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Tag: confidence

Ask yourself these two questions before writing marketing material

1. Who are you writing for? [audience]

Think about the audience you wish to target. What do they want? What do they need? What makes them care? What do you want them to do? What happens if they don’t do anything?

Know who you are writing for and tailor your messages accordingly.

2. What is your purpose? [aim]

To inform
To convince
To persuade
To propose
To invite
To ask
To confirm
To approve
To deny

Only after you have identified your audience and your aim can you produce writing that is clear, efficient, and results in desired outcomes.

What is your sacrifice?

If you don’t have an answer, you don’t love it enough.

If you care, REALLY care about (fill in blank with your: project, partner, job, client), you will sacrifice something. Results don’t come without sacrifice.

You might sacrifice time or quality or money or reputation or fame.

But if you don’t know what you have sacrificed, either you don’t care enough or you aren’t fully aware. And the only way you know if your efforts are worth anything is if you can identify what you have given up and what you have received in return.

Bonus: Read how Nepal has taught me about the sacrifices involved with love.

Two factors to measure success

How do you measure your success, is is the numbers in your bank account, your title at the firm, the number of clients you land in a month? In this moment, do you consider yourself a failure? Or would you describe yourself as a success?

I have written about how we define and measure success and have asked monks and entrepreneurs and academics what they think. So much of our unhappiness stems from comparison and self-worth — I don’t have a house like she does, look at the wife he has, she was promoted so quickly, he’s making six-figures and I’m stuck at five.

It is easier to see the missing pieces. Thoughts about what we do not posses overtake contemplations about what we do. It takes concentration to remember the places from which you came, the lessons learned along the way, the growth that took years and months to master. Ignore the numbers, as Howard Schultz (Starbucks) realized. Happiness is a fluctuating bar.

I’d like to propose a new method of measuring success. Two factors, actually:

1.) Progress.
2.) Satisfaction.

Progress can be measured by revisiting your starting point. Have you moved forward? Has your company/relationship/personal trait improved by some degree?

Satisfaction is felt and requires some honesty on your part. Do you have a sense of accomplishment or reward at the end of the day? Can you look in the mirror with contentment? With pride?

Progress and/or satisfaction.

If you can claim one of these two characteristics, you are a success. If you have both progress AND satisfaction, you are in an excellent position. Keep going.

Are you making a difference to one person?
Are you doing work honestly and with passion?
Are you focused on integrity and vision?
Are you pleased with your efforts?
Are you able to show up day in and day out?

The root of unhappiness lies in your definition of success. It’s worth revisiting what and who you think is successful and why. Maybe you are, too.

“What took you the longest to learn?”

Oprah asks her guests this question on her Super Soul podcasts. A thoughtful pause follows, and the answer is often a mix of wistfulness, courage, sometimes even regret.

How would you answer the same question?
What lesson has taken you the longest to learn?

Recognizing distance

We often consider how far we have to left to go.
Three more days until holiday.
$10,000 to hit our fundraiser.
Two terms left in the fiscal year.
Four more miles in this run.
Six credits to meet requirements.
Yet how often do we measure and appreciate the distance we’ve traveled?
Let the ground you’ve already covered fuel you.