It’s not quantity that will make you feel accomplished and satisfied. That’s a lazy proxy for work that matters.
It’s not even quality. That’s volatile and no two people would agree on what that means.
It’s the alignment between what you do and what you stand for. And too often we mistake quantity or quality for the final goal.
It does not matter if you are a billionaire.
It does not matter if your new enterprise is going to make you a few more billions.
It does not matter if you are moved by mixed motives.
What matters is the impact you have on people and communities. And some enterprises have this much clearer than others.
Three things that will not make you nervous, that will not scare you, that will not make you lose your sleep, that will not make you cry when you are rejected.
The point is that when are onto something that matters, you will feel anxiety and fear. That’s a sign of the stakes you are putting on that thing. What’s important is acknowledging the feelings, accepting where they come from, and finding ways to cope with them so that you can function and progress.
It’s never been about feeling confident and fearless. That’s a lie for Hollywood movies.
Scripts are out there, they are easy to replicate and scale.
Script #1 – Send LinkedIn contact request faking interest in profile, then send follow up pitch upon acceptance of request.
Script #2 – Collate information you find on Google in an eBook, gate the eBook to collect email addresses, then sequence them.
Script #3 – Map what competitors have on their blog, then have a piece of content to match all topics, possibly changing the content only marginally.
There are more. The problem is that they work for about 10 minutes, then they are old, start annoying people, and you are left wondering why.
If you want to stand out, you have to do something that is not scripted.
It’s not easy.
It’s not supposed to.
Every flaw you see in the world.
Every error message for any software, every bug that gets reported, every overly bureaucratic process, every mistake that gets you infuriated.
It is the product of the work of somebody.
And of course, sometimes it was a poor job, sometimes you simply have to go and fix things. But other times instead – most of the times – there are reasons why things work in a certain way and a person who is proud for having found a way to create something that was not there before.
If we are able to step out of our anger and take an inquisitive approach, we might save time and relationships. And we might make it so that the next time, that person, will be even more motivated to take the initiative.
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