A couple of days ago I had a conversation with a speaker who said “I’m really good on stage, but I’m not getting booked for speeches as much as I would like to, do you have any suggestions?” My answer is one that he probably didn’t want to hear, but it’s the truth. I said “Your problem is one of two things. Either 1 – you’re not as good as you think you are on the stage or 2 – you’re not marketing yourself the way you need to or as effectively as you need to.” That might be hard to hear, but when you think about it that’s the truth. It’s true not just for speakers, it’s true for all of us. Think about an entrepreneur whose business is not growing in the way that they want it to. It’s either because their product or service
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Effort Is A Skill
On Nov 14 in the NBA the Jimmy Butler saga ended when the Minnesota Timberwolves trader Butler to the Philadelphia 76ers for Robert Covington and Dario Saric. If you aren’t a basketball fan, Butler was demanding a trade and it turned into an ugly ordeal. The interesting thing has been how much better the Timberwolves have been since the trade. A big reason for the uptick is the addition of Robert Covington. Covington is a skilled player but nobody would argue he’s more skilled than Jimmy Butler. What he brings to the table is an intangible that’s hard to measure. He brings energy. He is a guy on the court that plays hard on every play. Cheers on his teammates. Dives for loose balls and his energy is contagious – he raises the collective energy of the team. Here is my takeaway – Effort is a skill. And just like
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How Do You Respond To Crisis?
Last year after only a couple of weeks on the job, UBER CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was faced with a crisis. Government officials in London announced that they would not be renewing Uber’s license to operate in the city. Being shut down and in essence kicked out of one of the most popular cities in the world is a monumental crisis for a company like Uber. How would you respond? Crisis often brings out the worst in us. We react. Get emotional. Say things we regret. Lash out. It’s usually ugly. Instead, Uber’s Chief Executive sent an email to employees that showed composure, humility, emotional control and solution thinking. The part of the email that is most poignant is this: “While the impulse may be to say that this is unfair, one of the lessons I’ve learned over time is that change comes from self-reflection. So it’s worth examining how we got
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