Turning Points

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about The Tipping Point, but I think there's something more subtle - and maybe even more powerful - in turning points.

To reach a tipping point, we first have to go through a turning point. A business, after all, can't reach a tipping point without the founder deciding to launch the business. An idea in a book can't spread without the author deciding to write the book. And our opinions of people are formed by watching their actions.

Watch someone in a moment of grand selfishness, your feelings toward them change, and it can be a turning point in your relationship.

What's interesting about turning points is that they can be big or small, positive or negative, minor or major. In each instance though they have the potential to be extremely powerful.

I think most of us would do well to think for a moment about whether our turning points are helping us reach the tipping points we want.

The night before the night before

One of the best sleep lessons I ever received was from my high-school diving coach, and I figured it was something I should share. He would always tell us that getting a good night sleep before a competition wasn't all that important. Instead, it was the night before the night before the competition that really mattered.

Part of the logic here is that if there's an important event, you may be a bit jittery the night before anyway, so it's best to figure you may have a hard time sleeping, even if you're trying to get a good night sleep.

I don't have any scientific evidence, but anecdotally, I've noticed that this is really true for me, and seems to be the case for business as much as it was the case for sport.

I've noticed that if I'm not in a great mood or am feeling pretty tired, it's almost certain that two nights prior I didn't get enough sleep. Maybe this is why a lot of people are crabby on Monday?

Likewise, I'm able to function really well on very little sleep the night before some important thing, as long as two nights earlier I got a good amount of sleep.

Maybe you'll find this tip as helpful as I have, so give it a try. If you have an important presentation, or sales meeting, interview, or whatever; don't worry too much about getting a good night sleep the night before.

Instead, worry about the night before the night before.

It will be because of...

I tend to think a lot about the decisions I've made, and how they effect my present. I don't always like this about myself, becuase too much of it and suddenly I'm dwelling or obsessing. Looking back to much can keep us from moving forward, but at the same time I like thinking about and understanding how our decisions affect us.

Actions do indeed have consequences.

Looking at what we're doing today, in the context of looking at it from the future, can help us make good decisions; and maybe more importantly, keep us from making bad decisions. Or at least, get us to do something instead of nothing.

Think about what you're doing today and wonder if a positive statement would preceed it. For example, "This great thing happened to me.....because for three months straight I sat on my couch every day and watched TV for 5 hours." Um, probably not.

On the other hand, "I grew in ways I never though possible because I decided to travel around the world for 6 months...." Yeah, that makes sense.

This notion is interesting to me in part because the people who seem to have awesome, adventerous lives, are often referred to as being "care-free". I think it's the opposite though. The people that seem to have care-free lives have these lives because they cared enough to make the decisions that they knew would make them happy.

Full of care would probably be a better way to describe it.

If you think about the things that make you the happiest, I'd be willing to bet that they came about because of some thing you did that was different, new, exciting, engaging, or risky.

I think it's good to ask ourselves what we would like out of work, life, family, or really anything - and to then wonder if we might obtain it because of what we're doing today.

The DJ without any music

I was out with some friends the other week when I met a DJ. This topic came up as we were talking about one of my favorite spots to frequent called Smartbar - a club in Chicago where there's usually good house music, a good crowd, and plenty of Dancing.

He told me that he used to play there, but that it was back in the 80s back when he was playing "the real music, not any of this new crap."

I wasn't sure if by new he meant in the last year, or the last decade and we kept chatting. I told him how I started going there pretty often back in about 2002 but that lately I had only made it over there a few times per year.

It became clear that "new" basically meant anything after about 1991. But, he seemed like a pretty interesting guy and had some good stories and I enjoyed chatting with him for the most part. It also happened that some neighbors and I had been talking about throwing a party and I asked him if he still spun every now and then.

He did, and said that he did either private events at clubs, or private parties. Sweet, I though to myself, and then asked if he had a website where I could listen to some of his music. The short answer was no. The long answer was "no", with a slew of excuses as to why the answer was no.

So here I was, talking to a DJ that assured me that he "had every kind of music anyone could want", with no way for me to listen to any of it.

So from my perspective, he had no music.

It didn't matter that he had thousands of records in his home because there was no way for me to see if I liked the way he combined songs, mixed beats, or built up the energy of a crowd as a set went on. He had everything, but in this case it was the same as having nothing.

The theme with everything we talked about though was that basically he thought it sucked that anything changed. The music changed, the club changed, the crowd changed, the technology changed. But the DJ stayed the same. And so, all these changes were bad because the would have forced him to change.

The lesson though is that I think there are a lot of music less DJs out there. There are writers without blogs, programmers without github projects, photographers without websites, and millions of ideas that were never turned into something real. And the unfortunate reality is that a lot of this is simply because some people don't want to change.

Ask yourself, what's your music? Can anyone listen to it?

Better than Money

How much would you sell your friends for?

This, of course, is a silly question. Your friends are priceless, and no amount of money could replace them.

Considering how valuable they are though, it seems noteworthy how rarely people write about their friends. Visit any number of blogs and you're sure to find people talking about how networking helped them land some new business, how twitter helped them sell their product, and how having a blog allows them to talk to their fans. But it seems everyone's talking about these benefits in relation to how it helped them make money.

It's entirely possible this is because I primarily read technology, small business, economics and politics blogs, but I suspect that there's a pretty big disparity across most any topic. So, for something a little different and for some Friday afternoon warm-fuzziness, I'm going to tell you about a new friend I made this year.

A few months ago I went to a Chicago Tech Meetup to hear a few speakers, meet some people, and do a little networking. One of the things I'm not really good at by the way is networking. I don't like it and it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable. My friends are always surprised by this because I'm very outgoing, but the thing is that it's somewhat hard for me to strike up conversations with people I've never met before. I usually need more context.

At this event though I met a guy named Ryan who owns his own small marketing business called Rand Media Group, and we hit it off pretty well. Afterwards we exchanged some emails, hung out a few times, chatted about the upcoming arrival of his twins, talked about my kids, and became friends.

And now, we share an office in the middle of Wicker Park which is about a 5 minute scooter ride from where I live. It's the best commute in the world, and the best working environment I've ever had. On top of this, I've been thinking about one of the Thirty Day Project people I met named Simon Fowler who wrote for 30 days about relational proximity. In it he writes:

The foundation of human flourishing is relationship. Ultimately, the foundation is love, but love is predicated on relationship. We flourish to the degree we are connected, or rather, proximate. “We” can be individuals, groups, institutions or countries, but the factors that enable good relationships are the same.

There are at least five factors that strongly determine Relational Proximity:
1. Directness – the degree to which the relationship is unmediated and truthful
2. Continuity – the degree to which it has a history, the parties meet regularly, and it has an expected future
3. Multiplexity – the degree to which the parties know each other through different contexts
4. Parity – the degree to which there is a symmetry in power
5. Commonality/Purpose – the degree to which they share a sense of common purpose or identity

It’s important to recognize that you can have all of these and be devoid of love or commitment. But try love and commitment without them. The model seems to have enormous unsentimental explanatory power for the health or ill-health of a relationship.

As it turns out, almost by complete accident, I now have a relationship that hits all the right notes for relational proximity, and as a result, I've made a great new friend.

And then, there's the realization that if I could go back in time and instead of meeting Ryan, I could meet someone that gave me a million dollar contract, I'd turn down that deal in a heartbeat. It makes that one little meeting seem pretty powerful doesn't it?

My point in all this is two-fold. First, if you're uncomfortable doing something - whatever - do it anyway because there's bound to be at least something good that comes from it, even if you never expected it. My other point is that no matter what business you're in, I think it's good to enjoy the things you're doing just for the sake of doing them. (Another theme from some of the books I've been reading)

Sure, it's great if your networking or blogging or tweeting or anything else leads to a sale or a new customer. But I think it's also important to remember that the money is only one of many good things that can come of this. Likewise, if you're only focused on the money, you might be closing yourself off to other things that might make your whole world better.

So next time you're down about not closing the deal, or getting the new customer, or not having enough subscribers to your blog, find the value that you did get out of that thing you did.

My guess is, there's at least one thing you'll find that's better than money.