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How to Stick to Goals and Knowing When to Ditch Them

It all starts with Why. Simon Sinek explained that in 2009. Why do you do what you do?

It’s a question not all of us can answer. For a long time I couldn’t. I just sort of put my head down & worked my tail off. I was rewarded for it, but in hind sight I was just following orders like a good worker bee.

In the past I’ve written about quitting on your goals and when that’s an honorable thing to lean into. But recently, I have found myself sticking with some goals that I may have quit in the past.

There’s a big difference in quitting because you’re uncomfortable and quitting because you don’t want to commit.

It comes down to your WHY

Knowing why you set your goals and having conviction about them will make all the difference. If you’re not in love with a goal, why would you push through hard times to achieve it?

If you’re not in love with a goal, why would you sacrifice anything for it?

If you’re not in love with a goal, why are you pursuing it?

If you’re not in love with a goal, why bother?

Answering these questions before you ever put a goal down on paper will help you decide whether or not it’s worth sticking to when times get tough.

Pro football players decide whether or not a season of brutality is worth a potential Lomdardi Trophy in the off-season while life is calm. They don’t decide whether it’s worth it during pre-season camp while their bodies are aching (unless you’re Brett Favre of course).

If you know why you’re getting yourself into something, you will have more conviction to stick to it than if your goal is randomly plucked out of the air. Or worse, if you’re setting certain goals for the wrong reasons.

The Why Behind My Goals

In January I published a few of my goals to make them public knowledge and keep myself accountable. I picked these because they matter to me and will help shape me into who I want to be. I have other financial and personal goals, but these are a couple that I want to put meaning behind to illustrate my point.

Build a TV Stand –

I used to work in the furniture industry and my company sold “cookie-cutter” furniture by the truckloads. Literally AND figuratively. All the furniture in my house came from that company and now that I have divorced myself from them, my furniture reminds me of those days.

Since I want to move on and really enjoy expressing my creativity through wood-working, I am in the laborious process of building a TV stand.

If I give up on the TV Stand before it’s finished, it’s like I’m still attached (yes, that may sound cheesy to you) to the company I’m moving away from. Plus, as a creative person, I do not get satisfaction from starting a bunch of projects without finishing them.

I get satisfaction from shipping finished works.

I talked about creating quality work with this project and it has given me it’s share of headaches to smooth over. But ultimately I’ve stuck to this goal now I’m almost ready to finish it.

Write an eBook –

I have a BHAG to write a book. As in, a hardcover book that tells a very specific story I was fortunate enough to experience. The problem is, I’m an average writer at best (if you agree, you don’t need to tell with me in the comments, just silently nod your head). I need as much practice as I can get so I don’t botch the opportunity I have to share it with the world.

Writing, editing, & publishing an eBook is nowhere near as big of a feat as publishing my book.

However, it’s like the kid who starts out surfing 2 foot waves. Once he masters those, he can move on to the 3-4 footers. And then he can take a trip to Costa Rica and attack some 6-10 footers. He doesn’t just jump into Pipeline on his first day paddling out.

I started really small by journaling. Then I began to publish my work for the world to see on this blog. Now I’m getting into the eBook. They’re all baby steps.

I have to get this under my belt to continue building towards publishing my big book next year.

This too has given me plenty of doubt and frustration. But after I got the ball rolling, I’m able to crank out a page every day I sit down to write.

What you won’t see is the nearly 10 pages of scrapped work left in my journal. I didn’t give up because this is important to me and I know WHY I’m pushing through those dips.

Quitting My Own Company

I see now what Seth Godin was talking about in The Dip. He spoke extensively on why is’t OK for us to quit. Quit the things that don’t make sense, quit the dead-ends before you waste anymore time.

In the early part of 2014 I had goals to start my own company, hire sales people, create an awesome service, and forge my own path. I started with current clients and laid out prospects, revenue goals, hiring goals, and even put a business plan on paper (and by paper I mean a marker board in my bedroom).

Within 45 days of making all those plans and carefully setting all of those goals, I quit them – all. I was offered a position that had more upside than my current path. The best case scenario in both situations looked completely different.

I weighed having my own company versus working as an independent contractor for an established company.

My business plan was held together by shoelaces & duct tape. Although I knew the business could evolve in the future, there were a lot of dead ends on the horizon.

On the other hand, the company I currently work with has unlimited potential and I entered in on the ground floor of a budding powerhouse. The guys respect me and they’re the kind of people that follow the Jim Collins train of thought, they just want the right people on the bus right now.

To them, I’m one of the right people. And on my end, I’m pumped about where that bus is headed.

Good thing I was willing to quit my own goals to work with guys that care about me and want me to be part of something so cool.

I could see I wasn’t in a dip, my situation wasn’t going to get better, and this wasn’t just a hard time I had to push through. I was on a dead end road.

Just like so many of you, I was on a path that I knew didn’t lead anywhere I wanted to be. I hopped off that train, why haven’t you?

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When was a time that you stuck with a goal? Leave me a comment or chat with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear from you. Have a great week!

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What does it take to be great?

Seth Godin is a person of great influence on me. He has written a dozen best-selling books, is known as a thought leader in today’s marketplace, and he blogs every single day.

One of Seth’s “platforms” (I hate that word) is that showing up is underrated. I have heard him say that multiple times in blog posts, podcasts, and in books. Seth has been writing his on his blog for over 10 years. Every day.

Think about that consistency and that commitment for a minute: 10 Years. What have you done consistently for the past 10 years?

He attributes part of his success to his unwavering commitment to showing up every day. I cannot argue with him. I found it extremely difficult to write 100 blog posts over the course of 4 months. But I didn’t just show up and voila I was able to write. I had to work hard to get those words out.

Although I’m far from great, I have some ideas on how we achieve greatness over the long-term inspired by Mr. Godin.

Showing Up vs. Greatness

In football there were lots of guys who could walk onto the field without knowing the gameplan. They would make a few great plays that would impact the game and they would be celebrated. Nice job boys!

But they weren’t consistent plays. They were flashes of sporadic lighting that weren’t replicable. And when one of those players was asked how they did it, their answer usually stemmed back to a guess of some sort. Organized sports is rarely about guessing what to do.

100% of the guys that produced those flashes of greatness didn’t play for more than a year or so. They would fail out, lose interest, or get kicked off the team for not showing up to a workout or a meeting. They couldn’t be there consistently in any way, much less on the field when it counted. When we needed them.

But each of them got a shot to start ahead of the guy who just showed up every day. The guy who was there every day earned some respect and a chance to compete, but only if he showed up AND worked his tail off. Even that didn’t earn him the right to start.

There are people who can sporadically show up and produce greatness. But it’s not consistent. Nor is it replicable. And there is a terrible amount of luck involved.

Showing Up is Crucial

When we show up every day we give ourselves the opportunity for greatness. We aren’t guaranteed a thing, but it gives us the opportunity to be great.

I have a much better chance of having a blog post go viral if I write 500 of them as opposed to the guy who writes 1. I can’t hit a hole-in-one if I’m not on the golf course. And I can’t learn to surf if I’m not in the water.

Showing up is one of the first stages of commitment. The first stage is to set a goal. I set a goal to write every day for 30 days when I first started the blog. I knew that I had to get in the routine of showing up if I ever wanted to write a book.

Now on my 140th blog post, that goal setting has paid off. But the daily commitment is as hard as ever!

Showing up on Day 1 is hard. And it gets a little easier on Day 2. But Day 45? Your commitment is put to the test. Day 100? It’s still tough to dedicate time to something every day. So I cannot imagine what someone like Seth, whose blog posts range upwards of 4,000, feels when he sits down every day.

I’m all for sharpening the ax, we all need breaks. But I’m referring to the times when we haven’t allowed ourselves the time away. For example, I committed to blogging every weekday. I allowed myself the weekends to pull away after that initial 30 day sprint. But during the week I write every single morning whether I get something posted or not.

But is that enough?

There are very few places that reward hard work more than athletic competitions.

Back on that football field, the guys that showed up every day weren’t just named the starters because they were on time and were warm bodies. The best guys that consistently showed up and got better were awarded a majority of the playing time.

Showing up is only step one. Lots of guys make it through training camp and get to practice every day. But the best show up and get better every day.

Showing up doesn’t mean you are owed anything. Showing up just gives you the opportunity to write, to get better, to learn, or to grow.

But you have to be willing to work at it when you get there. People always say the first step is the hardest, and I agree. But that 140th step is almost as hard as the first. .

Showing up and producing doesn’t get easier like most things we do with repetition. Think about the differences in driving to work 100 times versus creating 100 pieces of art. Big gap, eh?

Which is why Seth says showing up is so underrated. We’re used to having things get easier the more we do them. But that difficult commitment is why we look at people with consistency and call them great.

A Greatness Hack

An amazing thing happens once we’re in our chairs or on the practice field. The hardest part of the commitment is over.

People often say that the hardest step in any journey is the first one. Well once you have made that first step, it’s harder to turn back. You are here, you might as well put in the work!

When you are faced with writing, it’s harder to turn away from a blank page with a pen in hand than if you never sat down. And it’s harder to walk off the practice field once you’re dressed than it is if you never got to the locker room.

Showing up does not equal automatic work. It just means you’re building momentum.

What does it take to be great?

So we can’t just show up blank stare like a bump on a log.

The most celebrated people are not the ones that just show up and wait for things to happen. Nor are they the ones that only bring their A-games when they feel like it.

The ones that make a difference, the Linchpins, are the ones that produce lighting by trying to make it happen ever day.

They show up and work hard, day in-and day-out. They produce the lightning, but not because they are lucky. They produce it because they were there to capture it when it strikes.

You are more likely to come up with a great idea if you produce 10,000 “regular” ideas rather than just 1 of them right? So show up every day and bring your best.

Greatness is not some mystical formula. It’s a process. And that process starts with showing up every day.

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What are you thoughts on achieving greatness?

I look forward to hearing from you below or on Twitter (@mikemccann3), have a great day!

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Giving Up on Your Goals: When Quitting is Good

I’m a big advocate of goals. I use them, I teach them, and I encourage others to incorporate them. But as of recently, I’ve had some feedback from readers about giving up on your goals. Many of us will start on a journey towards a goal, and for some reason or another we have this urge to quit. At what point can we give ourselves permission to quit?

Many of you know me outside of the blog, you know I’m not a quitter. I’m not someone that just rolls over and gives up on anything I do. So I initially avoided this topic for a bit, until I realized I had a perfect story to help illustrate my point. There are times we need to quit and move on to bigger and better things.

The End of an Era

At the end of 2012 I was having some reservations about my work at the furniture company. Decisions were being made that I didn’t agree with and there seemed to be some sort of power struggle, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. I am an easy going person and I had been the bridge to mending a lot of communication issues in the past within the company. But something just didn’t seem right for a while.

Then there came the fateful night that I cracked. It was an argument over something on which I normally had a wealth of input. My opinion was silenced and I was told my point of view was not worth anything, so save my breath. I’d never had such a professional smack in the face. It was on that night late in January of 2013 that the first thought of quitting Atlantic Bedding and Furniture crossed my mind.

But how could I quit? I helped build this thing from the ground up? I poured my heart and soul into the company for over 6 years and helped recruit or hire over a 1/3 of the people that worked there. This was my company! I always treated it that way at least…

From that night (I slept about 3 hours over the next 36) until the day I received an email prompting my responsive resignation, I couldn’t ever shake that thought of quitting. I’d never given up, I’d never quit on something. I wrestled with that choice for many months, even after I sent in the resignation.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and from this view I can clearly see that I made the right choice by quitting.

Real Reasons

We all have different reasons for quitting something. Mine was because I didn’t want to be in that environment, I knew it was toxic to me and I shouldn’t stay there. I didn’t know what was next, but I knew I had lots of opportunity. I had lots of connections and a great level of education mixed with experience, so the upside was there. I had to walk away from many goals that my life revolved around for years.

Sometimes if a goal consumes your life you need to reevaluate whether or not it’s worth the sacrifice. I determined that all I was sacrificing was not worth it.

At other points I thought it was, and I don’t regret those, but I wouldn’t make the same choices today. I missed out on a lot of family time, friend time, and personal time while I worked towards my dreams, but I was ready and willing to make those sacrifices back then.

But not everyone can make a leap like that on their own, many times we have to be pushed. Some people believe that as one door opens, another one opens. Some people see the next door open even before the first door is finished closing.

Some people look to their spiritual side for direction in times like this. Prayer has always helped me through trying times like these. For others it may be meditation or talking with mentors.

Whatever your decision is, make sure to take your time before dropping a goal. Be sure to take your time and ask yourself if you can live without this thing or this accomplishment before you completely make the break.

Quitting Early & Quitting Often

Tim Ferriss and other entrepreneurs talk about quitting all the time. They say it’s a good thing.

I mostly agree with what they’re talking about. If you aren’t having fun or whatever you’re doing is not working, just quit it and move on. But where I’m fundamentally different than these people is the start of the process.

I talked at length about goal setting and how we should reflect on our past before making goals for the future. If we take the time to really think about what we want to do and set forth a plan for that next goal, there is a much smaller chance we’ll want to quit it. But if we haphazardly jump from goal to goal without really planning things out, we’ll definitely quit a lot of stuff before we are able to see it through.

Made-Up Reasons

Many of us start off towards our goals strong. We are enthusiastic, we are motivated, and we are focused. Then The Resistance sets in. The Resistance, as outlined by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, is that voice in your head that says, “You’re not good enough! Who are you to accomplish that?” and if you aren’t motivated by your goals and the people around you, you’ll begin to believe it.

Some of us may not get that sort of voice talking to us, but maybe they get are overthrown by their Lizard Brain. Seth Godin describes the Lizard Brain as that urge inside of us to avoid the most important work. We’ll settle on cleaning the house instead of writing our novel (guess who does that one), we settle on answering emails instead of mentoring our new employee, or we’ll even convince ourselves that it’s too cold outside to train for that upcoming race.

giving up on your goals

If either of these pops up, we must shut them down. The Resistance and The Lizard Brain have stopped people in their tracks while well on their way to accomplishing some of their greatest works. When you recognize them creeping up, find that accountability partner I talked about and ask them to help you stay focused. Remind yourself of why you started, don’t give in! When you recognize it and acknowledge it, you are half-way to overcoming it.

Push Pause

Sometimes we are able to give up on our goals momentarily. Think about the college athletes that have gone back after years in the pros to finish their college degree. They just put their dream on pause and came back to it when they were ready.

I talked about pausing on projects a while back to clear your mind. Sometimes those pauses may take years or decades to sort themselves out. Sometimes we may come up on something that we’re truly unprepared for. Being unprepared and being fidgety a la The Resistance, is totally different. It is OK put that goal off to the side until you are more prepared to attack it.

Don’t be afraid to fail

I’ll wrap with this: Don’t be afraid to fail. Trav and I were talking about how proud we are of Epic Day even though we technically failed at making money. We put ourselves out there and we jumped at that goal of starting a company. No, we didn’t make it, but we sure learned a lot in the process.

You know what that means? I’ll be much more prepared the next time I’m ready to make that leap. I can’t tell you exactly when you should walk away from your goals, but I hope this has provided some good thinking points and an outsiders perspective for you.

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Have you ever given up on a goal? Were you filled with relief or regret? Leave me a comment below or chat with me on Twitter.

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How Making Little Bets Will Make Us Big Winners

Many of us have had to go through some sort of transformation in our lives. Maybe it is a personal ‘version upgrade.’ Maybe it is new career that made us grow. Maybe it is the healing of ourselves after a breakup. In any of these situations, we never just wake up and say, “Hello world! This is the new me, get used to it!”

Instead, these transformations that we go through require us to make many little decisions. It’s the ‘body of work’ of our decisions that will make up who we are resolving to become. We don’t just start eating healthy one day and lose weight. We make one decision to have a salad for lunch, then we decide to get enough sleep the next night, then we throw out all the carbonated drinks, and the string of decisions get longer. As that string of decisions gets longer and more consistent, the deeper we go through a transformation.

Inspiration

I heard Jason Surfrapp (also known as Jason Sadler) talked about this on a recent podcast I listened to and it helped spark this post. He said that we’re all faced with decisions and the decision to do anything significant with our lives requires us to make some sort of bet. We may lose, we may fail, but if we don’t make that bet we’ll never know.

He goes on to say that we all start with small bets. When we make a small bet and win it, we’re more likely to make another one, sometimes a larger one. As we get comfortable making these little bets, we’re able to put ourselves out there more and more. We’re used to that uncertainty because we’ve already been there. Sometimes we stumble, but that just means we weren’t ready or we need to go another direction. But nothing happens when we don’t pick a direction (see what I did there?) and move in it.

Decision to Act

When we’re faced with decisions, our will is tested. Sometimes the decisions start hard when we make a choice to change. Other times, when we’re hit with a pink slip or a significant other breaks our heart, its even more painful to start on the path to change. But the more we stick to this path of growth, the easier the decisions get. The more ‘little bets’ we make, the more comfortable we are with our actions and the easier it is to stick to our commitments.

Big Bets

Don’t get me wrong, some decisions are more important than others. But those decisions don’t necessarily pop up in our faces at the beginning of the journey. Seth Godin often talks about how he’s built such a following over the years because his body of work is so vast, not because he wrote a great book. And the same goes for us, it’s the ‘body of work’ in our decisions that make up who we are.

Picture this: Let’s say a person is faced with 2 job offers and one leads to more freedom, but less money. Said person has been making decisions to put their family first for months. They started clocking out at 5 to take the kids to soccer practice. They started staying home on the weekends to be with the family. They eventually left their last job, not because of money, but because of the constant pressures to be in the office aka away from their family. And now, from the outside, it looks to everyone else like this person is facing a huge decision to either make less money and have more freedom or to have more money but work even harder. It’s an easy decision for the person that has been crafting their life around their family for the past few months.

For me, a perfect example is the book I’m writing. I decided a year ago that I had it in me to write a book. That’s it, end of story, right? WRONG. People won’t see the decisions to spend early mornings writing. The decisions to spend days crafting the story and editing it to be exactly what I want. People won’t see the decisions to put in tedious research or about the decisions to interview key people for the story. All they’ll see is the finished product and talk about my decision to write the book.

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What little bets are you making? Leave a comment below or chat with me on social media about little decisions crafting our lives, I’d love to hear from you.

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Have a great week!

9 Startup Lessons I Learned

My recent 5 months have been filled with the struggles of an entrepreneur as I worked with my partner, Travis (Trav for short), on Epic Day Outdoors. We’ve gone through many iterations of the ‘business’ and just around the end of the year we parted ways (I use quotations here because we never technically made any money). We separated amicably and it’s for the best. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put in the time he was going to in the coming months, and throughout the entire process we’ve put our friendship above the business.

All that being said, it was not in vain. We both learned a number of lessons from this enterprise and the experience we gained was worth well more than the time and money we invested. Here is a compilation of startup lessons learned over the past 5 months from Trav and me.

1.) Pivoting

When we first started I wanted to strangle him for changing his mind every other day, or so it seemed. We’d make headway, then we’d change direction. We’d have a breakthrough, then we’d see a roadblock and pivot. We’d talk about strategy, then we’d go the opposite path. I was frustrated, but in hindsight this is what we needed to do. If you’re starting a business (or you have a business), don’t be afraid to cut your losses and move to the next project if what you’re doing doesn’t make sense. If we had stuck with all the things we pivoted from, we’d have wasted more time and money than we did. I had to learn to go more with the flow and be open to change.

2.) Remote Work is Difficult

We realized quickly that communication was key for us and since we live in different states, we had some obstacles to overcome. If we were going to make anything worthwhile happen, we would need to be in constant communication with each other. We G-chatted, we used Google Hangouts, we’d text, and we’d talk on the phone every day to make sure we were on the same page. And that still wasn’t enough.

Remote work is great, but for what we were doing we needed hyper-communication. I think remote work can (and should) be used as often as possible, but there are just some situations that need face-to-face communication. Had we been more stable and known our end goal(s), we would have been more successful with our remote work.

3.) Outsourcing

I had always heard and read about outsourcing and the powers of internet, but I’d never experimented with them until we needed help at Epic Day. I played with websites like Fiverr.com for logos, social media help, and even key word research with some great results (most of the time). I learned that I can get help on things quickly and inexpensively if I just go look for it.

4.) Goal Setting

Yes, I write about goal setting and I preach it all the time, but we slipped away from this towards the end of our run and it was obvious how much it affected it. I learned the importance of keeping those goals right in front of us. We lost track of them after a while because we thought we were OK without them, WRONG. Be sure to keep your goals right in front of you all the time so you know what you’re working for each day!

5.) Transparency

Trav and I came into this as open as possible. We laid all our cards out on the table and there was never any questioning of what the other person was doing or what they had in mind. We did our best to be open and honest with each other and as a result we had very few, if any, squabbles (heated debates, maybe).

When we operate with full transparency, we are able to move faster. There is no question of what the others know about, it’s all on the table to begin with and we don’t have any secrets.

6.) Podcasting

I learned how to record and produce a podcast, and it wasn’t that difficult for us to get 13 episodes strung together. This was for the two of us to get together and recap our thoughts and major happenings each week. It was an experiment that became part of our weekly communication and helped us get on the same page more often than not. If you are into that sort of thing, check it out here on iTunes.

7.) There Are No Handouts

As I came into this, I didn’t know how to do a lot of things: start an email campaign, produce a podcast, pay for promotions on StumbleUpon, etc. etc. etc. And more importantly, nobody was going to teach me.

Fortunately, we live in an age where anything you want to find is on the internet. Every other video on YouTube is a “how-to” guide of some sort and every blogger in the world has a site they want you to come learn from. If you want to find out how to do something, there is no excuse, it’s on the internet. I know that no matter what I do next, I’ll always be able to find a way to do it (or improve it) and this venture helped me discover that truth.

8.) Start Small & Build It

As cliche as it sounds, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither was Epic Day. Trav and I are confident that his next version of the product, EpicDay.tv, will be the best one yet. And it’s taken us this long to noodle through, as he would say, to this rendition of the product. But this is his baby now, and it’s his to focus on and build from here. We’ve started from scratch and he’s got to constantly add to the product to make it something special. Seth Godin says “showing up is underrated” and Trav has to follow that now, he’s got to show up each week to make his product better.

9.) You’ll Never Know if You Don’t Try

We learned to put ourselves out there. I talked about facing challenges a few days ago and this is exactly what I meant. If we never would have tried, we never would have learned all this. If we would have let our fear of failure get the best of us, we never would have put ours butts on the line like this. Fear is going to happen, it’s about how we face it that defines us. We didn’t back down and we’ve been rewarded with very valuable, applicable lessons that we can take into any new situation.

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How can you apply these lessons to your situation? Leave a comment below or chat with me on social media about what you took from this, I’d love to hear from you.

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Have a great weekend!

Facing Challenges Head On

Good Times

I have been fortunate to spend the weekend with friends that I have not seen for a long time. I love it when you are able to pick up the old relationships right where they left off. One of the conversations I had was one of facing challenges and what to do next.

My friend knows what he should do, but its scary. He will receive criticism equal to a public flogging if he chooses to do this. But it’s not for the critics, it’s for his own personal growth. We’re all on a journey and this should be the next step in his. It’s one decision that will affect the rest of his life.

When I talk to him about it, I see what happens, because we have all done the same thing. The decision to go is scary and there are a number of unknown variables that are involved. But those unknown variables are exactly why we need to do these things. We need to face those unknowns to challenge ourselves.

The Hardest Part

Steven Pressfield calls it “the resistance.” Seth Godin says it’s caused by our “lizard brains.” I think it’s something deep within us that wants us to stay comfortable. Anytime we are faced with a challenge that we know will push us to our limits (physically, mentally, spiritually, or other) we always ask ourselves “Do I have what it takes?”

That’s a hard question for many of us to answer, especially when we’re faced with the unknown. It can bring on anxiety and cause us to take a good hard look at ourselves. If we’re going into a new adventure, how do we know if we have what it takes since we’re never experienced it? We don’t, but that’s why we are able to grow from these experiences!

That thing we were so worried about isn’t as scary when we go right up to it and stare it down. We have a tendency to build things up in our minds to make challenges larger than they really are. And when we get through them, we see that it wasn’t so bad. We gain the confidence that will help us go into the next unknown adventure.

FAILURE

Life is a journey and it’s not about always succeeding. Some of the most successful people I know have a lot of scars. They have failed a lot of times, but we never see those from the outside. We only see the successes and that’s what we compare ourselves to.

But when we get to know those successes, we find out that those successes are often spawned from those scars. We cannot let the apprehension for failure, that is not even certain, stop us from trying.

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What challenges are you facing that you need to take on? Leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter!

Have a great day!

A Linchpin and a Cup of Coffee

Aaaand Scene

As I went through the Starbucks drive through in Neptune Beach, FL the other day, I had a lot on my mind. I was distracted and not necessarily in a good way. As I was heading to see my dad, I pulled through and ordered a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte – I’ve been trained well.

As I pull up to the window, the young guy at the window is smiling at me like he’s had 4 shots of espresso in the last hour. He’s as positive as can be and I can’t help but courteously smile back. I pay, get my coffee, and right as I begin to pull out he spots something in my passenger seat.

Half-joking Starbucks bro: “I see you’ve been cheating on us, eh?”
Sheepish me: “Uh…Um…No! I mean, yes, but it was because I was traveling and there wasn’t a Starbucks…”
Bro: “Haha it’s OK, you’re here now! Have a great day!”
Me: “Haha will do, you too. Merry Christmas!
Bro: “Merry Christma…..”

I was caught off guard, big time. He spotted a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup in my car from the day prior. I stopped on the way to Florida and Dunkin was the chief coffee supplier in that particular fueling station.

Customer Loyalty

This bro knew that the brand he represented had such a cult-like following that he could get away with a statement like that and I would get the joke! I loved it, I was blown away by his ability to think on his feet and make me laugh from a drive-thru. Would he be able to do that if he worked at a McDonald’s? Hardly.

Starbucks Bro didn’t need to know that I regularly have Starbucks and that’s my coffee spot of choice in my hometown. All he knows is that the average Starbucks drinker swings by 18 times per month. He knows his customers are loyal and he has a bond with them, even if they’re not one of his regulars. He can make jokes like that an not make people feel uncomfortable. He read the situation very well and acted quickly to make me remember this interaction so much that I wrote about it.

A Linchpin

This type of interaction is the work of a Linchpin. If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of Seth Godin’s work. One of my favorite books of all time is Linchpin. I think everyone should read it, I promise it’s applicable to your life.

Seth defines a Linchpin as someone that is indispensable: the server that has an ability to calm customers and gets along with all of the kitchen staff during rush hour. The doorman that always brightens everyone’s day, no matter what. The VP that treats everyone in the organization the same from top to bottom and goes above and beyond the call of duty. These are people that bring their best selves to work. They don’t just serve coffee and smile, they create a WOW experience. Starbucks bro, thanks for creating an unforgettable experience!

Can we Create Linchpins?

The short answer is no. But we can encourage this type of behavior in our workplaces. When someone does something that is out of the normal, encourage them or thank them to let them know their work is recognized. We can do our best to hold those people in high regard that don’t just punch in and punch out.

And finally, we can invest in our people. When we invest in our people, they want to give more. Starbucks has great continual learning programs, it’s not a surprise that I had this sort of interaction. When we invest in our people, they repay us by shining to our customers.

What can we do to bring our best selves to work? What can we do to create unforgettable experiences for our customers and co-workers? What can we do to encourage the work of Linchpins in our organizations?

I’d love to hear your experiences with Linchpins in different situations, leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter.

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Christmas is tomorrow!

I am very thankful to have each of you reading my blog. Writing is fun for me and I hope that I am bringing each of you value!

Merry Christmas!

Blogger Meetup: How to leave the Comfort Zone behind

I’m not sure what I expected to get from this blogger meetup

I kept hearing that in order to have a highly trafficked blog, networking with other bloggers is necessary. I didn’t really know why, but I figured it was because we could send traffic to each other from time to time. After Googling “blogger meetup + Charleston” I landed in a Meetup group set for Barnes & Noble on 12/5/13. I didn’t know what to expect from the situation, but I was hoping to get some tips on how to improve my blog and I was just haughty enough to think I could give some out too.

I was a little nervous, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. I was about to go on a ‘date’ with 6 strangers (that’s how many RSVP’d) and share with them a personal project that I’ve been caring for like a child. I have been working on this blog a little bit each day since I started it back in August, and now I was about to open it up to be scrutinized by people who have been doing this longer than me… I felt like I was about to go watch game film back in my CSU days and Coach Staggs was going to rip me for something I didn’t see.

Getting out of the “Comfort Zone”

For years I have heard that we need to constantly get out of our comfort zones in order to make progress. I taught a guest lecture at CSU a few weeks back and asked the 2 football players in the room if they had ever gotten better at an easy practice. They both shook their heads “No.” We only get better in difficult situations.

The same theory applies to our everyday lives. When we constantly push ourselves to try new things and go out on limbs, we are constantly pushing to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Nobody has ever won an award for coloring in between the lines. We only get better when we get out of our comfort zones.

What actually happened

I arrived to 2 very nice, helpful bloggers that immediately asked me about my site. What type of content is it? How often do I write? Have you thought about adding this? I loved it. I wasn’t being mocked for having a basic site and they immediately made me feel comfortable about my decision to come to this.

I soon learned that each of them were as normal as me and my apprehension was soothed. One of them is a life coach and I was immediately intrigued because I’ve always wondered how people got into that profession and how they actually make money from it. The other is a lawyer and this is her side project that she has packed with inspiration, for which I’m obviously a sucker. We talked for a bit about how to improve each of our blogs and upcoming projects we’d like to take on, all offering suggestions where we could.

I learned some great tips to improve my blog from some very nice people and I can now say I belong to a ‘blogging mastermind’ group. The next time we meet I want to be able to offer more to the group and have some good suggestions, I found myself taking more than giving and I don’t like those scales to be unbalanced. But the others didn’t seem to mind, they were happy to help and I’m very appreciative. The experiment was a success!

Making it a habit

A few days leading up to this I found myself getting nervous and wondering if the people I meet will be way ahead of me in their blogging prowess, or if they would all be awkward and silent, or even worse if they liked me and wanted me to come back for the next one… Do I want another commitment???

Seth Godin refers to this as ‘the lizard brain‘ and he regularly speaks about why we need to beat it back as vehemently as possible. When we are scared of something, that usually means we need to go towards it. We are often more scared of the potential within us than actions we should take to reach that potential.

So now I have been, it was great, and I was able to successfully step out of my comfort zone to try something new. Just before this meetup I decided I need to do this more often, I need to get out of my comfort zone more often. If you’ve read any of my blog, you know I’m all about some public accountability so here it is:

Every week I’m going to get out of my comfort zone and do something that I’ve never done

Each week my comfort zone will get bigger and bigger, so each week will be a new challenge. Of course I’ll be writing about this so get used to that feeling of “That sounds cool, I should try something new, too,” because I want you to feel that. If you’re reading this I want you to take something away from it and get better, so what are you going to do this week to get out of your comfort zone?

Please let me know what you do to get out of your comfort zone, it can be small – not everyone has a large comfort zone – but if it pushes you, that’s what matters!

Connect with me on Twitter or Linkedin, I’d love to hear what you have going on.

Have a great weekend!