Rob's Blog

Show, Don't Tell

It’s tough to be in business for yourself. Some friends and family will assume you have no safety net - and they might be right. You’re worried first about survival. Growth is your second concern, and if you’re lucky you may have to worry about managing success. And through it all, you will be hearing about how “entrepreneurs” should also be “thought leaders in your industry.” You will hear about how you must build a “brand voice” for your business. You may even spend too much time worrying about “what people think of you,” when you should be spending that time working on your core business.

It is important to establish a clear voice for your business, but it shouldn’t be your priority. What would you rather do - tell people what you do, or show them? If you can demonstrate excellence, then the results achieved will speak for themselves - your “brand voice” will ring through in your accomplishments. You should continually ask yourself what business you are in, and if it isn’t the “thought leader” business, then get back to doing what you are supposed to do. Leadership is demonstrated, and you can rarely tell someone you will lead them and be successful. Leadership is earned, so earn it with actions, not words.

Keeping your head above water...

Many of my in-laws are professional seafarers. In this modern age I am always impressed by the grit required to seize your existence with the North Atlantic ocean as your essential partner. I was once surprised to learn that most old-school Newfoundland fisherman are completely unable to swim. It's not like they had a neighbourhood pool available for swimming lessons in their childhood, but beyond that, one fisherman explained to me that "if you fall into the cold North Atlantic, you're already dead - swimming will just give you false hope, and extend what's inevitable." Harsh.  

There's a lesson in there somewhere about perseverance, professionalism and focus. Sometimes great opportunity comes with great risk. When that is the case, keep your mind on the job, do what's necessary, and be aware of the ever-present dangers without getting overwhelmed by them. It's a lesson that doesn't seem to apply to most modern occupations, but there are plenty of things that can kill you each day - you just have to get on with it. Gauge your risks carefully, balance hope and caution, and trust that you'll fall on the right side of Darwinism. 

Learn how to learn - or, "getting ahead with self-education."

A 22-year-old University student approached me last week looking for a little career advice. Should he go to College after University to train for a practical skill? Should he use his degree to get a job in a company, and work his way up the ladder from there? Or, should he start his own small business - even though he knows nothing about running a small business?

We talked through what he really wanted to do for a few minutes. Almost in passing, I told him that regardless of what he chose to do, he “could certainly learn what he needs to learn as he goes,” and that “everyone in the working world makes it up as they go along - so you can too, as long as you keep self-educating.”

He looked at me with disbelief, like he was waiting for a punch line. Finally, he blinked and said “no adult has ever told me that before.” His understanding was that formal education was the only path to a good career. Nobody had told him that the primary purpose of a University education is to “learn how to learn.” That’s at least my understanding of what a University education is supposed to do.

Once I got past the shock of being called “an adult” by a 22-year-old, I was left wondering - did I just spill some sort of secret that “adults” aren’t supposed to share? Did I violate some kind of “grownup” code? Did I just let a major secret out of the bag? If so, it’s a pretty ridiculous secret.

To any young adults who may be reading this, here’s the truth: everyone is making it up as they go along. Everyone. Do you think that CEOs go to CEO college? Nope. Did that world leader go to President school? Definitely not. Do all entrepreneurs have post-secondary degrees? Not a chance. Did Drake learn what he knows from any post-Degrassi institution? He did not (I looked it up). And don’t forget - most University professors have no formal training as teachers. Everyone is learning on the fly, and you can too.

Academic credentials are often necessary, and can only earned from academic institutions, but learning is what you really need to get ahead. Learn how to learn, and you will be ready to make up the rest as you go.

Most rock stars are selfish jerks - is that what you aspire to be?

I really dislike the term "rockstar," especially when it's used in a business context - as in "be a marketing rockstar" or "be a human resources rockstar." I know where my dislike of the term comes from - I was an aspiring singer-songwriter from a fairly young age, and I routinely heard the derisive question "what do you want to be - some kinda rockstar?" In hindsight, I should've looked everyone in the eye and said "yes," but that was never my actual goal. Sure, popularity as a musician would have been nice, but "rockstar" seemed like a lifestyle ambition, not a career path - and more importantly, most actual rock stars seemed like selfish assholes. Would you want to be in a relationship with an old-school "rock star?"

I read a blog today where the writer explained what this business application of the "rockstar" term means to him: 

I used the term “Rockstar” to describe someone living their life with high intensity, in their unique way, as the old rockstars once did. I’m sad to say that I don’t see this, these days. People are just surviving, instead of living.

I understand this explanation - the idea is that living one's life uniquely and with high intensity is an admirable pursuit. It is. My challenge is that everyone I used to know that lived and worked as a "rockstar" is now either dead, or living poorly. True rock stars rarely had the chance to get old. Living with unique high intensity can burn out quickly, and it burns many bridges along the way. A few lucky ones made it through "successfully," and we all know their names - but most aren't as talented or fortunate. As the rock star days fade, those who lived the life tend to feel that their best days are passed. Furthermore, they live with regrets about relationships taken for granted, and people they treated poorly in the selfish pursuit of 'living their unique life with high intensity.' It's tough to be sensitive, compassionate and democratic when you're blazing your own path - and if that path turns out to be a dead end, there can be a lot of scorched earth left behind you.

Life can be lived uniquely and with high intensity, but we need a better aspiration than "rockstar." Most rock stars burn out or fade away, and there is a better option.

Living life uniquely and with high intensity is great - but being a dick about it is not sustainable. The odds of failure in any adventure is great, so consider if there will be anybody willing or able to catch you if you fall. If not, ask if the lived intensity would be worth it - especially if it cut life shorter? If you're a sociopath who truly doesn't care about anyone else, then knock yourself out rockstar - but if not, living with much less selfishness is a good investment. This is not survival - it is living with intention and purpose.

A high intensity life doesn't have to be all about you. Personal growth can be found in building up those around you. It can absolutely be found in the thrills and deep fears of parenting. I have discovered that teaching provides intensity, purpose and fulfillment, and it even provides the ever-elusive feeling of "making a difference." Embrace growth, thrills, fears, purpose and contribution - these are the things that define "living," and you don't have to strive for some lofty "high intensity" goal to live them. 

Graduation, retirement, and exciting new beginnings

I'm not that old, but I'm old enough that I have friends who are eyeing retirement. I also have friends who are eyeing University graduation, and while I know which side of the scale I'm closer to, I can see the similarities. Those who are approaching graduation have a world of opportunity ahead of them so vast they can be paralyzed by indecision. The same is proving true of those who are approaching retirement - there's a world of possibilities ahead of them, and there are a thousand reasons why they will explain how those possibilities are unattainable.

There is always something to say "no" to at every moment, but during the big transitions in life, you should be saying "yes" to everything. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both dropped out of University because their companies were already starting to fly. They had something to move towards - something to say "yes" to, and completing their education was going to be a barrier, not a benefit. Graduates and retirees should similarly have something to move towards. The act of graduating or retiring shouldn't be destination but a disembarkation point. If a graduate or a retiree is unprepared for what comes next, they are missing the true meaning of the moment - but if they have something to move towards, they will find it growing quickly on the approaching horizon, and it will deliver inspiration, purpose and meaning.

I didn't finish my Master's degree in English Literature, even though I finished the course work. If I had just submitted a thesis, I would have an M.A. I write 80-page reports all the time now - why didn't I just write the damned paper? I don't know if it would have helped me in life, but I will never know which opportunities I may have missed for not having it. And I was so close. It bugs me that I didn't have the determination to see it through, but any meaning I ascribed to the degree faded once I had a job. It never occurred to me that I might have landed an even better job if I had just invested a few more months in the degree. I didn't have a plan in place for something to move towards - I said "no" instead of "yes," and that probably made a difference.

University degrees open doors, and retirement should open doors too, not close them. Open doors are opportunities for growth, and they are better faced with some careful consideration. The journey pursued to that door's threshold is what defines a person in that moment. Understand where you're going by understanding where you've been, and move purposefully towards something important. At the end of the journey you followed to get to that door, doesn't it seem like a seem like a sin if you don't exit it at a gallop - knowing with complete confidence that you are flying in the right direction? 

Rebranding science...

In the later years of the 2000s, I worked for a beer company that had a fairly successful "light beer" product in Europe, and we considered launching it in Canada too. I was reminded of our brand considerations at the time when I read about Diet Coke's rebranding, which was just announced yesterday. Along with a snappy new can and a series of new "flavours," the Diet Coke folks also introduced a new sweetener to their list of ingredients - at least on the new flavours.

The challenge we had with our European beer product was that its fewer calories were the result of added artificial sweeteners. It's something most consumers expect from diet soda pop, but fewer consumers understand that artificial sweeteners are sometimes added to beer too. Our challenge was that Canadian regulations regarding ingredients disclosure are different than they are in Europe, and our particular sweetener had the most unappetizing moniker "Acesulfame Potassium." Furthermore, Canadian regulations demanded that we print "Contains Acesulfame Potassium" on the front of every can in a typeface that was a minimum of 0.5cm high. That's about a 20pt font.

We didn't launch that formulation into the Canadian market (though an alternate formulation using beet sugar was allowed, and we didn't have to disclose that ingredient). I didn't even need to go to a focus group to make that decision - nobody wants to consume a raw chemical (even though we do it every day), which is why nobody markets under most scientific words. 

As I read about the Diet Coke rebrand, I saw that something else has been rebranded too. "Acesulfame Potassium" is now being added to the new Diet Coke flavour formulations alongside aspartame, but under the snappy nom de guerre "Ace-K." Isn't that special? Ace-K sounds like a James Bond villain - or maybe even Bond's love interest.

Sometimes you just need a better name if you want to sell more stuff. Would you buy a beverage that bore the legend "Contains Ace-K" in 0.5cm text? I hate to be the one to shy away from science, but I don't imagine there are many beer drinkers that want to know which chemicals are added to their beer. Might they be OK with drinking a tall, frosty pint of Ace-K? 

Less can be much, much more... Lightfoot and Canadian history.

Concise communication can be much more impactful than long, detailed bodies of information. I have always felt that the best songwriters can say more in three minutes than many novelists. I remember trying to read Pierre Berton's books "The National Dream" and "The Last Spike" when I was a teenager. I got halfway through the first book, which tells the story of the building of the Canadian railway, before I realized that I already knew the story quite well from Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy." In less than seven minutes, Lightfoot had painted a vivid, emotional picture of the building of Canada's cross-country railroad, and he told the story so well that Berton's book seemed much less vibrant. I never finished either book - it was retelling a story I already knew, and the story wasn't being told as well (and I really like Berton's writing style).

I'm currently reading Nicholas Jennings' biography "Lightfoot," and funny enough, Jennings quotes Pierre Berton about "Canadian Railroad Trilogy." Berton apparently told Lightfoot "You did more good with your damn song than I did with my entire book on the same subject." I like that he said "you did more good." That's what well-told stories should do - make things better, if only in tiny ways.

Well-written, concise communication can cut through clutter and get to the heart of an issue - and it's usually true that less can be much, much more.

Refuse to be bored...

The first day of class was always a tumultuous experience for me as a student, and it's even more so as a University instructor. The combination of excitement, novelty, nervousness and inevitability on that first day is a legitimate rush. Students may seem aloof and disengaged sometimes, but my experience is that students (like most people) get engaged with what they're doing as long as they are trusted, trusting and respected enough to share their interests. I love the process of reaching out to new students to discover common ground between the course content and their goals and experience, building bridges to achieve our shared goals together.

I often share a Zelda Fitzgerald quote at the start of each new course: “She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.” I love the jazz age feel of this quote, and I present it as a challenge for students to take control of each class. Everyone gets bored in class (I sometimes find myself getting bored as I teach), so I encourage students to take control of boredom by participating actively in the discussion. If students get involved and frame their understanding through their own experience, it helps them to learn. The benefit of this shared experience helps peers to learn too - and it's much more fun.

Like most things in life, some extra time and effort invested in learning will make the experience much better, and much less tiresome. Passivity is monotonous and dull - and more importantly, it's unproductive. Don't be afraid to stretch your limits. Embrace the novelty, nervousness and inevitability that life delivers, and you will be more alive for the effort.

One percent.

There is much said about "The 1%" in popular culture, and most of it isn't good. In this context, "The 1%" are the wealthiest people in the world, a class that the rest of us in the remaining 99% will never be a part of. And yet, this "1%" of the population undeniably drives so much action in the world, for better and for worse. Only 1% of the world's population can have a huge impact on you.

Or, to look at in another way, only 1% of the population can have a huge impact on you. Wait, what? 

The fact is that you and/or your business probably only needs to attract 1% of the world's population to thrive. In fact, if you could attract 1% of the world as y0ur customer base, you'd probably be... well, sitting in the wealthy 1%, right?

You don't need to reach for the world and for everybody in everything you do. A very small fraction of any group will be the opinion leaders, thought leaders, and early adopters. Just find your niche. Be confident in who you are, and your audience will appreciate you.

Find the 1% of the world that will understand you. That's your audience. And it's probably more than enough.

 

Trust and respect.

It really isn't that difficult to earn the trust of others. The first step is to be trustworthy of course, but it helps to avoid saying things like "trust me" or "To be honest..." or "believe me." These phrases are key indicators that the speaker is in fact sharing untruths.

For people who tend to be self-centred, a good way to tell if they're lying is when they stop talking about themselves - saying "the system is broken," rather than "I broke the system." Incorrigible liars tend to be narcissists, which is why they are so insistent that people trust and believe them. The truth doesn't matter - only the opinions of others are what they care about.

Statements presented as facts that are clearly incorrect present another level of distrust - especially when those statements related to the speaker's intelligence. If someone tells you they are "like, really smart" the odds are that they aren't. If someone says they are a "stable genius," they're probably actually an unstable dumbass. They may believe they're stable and smart, but that's exactly why you shouldn't trust them. They want your trust and respect, but all they cultivate is distrust and disrespect.

If you are a reasonably smart person, then try to be clever enough to keep it to yourself. Shakespeare wrote that "The fool doth think he is wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool" because the wise ones know there is always more to learn. Shakespeare was a pretty sharp guy - but he would have been the last man to say so. Isn't it interesting that, after centuries, the one thing that remains of Shakespeare is his intellectual work, and almost universal respect?