willie jackson

Month: December 2011

  • Don’t be afraid to care more

    Some chase after the right approach and management methodology and degree and book and blog to help them in their pursuit of success, but one simple way to see progress is to just care more.

  • A year or so ago

    Almost a year ago to the day…

    • I had just returned to Atlanta, GA after interviewing for The Domino Project in New York city, with the knowledge that I made the cut
    • I had no idea where I would live, how to get around in NYC, or how I would pay my mortgage in Atlanta and cover housing costs in New York
    • My world seemed alive with possibilities, and I was in no way concerned about the uncertainty of it all

    So, the punch line: it all worked out. Better than I could have imagined. I sold my house, I’ve relocated to New York, and I’m challenged each and every day in the work that I do. As I’ve mentioned on many occasions, moving to NYC was a transformative experience that altered the trajectory of my career and my life.

    I’m so incredibly grateful to Seth and my mentors and my clients and friends who have provided support this year as I stumbled and soared and failed and failed some more.

    I’m especially grateful for a new perspective: if filling out a web form on a whim the day a submission is due results in a year like the one I’ve experienced…

    …what adventures lie ahead now that I know how (and why) to fail?

    And now…

    I’m currently in a role (which I will address in detail at some point, I suppose) where I fail on a regular basis, painfully, publicly, and at the expense of my personal income. I have no choice but to push myself, set my emotions aside, and improve how I make high-stakes, gametime decisions every day.

    There are been high-five worthy successes, and gut-wrenching disasters. Every week. And the only way out of the fire is by going through it, quickly. A younger and less focused version of myself would be tempted to quit or crack under the pressure (actually, this is true for the right-now me as well…), but something about the pain feels right, and I’ll keep plugging away and improving every day.

    (there’s no cute ending here, sorry. hi mom?)

  • Having an opinion

    If you’re trying to earn the respect of an employer, you must divorce yourself from the idea that you’re not allowed to have an independent perspective on how the business is run. As companies grow larger and inefficiencies are magnified, you are actually doing your company a disservice by not speaking up when you spot something being done in a way that wastes precious time and resources.

    If you’re trying to win the business of a prospective customer, one way to differentiate yourself from the competition is by highlighting your unique perspective on the marketplace. If your firm operates by principles like “SEO is evil” or “having Twitter and Facebook accounts are massive misappropriations of client resources” then speak up! It may be tempting to jump at every client request, but far more important in my mind is providing leadership with conviction.

    The same is true in relationships. There’s the prevailing notion that women go after bad boys and athletes and musicians…but I think the attraction (which goes both ways) is a simple gravitation towards people who stand for something.

  • Adopting effective habits

    I have a friend who will get excited about an idea and work 14 hour days for a week until he’s happy with the progress made. I have another friend who won’t make small changes (that will grow his business and careers) to save his life, despite there being the resources and support necessary to influence (and sustain) the changes.

    People who prepare, research, and plan (without taking action) are in some ways the opposite of people who ship, fail, iterate aggressively enough to find success. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with preparation, research, and planning…but I know people who have been “preparing to” do/launch/quit/ship a [project/product/job/idea] since I met them.

    We all have the capacity to make meaningful behavioral and mindset changes, but the likeliness of us doing this decreases every time we take the easy path. Every time we make a smaller promise in secret, hoping we never fail. Every time we plan for months instead of shipping a Minimum Viable Product.

    Not everyone is wired with the habits that bring success, but there’s no law stopping us from emulating effective humans until their positive traits become our own.

  • Driven by Legacy

    One of the reasons I quit my job last year is because the trajectory I was on became more and more divergent from the legacy I wanted to leave. I had no interest in climbing the corporate ladder, giving 18 years and three marriages to the corporate behemoth in exchange for a BMW convertible and big house, and most of all, I didn’t want the lifestyle that came with the corporate grind.

    I didn’t want to be sitting around a Christmas tree 40 years from now with my kids and grandkids, wishing I had spent more time with them while I was toiling away for The Man™ and reflecting on my unfulfilled dreams, regretting I hadn’t tried harder when I was younger (and had nothing to lose).

    And now that my goals are anchored by purpose, making tough decisions is a lot easier. I’ve accepted the fact that there will be tradeoffs right now while I’m hustling, and that it won’t always feel glamorous when I’m adopting the habits and mindset of a winner. And that’s the point.

  • Dealing with ignorance

    Ignorance can be a liability or a powerful asset, depending on how you react to it.

    If you’re anything like me, being exposed to new ideas teaches you, if nothing else, how much you truly don’t know. Winners use this to their advantage and approach new concepts with a childlike curiosity, setting their biases and notions aside in favor of exploration on the way of mastery.

    What’s dangerous is learning how much you don’t know and remaining content to dwell in the same place. In business, this can cause your company or product to become irrelevant overnight. The broader applications of this complacency are even more dire.

    There are different ideas on how to deal with the information available to us, but I think that an insatiable and purposeful curiosity

    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

    -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Sticking to the script

    One of my goals is to write every day, even if it’s only a few lines.

    I’m also traveling right now. In addition to the benefits that writing regularly provides, writing under these circumstances is giving me the following insights:

    1. It is positively asinine to wait until the night before a post needs to go live to write it
    2. The daily habit of writing really does keep the subconscious churning away on ideas
    3. Being in the posture of writing regularly turns you into a keen observer of everything
    4. When you read less, the frequency of insight drops dramatically
    5. When your body needs sleep, writing something of substance is incredibly challenging
    6. Staring at a blank WordPress post screen is at times terrifying
    7. Lists are always the right answer (I think)
    8. It’s worth it

  • Clearly-defined job titles

    …don’t exist everywhere.

    Sure, it would be great if every opportunity and project came with the resources and clarity of purpose to make roles and responsibilities clear, but the reality is that these are often a luxury afforded by established businesses.

    And even then, said titles are often given as a formality rather than out of necessity. Executives and founders and self-starters don’t have clear delineations between what they do and what their counterparts (or employees or secretaries…) do; their job is to get it done, whatever “it” is, and no matter what it takes.

    There’s a marked difference between the person who says “that’s not my job” and the person who doesn’t say anything at all (because what needs to be done is simply done, and there’s no discussion needed).

  • Baked-in delight

    It’s not hard to engineer pleasurable experiences into customer interactions.

    Here’s what people want:

    1. To get what they ask
    2. For you to deliver on your promise(s)
    3. Simple interactions with no curveballs

    Here’s what people won’t tell you that they want (but do):

    1. To be appreciated for their business
    2. To feel like they got a bargain
    3. To be given special treatment

    And here’s what can be done to delight them:

    1. Deliver service faster than you say you will
    2. Extend exclusive offers to valuable customers
    3. Provide good news, positive reinforcement, and genuine gratitude when transactions are processed

    If you build success into your process (timelines you can beat, prices that can be lowered, etc.), you lose nothing. What you stand to gain, however, is tremendous.

  • A posture of gratitude

    I really like Tom’s idea about calling 50 people who supported you this year.

    As with the power of a handwritten thank you note (as compared to an email or text message), personal interactions like this enrich our relationships and inject warmth into the (sometimes impersonal and mechanical) routines of our colleagues.