fear.less

fear.less is a new online magazine that tells stories of people who overcame their fears and wound up victorious.  Seth Godin has an article in this month's edition with some remarkable insights on fear.  Real fear is when you're in the desert and there's no water.  Real fear is when you're in the woods and run into a bear.  Real fear is primal.  The fear that you and I experience isn't really fear.  It's anxiety.  Why do we worry so much?  Why are we afraid?  What's the worst that can happen?  Maybe we'll succeed. I think that's it.  We're afraid of success.  If I fail, I'm not going to starve and I can certainly pick myself up off the ground and get back to life, but if I succeed then what happens to me?  That's really what's driving our anxiety.  If I give a customer great service they're going to call me more often.  If I make an extra sales call I'm not going to have time to enter my contracts.  I have a great idea to pitch, but what happens if they really like it?  If we double revenues over 3 years we'll have to add a large amount of staff and all those people and our investors will be looking to me for direction.  Wow!  Success can be scary.  The thing is, if we can get past our anxiety, and do something meaningful it's bound to be exhilarating.

Don't be afraid of the things you have to do.  Simplify; clarify; focus.  Put your anxiety behind you.  Accomplish great things.  There's nothing holding you back.

small wins

Have you ever stared at a project list and felt nothing but overwhelmed? It's like walking up the stairs to my attic. I get to the top, see the mess, quickly shake my head in dismay, turnaround and walk back down the steps. The scope of work is too overwhelming. The end goal is out of reach. I'll never be able to get this finished. Dan and Chip Heath talk about shrinking the change in their book Switch. Sometimes you only need to get started. Take 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there and eventually you have a series of small wins. In technology, projects are broken into epic stories; epic stories into user stories; and user stories into tasks. It's easy to look at a task, get started on it and finish it. Before you know it you've knocked out a user story, and all of a sudden these small wins start to snowball. The project doesn't seem as daunting.

This same method can be applied to any goal or change. If you have a sales goal that seems impossible, break it down and shrink the goal. I want to make 50 calls over the next two days and close 10% of them. Over the next two weeks I want to write a chapter of my book. Shrink your objective and earn some small wins.

Who wants to spend ten minutes with me cleaning the stairs of my attic tonight?

don't be a cog

Today my ten year old son was on a learning website called Study Island. He's a smart kid who's heading into fifth grade and had straight A's in fourth. On Study Island, which is only accessible through schools, he has the high score in the state for one game and several other top 5 scores in other games. Today as he was showing off to me he gave me a disturbing answer to one of my questions. I asked him, "Why don't you start trying out the fifth grade games?" His answer, "Because my teacher told us not to." Wow! Is that what what the public schools are teaching our kids? Don't take initiative. Don't try something that might be difficult. Fear failure. Obey orders. The way I see it our schools are ancient institutions. They were designed to turn people into cogs. If you do what you're told you'll get a good, steady job. The problem is the good, steady jobs are not the same as they were 30, 40 years ago. We don't churn out machinery, parts and other factory items anymore. To succeed today you need to be able to stand out - not blend in. As a manager I will never tell you what not to do. The best people I've worked with always want more. They look for the next challenge and rise above it. If they fail it doesn't stop them. It only makes them want more. Don't be a cog in the system. Be a Linchpin. Stand out!

perception

Perception. We tend to see the negative. We ask ourselves, "What's wrong with this picture?" It's human nature. The lizard brain is taking over. Our instinct puts us on the defensive. It prevents us from seeing the bright side, but the bright side is often where the solution resides. When we concentrate on what's wrong, we over analyze and come up with fixes that will take a long time or likely never be implemented. We should know what is broken for long term fixing, but when we know what we do well we have something to build upon. What's the perception at my company? Why do we call the people we do business with advertisers and not customers or partners? Why are we focused on decreasing our cancellation rate instead of increasing our retention rate? Perception is the way we look at things. When we focus on cancellation rates we focus on the negative, but if we focus on retention rates we'll look at what we're doing well. When we know what we're doing right we can spread that focus throughout the company and influence our employees and customers. Then we can make a difference and begin to effect change.

fear

I've been talking about this blog for months.  I find excuse after excuse.  Anything to avoid the first post.  I can't decide on a title.  My thoughts aren't properly formed.  I don't have the time.  I work at a public company.  I can't talk about my  experiences. The thing is all these excuses are fear.  Seth Godin talks about the lizard brain in Linchpin.  The lizard brain controls the fight or flight instinct.  It prefers flight.  Fear takes over.  It's persistent.  It's all consuming.  It stops us from doing great things.  It stops our passion.  What if nobody reads my blog?  What if they think it's stupid?  What if they don't like what I have to say?  What if I fail?

Pay attention to the resistance.  Don't be afraid.  Overcome it.  One success leads to another.  Confidence builds upon itself.  I can do this.  People will read my blog and like it.  This blog is about me.  These are my experiences; my passions.  I don't do a job.  I don't go to work.  I make connections.  I create.  I problem solve and build teams.  I accomplish incredible things.