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1.2 WHY Doing What We Love Is Solid Business Thinking

July 17, 2007 by Liz

Not Self-Indulgent, Good Business

inside-out thinking

Did I really mean to say the word? Yep.

Love. Not like, enjoy, or get kick out of, but have a passion for, live for, hold in highest esteem. Every person needs a quest, a cause, and a purpose.

That’s right. One — that one simple question.

What businesslike thing do you love doing?

is critical to your business.

Why?
Because it’s how we’re wired as humans. We bring our best to whatever challenge we face. We’re better when we’re inspired by deep feeling. We’ve known that since we were kids.

Any less is inauthentic, second-best, didn’t try, plan b, was absent that day, ho-hum, phone it in, stand in right field and let that pop-fly pass us by instead of saying the game . . . we might as well be out!

There’s a reason that so many folks — on TV, in IT, in academia, in every career — say the same thing. . . . find your passion, do what you love.

They’re not promoting self-indulgence. They’re supporting solid business sense.

WHY Doing What We Love Is Solid Business Thinking

What makes loving our work solid business thinking? Why is it more critical now than before?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink points out that “high concept” and “high touch” values (design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning) have become as important as linear thinking, detailed analysis, and spreadsheets.

On his blog, Doc Searls recently said this about how business is doing. It was part of an interview with Shel Israel.

In the original website version of Cluetrain, Chris Locke wrote, “we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers and our reach exceeds your grasp. deal with it.”
Recognizing a situation and dealing with it, however are two different things. The “dealing” has barely begun.

In this Internet, global economy we deal direct — no middle man. Conversation and relationships matter as much as schedule and budget do.

In plain and simple words, thinking and doing what everyone has thought and done no longer work. Now it’s think and love what we do — That’s the only way to draw customers to us.

Think hard. Thinking alone doesn’t solve every problem. Some problems are human. Some require empathy and finesse. Some situations call for more than intelligent reasoning. Before you talk yourself out of what you love doing . . . think about the reasons we need to bring all of yourself to your business — head and heart.

7 Reasons WHY Doing What We Love is Critical

When we bring all of who we are, full engagement of head and heart, we bring 7 deeper values and higher outcomes to our work.

  1. Complete presence — focus. We’re all there — the all thinking business is no longer sufficient. Computers can’t smile. Computers can’t listen to the spaces between words. People buy what we sell.
  2. Peak performance — productivity. We invest more, do more, go further for the work we love.
  3. Tolerance — perseverance. We have more patience, time, and energy for problem solving when we directly reap the benefits.
  4. Value and Appeal — compelling story. To compete a product or service has to be useful and beautiful. Simple and elegant, for to the adult and the kid in each one of us. Bringing logic and emotion to a business outdistances the world view of logic alone.
  5. Total Differentiation — identity. The uniqueness of our being shines through in concept and execution when we start from what we love.
  6. Fully Invested and Worth Investing In — market value. Rolling all of the above values into one, nothing beats the 360 degree investment of brains, money, and dreams all in the same direction. Any VC worth his or her salt looks for that combination when funding a small business.
  7. Sense of Worth — authority. We value what we earn and what we love.

Can you see why it’s only sense that a strong business is built on doing what we love?

Got questions yet?

Next: 1.3 WHAT IF you don’t know what you love to do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

Filed Under: Business Life, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, bestof, do-what-you-love, Inside-Out Thinking, Liz-Strauss, Liz-Strauss-Inside-Out-Thinking-to-Building-a-Solid-Bus, love-what-you-do, passion, self-actualization

No Mission Statement: One Simple Question

July 16, 2007 by Liz

Enough

inside-out thinking

Last week a Dawud Miracle and I discussed the problems faced by businesses. We mentioned entrepreneurs, small businesses, even corporations. So much of what came up was not encouragaing — bad messages; bad service; empty offers; no customers; not unique or remarkable; broken promises; clueless and out of focus. Not much most folks would take a risk on.

It’s as if some folks “get,” and the rest don’t get to know.

People rush after productivity tools and use them to further confuse their issues. People wait for customers, and no one comes. They talk about the chances they never got, but that that doesn’t get them. They’re stuck.

Why should anyone be stuck? . . . overwhelmed and out of focus? Why are there problem solvers without problems to solve?

It’s a disconnect. A swiss cheese hole in the available information.

Voices across the Internet say . . . Find your passion. . . . Choose your target market. . . . BUT, they stop there. No one says HOW to do that.

It’s got to be frustrating.

This connector can’t stand to watch problems going unsolved. I’m for breaking OUT of this paradigm starting now — with tools, models, and some basic Inside-Out Thinking.

Inside-Out Thinking

What is Inside-Out Thinking? Plain and simple, it’s starting from you — head and heart — who you are, as a person or as a company. We’re going to the core to find the values on which to build a concrete foundation.

I’m not talking hours parsing words on mission statements that gather dust. Their pretty, but they don’t pay the bills. I’m talking key, core terms that tell about DOING.

Don’t think heaven or humanitarian honors. Forget making money or impressive words.

Please, answer to one simple question.

As a company, as a person,

What businesslike thing do you LOVE doing?

Here’s how to answer that:
Forget any thought of money. Don’t you dare devalue or discount what you love doing. Not sure? STOP. Quiet yourself. Remember your successes. Here’s where to look for them.

  • Look to the future. Three years from now, if a wealthy patron financed you, what would you be doing?
  • Look in the past.
  • Look at last Saturday or the last time you were with friends. What were you doing that might apply?
  • What about your favorite job? What did you love about that?
  • What were you really good at in school?
  • What are you good at? What would you miss if you couldn’t do it?

You get the idea.

If you don’t know how to complete the picture of you. Ask a friend to tell you what you love doing. Ask quite a few. They know. Truth is, so do you. Once you find out what you love doing, that’s when the thinking starts.

I’m getting jazzed about this.

So, go ahead, give it a shot . . . what do YOU love doing?

It’s not hard. It’s just different — there wasn’t a model before. There will be now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

Filed Under: Inside-Out Thinking, Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, do-what-you-love, Inside-Out Thinking, Liz-Strauss, Liz-Strauss-Inside-Out-Thinking-to-Building-a-Solid-Bus

Can’t: Wendy Piersall, Ann Michael, Inside Out

July 15, 2007 by Liz

The Story of a War

Sometimes I think of problem solving as strategizing a war. Maybe it’s because I read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Maybe it’s because my big, big brothers could win in any confrontation.

Usually I start out thinking I’ve lost. Then I rally, go on a quest, and conquer the enemy. Hey, it takes some thought to beat opponents who are bigger than you are.

Wendy, I Can’t

Thursday night my friend, Wendy Piersall. and I talked about the future over a glass of wine. I was explaining a place where I was finding myself . . . um, er . . . stuck. She said exactly what I needed to hear.

I artfully dodged her advice using the phrase, “I can’t, because . . . ” Hey, when you’re talented, you’re also talented at things like that.

Wendy: Blog what you do.

ME: It’s right-brain intuitive. I can’t.

Wendy: You? Liz Strauss? You can’t? You can blog anything.

ME: Don’t say that I’m arguing for my limitations.

Wendy: You knew I’d say that. You are doing it, you know.

The conversation stayed with me. It’s Sunday, and here I am telling you.

Ann, Help Me Test

Back to the story . . . She wasn’t buying my argument. Either I had to come up with a better argument or beat down that can’t. My brothers had taught me I never win arguments.

I was in the taxi headed home that night when I started to see the plan. I put the words together in a few hours. This is a quest. I called in Ann Michael last night and today to test my thinking on final tweaks before I went live with this post.

The Announcement

I am pleased to announce a new series. It will show you how to build a solid business strategy based on who you are. The series will offer down-to-earth methods and questions that bring business into focus. It’s time someone showed how to build a market view on concrete not sand. I’ll share models you can use to test decisions.

Tomorrow, the new series begins.

I call it

Inside out logo

because it begins with your strengths, your ideas, your passion and builds on the customers who love what you do.

I’m jazzed. This is what makes my heart sing. This is what I’m good at. This is what the Perfect Virtual Manager does.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Filed Under: Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog Tagged With: Ann-Michael, bc, Inside-Out Thinking, strategy-for-entrepreneurs, Wendy-Piersall

How to Age Ideas Like a Fine Cognac OR Making Compelling Writing the Center of Your Brand

October 5, 2006 by Liz

I Love My Pocket Journal

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

Yesterday in the comments to Inside Out Thinking: Catching Ideas Coming In and Going Out, Hans at Blogosquare asked a question that was one I had when I first started writing. That made me think that others might have it as well. You see, Han’s problem is that he has too many ideas and his exuberance makes him anxious to use them all as soon as he gets them.

. . . I just don’t have to sit back and wait for thoughts, actually they are filling me. When I get a thought, . . . I just can’t wait for that thought to leave me. So I write it down quickly, quickly and post it and there when I see it I feel much relieved.
How in fact to you deal with thoughts when they come in? Should I set myself to some relaxation or things like this? All day long everything I see, read, and hear just give me thoughts and ideas. . . . Right now after reading the post above, I just got that thought and couldn’t wait to put it down, to get it off my mind. Am I not normal? [edited with Hans permission]

Hans, my friend, I value you and your passion for writing. Turn the page and I’ll answer your question with the seriousness it deserves.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, critical-skills, finding-ideas, Finding-Ideas-Outside-of-the-Box, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation

Catching Ideas Coming In and Going Out

October 4, 2006 by Liz

Everyone Has Endless Ideas

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

Ideas.

Can’t write without one. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.

If you’re reading this, you probably know that. So let’s move around that dead, old horse.

What’s an idea anyway? A thought, a stimuli, a catalyst.

Everyone has endless ideas in our brains every minute that we’re alive.

We can get to them two ways — from the inside or from the out.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, critical-skills, finding-ideas, Finding-Ideas-Outside-of-the-Box, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation

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