. Make sure you are on the lookout for unintended consequences, too.
Simpler is usually harder but better.
I write a 7th-grade reading level. Why? The average reading level in America is a 7th-grade reading level. It also helps those above that average get to the point faster and comprehend more. No, I'm not dumbing it down. I'm meeting people where they are.
Measure what matters.
My message won't matter if it doesn't get clicked, opened, and read. My message also won't matter if it falls into the wrong ears. Discerning open rates and audience is the front portion of my battle. Understanding the impact is harder to measure, but also worthwhile. Likes, hearts, and thumbs-ups can be useful in understanding audience attention, but it will only serve your vanity if you don't follow them to the behaviors of the people you are trying to impact. This is also why I include a quick, actionable note in each post.
2 Minute Action
What's something you've been doing for a while but haven't seen much change in? It's probably something important but not urgent, like "fitness" or "writing that novel."
What are your current excuses/reasons for not doing it?
Go ahead, jot them down.
I'll give you a hint, here. No one has the time, money, or the team to make it happen--so you can't let those slow you down.
If you were diagnosed with some terrible disease, you would stop other things and focus on healing. Why? Because it's a priority. Suddenly, things became important AND urgent.
If you're like me, you want to do all the things.
You want to have a huge impact in 20 different disciplines, catch up with your friends and family, be an informed citizen, speak 7 or 8 languages, and play 13 different instruments.
Since you can't do everything, it's going to be up to you to decide what to prioritize. It's going to be up to you to decide what is important AND urgent.
As Derek Sivers says: "hell yes!" or "no!"
Changing/modifying a routine, simplifying/improving an existing routine, and measuring the results are some of the ways to get there.
You can start on one of those things, today.
And I know you can start in 2 minutes or less.
All I did was start writing different headlines.
Daily 1% improvement accumulates into a 100% improvement every 70 days.
A Simple, Fast Way To Start Seeing Results
There’s something strange that happens when you measure things.
They improve.Just by knowing the benchmark or the baseline, human brings just naturally want to improve.Do that in your life and work and you will set yourself up for success automatically.It’s all tuning after that.
2 Minute Action
I don’t ask anyone to measure tasks by saying “how long will that take?”Or worse: “how long should that take?”I use points.Tasks should be assigned point values based on uncertainty. (Have you done this before? Do you have the skill set on your team to execute this? Do you need a consultant to get this done?)As tasks get uncertain, they tend to get really uncertain (because we don’t know all the things we don’t know).So you’ll want to use a point system that goes up roughly exponentially, like: 1, 3, 5, 10, 21
It’s up to you to decide how to assign the point values.
Its up to you to measure how many points you score in an allotted period of time (the “sprint”).Don't try to get it perfect.Just do it.
Just start measuring.
If you don’t want to use points, fine.Use T-Shirt sizes to start (Sm, Med, Lg, XL).You will do better every subsequent time.It can be tasks, pushups, lives saved, attendees, happy clients, or whatever you want.