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You Don’t Have to Pay with Your Suffering
I used to be mystified when people didn’t leap. Risk, schmisk. I’d been through a lot of shit. All the horror, all the anguish — I survived it all. So I knew I could survive it again. So, when I was 21 and wanted to start a coffee shop with zero help? What’s the worst…
Automatically Track the Dollar Value of Your Pro Bono Work and Scholarships
Business Tip for Culture Makers #409: Track Your Culture-Making Metrics and Quantify the Value of Your Pro Bono Work A lot of our effort and work is invisible — sometimes, even to us. We help out here and there, and if we’re working pro-bono we might be scrambling for time, which means that sometimes our…
“How Do I Price for Affordability?” and “How Do I Make My Prices More Accessible?” are The Wrong Questions
The only right answer to those questions is “lower your prices”, which can be a disaster for under-earning and start-up entrepreneurs — yet doesn’t necessarily create more economic justice. And economic justice is the point. As a business development coach, I work with seriously principled people. They are specifically committed to building businesses with justice…
What To Do In Overwhelmingly Troubled Times
I’ve been sending this email every few months for several years, to rally people when we’re most despairing. The world should NOT be as it is, and we do have the power to change it. Here’s some deeply practical advice about how each of us can do that, even in the midst of the worst.…
Books I Read in 2020
My 2020 Reading List I read. A LOT. I also get asked a lot for book recommendations, so I decided to wrap up 2020 with a list of all of the books I read (or attempted to read) this year. Some of these books have significantly influenced my thinking and ideas. Maybe they’ll add creative…
How NOT to Get Swamped by It All
No one person can respond to all the need for change. But what each of us CAN do is sharpen our tools and show up to our spots on the wall. We create the most change when we leverage our talents and gifts.
Business Tip for Culture Makers #731: Fonts are a Social Impact Opportunity
We all use fonts in our businesses, so there’s an opportunity make a feminist font choice by selecting fonts created by under-represented typeface designers
FLEB Marketing Tactic #10 Testimonials as Triggers
Client testimonials are not an honest indicator of real outcomes for most people, and you don’t need these unjust social triggers to hit your income goals.
FLEB Marketing Tactic #9 Social Triggers = Social Conditions
Using social triggers as sales devices without evaluating potential impact = leveraging injustice to create profit.
Culture Making (aka Thought Leadership) Means Speaking *Their* Language
Culture Makers and Thought Leaders have a Language Dilemma and it is getting in the way of our work in the world.
Here`s the invisible barrier in our IP & thought leadership:
We are practitioners. We are in mastery. We are in love with our subject matter.
And so we speak Expert.
We speak Nerd.
We forget how to speak People.
And if there`s not a bridge between those two languages, our people won`t be able to hear us, find us or understand that we`ve got things that will help.
Because we`re speaking a different language.
And so we need to understand what the person --who we want to influence or who wants to learn from us-- wants, in their own words.
We need to understand what THEY think the problem is (especially if we`ve come to a different conclusion).
We need to understand what it is they`re trying to learn.
We need to know what`s going on in their life.
We need to know the words that fall out of their mouth and then start using them, ourselves.
We need to know intimately and forensically the person we`re trying to influence or who wants to be influenced by our systems of thought.
And when we`re over here in love with our subject matter, we don`t speak that language anymore.
We speak Expert.
We have to remember how to speak People.
#BridgeTheLanguageGap #ThoughtLeadership #ThoughtLeader #SpeakTheirLanguage #IP #IntellectualProperty #MeaningfulWork #BodyOfWork #WeAreTheCultureMakers
#CultureMakersLanguageDilemma #Externalize #GetYourIdeasOutOfYourHeadAndIntoTheWorld #PutTheThoughtsBackInThoughtLeadership
Jun 10
Most of the people doing the *real* thought leadership work -
the ones in the mix with us, developing new practices, processes, ideas, solutions and challenging industry norms --
would cringe at the idea of calling themselves a thought leader.
Because the dominant narrative around `thought leadership` is about positioning, posturing and clout-chasing.
But that, IMHO, is fake thought leadership. That`s about manufacturing authority rather than earning it with a robust, methodologized, coherent body of work.
(No wonder we cringe.)
True thought leadership -- culture making! -- is about so much more than just standing on a stage or topping Google searches.
True thought leadership is about externalizing your ideas into a meaningful, systematic body of work.
Let`s get our ideas out of heads and into the world --
And let`s put the thoughts back in thought leadership.
#ThoughtLeadership #Externalize #MeaningfulWork #BuildYourBodyOfWork #WeAreTheCultureMakers #FakeThoughtLeader
Jun 9
