What I’ve Learned
Ideas are worthless without great execution
I’ve learned a few things over the years — from experience and from the written word. As I work to better refine Friction Free and what I bring to clients or employers, this list summarizes my philosophy of life and business and forms the foundation of many of the posts on my blog.
Additionally, I was helping a client with his LinkedIn profile, and it occurred to me that one of these could be particularly useful, with a photo on his banner, to tie his brand positioning together. I previously used, “How Can I Help” there with a photo of someone on a mountain reaching out with arm extended. But if you go over there now, you’ll see that I changed that out…and will likely do so again
I readily others wrote most of these. I’ve sourced some of them, but sometimes they’re just in my notebooks.
I welcome your thoughts on these and also welcome your suggestions for new ones.
Shorter is often better, but the key to good communication — written or otherwise — is clarity.
Don’t let perfect get in the way of better.
AI is not a strategy. AI is an innovation looking for a strategy (Robert Rose)
You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn’t care (Clayton Christensen).
Perception is reality.
Learn to say, “I don’t know.” If used when appropriate, it will be used often.
You have to be open and alert at every turn to the possibility that you’re about to learn the most important lesson of your life (Ruth Simmons).
You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100 percent of what you feel.
If you decide to take Vienna, take Vienna (Napolean).
To get what you want, you have to ask them what they want (Ron Shapiro)
Just because you think you can win a game doesn’t mean you have to play it. (Tim Ferriss)
Preparation is the only thing over which you have total control.
Be the BEST. It’s the ONLY market that’s NOT crowded (Tom Peters)
Be an agent of trust, Jedi style (Scott Galloway).
Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there; few can see what isn’t there.
It’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle (Blair Enns).
Serendipity is a function of effort (Scott Galloway).
The essence of Brand You is that you have to be someone others want to work with.
Everyone who works for you should think of themselves as the brand.
Good leaders have to look around corners (Steve Loranger)
Treat the name of your company as if it were your own.
Play in traffic (Joseph Plumeri)
You are not in the business of convincing. You’re in the business of converting (Kate DiLeo)
The journey is the destination.
A few from Ted Lasso
Be curious, not judgmental (Ted)
A good mentor hopes you move on. A great mentor knows you will (Leslie Higgins).
Coach, I’m me. What would I want to be anything else? (Jamie Tartt)
Be a goldfish (Ted).
And some more
Finish your story. Let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world, you have both, but move on. Do better next time (Pixar). Seth Godin says it more succinctly: Just publish.
Nobody cares about your webinar, your website, your blog, your company. They care about what’s in it for them. So make it valuable to them (Pierce Ujjainwalla)
When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly.
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
How difficult is it to buy your product? (April Dunford)
Don’t put customers into the wind tunnel of features (Also April Dunford)
And one more from April Dunford, all in the same speech: Most great positioning does not survive the jump to sales. We need to translate Positioning into a Sales Pitch.
It started with a simple idea: What if I sat down with chief executives and never asked them about their companies (Adam Bryant, author of Corner Office for the New York Times).
The problem with values like respect and courage is that everybody interprets them differently. They’re too ambiguous and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us, they can create friction (Michel Feaster).
A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter — or to others — is not a nice person.
Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset. But only when we want to. The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it. It’s the wanting it (Seth Godin).
The audience determines authenticity, not you (Seth Godin).
I ask myself, "Do I want to be an author, or do I want to write?" Gotta do the verb to be the noun. (Jay Clouse)
I’m committed to the people I want to serve. If they don’t want to accept the way I’m going to serve them, then they are not a good fit for me (Brian Clark).
Don’t force your customers to burn calories thinking about what you do. Clarity over confusion (Donald Miller).
The value is in the audience, not in the content. Deadlines are critical. It’s amazing how much you can achieve with the clock ticking down and no alternative (Malcolm Gladwell)
The simplest explanation or strategy is generally the best one (Occam’s Razor).
You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat people in the service industry.
Never forget: You aren't building an audience – you're building a 1:1 relationship (many, many times) (Jay Clouse)
Good enough isn’t.
If you’re enthusiastic about the things you’re working on, people will ask you to do interesting things.
The guaranteed formula for success: Create a list every morning of the things that need to be done that day. Then do them.
Karma is real…particularly during a job search or when starting a business.
If it’s stupid but works, it isn’t stupid.
At the heart of it, project management is really Who does What by When…and remembering that people are the engine of project success.
Speeches and presentations are not information dumps; they’re an opportunity to persuade.
To find something, anything — a great truth or a lost pair of glasses — you must first believe there will be some advantage in finding it.
You should do one thing every day that scares you.
Movie and TV Quotes
Why do we fail? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up. (Michael Caine in Batman Begins)
Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss (Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button)
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices (Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things: Define the moment or let the moment define you (Kevin Costner as Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup)
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Princess Diaries).
I’m not a moral victory kind of guy (Mike Singletary)
You can’t think your way through every problem. Trying things and engaging people helps you get unstuck.
Troubleshooting is never part of a job description because if you could describe the steps needed to shoot trouble, there wouldn’t be trouble in the first place.
Leadership is:
The ability to motivate and inspire people to achieve challenging goals.
Seeing the threat when things are going well and making changes.
About persuasion, about convincing others of the soundness of your point of view.
Listening is not about surviving the conversation.
The test of a good manager is not if your feedback is right, it’s if the person thanks you and commits to change.
You earn business by demonstrating, not asserting.
Just because it’s easier than ever to create doesn’t mean it’s easier to create something good (Josh Spector)
No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
Without risk-taking, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
Don’t build your house on rented land (i.e., create and publish on a website).
Gotta do the verb to be the noun.
Create content that attracts opportunities.
Assumption is the mother of all screwups.
Pressure is what you feel when you don’t know what you’re doing.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Telling a complainer that “It’s our policy” is the corporate equivalent of your parents saying, “I told you so.”
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
Calm water often hides crocodiles.
From a sign at American Legion Post 721 (via the great Tim Russert): “What a club this would be if every member would try to do only half of what they expect other members to do.”
"Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.” (Steve Jobs)
When in doubt, the bottleneck is you (Matt Grey).
I publish a twice-monthly newsletter called Frictionless that uses original and curated content designed to help you ask better questions in your work and personal life. Here’s a link to the archive. If you like it, you can subscribe at the end of any issue.
