willie jackson

Month: August 2012

  • First hand

    No amount of research or crowd polling or envisioning will ever replace first-hand experience. Sure, buy travel guides and reference materials and inquire of those who have walked your desired path, but expect to forge new trails when you take the plunge—it’s just the nature of life.

    And while you’re at it, a helpful perspective shift might involve moving from “what can I learn before doing this that would mitigate my risk?” to “what can I do to share the most valable insight from this experience to those who need it most?”

    Because with that simple switch, you’ve become a leader. Someone we look to and look up to and need.

    You might not be the first, but you can certainly be the best.

  • Your quitting point

    If all you need is one “yes” (from a VC or professor or customer) then the only question that remains is how many times you can deal with the “no” before giving up, and how deterred you’ll be with each one.

  • Taking a stand

    I think it means so much more than deciding not to go out one night, being a martyr for a cause, or throwing yourself into new pursuits.

    I think it means making a promise to yourself (an hour of yoga in the morning, twenty pushups a day no matter what, a mini-vacation once every three months for the rest of your life, volunteering on Saturdays…) and keeping it.

    The last part is the hardest, but we’re the sum of our habits and the promises we keep. The people I respect the most (and consequently, the most successful) are those I see keeping their promises.

    The ones they make to themselves.

  • You don’t need advice and tactics

    …you need to decide that you’re willing to do whatever it takes.

    And then you get started.

  • I didn’t even know you did that

    I’ve been accused of being unnecessarily modest when talking about myself, and there’s probably some truth to that. There’s more to it, but what it comes down to is the fact that I don’t derive my sense of self-worth from external praise and regard.

    What I’ve tried to make a conscious effort in perfecting (and testing), however, is the narrative around my work. I think it’s possible to keep the world apprised of what you do without waving your accomplishments around like a banner.

    This has become more important to me as I made the switch from clueless freelancer to less clueless team leader, as there is an urgency in (real) business that must always be present.

    More broadly applicable is the fact that our networks have needs, and that those connected to us would much rather hire us (or someone we recommend) for a job rather than a stranger. If we don’t talk about what we do, how can we serve those around us when our opportunity to help arises?

  • What do we call them, then?

    Today I’m at Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, delivering a talk called Rethinking Careers. I wrote about the idea once before, and it’s turned into a presentation.

    The biggest takeaway I hope to leave people with is that regardless of the employment type or status (corporate employee, startup founder, freelancer…), it’s our responsibility to find the intersection of:

    1. our specialty (something that we actually know)
    2. our interest (something that doesn’t make us want to die)
    3. our value demonstration to the market (something people will pay us for)

    Also: this work never ends. We have to remain in a posture of finding out where that intersection is, and to courageously seek it out.

  • A tool for everything

    I discovered Workflowy the other day and was pretty excited. Finally, a simple todo list app that works like my brain does. Just like the product video says!

    And then I realized that it, like many other tools that came before it, quickly turn into a crutch. A distraction, and an excuse. What I need isn’t another app.

    What I need isn’t even a devotion to plain old pen and paper for my todo list.

    What I need is to face each day courageously and purposefully, prioritizing what’s important over what’s urgent, and to take my work seriously.

  • I’m fine, thanks

    I was recently featured in a documentary called I’m Fine, Thanks. Fueled by a successful Kickstarter project, Adam, Grant, and their team hit the road on a journey across America to film the stories of a few people with stories to tell.

    It’s hard to grasp how much was filmed, edited, and shipped on time, but the final render of the film was exported at 3pm on the day of its initial screening in Portland at WDS. I was fortunate enough to be there for the screening, and I’m incredibly proud to have been involved in such a powerful project.

    What’s it about?

    I’m Fine, Thanks is a new, feature-length documentary about complacency. It’s a collection of stories about life, the choices we all make, and the paths we ultimately decide to follow.

    We examine the factors that motivate and drive our major life choices. And, most importantly, whether or not the path we follow through life – and the habits we form based on that path – are truly connected with who we really are as individuals.

    This is a movie about the moment people realize the life they’re living is not the life that’s true to their heart… and, as a result, what they decide to do about it!

    To me, it represents the story of my generation: a falling away of dated advice about careers, and the emergence of a new order. The story is one that needs to be told, and it’s a topic that’s close to my heart.

    The video will be available soon (this month) and available for a few bucks. I hope you’ll take a look.

  • Speaking at Affiliate Summit East

    On Sunday, I delivered a presentation called Inside Out: A Web Performance Philosophy to a group of affiliate pros as a part of a panel at Affiliate Summit East here in NYC.

    I knew my material cold, it was just a question of how to present it in a way that resonated with a largely non-technical audience.

    The punchline is that it was far too technical, although packed with relevant and valuable information. Mid-way through my presentation, I changed gears and made an effort to speak the version of English that non-engineers would appreciate.

    https://twitter.com/77andSunny/status/234695849047887873

    It went over well.

    Feedback was generally positive, but the lesson—which is fundamental—was clear: know your audience, know your audience, know your audience…

    Something odd

    Fun fact: I uploaded my presentation to SlideShare and despite not being designed for consumption without my talk..

    1. It was featured on the SlideShare homepage
    2. It was quickly viewed over 100 times
    3. It’s now approaching 1,000 views as of this post

    I’m not being unnecessarily modest when I say that the presentation isn’t particularly interesting or valuable without the talk, so I’m wondering if this is normal. Would love your thoughts if you have experience with this.

    And if you’re interested, you can check out the presentation below:

    Email and RSS subscribers might need to use this link.