Category / proactivity

by Nathan Coumbe

Profit vs. service

You have a really good idea, an idea that people will love, that will make a difference, that will make things better. In fact, the little voice in your head continues to tell you, “This might work.” But you continue to hesitate; you still haven’t shipped. Why not?

Money.

It always come back to money…but I don’t mean money in the way you’re thinking.

You might be a freelancer, a musician, a writer, or a budding entrepreneur: you want to improve the world, and you need to eat. Essentially, you are wrestling with two competing ideas: “Will this make me money?” vs. “Will this help people?”

If you live and work by the former question, you will make very little progress. There is no way for you to know if your endeavor will generate revenue, which means you will probably wait until you are sure it will work before you act. But if you can’t be sure (and you can’t), you won’t act.

Around and around it goes.

If you are searching for “yes” to the money question, you will feel fear every time you create a new video or go to click on the checkout button of a webhosting platform. You’ll be terrified every time you pick up the phone to make a sales call or approach a new customer in a store.

If you are worried about the profit, you revert to a scarcity mindset:

“I don’t know that this article will make money, so I probably shouldn’t post it.”

“Someone else is already doing something similar; I won’t be different enough to standout and earn an income.”

“What if I spent a little money to make this happen, but I never earn it back? I’ll have wasted it!”

Is that true? What if you didn’t make any money back, but you helped someone by spending it? You gave a gift; it was charity.

You do need to eat, which might mean you need a job while you seek to serve other people. If you work to answer the question, “Will this help people?” you will find that your ideas come naturally. They will be much easier to send out into the world: you won’t hesitate, because there is much less riding on the outcome.

In fact, the outcome is practically harmless. You either end up right where you started, or you make change happen. If you only help one person, then the answer to the question is a resounding “YES!”

I think the secret is faith and the right mindset. The right mindset is seeking to help people because you want to help them, not because you want to profit from them. Ironically, if you help enough people, you will be much closer to turning a profit than the fool who is focused on it.

Seth Godin says it all the time: “Ideas that spread, win.” They do. Helping others spreads, which means it wins. If you help people, they will know who you are. If they know who you are, they will come to you for more help. They will probably tell their friends about you as well. Soon you have an audience, people who trust you because you sought to help them, not profit from them. When people trust you, you win.

Live a life of abundance and give, give, give. Have faith that if you help enough people, the money will come.

And if it never does?

Well…you still helped a lot of people.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Empathy

“Until thy feet have trod the Road

Advise not wayside folk.”

–Rudyard Kipling

What is Kipling’s meaning? Should we not correct others when they do wrong, unless we ourselves have done the same wrong? I don’t think so.

I think Kipling is speaking of empathy, the skill of attempting to feel what someone else is feeling, of putting oneself in the shoes of another.

Most people react when they see someone acting in a way with which they disagree or do not understand. We see a parent fail to harshly correct a child for misbehaving, so we assume the parent is inept or irresponsible. A person resorts to drinking as a coping mechanism, so we call them a wastrel, a drunk, or a fool.

But what if you put yourself in place of the parent, or even the child? As the child, how would you prefer to be corrected? With harsh words and physical punishment, or through a one-on-one conversation used as a teaching moment? Would this not grow trust and improve the relationship? Perhaps the parent had a painful childhood she does not wish to repeat with her own offspring, so she chooses to react with restraint.

Look at the alcoholic, a type of person with which I have had more experience than I wish to remember. Perhaps he grew up in a violently abusive or neglectful household; perhaps he saw friends and innocents killed in a horrifying warzone. Yes, alcohol will not heal his wounds,nor is it a healthy way to cope. However, to judge and condemn without the same experiences of that person, or at least without empathizing with him, is an ineffective way to interact with the person. Empathy and understanding would go much further towards helping him to recover were he willing.

This is not to say that you should not try to help others find the right path, but how it is done can make all the difference.

Moreover, until you have put yourself in the place of another, how can you be sure that the other person is wayside and not yourself? Were you to empathize with them, you might come to find that your paradigm, your view of the world, is incomplete or inaccurate. We would all like to believe that we are objective and rational, but more often than not we fail at both.

Choose empathy before all else. You might then be in a position to influence others in positive ways. And if not, you have still become a better human for the attempt.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What would it take to replace you?

Think about your work and personal life for a moment.

What qualities and skills would your employer look for in a new hire were she attempting to replace you?

Be that person now.

What would your spouse, significant other, or children look for in a partner or role model if you weren’t around?

Be that person now.

Start.

Be the person others in your life want and need; you will become nearly impossible to replace.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Should be vs. what is

You cannot move forward until you accept the reality of your current situation.

Things absolutely should be a certain way. Some people should still be alive.

But they aren’t.

Your current reality dictates what is possible in your future. But that realization equips you with a great power: the power to turn what you think should be into your future reality (to a certain extent. I’m in no way insinuating that you can bring back the dead).

Accept what is, then act accordingly.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Tomorrow is just another Wednesday

It’s New Year’s Eve – which means tomorrow is a new year, a chance to start over again, to accomplish all the goals you set for yourself but failed to achieve in 2019. It’s a chance to make new resolutions and actually keep them this time.

Yeah…right.

Tomorrow is just another Wednesday. New Year’s resolutions rarely work, as most of us know.

Yes, there is something innate within us that seems to see new opportunities at the beginning of every year, but there really isn’t anything special about tomorrow.

Except that tomorrow is another day. If you are lucky enough to wake up breathing tomorrow, you’ve been given a chance. Every day gives you the opportunity to start again, to make promises to yourself and keep them.

So do that – not because tomorrow is New Year’s, but because tomorrow is tomorrow. What is one tiny little thing you want to start doing better, or stop doing altogether?

Make a promise to yourself that you are going to do that one tiny thing. Keep that promise, day in and day out; don’t worry about anything else. Pretty soon you will form a habit. Then do it again. Not next year as a New Year’s resolution, but next week or next month, as a promise to yourself.

Tomorrow is just another Wednesday. Make the most of it.

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by Nathan Coumbe

The long-term

Cultural norms drive us to seek obvious, visual achievement in the short-term: we are encouraged to show off and look successful. But looks can be deceiving; it doesn’t mean that what is being done is right simply because it is a cultural norm.

It requires bravery and discipline to focus on the long-term at the expense of obvious results in the short-term. You cannot focus on what you want now at the expense of what you want, and probably need, later on.

If you have money in investments, it doesn’t make much sense to pull out more money than you are making in interest to buy something that you want now. You are invading the principle of the investment; this, in turn, lowers the amount of interest that can be made on what is left.

We violate this principle all the time:

  • Someone wants a new car, computer, or toy, so they borrow money to do it.
  • A parent wants her child to behave and cooperate now, so she uses her authority, power, and fear to metaphorically bludgeon the child into compliance.
  • A leader wants results this quarter, so she drives her people to exhaustion and frustration to hit the numbers now.

What are the results of these decisions?

  • Loss of control over income; massive amounts of interest paid
  • Fear and resentment of the parent by the child
  • Burnout, turnover, and loss of results over the following years

How might things have been different if one chose to live on less than one made? That money could have been saved up or invested to grow.

The parent could have used the troubled moment with the child as a time for understanding and teaching. Think of the relationship that would grow out of thousands of moments like this.

The boss could have attempted to look further out at what she really wanted from her company overall, not just right now. And she could have sought to understand her people better. She would increase loyalty and effectiveness: her people would naturally want to work harder and achieve the results for her because they believe she cares.

None of these responses have obvious, visual results in the moment, but their long-term results are exponentially greater.

It might feel weird to stand out from the pack, doing something that has no obvious short-term return.

That doesn’t mean you are wrong.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Don’t wait to have – be!

There is a tendency to see a problem as being outside of oneself. The problem is “over there” or “with that person.” Sadly, there is nothing you can do about “that over there” or your idiot coworker Bob.

If you start to think the problem is ‘out there,’ stop yourself. That thought is the problem.” – Stephen R. Covey

If you wait to have enough time to exercise, you’ll never have it.

If you wait to have a more loving and understanding spouse, he never will be.

If you wait to have an advanced degree before you start trying to teach other people, you will likely fail to ever start teaching.

Instead of waiting to have something that will miraculously fix your problem, be the person who already has it.

If you want to have time to exercise, be the person who blocks out ten minutes three times a week to do a quick strength training session.

If you want a more loving and understanding spouse, be the kind of spouse who loves unconditionally, who listens to understand rather than to respond, criticize, or persuade to your way of thinking.

If you want to teach, be a teacher. Whatever you are currently learning, whether from a book, an online course, or a college curriculum, teach it to someone else. Write a blog post about it; have a conversation with a friend and try to explain the concept to her in a way that makes sense.

If you want to have marketing skills, be a person who spreads the word about something she cares about, someone who gets others involved.

The only way anything will ever change is if we, ourselves, grow. Be the change you want to see in the world, and the change will happen.

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by Nathan Coumbe

A new normal

Adjusting to a new normal is…well, normal.

Most of the time, it is painful, difficult, frustrating, depressing, and hilarious – quite often all at once.

Face the new normal head-on with courage, kindness, and generosity.

It might not work out like you hope, but these qualities will still take you far.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Natural consequences

You are free to do anything you want. You are not free to choose the consequences.

Every choice we make has a natural consequence associated with it. 

You can choose to eat McDonald’s three times a day (I’ve done this), but you cannot choose the consequences of this decision (I gained 40 pounds in a year, added 8 inches to my waist, and felt miserable most days). 

You can choose to put your finger on a hot stove (why would you?), but you cannot choose whether or not you get burned. The natural consequence is a burned finger.

When you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. – Stephen R. Covey

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by Nathan Coumbe

Predictable, predetermined choices

I had a moment of clarity today when I was re-reading a definition of proactive behavior.

“[Proactive behavior means] to choose your responses to various conditions rather than react in predictable or predetermined ways.”

This definition stuck out today because I read it right after finishing my lunch, which I had ordered with absolutely no forethought.

How many times have I walked into a restaurant and placed an order without thinking? How many times have I ordered something because that was what I had always gotten?

My choice of what to eat might be predictable – it’s what I always get – but it certainly isn’t predetermined. So this means I am not making a choice between stimulus and response.

Between stimulus and response is our greatest power–the freedom to choose. – Stephen R. Covey

Stimulus: walk into a restaurant for lunch.

Response: order the thing I always get, usually with less than ideal effects on my health.

I have a moment, in between arriving and ordering, where I can make a conscious decision about what to eat. This means I can choose to add value to my body, or I can choose to indulge in something less than ideal.

This is not a discussion of nutrition – it is a discussion of problem-solving. Think of all the decisions you make automatically each day, then pick one and imagine how you can respond between the stimulus and your automatic response.

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