It s a shame I've been sitting on this book for about two years now. A friend of mine gave me Never Eat Alone , by Keith Ferrazzi a couple years ago (thanks Rey), and it s been on my bookcase ever since. It was resting there not because I didn't want to read it, but because I already had so many others in the pipeline. I finally got around to reading it last month and I definitely recommend it. In very simple terms, Ferrazzi explains why networking is important and how to do it. From how to make call lists to planning dinners to personal branding to goal setting, it s all here. He also maintains a valuable blog .
Inevitably there will be times when you have setbacks or things don t go your way. Maybe you didn't get a job you thought you were sure to get. Maybe you lost a job unexpectedly, didn't win a contract, or lost a major client. Your car always seems to break down right after you've had some other unexpected expense. These kinds of situations immediately place us in crisis. They don t feel good, but sometimes they re what we need in order to grow. The beautiful thing about crises is that they force us to take a step back and reevaluate what s going on in our lives and rediscover what we truly want and need. When we get over that initial shock and feeling of disappointment, we might realize that maybe that job wasn't really the best for us anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that wasn't what you really wanted to spend your life doing. Maybe that friend was holding you back instead of pushing you forward. The way I deal with crises of these sorts is simple: If something doesn't go my way professionally, I try to create a situation that would be more rewarding than the situation originally planned. A while ago, I was offered a job that looked very promising. After I accepted the offer, they pushed the start date back three times, later informing me (via e-mail) that they wanted to bring me on in the near future but I should feel free to explore other options. I was extremely disappointed. I felt disrespected and angry, but decided to make the best of the situation and follow my dream of working internationally. I then flew to Santiago, Chile and had great professional and personal experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. Later, reflecting back on the original opportunity, I realized that working for a company that avoids a start date three times and then can t pick up the phone to explain the situation is probably not where I need to spend my time. Use setbacks as an opportunity to put your goals in order and act on them. In the moment, it s difficult to look at a setback as temporary, but they are. They happen to everybody. It s how you respond to them that will determine how they affect you.
Do you remember a few weeks ago when I asked you to choose between the blue pill and the red pill? I sure do. First of all, thank you to all who participated in the blog post and a special thanks for those who left comments, called, or sent me a text or email to tell me what they thought. I had a lot of fun exploring the types of things that are possible in the blogging world. Although this was an attempt to have fun, I’m looking at ways to make much more serious attempts to bring people together, elicit real-time feedback, and build interaction into blogs and other new media bring about creative ways to uncover, discuss, and solve social issues.
If you chose the red pill, you were sent to this Google Doc drawing and tasked with creating a shared artifact in the form of an image. This is what you came up with. The drawing is still live, so if you feel compelled to add to it or otherwise modify the image, feel free to do so. I’m going to keep this up to see how it evolves over time.
If you were one who chose the blue pill, you were sent to a hidden page I created just for this blog. Unless you had the direct link, you wouldn’t have found it. (Google may have indexed the page by now, but before, you had to either click on the blue pill picture or copy/paste the link from it.) Now, I’m making it publicly available in the event you want to check it out: Blue Pill Link. After clicking that link, you were given audible instructions that sent you to yet another hidden page. Again, you kind of “had to be there” to know about it. That page had one last audible instruction, an unlisted YouTube video, and a picture of the blue pill that sent you back to the original post.
In case you don’t want to hop all around the web, here’s all the media in one place.
Who says that social change has to be depressing? Some of the best ways to influence behavior are ways that make the change engaging and fun. That’s why I turn to videos such as these when I’m thinking of creative ways to pursue my mission. What are the behaviors that need to change? What small things can we do to enable and motivate people to do something? Volkswagen headed up a challenge called “The Fun Theory” asking for people to submit fun ideas for behavior change. Here are some of my favorites.