The Ever-Moving Target

Goals are rarely set in stone. What’s important, even vital, for your business today, isn’t necessarily so tomorrow, and almost certainly won’t be next year. We have to achieve the paradox of investing mentally, physically and emotionally in a goal as if it were eternal, while recognizing that it may cease to have value, even before it’s fully achieved, but will most certainly stop being a goal once it’s achieved—after all, it makes no sense to chase something you’re holding in your hand.

I’ve been in the chaos between two Sigmoid curves lately. My consulting, speaking and coaching business was originally called ‘The Commonsense Entrepreneur’, which is also the name of my first full-length business book. Lately, though, that name has come to mean the book, specifically, and not necessarily the business.

My speaking gigs and my coaching have leaned more and more toward two things: building a business based on the trust that comes from communication that’s more human, and being a career renegade; making a great living doing what you love.

Those aren’t best conveyed by the phrase ‘commonsense entrepreneur’ so I’m changing that.

For now, ‘The Commonsense Entrepreneur’ is the book and its accompanying website. My business is me; Joel D Canfield. (If it doesn’t have the ‘D’ it isn’t really me, and you might note the lack of a period after the middle initial.) Until a brilliant new name strikes me, I’ll be presenting myself as author, speaker and business mentor Joel D Canfield, co-founder of the Northern California Association of Entrepreneurs.

What are you changing today?

Don’t Depend on Your Memory

There’s a marvelous tool that will help you free up mental energy, while ensuring that you’ll remember important ideas, facts, and feelings.

It’s a notebook.

I’ve spent an hour this morning trying to remember the details of a conversation I had with a client, so I can write an outline for our next coaching session. I feel like I’m not providing the real value I want to deliver when I can’t get back in the emotional moment that sparked a very clear picture of our next chat; our direction for the next session.

Thing is, I really was taking notes—but on what my client was saying, not on what I was saying. I mean, I’ll remember my own words, right?

As a matter of fact, no; I don’t.

I’m planning on recording these calls, strictly so I can go back and review what was said and how it was said, to recapture the emotional impact. My benefit comes from changing how people feel based on what they think about, not just sharing facts for them to sort out in their own head.

My dad never went anywhere without a little thirty-nine cent notebook in his shirt pocket (he write in it with a fountain pen, in green ink—but that’s another story.) When he needed to remember something, he just wrote it down. Not only did he actually remember things later (reviewing the notes) but his mind was free to concentrate on the moment instead of spending part of its energy remembering the three simple little things he needed to remember—they were in the notebook, not his head.

A Lesson Re-Learned—Nobody Likes Surprises

I have mentioned that, after the age of three, no one likes surprises. If you forget that, as I did earlier this week, the results can be painful.

A reader commented on one of my strongly-worded blog posts. They disagreed vehemently. I was not surprised.

What surprised me was the offline contact from the reader who explained why they took the subject so seriously; it was something they were facing in a very real way, right now.

What followed was a 5,000-word email conversation about the issue, which finally ended in complete agreement with my original post.

Here’s where the ‘learning experience’ happens.

Re-reading the 10 pages of conversation I realized that this was information nearly anyone could benefit from. I asked if, perhaps, I could share an anonymised version of the conversation with others.

The answer was a horrified emphatic ‘no!’

I realized after some thought that I had changed contexts; from a private conversation to a public forum. No, nothing had really changed, and I certainly hadn’t shared anything with anyone. But simply asking the question was unexpected; the surprise we’re supposed to be avoiding.

Don’t go around surprising people. It doesn’t work.