Frustration and discontent grow in the space between what you say you will do and what you actually do. In the space between how you say you feel and how you actually feel. In the space between what you say you value and what you actually value.
Keep that space as narrow as possible.
It’s the road to joy.
The bravery and determination we use when advising others should always be kept in check by the fact that when we are in a similar situation we tend to act much more cautiously and pragmatically.
A great advisor is one that helps you walk through the different options and choose the one that is the best fit for yourself.
Some people will like you, some people will not like you, and most people will be somewhere in the middle.
Your responsibility is not to change where people stand.
Your responsibility is to spend more time with people that, for the most part, like you and less time with people that, for the most part, do not like you.
You’ll feel better. And they will feel better too.
You get out of a three-hour meeting where you have discussed important topics for the future of your team, your department, your company.
The first instinct is to share the bits and pieces of information you have collected with your peers – impressions, thoughts, gossips, directions, changes, tasks. If you are leader, you’d probably call right away an extraordinary meeting with people reporting into you, just to make sure that everybody can share in your own frustration, excitement, or whatever it is that you are feeling.
It would probably be a lot better, though, if you would take a moment to actually think about what just happened. Go for a walk. Call it a day. Take a piece of paper and write down what you have heard. Sleep on it. Go on for one or two days before talking to anybody that was not in that meeting about what comes next.
Your confusion does not have to be other people’s confusion.
Sure, sharing is fantastic and it makes you feel a little less lonely. But when you do not yet have a clear idea of what you should share, is it really worth it?
A few years back, I got a cold connection request on LinkedIn that was different from the others one usually gets.
The person sending it – a rep for product A – had done some proper research about me. They even got to this blog (I have a link in my profile, so all legit). They read a few posts and in their request they actually commented on one of them.
I accepted their request and I did not purchase product A.
In fact, I did not even book a meeting, since it was just something out of the scope of my work.
About a year later, a colleague of mine reached out asking for a recommendation. They were unsure which one of two tools they should pick for their own work. One of the options was product A. I listened to the colleague introducing the two options, and ended up saying that I did not have a clear opinion on which one they should choose. I mentioned, though, that I had a very good experience with the sales process of product A. That resonated with my colleague, since they were having a similar experience themselves.
For many different reasons, my colleague decided to pick product A.
The morale of this story is in three parts.
First, to cut through the noise, you have to do some extra effort. Perhaps quality of outreach is more important than quantity of outreach these days.
Second, brand and reputation is about taking that extra effort and making it consistent over a period of time. It’s easy to do the hard work when it works, but it’s when you do it despite the poor results, or despite the ups-and-downs, that the hard work becomes a part of your identity that others appreciate.
And third, well. Try to attribute that sale.
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