Magic + Faith = Passion

I wrote recently about the magicians I've been fortunate to work with and last year, I offered an insight into my own work history with a post called "Do You Believe?" I had an epiphany the other day that they're intrinsically linked - the idea of faith and of being around those that seem able to perform business magic.

I suppose it's not much as epiphanies go - I didn't see God's face in a lump of cheese, or discover a cure for cancer, but nonetheless you don't look sideways at original thought. The fact that this popped into my head in the form of mathematics was interesting to me as well - I always seem to give greater credibility to ideas that are able to be expressed mathematically.

Magic + Faith = Passion.

Magic here being the capability to drive an organization along a road no one else sees, and usually having the foresight to predict or guide the marketplace.

Faith in this context is the unwavering belief in what you're doing such that you take on the customer's risk - they can only succeed by coming onboard your way.

Passion is an active approach to your marketplace, getting the ideas spread and helping them gain traction. It's unstoppable, and devours adrenaline.

When these two attributes are combined, it brews up a passionate organization. It can't help but due so, as focus is present, clarity is a requirement and the need to evangelize you're core proposition begs to be done.

This is interesting to me (and I'm hoping you) as the recipe for passion has eluded me prior to this. Knowing that there's a way to unleash it is very exciting.

Of course like all good math equations, it should work in multiple directions. Does passion less the magic just leave us with (blind) faith ? Does passion without any faith leave great ideas alone to dangle (magic) ? I think it stands up to both these tests, and holds water in an algebraic sense.

Fun with math aside - knowing how to stir up passion - where do you let it loose ? What situation that you're involved with requires the people to be lit on fire, and burn with passion over the core ideas and vision ? This is a tremendously powerful force, and one that most places never enjoy.

You have the power now - the secret ingredients to create passion. What's your next move ?

Magicians

The Economist cover this week resonated for me, as they used a word to describe Steve Jobs that I also use, to give due credit to those I've worked with that have done extraordinary things. "Magician". In my life, I've come across a number of individuals who are uncommonly capable and seem to have achieved some incredible things. I joined Expedia to work with the magicians there, and when they left (that's another story) the magic in the place left. Steve Jobs fits my own personal definition of magician too, and for that I'll personally miss watching him as he uncannily created those things that have become essential for me. Without guidance and all the while breaking new ground.

Before you tune out and stop reading what's starting as yet another effusive love poem to the late Mr. Jobs, I will warrant that this isn't that. There's enough of that floating around - in some ways almost too much as my friend Donal points out. I'm not here to create St. Steve, as like any of us, he was a person with flaws, and challenges, and notwithstanding that he gave the world some incredible gifts, at the end of his day he was just one of us.

There's an irony to the public mourning taking place about Apple's founder, insofar that while protest covers the western world financial centres about executives that bilk the common person in the guise of corporate greed, this billionaire CEO was loved it seemed. One can deduce that the key is the kind of contribution one makes then - if we can enrich people's lives through personal conveniences as well as our own wallets, then its ok to be "the man". This is a facetious statement to be sure, but there's an uncomfortable kernel of truth in it. Steve himself would be quite unsettled with it I'm sure, with his hippie roots.

The magician aspect though is what fascinates me. Specifically it's the motivation to be a magician every day. The title is earned surely not by doing something great once, but through an ability to accurately predict where markets are moving and make plans to be there ahead of that pace. It's the business equivalent of the Wayne Gretzky quote: "skate to where to the puck will be, not where it is". The problem with magicians is that there isn't enough of them, and they are rarely given due credit for the magic they impart. They are often replaced with non-magic normal people, who while capable do not share that ability to guide towards success when the path isn't yet laid down. It's the drive to continue to push a direction through, when there is no support and prudence says do something else. I admire it, I'm impressed by it and we are all awed by the results. Sure sometimes there's a 'newton' in the outcome, but as another of my favourite phrases to live by goes...you aren't trying hard enough if you don't fail 20% of the time.

The 'show that was Steve Jobs' will be missed.

Finding Yourself

I always hated this phrase, as it implies you're lost, or at best undiscovered. As a piece of guidance to a young person, we should tell them not to find themselves, but to become comfortable with who they are and understand what they are capable of and enjoy.

The artist who dreams of business success or the barista that wants to dance isn't lost, they simply haven't yet committed to what they want, instead of what they're doing.

You are not unfound, so much as unacknowledged, and that doesn't come from other's it happens from within.

What's in a Name

One of my favourite organizations just re-branded. GAP Adventures became G Adventures on October 1st. They dropped the 'ap' (there's a joke there I'm certain) They modified their name for reasons I'm not clear on and I think as a consumer and avid follower of them, it's a bad idea. Here's why.

Sometimes when we see this type of change it's to reflect changes the company has gone gone through - two companies becoming one, or taking on whole new services. That is understandable and reflects to the audience that things have been modified. The consumer of their services should modify expectations as well. Examples are all around us and pop up daily. Other organizations re-brand but don't change their name, and one of the mildly more interesting things in the travel business is to see new livery on airplanes - the enormous expense of re-painting hundreds of airplanes and pieces of ground equipment as "the blue hue previously used didn't convey the global aspirations of our traveller", or some such spin. Laughable unless you're a shareholder.

So, the marketer in me understands and applauds a re-brand or refresh when appropriate, or when there's just a need to get some attention.

Name changes however are seismic in marketing terms - literally in a SEO sense, and figuratively in a recognition sense. What is a Google, an Oracle, or a Microsoft anyway. Think about the words themselves, rather than the organizations they've come to reflect. It's hard isn't it ? That's because we look beyond the words once the companies are established and just see the organizations. If you're truly established in a marketing sense and had some good foundational ideas on branding, your name becomes synonymous with your space - Ski-doo being my favourite example. That's aspirational for marketers in the brand role.

GAP Adventures is one of those companies that sets themselves apart from the background noise, and was changing perceptions of what 'gap' meant..not the beige chino's after-all, but the life altering experiential stuff. Making it "G Adventures" probably set them back a few years on that path as like learning a new skill, I and others like me need to now re-establish all I think of for GAP and try to re-align it with G. That's an uphill climb for their marketing team for years to come.

Value

I recently went through a drawn out effort to buy a car. While I had some preconceived notions about what I wanted, I tried to approach the effort with an open mind. I was interested in how well the salespeople I'd encounter could capture what I was looking for and how well they positioned their own products.

I experienced a very mixed bag of results. In general, the more experienced individual was better at talking about what mattered to me (in order one hopes to refer to that while closing the sale), while the younger people were all about price. I saw this across brands, and in fact the more established (pricier) brands were where the poorest sales efforts existed in some cases.

People don't buy cars based on price. We buy based on a series of intangible factors that range from sensibility, practicality, to sex appeal and ego stroking. One of the keys for the seller is to understand how those motivations manifest themselves in an individual buyer and work to those. It's the same way in B2B sales, though more factors influence the individual - ego, politics, career aspirations etc.

I was saddened to see the two most senior people (in terms of their titles in their organizations) I was dealing with focus almost exclusively on price. This bodes poorly for them and their businesses and is in stark contrast to what the brands they represent are about. Forgetting value is a cardinal sin in sales.

Someone in Your Life

Do you have someone in your life that you look up to ? The person you can count on, that provides clear guidance, and helps you help yourself in a manner only possible through clear understanding of who you are, combined with their own experience and wisdom. This is obviously a special person to you, one who is both confidant and mentor. It's your go-to-person for counsel and opinion.

I hope you do. The individual can act as your external conscience for moral dilema's and provide you with the upside of their life experience. It doesn't matter if their life was lived when TV was black and white (or there was just radio) as our core issues are unchanged by the movement of time. Our modern word isn't so modern that wisdom is ever out of place.

I would offer that in the past it seemed an unfair trade to me. I would offer issues, situations and opportunities to choose from, and they would (only) get to advise. I was the player that didn't want to coach. Seeds were planted though and I grew and saw the benefit of guidance and helping someone lay the foundations to harness the potential that they have within themselves. Perhaps the greatest gift given to me was this understanding of how to help make a difference for someone else. For that I am grateful beyond words and I can only hope to be as unobtrusively impact-ful to others as I've been fortunate to experience for myself.

I really hope for your sake you have such a person in your life. I do, and count myself lucky every day for them.

Those Moments in Our Lives

Sometimes we're reminded of our mortality. We're reminded that through the grace of God, or fortune, or whatever else we believe in, that our time on earth is finite, as it is for those around us that we care for. We're reminded harshly, blindsided usually, and the reminder has all the subtlety of being hit by a truck.

A brush with a difficult sickness, the death of a friend or family member, or perhaps some other awareness-quaking event in your our lives brings us back to this conclusion. We lament that we were surprised again when it happens - this feeling - that we haven't held it dear in our hearts since the last time this knowledge visited, and we pledge to do better. It's a bitter but real taste - these moments - and ones that each of us know to be absolute truths. It's the ache of loss, and the regret at missed chances to have done better. It's wondering what your last words were, and if any actions you might have taken could have changed the outcome.

And we pledge to do better - we will have more profound conversations, we will let those we love know it regularly, and we will cherish the small things in our lives that make any day worth celebrating. And we do....for a while.

Then routine, our old friend that helps the days pass unnoticeably creeps up again. The ache fades little by little and our thoughts turn away from the profound and towards the mundane.

And life goes on.