This idea is what I remember from a talk given by Dr. John Townsend in 2010.

Passion is loving what you do.

Ability is being good at what you do.

Meaning is believing that what you do makes a difference that matters.

The sweet spot is the overlap of all three – doing something you love, you’re good at, and that matters.

A huge range of abilities can be developed, so there’s no need to limit yourself to the abilities you already have.

A huge range of activities are potentially meaningful, so that doesn’t narrow the field much either.

Passion is different, it’s unique to you. So look at what you love first, then look at what ability and meaning you can pair with your passions. Far better to learn a new skill to enable your passion that to spend a life doing something you’re already good at, but don’t care about.

P.S. Having a day job that fits your passion is a wonderful privilege, but it’s not always a realistic possibility. If you can’t do what you love for a living, there may still be good reason to keep your day job. Plenty of passions are brought to life outside of working hours.

The space between the end of one phase and the start of another is uncomfortable. Between losing one job, and finding another, it’s uncomfortable. Between realizing that the current product line is no longer competitive, and coming up with an idea for a new product line, it’s uncomfortable. Between a milestone reached with great success, and discovering the next meaningful goal, it’s uncomfortable.

In those times I find it tempting to seize on the first reasonable-looking thing that comes along, just to get out of that uncomfortable transition space. A wise advisor told me recently that she believes transitions are fruitful times not to be rushed through. She’s right.

Transitions are course changes that set the direction for decades to come, pretty important. They are also rare opportunities to brainstorm freely, because “keep doing what we’ve been doing” is taken off the table. It’s hard to think of what else 2+2 might equal when 4 is flashing on the screen. The discomfort of “we have no idea what we are going to do” brings about the priceless discovery of new possibilities.

I think the key is to be proactive about generating and exploring options yet patient about settling on one to the exclusion of the others.

A concept I heard Dr. Henry Cloud speak about:

When you confront someone with negative feedback, they will respond in one of three ways. A wise person will say, “Thank you, I want to understand more about your feedback.” They will change when appropriate. The best way to deal with them is simply to talk honestly.

A foolish person will say, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong.” They won’t change. Deal with them by creating real-world consequences. Foolish people don’t listen to words. If you treat them like wise people, you will talk yourself hoarse and they will never change.

An evil person will try to intentionally harm you in retaliation. The best way to deal with them is to protect yourself and, to quote Dr. Cloud, use “lawyers, guns (police), and money”.

If you treat evil people as anything buy, you will be vulnerable to their attacks.

In this world there are some wise people, lots of foolish people, and a few evil people. If you can’t accept that there are some evil people in your world, you’re gonna get hurt.

If foolish people need consequences, what do evil people need? If I remember right Dr. Cloud said it often takes severe life circumstances for them to change. He half-joked that wise people change through self-correction, foolish people change through other-correction, and evil people change through the department of corrections.

The key is to know what kind of person you’re dealing with, and respond accordingly.

I love New Years with it’s look-forward feel. I think being deliberate about where you want to go is essential to living well.

Take a look at this goal-setting tool, Pick Four, by Zig Ziglar. It’s a workbook that provides a process for discovering what you want, and why, creating goals, and acting on them steadily. I have a few extra copies. If you want one let me know. First-come first-serve.

Here’s to a great year!

As a bootstrap entrepreneur I’ve taken businesses from one-person basement startups to established companies. Along the way I sometimes felt that I should do things more like “bigger companies” do, but I always resisted adding those structures and formalities until I saw a clear need for them. I’m mostly glad I waited. Here are some things I’ve learned:

• Startups are different than established businesses. I believe the highest priority of a startup is to find a business model that is scalable. Test the market with the lowest overhead and the most flexible structures possible.
• Newer and smaller organizations have an advantage when it comes to innovation. They have less to lose, they can change quickly and cheaply, and they have to brainstorm a lot because they don’t have a standard answer to most questions yet. Use that advantage.
• Most entrepreneurs hate bureaucracy, and that’s ok early on.
• It hurts my entrepreneur heart to say it, but… There are valid reasons that “normal” businesses have things like written procedures, HR departments, meetings, and middle management. I didn’t need any of those on day one, but I need all of them now. These normal structures are solutions to problems that arise as an organization grows. I’ve found that waiting until we have the problems to implement the solutions has worked out well for us.
• Even with size, bureaucracy is worth resisting. Insist that it adds value and is implement with efficiency and common sense.
• I think as a leader of any size organization you are better off to think creatively and dare to be different, than to feel obligated to imitate normal and/or bigger organizations.
• The wisdom is in knowing when to follow a best practice, when to innovate your own solution, and when to do without entirely.