Business Success through Storytelling

The universe is made of stories. Our lives are a series of stories woven together--our own stories and the stories of those around us.

Great leaders--religious, political or business--realize this and are good storytellers. Jesus spoke in parables. Krishna and Rama came to life through the stories they told.

In the business world, many successful top executives are very good storytellers. They entice us with their stories all the time, telling us how they started their businesses, what they stand for and where they are going.

Bill Gates continually told us of his dream of putting a personal computer on every desktop and in every home. That great story inspired Steve Ballmer--and probably others--to drop out of business school and join a small company in the far northwest corner of the U.S., even as Ballmer's mother, not having heard the story, wondered why anyone would ever need a computer.

Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks tells us the story of his trip to Milan and the passion for fresh, richly brewed espresso he discovered there and carried home with him.

Stories of ordinary people accomplishing the extraordinary inspire others to dig deep down and find the energy and passion to do the same. They help us--employees, customers, shareholders--derive meanings for everything a company does.

Stories are easy to tell and easy to remember. Therefore they're easy to spread. A leader can start a good story on its way and watch it take on a life of its own. As it does so, it creates a community. A CEO who has a great story and tells it has a much easier time reaching out to people, connecting to them and creating a sustainable community of them.

We live our lives by the stories we tell ourselves and tell others.

What stories are you telling to yourself, your team, and your customers?

Avoiding skill rot

Skill rot is a very real problem for everyone in the web industry and I have often been confronted with this problem in helping team members develop and reach goals.

You experience skill rot when your skill levels remain the same, while the expected skill levels required from a person in your position keeps increasing, leaving you behind. what can we do to make sure we stay on top of the necessary skills we need, in order to be effective and successful in what we do?

First, determine what skills you are hoping to keep up-to-date. These may be project management, design, development, front end code, server administration; whatever they are, list them in order of your priorities. Always remember that no matter how hard you try, you'll never be the expert on everything. Be selective about what skills best complement your existing abilities, and what you truly need to invest time in learning. Learning new skills doesn't need to be a chore; make these up-skilling tasks an enjoyable part of your routine, and challenge yourself to learn more every month.

"Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, does, and teachers."
— Richard Bach (Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah)

Change The Way You See Work and Change Your Life

Did you ever think there was a better, different way to live? Did you ever think, “Maybe I don’t have to go to a job and work 40+ hours a week, feel drained, wish for more time for yourself or your family, and wonder when the frolic begins?” If so, get ready: your life’s about to change.

When I was a pubescent boy, I woke up every morning with the sun. I opened my eyes, heard birds chirping outside my window, and smiled, thinking about the adventures of the coming day. Fast forward to my last corporate job, when I woke up with the alarm clock, slammed my hand down on the snooze button and laid in bed, a feeling of angst in my stomach, thinking about the eight hours I was about to spend working under fluorescent lights, in a small cubicle, so my boss could take credit for my work and someone else could profit.

Why do we do this to ourselves? When I look back on the time I spent in India Inc., I realize that I didn’t know any better. Despite the entrepreneurial spirit I’ve felt through my entire life, there was a period of time when it simply didn’t occur to me that my life belonged to me and I didn’t have to live according to the narrow path that had been defined for me.

It took carpal tunnel syndrome and an obdurate corporate environment for me to realize that I desperately needed a change. And that’s what it took to remind me of the philosophy my dad taught me as a young boy, something I’d long forgotten: that work is what makes the rest of your life possible.

From this perspective, “work” takes on substantially less meaning, while “life” takes center stage. I like this because it reminds me where my priorities lie. I’d much rather my tombstone read, “He truly lived,” than “He worked a lot.”

It’s easy to say “work makes the rest of my life possible,” but how does it look in real life, and how do you put this into play in your own life?

How it looks in real life:

I wake up each morning, knowing that the day belongs to me. I have a schedule, but I’m not beholden to a boss or supervisor who will dock my pay or fire me if I decide the schedule doesn’t suit my mood that day.
 Then, depending on the day and what I’ve committed to, I may work with clients, do some writing for my blog, or read one of the several books I’m into at any given moment. Aside from scheduled meetings with clients and deadlines, I do what suits my mood the best - if I’m struggling for inspiration for my articles, I spend more time reading. If I’m in the mood to go to the movies, I do. And I’ve structured my businesses so that if I want to get on a plane and fly to South America, England, or New Orleans for a weekend, I can do it without a second thought and my income doesn’t change a bit.

The point is, no day is completely consumed by work, it’s all flexible, and everything I do for “work” is something that I enjoy doing. If I don’t enjoy it, I either don’t do it or I find someone who does and I outsource that work to them.

I’m often asked, “How many hours a week do you work?” Sure, just like Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (a great book to read if you want to get another, similar perspective on this philosophy), some weeks I only work four hours. But if I’m working on a project, I work at least forty. Those are the extremes: most weeks I stay somewhere in the twenty to twenty five hour range. But I can tell you this: I wake up with the sun and the birds chirping, just like I did when I was a boy. I always wake up smiling, and I love what I do.

But I’m not that different from you. I’m not overly lucky and nothing that special has happened that made this possible for me. Virtually anyone can do this.

So how can you incorporate this into your own life?

The ethos comes first. You have to take responsibility for your life and know that it is yours to live in whatever way that you want. Think this is easy? It’s not. This can be one of the scariest things you’ll ever do. But as Seth Godin wrote, “the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe.” So take a risk and believe that your life belongs to you.

Second, figure out your priorities and your goals. What’s most important to you? Are there things you want to do, places you want to see? Maybe you just want more quality time with your family, or want more time to relax- that’s okay. The point is to figure out what’s most important to you.

Third, design a business to suit your lifestyle goals. This is the most challenging aspect of applying this philosophy, because it requires some extra knowledge- what opportunities are out there, how to repurpose what you already know and/or do, how to brand yourself and market your business. There is no one-size-fits-all solution- a business model that works for one person may not be suited to another. Your best bet, the easiest and fastest way to accomplish this, is to work with someone who has successfully made the transition themselves, who knows the opportunities out there, can help you figure out what suits you best, help you put it all together and show you the ropes.

Finally, be prepared to work to get to the point of living the dream. I’m not going to lie to you. It rarely happens overnight. Some people I know have transitioned into this lifestyle (what I call the “Business in Blue Jeans lifestyle”) within a month or two, while others have taken a bit longer. Some of it depends on the industry you’re in and some depends on what you’re willing to put into it and how focused you are. Because the fact is, even though you aren’t working as much or as hard as before, in this lifestyle, when you are working, you need to be really focused.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that when you’re working for a life that you’ve designed, when you love what you’re doing and when you know that you aren’t just putting in the time, everything changes. Change the way you view work, and you’ll completely change your life.