One big problem when working on creating impact is the trap of the social mirror. We tend to look to others for a perspective on how we appear instead of seeking feedback from within. We get tangled up in other people’s perspectives, thoughts, and opinions, and this becomes an issue quickly.
Consider the word “disappointment” or “disappointed.” When someone says they are disappointed in us, our first reaction is to feel bad and to suddenly take stock of what we’ve done to determine just how flawed and bad we are. But have you ever considered the fact that people’s disappointment is often their own, and that when they say that, they are really saying, “I’m frustrated that my own internal image of you didn’t match with reality”? Has that ever crossed your mind?
Throw into this mix the terms “obligation” and “expectation”; all of these things quite often come from external sources. They cause us to get tangled in other people’s issues. For instance, if someone sends you a holiday card, are you obligated to send one back? You might feel like you are, but think about it for a moment. This person has chosen to send you a greeting of some kind. You can opt to appreciate the greeting and take no action. You might also choose to send a greeting back. Make it your choice and not an obligation.
We get tangled up at work too. We think long and hard about pleasing the boss, and sometimes we stop making good decisions because we get too hung up on it. Other times we get tangled up at work by creating rivalry among colleagues. We get tunnel vision over competing for the same raise or for some scrap of praise. But if we step back, we can see that all these kinds of feedback come from outside of us.
When we are tangled up in other people’s perceptions, we worry that too much Contrast will make us stand out when we’re trying to fit in. (Think back to high school: This was approximately 70 percent of your angst, right?) When we worry about the little things, we chew up a lot of time instead of working to improve our Reach.
It’s also harder to be articulate if you’re trying to consider the thoughts and social mirror of others around you. You’re prone to try to describe things in a way that covers your bases. This obviously also hurts Trust, because if you’re trying to be all things to all people, then your ideas get watered down, and that rarely evokes strong Trust. Where you might gain ground positively is in Echo, but that’s because you’re responding to the sentiments you’ve seen in the social mirror.
In our conversation about critics, we recommended that you acknowledge all positive and negative external feedback but that you do very little with it. We feel the same here, though it will take even more work. It’s a lot easier to distance yourself from the words of strangers and acquaintances. In this case, we’re talking about learning how to untangle your feelings and your sense of worth and value from your loved ones, your employers, and anyone else currently wielding power over you.
The goal is to serve the people who matter to you, but only from your own sense of value and worth. Your loved ones, your employer, your customers, and some of your colleagues matter to you. It’s great to acknowledge this. Work and live in a way that honors them, and don’t worry a lick about the mass of external feedback you receive from everyone, friend and foe alike.
Have you been thinking about specific people? Are you remembering times when someone said something to you and it really hurt? Imagine if that person were somehow instantly in front of you and asked you for some honest feedback about something they were doing. How easy would it be for you to shake off the negative feeling you were just experiencing? How would you judge their effort without bringing in the past?
See how messy this is?
We all consider ourselves the hero of our own story. Today, when you stopped what you were doing to read this part of the book, you viewed everything that came before this moment as things that happened to you. But go back. Did you have a funny moment with the barista who poured your latte? Did you trade angry e-mails with a competitor? How do you think those people are reflecting on their day? How much of their day are you responsible for affecting?
The answer, almost always, is quite less than you would think.
Somewhere out there is a person that has the exact solution to a problem you are having right now. It could be a businessperson. Maybe it’s an artist or a student. Who knows? It might even be a child in the middle of Africa.
There are almost seven billion people on the planet, all thinking different thoughts from yours. One of them is bound to have the answer; you just don’t know who it is yet.
It would be great if we knew who it was. But we don’t, and we won’t, because right now, we can’t connect to them.
If technology got to where it should be, you would be able to Google your problem and whoever had the solution would be connected to you instantly. They would be able to reach you right away, you would be able to talk about your problem, and they would solve it for you. Or they’d have written a blog post you could read, and it would give you a step-by-step solution, which you would then implement. Everything would fall into place, wouldn’t it? But right now, it doesn’t.
The ideas in this book will not last forever. They’ll only be important as long as people are not totally, 100 percent, connected with one another. At that point, this book will become irrelevant. Everyone will be visible and connected all the time. Everyone will be able to have the impact they should have on the world. Many of the world’s problems will get solved at that point—or maybe new problems will be created—who knows?
But we aren’t there yet, and we won’t be for a while. So this book will help you refine your ideas, which is an essential part of working inside a cluttered idea marketplace where everyone is always shouting for attention all the time. It will help you develop a long-term platform that will give your future ideas a nice place to launch, so they can reach as many people as possible. This book will also teach you how to understand the human element of communication, which is something that people forget when they are communicating in this new way. After all, we are still the same humans we always have been. We should still be thinking about people first, because people will always be the recipients of our ideas.
One day, all of this will be irrelevant. People who discover your ideas will know what you mean when you say them, instantly. Or the Web will connect you to other ways the idea is explained, so that a poorly explained idea won’t die but instead will be clarified by someone else.
At some point in the future, the platforms you build will not be necessary. Algorithms will be close to perfect. Now, this future is as unimaginable to us as Google was to medieval peasants. As Arthur C. Clarke once said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So in this future, everything will be “magically” solved, but it won’t actually be magic. It will be connection. Good ideas won’t die. They will be built upon collaboratively, perhaps the way Wikipedia is today.
At that time, everything will change. But in the meantime, you’ll need to hustle. We hope this helped.
If only it were really this easy. The curtain opens, you have your moment in the limelight, and you say your lines. The audience applauds during your solo, there is a love-interest side story, and everything ends happily ever after.
Unfortunately, almost nothing happens this way. This is life, not a movie, so there are no credits that roll after a crisp, simple ending. In fact, if you’re anything like us, your life is messy. Not everything fits in quite right. There are mistakes, missteps, and mispronunciations.
Thankfully, as long as you’re doing at least something right, almost no one will remember them. Instead, they’ll remember your home runs and big hits. They’ll remember the work that helped them achieve a breakthrough, reach many other people, or make a million dollars. Along the way, your work will spread too. The quality of what you do will improve, and over time you’ll become more and more well known. You’ll develop a reputation for good work, and it will be well deserved.
But there is never a curtain call and rarely a standing ovation. Rather, when your work is done, the satisfaction lies in the act itself and the fact that you really made a difference. You had an impact on the world. Those who know and look closely will see your fingerprint in the places you labored and in the people you influenced. They’ll remember you.
In the world that we’re moving toward, everyone will have this chance. It will be taken for granted. We just heard Peter Diamandis speak about the potential and effect of the next billion people to come online in the next few years. What can an extra billion connected minds accomplish alongside the rest of mankind? Their potential cannot be calculated, but their ability to transform the world is unheard of, their impact enormous.
In the meantime, however, the speed at which the world changes is dependent not on the next billion but on those already on the Web: people like you. We hope the concepts in this book help you develop the channel you have always wanted—one that helps spread a message that matters and helps everyone reach the audience they know they can speak to.
Once you have these tools and have mastered them, the next step is to pass them on, to give someone else the ability to leave an imprint. So give this book to someone. It may help them a lot.