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The other day we were at the beach in Carmel. Sumukh spotted a bubbly dog Joe jumping into the waves to fetch a ball. His Master was throwing the ball quite deep. Joe would not only spot the ball but would rush through the waves to fetch it in a matter of a couple of minutes – every single time.
Joe made it look very easy. Almost making us feel like any other dog could do it too. It was great to watch him go and fetch the ball against those waves.
When Joe was right next to us, Sumukh remarked, “Joe should really like that ball. He is going after it quite well..”
The response from Joe’s Master was – “Yeah, he likes it… but really, he is here for a couple of hours every single day. He has been doing it for years.”
That really explained it all.
As you can see, this is no different from how it is in the business world. You see some people making magic. You only see the magic and its awesome but what you don’t see all the practice that has gone behind the scenes that is making it easy to perform that magic.
Most people confuse their wishes and fantasies to be burning desires.
In simple terms, a wish is something that you want and you have no interest in paying the price to get it. Similarly, a burning desire is something that you want but you are willing to go the length to get it. In both cases, people will passionately talk about it.
The confusion happens when the “wishing” person is highly articulate and persuasive. It makes you feel that the person has a burning desire to make something happen.
What would be a test – a sort of litmus test to separate the two?
A simple test would be to notice and observe what was at stake as they went after their wish or burning desire. If nothing substantial was at stake, there is a good chance that it was a “wish.”
Why is this important to know?
The “pure wish” people are not serious but they appear to be. If they are charming too, then they might make requests off of you to engage with them to discuss their “wish” projects. You will now put something precious ( your time ) at stake to help someone who is really only looking to spend time talking about it. If you fall for it, you incurred an opportunity cost and the “wishing” person simply had a good time at your expense.
Make your help count. Investing your energy for people with “burning desire” will make something happen. If you spend your energy on the “wishing” crowd, you won’t have the time to spend your energy on people with “burning desires.”
You are busy like everyone else and you forgot to thank someone for a favor received. You make a mental note that you need to thank that person when your time frees up a time. But as everyone else you get busy with your projects and soon one of the two things will happen – 1) either you are too busy to thank or 2) it is too late to thank ( that’s what you think )
Let’s take the second case – it is too late to thank. It is NEVER too late to thank someone. You are doing a disservice to yourself if you are holding back on genuinely expressing your gratitude however far back the favor was extended.
Now, let’s look at the first case – you are too busy to thank. Rather than simply saying you should just make time to thank, let us look at the price you pay for NOT thanking. Here is how it goes:
1. You may end up on a mental blacklist: The person who extended the favor knows the effort involved in extending the favor to you. While not everyone expects you to reciprocate back, most of them at least expect you to appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness in extending the favor. When they don’t get that, it makes it easy to “mentally blacklist” you. The effect of that is simple – your future requests if any will go into a “low priority” queue or simply get ignored.
2. You may lose the license to make a future request: Even you know that you didn’t thank the other person last time. So it might be embarrassing for you to go back again to the same person.
3. You might undermine the favor and over-estimate your strengths: One reason you might not thank someone is that you might think it did not take a lot of work on the person’s part to extend the favor. This happens if you see things superficially. The person might have just made a phone call. You can look at the action is the “phone call made” or think about all the effort the person had put in so that he was qualified to make that phone call. When you underestimate the effort made, there is a chance that you will over-estimate your own strengths to get that job done. If they didn’t help you a lot, then you might assume that everything was done simply based on your capacity to get things done. Make this mistake and this can hurt you big time in the future.
4. You may feel guilty for not doing that: You know you should have thanked and you know that you didn’t. The guilt can simply eat you from inside.
5. You might end up looking like a jerk: In some cases it might be so clear that you should have thanked and everyone around you know that. In those situations people quickly make an assessment about what kind of a jerk you are.
6. You might start getting used to taking people for granted: This is the most dangerous way of paying a price for not thanking enough. Nobody likes to be on the other end when it comes to taking people for granted ( read more )
I can go on but the point is simple – the right thing to do is to extend thanks to anyone and everyone who extended favors to you. The alternate option is to pay a price now and in the future. Your choice.
I have not found someone who loves spam. The feeling everywhere is that spam is bad. In fact, most people detest spam and people who engage in spamming.
So I am sure you are not engaged in spamming people.
You are sure?
Well, are you really sure?
May be in the way you look at a typical spam message.
Let us take a look at spam again.
1. It is a message that is unsolicited
2. It is cold – comes from someone that you don’t know very well.
3. It is mostly generic but looks like it’s personal
4. An action taken based on the email will be useful to the sender or someone on behalf of whom the email was sent.
5. The same action is not very useful to the recipient.
6. It takes time to process that email introducing an opportunity cost.
Now think about an email that you sent to someone that you didn’t know very well where you made a solid case for them to help you with your project.
Now go through that email with the spam checklist above.
Ta Da!
It matches 6 out of 6.
Congratulations for being a spammer. If you continue to do this day in and day out, you will become a Pro soon!
To make it simple – spam is something unsolicited that has a lopsided consumption to contribution ratio.
[ consumption is what you get; contribution is what you give]
If you think someone you know is spamming, gently send them a link to the blog post. May be they will get a hint
Kavitha and I had an opportunity to listen to Neal Baer ( Producer of Law & Order SVU) at IDEO recently. You may already know this but every week 58 million people watch one or the other episodes of Law and Order SVU.
Nael talked about many things but the highlight of the talk was the power of storytelling ( especially on the mainstream media ). Neal used several examples and one that I made some notes was an episode about HPV (Human Papillomavirus). The focus area of the episode was to educate that the persistent HPV infections was the leading cause of cervical cancer.
Neal explained how they extended the project in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente by surveying people about HPV before and after the show. The surveys were conducted before the show, 1 week after the show and 6 weeks after the show.
The focus was to find out whether
1. the person had heard about HPV
2. the person could define HPV
3. the person knew that HPV was the leading cause of cervical cancer
As you can see from the interactive chart ( from iCharts) below, the show had made a significant impact on people’s knowledge about HPV. You can also see that the level of awareness about this topic was the highest within the week the show was aired. Six weeks later there was a big dip but compared to the awareness before the show, it was a significant jump.
That is the power of storytelling right there.
Also looking at the dip after a few weeks, you can also see the need to tell the same story again and again.
Data can tell powerful stories too. You can check out a few stories here:
Every human being is different and connecting with another human being will require some investment of time, energy, mindshare and of course, there is an opportunity cost always – you could be doing something else right.
Here are the nine components to consider:
1. Character: Connecting or not, a strong character forms the foundation on which trust can build. Without that, it will be a herculean effort to make headway.
2. Commonality: Identify the common elements between you and the other person and you have taken the first step to building rapport.
3. Curiosity: If you are not curious about who you are connecting with, you will talk rather than ask. And, nobody wants to listen all the time
4. Conversation: You have to start a conversation with the other person. Earlier it had to be via phone call or email. But today, you have a lot more avenues to begin a conversation.
5. Cost: Watch the cost for the other person to engage in the conversation. If you make it too high, you might have a n non-starter
6. Curation: Building connections is a lot of hard work. Rather than taking baby steps with a lot of people, you can “curate” first and make the right choices before making those investments.
7. Commitment: I continue to believe that there are only two kinds of relationships. One is long term and the other one is very long term. Very long term ones trump the long term relationships. Better yet, commit to lifetime relationships so that you don’t even get a funny idea to take advantage of the relationship.
8. Compassion: You are human and the other person is human too. Mistakes happen and what counts big time is the intentions behind the actions. Have the compassion to understand that the ups and downs of a relationship.
9. Caring: The real bonding happens when you authentically care for what the other person cares about. Not faking it but really caring for what the other person cares about. It is magical.
Three Bonus Elements
( If you have the time for more that is…)
1. Charisma: It’s hard to define it but everyone knows when they see someone who has it. It is one of those magical powers that has the ability to influence and persuade you.
2. Confidence: If you are not confident, you will start leaning more on others for support. Nobody wants to play the role of a “permanent crutch” in your life.
3. Clarity of Purpose: It is so important to have a clarity of purpose but it is a hard thing to do. But in case you are one of the special people who does have a clarity of purpose, you make it easy ( BIG TIME ) for the other person to engage with you.
Free Download: Lasting Relationships
If you have not downloaded a free e-Book on building lasting relationships, here is the link to that page
What is that stumbling block that prevents you from getting started on your pet project (seriously)?
When I say seriously, I mean you put something of value at stake – typically money. The other soft items that you may not notice are something like time, energy, mindshare and opportunity cost for engaging with this project. But money is something simple to track. You don’t have your friends ridicule you for investing your energy and mindshare on something – but if you lose money on a “stupid” project, you might get some flak for that.
So, what is that stumbling block that will prevent you from making a big push to “invest” your resources (including money) on the project that you are sold on?
It is the elusive search for certainty.
You want to be sure of the results. Just sure enough that you have a pretty good chance of making it. The pretty good chance should be close to 100%. Once you have this safety net, you are willing to up your stakes. Unfortunately as long as you want this certainty, you won’t take the next step – because there simply is no way to get that certainty.
Search for certainty is a trap. Nobody can have it and nobody will ever have it. You can increase your odds to win but you can never get that 100% guarantee you may be looking for. If that same effort you are putting to get that guarantee can be invested in pursuing your goal, you might be able to move the needle a bit.
In the introduction to the book “CLINT: A Retrospective” by Richard Schickel, Clint Eastwood shares this:
“Looking back, I suppose I’ve made a few pictures I probably shouldn’t have. But you don’t know that going in.I’ve always said that I have no idea whether a movie is going to be a success. My criteria when committing to a picture are simple: is it something that I’d like to work on or I’d like to see? So far, that’s worked out very well. I’ve been able to work a very long time at something I love doing and see no reason to stop.”
That’s just one example there. Read about other successful people writing about their past and the pattern is almost the same. They had no guarantees when they started their journey but they ploughed ahead anyway. That made all the difference.
Here are some ways to get out of this trap (warning: none of these will happen in the short-term)
1. Start becoming comfortable with uncertainty: Rather than trying to be certain, start getting comfortable with uncertainty – that way you are not stopping at step number one and mentally charting your way to reach the goal.
2. Get good help: Your ability to execute is more important than your ability to generate new ideas. Execution is where the rubber meets the road. The chances of executing well is directly proportional to the amount of good help that you have at your disposal.
3. Start providing good help: For the rest of the life, if you can focus on providing “good help” to others who are pursuing their ideas and one day part of it might came back. The best way to change your world is to help enough people change theirs
Lastly, remember that 100% certainty would be simply boring. The mystery is what makes everything fun. So please enjoy the uncertainty and mystery!
Here is the answer for those of you who are in a hurry:
In short, you need to first build a case to make a case. You need to raise awareness to the related issue or opportunity so that someone is open to you making a case on a topic.
Now a longer explanation.
I am sure you have faced this situation before. You strongly believed in something and made a compelling case to get an approval ( may be from your Boss ) but you get turned down instantly. You had thought through every single aspect of the project but for some reason the other person did not see this project the same way that you did.
There are many reasons for not getting buy-in (including “You” being one of the reasons) for your idea but if you don’t build a case before you make the case, the other person simply won’t be open and excited to listen to your case.
How do you know you have successfully built a case to make a case?
You know it when the other person is “eagerly looking” for someone to make a case. The other person is aware of the issue or opportunity to such an extent that he or she wants to do something about it.
How do you achieve this?
A few days ( or weeks or months ) before you make the actual case, you start talking about things surrounding the issue or opportunity. You present data/evidence/trends related to the topic in regular intervals and show why this topic is relevant to the other person. It might start off as a one-way street for a long time before the other person starts to engage in deep conversations related to the topic.
When these conversations reach a critical mass, the stage is set to for you to make the actual case.
Things take time and that is just the way it is. If the case you are making is important for you and the other person the time investment before making the case is well worth it.
Have you faced a situation where you had gone to a meeting to share something but by the end of the meeting all you did was to listen to the other person talk about their work and never bothered to listen to what you had to say?
If you have experienced it, I am sure it made you cringe inside.
Switching sides, have you been on the other end where someone came to meet you to share their idea and all you did was to talk nonstop about you and your work and never bother to listen to what they had to say?
I am sure you can guess what the reaction was on their end. Yes, they would have cringed inside.
In this article, I want to make a simple case for listening – the corollary will be a case for shutting up most of the time.
First some background:
Unless you make money talking, the way to grow is by doing something to create something of value that someone else out there is willing to pay. You get a premium based on many factors – for example 1) you create higher value compared to available options in the marketplace 2) you do that “something” faster than available options in the marketplace 3) you do that “something” reliably as compared to available options in the marketplace.
If you are with me so far, notice that the focus was on “doing” and “creating” and not talking about doing and creating.
Now, let us come to the point:
To be totally effective, you have to be doing something now or increasing your capacity to do something in the future. With that in mind, talking will NOT help in either of them. May be a little bit in the first part – if talking involves getting things done but only really. Listening on the other hand has many advantages. Here are a few of them ( all of these assume that you are listening to the right sources )
1. Listening increases your awareness – probably opening up a new worlds for you.
2. Listening helps you to understand the person better ( so that you know what you should talk – when you do talk )
3. Listening makes the other person valued. Remember that people forget what you said but will always remember how you made them feel.
4. Listening is what might give you more information about a better way to “do” things that are on your plate.
5. Listening is what might give you the “increased capacity for future action.”
6. Listening might bring back “previously stored” information to the forefront
7. Listening is where the leverage is
When I was young one of my teacher always used to tell us – “Guys, remember that there is a reason why God has given us one mouth and two ears.”
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