Has anyone ever looked you in the eye and said "I expected more from you"? Or asked why you are not making a difference? Or demanded that you set aside your fear and try anyway. Or accused you of holding back? If they have it's because they are showing you love and kindness and want the best for you.
People use personal trainers because the trainer pushes you to make more of an effort - you'll do more push ups or another lap if someone is shouting at you. So we hire a trainer or a coach or a whatever it is that we are into in order to make us do more and whip us into shape. Effort is transitory and hard to measure and even harder to do on a regular basis so it requires oversight. But ultimately, if we only grow on demand are we selling ourselves short? Can the student ever really become the master if the master is there simply to keep us motivated? Are you really helpless without someone telling you what to do?
We don't need cameras or watches because we have our phones. Nobody buys cameras. Nobody buys watches. Books are on our Kindles now. Nobody buys books. The market to nobody is huge and sometimes it's better to sell your product to nobody than to try to sell to everyone. Companies selling to nobody outperform those that are trying to sell to everyone
If I invite you to a party there is very little resistance. You either immediately say yes or if you have a diary clash, you tell me you can't make it. Either way, the decision is instant. So if your marketing and product departments are doing their job every sale is more like an invitation. It's hard to argue that the guys in the Apple store on Regent Street are really selling iPads when there's a queue out the door. You don't want it? Next! So the idea is to align everything in the company so that a sale is not a sale - it's an invitation. We all know that the salesperson's job is to help people overcome their fears so that they can purchase something they will ultimately be happy with. The goal of the marketing and product offering is to turn your salesman into an inviter.
If you are building something new, particularly a new digital product, you can't be online with your users to help them and guide them and show them how it works. Instead you need to build something that works intuitively. But something that's definitely worth doing is to have a "share your confusions" button. This is not about comments and suggestions it's about allowing users to help with your work and bring to your attention things that are not as clear as they should be.
There are companies that have been around for hundreds of years and plan to be around for hundreds more. No doubt their long run is more than ours. But too often we think in terms of the short run only. Do we really know what our long terms plans are? And how long is long?
I hope that these are the things children are learning:
If you are too trusting of the invisible then you buy an e-book for £50 that promises to make you an overnight millionaire. So the trick is to discern the invisible stuff that's true from the invisible stuff that's a trick otherwise you're helpless in a world where just about every decision you make has to do with things that are invisible. The best advice is to be skeptical. Test and measure and do your research (seeing if the thing is the truth is often a useful starting point to help you move forward). The truth can't be a relative concept, it's just so often invisible.
Popularity is not a measure of impact. Popularity definitely does not correlate with having guts, working hard, and a willingness to take on a new and difficult project. You'd think that popularity is the most important thing in the world but you're wrong - delighting an audience that matters to you is.
Long work is spending a 12 hour working day filling in forms. Hard work is having an insight that pulls multiple an seemingly disparate ideas into one idea that ultimately helps the client improve their product.
Long work is always required. But hard work is scary. You might fail, something that you cannot do with long work (assuming you can fill in forms). So long work sets the stage, because you show up and you practice and you learn. Only after the long work can you be ready for the hard work. And you only get the benefits from the hard work if you are willing to think differently.