Dear Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Dreamers, and Creators of Great Things: I write these Love Letters each month with the hope of bringing you a little encouragement, some marketing help, and a few minutes of joy. Whether we are already friends or have yet to meet, I hope you’ll enjoy my stories from the road and some awesomely random takeaways, tools, tips, and updates.
Joy, baby.
I have been thinking a lot about joy lately. What it is… why it is so important… and how hard it is to explain when you feel it.
My book came out this week. (Cue allll the emotions.) The entire premise of We’re Gonna Need Cake is that we are better leaders and humans when we embrace our mess. In the book, I share The Authenticity Map – a compass for navigating the messiest and most challenging moments we face. The map, if followed, leads us to joy.
I have had the opportunity to experience and observe joy in the past several weeks. I saw it on the faces of children in Africa, as they learned a new song or were shown photos of themselves on my camera. I saw it in the eyes of my Grams, who sat with her sisters and gossiped like they were still young girls. I’ve watched it on tv as US Democrats have embraced a new candidate. And I see it in the eyes of my cat every afternoon, as she chases grasshoppers in the late summer sun.
And while I devoted an entire chapter of my book to joy, I have learned in these past weeks that joy isn’t really all that complicated. It’s what naturally spills out of us when we are willing to show up real and messy and human. When we are willing to look silly, or admit we don’t have all the answers, or try something we’ve never done before.
In my book, I wrote, “Joy is the result of being exactly who you are meant to be, doing exactly what you are meant to do.”
A month ago, I sat under a tree in Botswana and watched a family of elephants cross in front of me. There were over thirty in this group… mothers with children of all ages. And right in the middle of the group was a tiny, brand new baby elephant. He was so new that he hadn’t even learned to use his trunk yet. It flopped all over the place, nearly tripping him several times. He was ridiculously adorable and comical the way he couldn’t seem to control it at all. And the look on his face was pure joy.
He didn’t have it all figured out yet, but he was going full speed ahead.
I don’t have it all figured out either, friends. I likely never will.
Chances are you don’t either. But when we try, when we show up messy, when we do the thing we are meant to do… joy spills out.
And that is all I ever wish for you.
Results, baby.
Out of all the groups I am working with this season, the top theme, by far, is change.
Change is in the air lately. New regulations. New rules. New leadership. New directions. There are changes facing people in every industry I work with.
I have found that when we are met with change, we tend to want to announce our importance – especially when this change impacts our customers. (Look at me! Change is happening! You need me! You can’t do this without me!) We tend to do this because we are afraid that we’ll somehow be pushed out by change, or that our value won’t be as apparent. So we focus on our responsibilities. We say things like, “I do x and y for you.” Or, “This is where I come in.”
But guess what?
Our customers don’t care about our responsibilities.
They care about our results.
Results beat responsibilities all day long.
Instead of saying, “I negotiate for you,” you should be saying, “I’ll fight for the things that are most important to you.”
Instead of saying, “I stay ahead of the latest trends,” you should be saying, “We’ll make sure that you are always speaking to your audience in a way that makes them want to hire you.”
And instead of saying, “We provide support and tools,” you should be saying, “We continually create an environment that pushes you out of your comfort zone so you can grow.”
Results beat responsibilities all day long. When you are facing change, don’t tell your customer what you do. Tell them what you enable them to do.
Change can either happen to us, or it can push us forward. It’s our choice.
This is where I share the good stuff.
… the latest websites, books, & tools that are inspiring me, the people who are making me smile, and the stuff I have been writing on sticky notes.
Y’all – MY BOOK IS AVAILABLE!
I am sorry for the yelling, but also I’m not. I am so excited to share this with the world. (And how fun that it made Bestseller on Amazon in 3 categories the first week!?) Thank you to everyone who has ordered, and if you haven’t… what are you waiting for? You can find the links here.
If you have ordered it – please, please, please take a few minutes to leave a review on the site you ordered from. It means the world to me and honestly, it makes a huge difference in sales. So thank you!
- A little story you might have missed.
- A little book that is going to change the way you think about failure in big ways.
- Three women-run businesses that I fell in love with in Africa. Nuts. Jewelry. Clothes.
- The coolest creator I have seen on Insta lately. I want to buy all the things.
Quote of the month:
“I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas… I’m frightened by the old ones.” – John Cage
Thanks for reading, friends! If you want to get these in your inbox every month, be sure to get on the mailing list. And if you are looking for a speaker who will motivate your organization to get up, get moving, and face change head-on, I would love to chat.
