Wherever I go, there I am

I’m sometimes haunted by the title of a book I read years ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are. For years, before I permanently relocated to Utah, I left the Connecticut suburbs and spent months at a time in the mountains of Utah. Doing so changed my life, but I’m not sure it changed me.

On the surface, many things changed when I settled down in Utah. My exercise levels went through the roof; skiing and hiking are just minutes away; and I do something physical every day. Some days, I forget to eat, because there is just too much to do. Even work gets easier, because in between my writing sessions, it’s so easy to recharge.

But...

The things that scared or bothered me…still scare or bother me. I still procrastinate around routine tasks I dislike, like paying bills or waiting in line for an oil change. 

Wherever I go, it’s still the same me.

What about you? Do you think, “When I get a raise, I’ll eat better/take better care of my house/be more motivated?”

Has the thought ever occurred to you, “Someday, I’ll move to the ocean and meditate/run/exercise every day?”

My experience suggests that changing your environment changes many things, but it doesn’t change you... at least not as much as you might expect.

Know your audience

Give me five different audiences, and I will give five different presentations. If I notice if someone is impatient, upset, or confused, I will change my communications strategy midstream.

This is what effective communicators do. They adapt their tone, message, and words to fit what their current audience needs.

If you get the opportunity to present to your CEO, you should do it differently than when you’re pitching an idea to your (two levels down) boss. The difference shouldn’t be based upon his or her title; your presentation should be based upon how the other person thinks. Does s/he prefer facts or anecdotes? Is s/he driven by ego or results?

I'm a ghostwriter, but I'm not a ghostwriter.

“Ghostwriter” is a convenient label I use to give you a bit of context, but it doesn’t come close to describing who I am.

Instead, it simply tells you enough to motivate you to ask a few more questions.

“Could you help me do _____?”

“Can you make my life easier?”

But four weeks after you start working with me, you’ll understand that “ghostwriter” doesn’t come close to describing who I am.

Don't take the credit

As a ghostwriter, with 95% or more of what I write, only one other person in the world—my client—knows that I wrote it.

In this manner, I am able to reach a huge number of people with highly positive and actionable insights; this number is dramatically higher than I could reach on my own.

Does it bother me that I don't get credit for this work? Not at all.
I only have two goals:

1.) Delight my client
2.) Help other people

To help other people, do I need them to know that I was involved?

Nope.

By allowing other people to take credit, you can easily double or triple your impact. Is this ridiculously altruistic behavior that will sink your career? Not if you make sure the people who reward and promote you recognize the value of your contribution.

I'd argue that it's far better to make your boss look good than to worry whether your boss will tell his or her boss how much you helped.

I'd like to suggest that you redefine success so that it does not require a slap on your back, but rather relies on the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a significant impact.

Other content you might enjoy:

• Create Your Own Reality—my online course

• Increase Your Odds of Having a Mystical Experience

• Loved, Guided and Never Alone

• Grounded Audacity

Your career needs an editor

I'm not talking about an editor in the traditional sense of someone who takes what you write and corrects your grammar or cuts a few sentences.

I'm talking about a capable outside observer who can edit you (not just what you write) for clarity and consistency. Are you acting in a manner that makes sense? From an external viewpoint, are you doing what the person inside of you intends to do?

Unless you are the world's most self-aware person, the answer is often no. Almost everyone needs an editor, and I have two tips to share about finding and working with yours.

First, choose someone strong. Find a person who is willing to contradict your self-perceptions... but who also is impartial. Some people pay a coach or actual editor to perform this service, but you can also enlist a friend or colleague. Just make sure that your editor has the experience and skills to offer sound advice.

Personally, I use a number of editors... it depends on what I'm working on at the moment. Sometimes I enlist a CEO friend, and other times I ask my 20-something kids for advice. Long before an idea becomes tangible, I ask others for feedback. In many cases, their feedback is to take another path, and I usually listen.

Second, be vulnerable. The odds are you have your spiel down pretty well. But your "go-to" toolbox of how you position yourself, serve others, and go about your business can always be improved. Don't fall back on the same old stuff; this defeats the whole point of seeking out an editor.

It's possible that you are uncomfortable being vulnerable in a professional setting because you perceive this could threaten your livelihood. In fact, the opposite is true. Being vulnerable is not the same as being incompetent. To get better, you have to admit - and confront - those areas in which you need improvement.

By seeking outside guidance, you are embracing the concepts of aiming higher and being truer to your potential. From my perspective, that makes you a remarkable human being.

Do these four words terrify you?

People are so terrified of these four words that I couldn’t even put them in the title, because NO ONE would read this post:

What do you want?

A client of mine gets asked for advice, a lot. Before he answers, he asks the other person, “What do you want?”

Most people don’t have a good answer.

In this case, my client tells them, “Then it doesn’t matter what advice I give you.”

You probably already know that other people—your boss, spouse, clients, and colleagues—expect you to have at least a basic answer to this question. Even a receptionist will ask you a variation of the question, “How may I help you?”

If you’re like most people, you lie.

You make up an answer to “What do you want?”

You say, “I want to be happy” or “I want to get promoted.” You claim to want to go back to graduate school, or you express an interest in someday living in a warm climate.

But then your behavior contradicts your answer, and the people who know you best get confused. You tell your boss that your goal for this year is to be more confident and assertive, but you are still the only person in meetings to raise your hand before you talk.

Here’s what should happen: your answer to this question should be so clear and vivid that it floods your senses as you drift off to sleep at night. You should practice seeing yourself as you wish yourself to be. You should meet and study people who have achieved what you want to achieve…then you should do the things they do.   

I'm invisible

It's hard to see what a ghostwriter does. My goal is to be invisible, known only to my client. But I can't resist sharing this anonymous but true story.

A few weeks ago, one of my clients told me that his wife has been reading the social media posts we craft together. "They sound like you, only better," she told him.

Like I said, one of my goals is to be invisible. The other is to listen to you so intensely that I can repeat back what you said, only a bit better.

Persistence is only half the battle

A client once paid to pick my brain for a while, and we talked about the various opportunities and challenges he was facing. At the end of the call, it was apparent to me that nearly every best practice I described to him revolved around a single word: persistence.

Many of my social media successes came after relentless tinkering on my part. A post came out, and did only okay—which frustrated me—so I changed it once, twice, three times, four times, and five times.

Then, finally: “instant” success.

No matter what your goal, if you only have the energy for two or three attempts, don’t even bother.

Success requires hundreds, or even thousands, of attempts. 

It requires constant learning and incessant refinement.

But you know all this…or at least most of you do. Here’s the part people miss.

It’s not enough to be persistent. You also have to be present.

After you try and fail, you have to be fully aware of what happened. 

And, after you finally enjoy some success, you have to be fully aware of what happened.

Paying attention is the secret ingredient of successful people. Listen, learn, watch...then ponder. Be quiet long enough to allow your brain to make connections between pieces of information that do not appear to be connected.

The bad kind of authenticity

Writing on LinkedIn, former Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett observed: 

Being authentic is the best way to lead, but it’s no excuse for not thinking before you act.

In a sentence, Dean Garrett captured what often bothers me about offering advice to “be authentic.” Some people delight in saying whatever pops into their head, even if it hurts others, or is socially—or ethically—inappropriate. Other people act like a bull in a china shop, racing from one whim to another without any concern for the damage they do.

Do we really want a person like that to be his or her authentic self?

Authenticity isn’t a high-enough bar. You also need to combine it with a moral compass and an understanding of how human relationships work. You need to care about more than just what you want.

Too busy for social media?

It’s tempting for leaders to think: I don’t have time for social media, I have a staff for that.

Nonsense.

Social media allows you to pierce the cocoon that sometimes surrounds you, where nothing reaches your desk until it has been vetted and polished eight times, and nothing reaches the public until a similar process has happened.

In fact, social media leverages your time, making it possible for you to speak directly to many people who otherwise would never have direct contact with you. These encounters allow you to shed the trappings of your office and act like the human being you are. Say what’s on your mind. Be tactful but direct.

Most importantly, listen. Don’t skip the step of reading and responding to comments. By investing a few minutes in doing so, you can have genuine interactions with a cross-section of people: customers, employees, or voters within the communities that host your operations.

One word of caution that may sound odd coming from a ghostwriter: never allow someone else to comment for you.

The comments section of LinkedIn reveal whether or not a CEO was actually involved in the publishing of his or her story. Too often, it is painfully obvious that a 23-year-old kid is pretending to be the CEO.

When you’ve taken a few decades to work your way up the ladder, you develop wisdom and a manner of communicating that can’t be faked in a fifteen-word comment. Show this to be true.