You Can Walk Out Any Time

By keeping your promises. They keep you grounded into the life that feels your own, and yours alone. You can walk out any time and deliver.

And, as Ben Affleck said last night at the Oscars, you can't hold grudges. It's hard, but you can't hold grudges. Yes it matters that you get up again when you get knocked down. It matters even more that you invest energy in making good on your word.

In my experience, when we come across something that speaks to us like this post by Quinn Norton, we have the opportunity to see that no matter how weirdly different we may feel (and be), we are still connected to others by themes and common threads.

The points that spoke to me are many, the start is particularly strong for this particular moment in my life (abridged, emphasis mine):

• Busy is not the same thing as important, but it can sure seem that way

And it is only fair that we pause long enough to determine whether it is urgent or important.

• If you want to see the future, don’t look at how people are using technology. Search out how they’re misusing it

I fell in love with this kind of work. Not because I want to be a critic, rather because I want to learn to become more observant, aware, dare I say alive to the possibilities and opportunities we can bring about when technology fades into the background.

• All people substitute belief for reality sometimes, and waste their time arguing with what is happening to them

This is an honest appraisal of living in the moment.

• Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean the business world isn’t insane and stupid. It really is

Following the crowd skips a most crucial step of designing to the way your business is, its customers needs, the way its market, or the market it could trade into behave. You are most definitely not like everyone else.

• Cultures can have nightmares

Because so much of what we're doing is becoming automated -- whether literally by machines, code, or unconscious auto-pilot that keeps us willing, actually wishing reality stayed a constant so we could catch up with it -- culture is among the differentiators.

The art of making sense, being a good person, and doing.

Consultancies, agencies, even companies keep touting how awesome it is working there in the hopes of recruiting the best talent. This is by and large something they may believe, maybe it once was. You have to experience it to know if it's true.

At a time like the current, when art has made a strong come back in popularity and consideration -- how you go about connecting the dots, making sense of things, executing, creating -- how you go about closing the gap between the promises you make and those you keep can literally make or break your business.

"Company" is how you trade promises collectively.

Yes, you can be lulled into thinking you have runway. For many businesses the cliff appears before take off.

You can walk out any time -- by keeping your promises. Focus on investing in doing that and worry not one bit on holding grudges. Most likely, lack of nuance and vision may delay anyone noticing for a long time. And one can hardly sustain either deficiency for too long.

 

[behind the Duomo in Modena]

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Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.