I saw this on Twitter yesterday, a condensed lesson in business.
People are not buying what you are selling.
They are buying the result of what you are selling.
I got this classic story from a friend, it’s great and makes us see cracks and flaws in a different way.
A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One pot had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”
Moral:
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.
I am a big fan of TED and TEDTalks. TED has spun off a series of TEDx-events, learn more at TEDx.
In the spirit of “Ideas Worth Spreading,” TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.
We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolset that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.
Wemind, @wemind on Twitter, is now officially planning TEDxCopenhagen, see also the TEDxCopenhagen Facebook page. You can also follow @TEDxCopenhagen on Twitter. Copenhagen is close to where I live and this can be a really interesting event.
Seth Godin posts about “Why am I here?” The title made me think of how to discover your life purpose or finding your passion but it was more straight forward than that.
This is a simple mantra that is going to change the way you attend every meeting and every conference for the rest of your life.
You probably don’t have to be there. No gun held to your head, after all. So, why are you spending the time?
A simple but powerful question. Use your time wisely and if you go, make the best and most of your time there.
If there isn’t a good reason, go home. If there is, then do something. Loud, now and memorable. Productive too, please.
A side note.
I like Seth Godin’s blog and his style with fairly short posts, 200-300 words.
Live your dreams, “Born to be wild” is a commercial for a Norwegian lottery.
Note: This will also be published in the weekly Newsletter Coaches Mojo on May 26, 2009.
Coaching is about change. It can be finding a new career, creating better balance in life or adding a new activity in order to “spice up” life. In these contexts we often talk about trying to find ones passion and to follow ones passion. But finding ones passion is sometimes easier said than done, we either make it too complicated or think (hope) that it will be obvious and just pop up.
It is said that “Find Your Passion; the Money Will Follow” or “Do what you love and money will follow“. Money is not guaranteed but finding and following your passion will for sure make life better. Your passion might be in a tiny market which means you can not make a living from that alone.
If you don’t know what your passion is, you are not alone. At INeedMotivation it says that According to a recent survey, about 75% of the population do not know what their true passion is.
Where to start?
Finding your passion is not just about work, it’s about your whole life. If we have activities off work that we are passionate about our life will improve. It’s also a way of testing if our passions can be transferred into a job or a business. Skellie writes that Your hidden talents are the things you could do that would make you happy. My view is that among your hidden talents is your passion.
Your hidden talents will always fit your personality or interests in some way. Instead of being hidden and random – things to be discovered by accident – the things you love doing actually make a lot of sense.
Life Script says it well, A passion in life isn’t something you’re born with. It’s cultivated by your interests, what stimulates you and what you are genuinely excited about.
At Lifehack it says If there’s already something you love doing, you’re ahead of the game. Now you just need to research the possibilities of making money from it. They offer some questions that will help you in the search for your passion.
Mike over at ZenDonut writes in 3 Steps To Develop Your Passion … Not Just “Find” It that:
My concept is that a passion is not just floating around waiting to bump you in the head (i.e. “to be found”), but rather, by taking an active approach, you can develop your passionate interests proactively.
I share that view, we have work to do in order to figure out what our (more or less) hidden talents are. Then we have to find out if we can make money from it and how.
How did I find my current passion?
I had been working with IT and computers for a long time. That was and still is a fast changing area which made my work my passion, learning and doing new things at a pace that kept me on my toes. Off work I have always been doing other things, being active in organizations and learning new things – more or less related to what I worked with. Personal development, my own and others, has been a running thread in my life.
As often happens, eventually my passion for IT and computers started to fade. I wanted to do something else but could not figure out what. Like Mike says above, I could not describe my passion yet I knew it was hidden somewhere within reach. That was rather frustrating but I started putting the pieces together. I described my own personal profile, in terms of knowledge – experience – interests etc, using mind mapping and other techniques to connect the dots. One thing I focused on was analyzing situations that made me really feel alive, what was the key and was there any common factors.
After spending time at connecting the dots I realized that many of my different interests overlapped to some extent. That made me curious and I focused on that common ground, the core area that united things. I started to describe that core area in more detail and then realized that I had found my passion: I want to help people be the best they can be.
I had been coaching friends and workmates for years but I decided to take a coaching course that made me a professional coach. I love working as a coach and I learn something from each client session.
Are we resisting it?
Jonathan Mead asks if we know what makes us feel alive, why do we resist it? Why do we avoid doing what we love to do? and lists four reasons. One of them is that we have turned our passion into work. “Anytime you feel that you must do something, you lose inspiration.” Once we have made a passion our work we do need to keep the fire burning, to re-ignite our passion.
Read more:
• 7 Questions To Finding Your True Passion
• The One Question
• The 5 Percent Trick: Finding Passion and Purpose in Life
• How Do You Find Your Passion In Life?
• Find Your Career Passion
• How to Find a Passion In Life (eHow)
• If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you!
Vattenfall has been awarded the Climate Greenwash Awards 2009, probably not an award they desired.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall is a master of spin when it comes to climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS).
For more information about why they got the award, read Vattenfall – Nominated for branding problems as solutions.
The prize reminded me of a post in my Swedish blog, Vattenfall och indianfilosofi from May 22, 2008. The managing director of Vattenfall said that “According to Indian philosophy you should look six generations ahead.” It’s safe to say that if Vattenfall had fully understood that concept and had walked that talk they would not have recieved this award.
Newspapers questioned the six generation concept and I could not find anything about it either. But I did find several sources that mention seven generations ahead.
The Six Nations: Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth says that:
In making any law our chiefs must always consider three things: the effect of their decision on peace; the effect on the natural world; and the effect on seven generations in the future.
Oneida Indian Nation writes that:
Tradition also requires both the Nation’s leaders and its Members to consider the impact on the next seven generations when making decisions.
In the book The Manifestation Wheel it says that:
The elders of the Iroquois Confederacy councils taught that in our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
I especially like the Six Nations version. What would happen if our decisionmakers did consider these three things:
Credit: Photo by Thiru Murugan.
Zen Habits has a great post about 55 Ways to Get More Energy.
If you’re tired all the time, a change in what you eat (diet) or what you do all day (activity pattern) may be all you need to turn things around 180°.
At times we get stuck and/or feel low on energy. This post gives you ideas about what you can do to get back on track. Pick something from that list and feel the change. Today I’ll opt for number five (Have a piece of chocolate) and number ten (Take a power nap).
Some of the items on the list are daily habits for me. I always do some of number 23 (Play to relax), number 24 (Eat smaller, more frequent meals), number 25 (Enjoy a cup of tea), number 45 (Take a walk outside) and number 50 (yoga).
Number 39 is great – Purge low-value tasks from your todo list. Focus on what’s important and don’t waste energy on what’s not.
Credit: Photo by johnmarchan.
Alex Fayle has a really interesting post today, Taming the Voices in the Personality Zoo. It describes a fun and really useful way to sort out what stops us from achieving what we want.
By assigning each piece of resistance a personality, I can diffuse the internal argument by recognizing the emotion attached to the thought and therefore come up with effective ways to work around or dismantle the particular excuse for not continuing. (It’s also a whole lot of fun!)
Alex links to his own zoo and the Lab Rats (Cat, Jim and Brett) list theirs. It’s an interesting read and I started to list my own voices.
My list include the good ones as well as the not so good ones.
What’s in your Personality Zoo?
Credit image: Sign @ Africa Alive, Suffolk at Flickr
Colin Ude-Lewis publishes the weekly Newsletter Coaches Mojo. It is an inspiring newsletter, described like this:
Coaches Mojo is not for everyone. It’s for those who don’t like to to sit still with the same old thinking, and want to find new and better ways to improve every part of their world. Coaches Mojo is dedicated to the people that are prepared to roll up their sleeves and take action. Its for those restless people who like to go against the grain to succeed + that means those that are or want to be MOTIVATED.
On that page are samples of previous editions of the newsletter. There is also an instruction for subscribing.
