So, Here's My Story...

Are you in the mood for a rant? This week, Jodi and Eliot air some grievances about the newest changes to the Patreon fee structure, all in the spirit of championing honest business practices and taking care of you, the listener. Why is that important for business? Patreon, the organization we work with to help fund our podcast, has changed its policies in a frustrating way. They have raised their fees, and have decided those extra fees will be added to the money pledged by the patrons. And all of this has happened without the consultation or consent of us, the beneficiaries of that patronage. The fees are a small amount, but the amount isn’t the point. When you are dealing with such small amounts, it is just proof that it isn’t just about it being “worth it” in the sense of dollar value alone. Sometimes, fee changes are about pushing some button far more core or primal than they are about the dollars. And often that comes down to how the change is communicated. When trying to control a message so that people

Episode 26 Have you ever found yourself adding unnecessary steps to a project? Made something simple way too complicated? This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about the mental feng shui that happens when the mundane creates space for real business magic. Why is that important for business? Often, we overcomplicate things in our business. It may just be the way we have always done something, or it may be that we are too close and cannot see what is possible – often we need someone else to point out where our processes are overcomplicating things. When a process is developed, it initially served a purpose. But where do we stop trying to make things better or more efficient? Perhaps it is not only a matter of having a rock in your shoe, but it is about also having at rock at the exact time when you are in a position to be able to take off your shoe. Fixing an issue with procedures isn’t just about the irritant being sufficiently…irritating, then. It is also about having the time and resources - and perhaps even the pe

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about the situations where you don’t want to collaborate; there are times when you want the experts to lead. And it all starts with a trip to the doctor. Why is that important for business? In business, one of the most challenging things to figure out is when is the time to stop listening, and do the thing that they came to do; when to stop collaborating, and be a leader. If you are a professional, you need to find that place where it is time to stop listening and time to do the thing that they came to you to do. In the book, When Breath Becomes Air, a doctor becomes a patient, and it becomes important for him to have space to be that –a patient. Nobody wants an authoritarian leader who tells them what to do without taking their opinion into account. But there is unease when there isn’t clear leadership, and a clear idea of where we, together, are going. There needs to be an underlying trust when having these conversations, that setting boundaries and limits are not the limits o

Episode 24 We’ve all had the experience of feeling like a company doesn’t care about us, but how many of us have examined how our own clients experience working with us? This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about Thanksgiving and whiskey, Saturday Night Live spoofs, and how all of it relates to keeping your customers and clients happy. Why is that important for business? "You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated - even we can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it? So, the next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string? We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." – Saturday Night Live, September 18, 1976) Companies often differ in how they treat external and internal customers. As an acquaintance of Jodi’s once said – you date the external clients, and all of your effort goes there. Your internal customers are the ones you already married – they’re stuck with you

This week, Eliot and Jodi discuss Taylor’s car shopping experience, implicit bias, and the benefits of curiosity. Why is that important for business? As Taylor’s story illustrates, ignoring a decision maker is an excellent way to lose a sale. Who we choose to ignore often relates to our implicit biases, about who is important and who is not. (Check out this episode of the NPR podcast, Hidden Brain, for more on implicit bias). The hardest part of addressing your biases is that you cannot actually self-diagnose. They feel like rational conclusions, not biases, and are hard to see, let along overcome. Nobody wants to see themselves as the person who makes these judgements, yet they continue to happen, and they cost us more than just sales. So how do we deal with these biases if we don’t even know they are there? The best first step is to start all interactions by being curious and seeking to understand. And the better you know something, the more curious you need to be; you have to counter-steer your own knowle

This week, Eliot and Jodi talk about those moments in business where we have irrational, emotional reactions and what that intrepid traveler, Indiana Jones, teaches us about how to deal with them like adults. Why is that important for business? We need to remember that it’s not just business; it’s personal. And when things get personal, we don’t always have the capacity to respond rationally. We all make irrational decisions; we all think like petulant children sometimes. And even though these irrational reactions are by definition irrational, they are still every bit as real. Ignoring them, or dismissing them as silly, is dangerous. Acknowledging “yes, I am having the emotions of a 5 year old” and owning it helps you move past it. As long as, in these emotional states, it feels like an issue of winning or losing, there is no place to go. When your value feels threatened, blood goes away from your smart, nuanced prefrontal cortex and goes to your instinctual fight or flight lizard brain, making it very hard

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about that famous business poet, Rudyard Kipling, and what he has to say about riding the ups and downs of business. Why is that important for business? “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.” -- from Rudyard Kipling’s If. Just as in life, business involves both triumph and disaster. Sometimes people are better with the triumphs and some are better with the disasters. But it is important to remember that both the peaks and the valleys are temporary. There is a special hell that comes sometimes after you have achieved what you wanted to achieve, and the effort of keeping that success becomes your torment. And there is nothing inherently wrong with triumph, of course; it is the imagining that the goal is to get to triumph and STAY there that is the problem. The white knuckle attempt to keep the success often makes us less agile; the fear of another valley, of the next disaster, can actually cause the next valley. The imposter in Ki

Ahava Story This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about their interview with Ahava Leibtag of Aha Media about why she started her unique business, the worst day of her business, and the heartwarming best day. And of course, being Eliot and Jodi, they also make time to discuss the perils of putting beans up your nose, all while making it relevant to your business.   So what DOES this week’s episode say about your business? Ahava has a big “why” for her business. But yours doesn’t have to be as life or death as hers to matter. What if you just started with asking yourself: “what’s broken in the world, or my industry, that I want to fix?” What do you have the power to fix? What you are frustrated by can be the opening for you to really grow your business. If you are daunted or frustrated by something in your industry, chances are you are not the only one. Knowing this North Star is also a great way to know when you are going off track as well, and help you get realigned with what matters to you. It doesn’t have to be w

We watched the new Will & Grace, and at the risk of losing diehard fans, we have some ideas about how it relates to your business. This week, Eliot and Jodi talk about knowing your value, and the importance of white space. Why is all of that important for business? Sometimes, in TV and in business, people are not clear with what their real value is. When you don’t know what value you are actually bringing, you can put all of this energy and attention on aspects of your product or service that are not only not what your clients want, but actually detract from the experience. And yet - what happens when you as a company feel called to change and shift into something different, and people know and love you for something different? You are allowed to change, but you need to be aware of what people loved if you want to make that change effectively. So many companies guess instead of just asking. You have to think about business as a science experiment: you have to isolate the variables, change one thing at

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about the psychology of loss, VIP sections, and goldfish the size of a continent, terrorizing the ocean. It all makes sense in the context of the divide between your own expectations, and those of your clients.   Why is all of that important for business? Many businesses and events have a system that allows clients and participants to engage at different levels. But what happens when these levels inadvertently cause valued clients or peers to feel unappreciated? This all relates to the psychology of loss. If you have different levels of service or product, how can you address the psychology of loss without making people feel less satisfied with what they have already received, while still demonstrating the value of the higher level? There are many places where customers set their own expectations, and it is a challenge to navigate those unspoken – but never promised - expectations. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of certain information, people will fill in their own i

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk stereo equalizers, Top Gun, and goals, and how they all relate to your business.   Why is that important for business? Sometimes, defining a minimum can be more important than, or at least as important as, setting a goal. Where is the line drawn in the sand of minimum participation in your habits? “God loves us just the way we are, AND he loves us too much to let us stay that way.” Letting someone grow means first loving who they are. The same with goals – goals that extend you beyond what you thought you can do are great. But where is the setting for knowing what is “good enough” without turning off the drive for something better? Creating a solid foundation of enough actually makes it easier to get to the stretch goal. We spend a lot of time focusing on stretch goals, but we don’t spend much time talking about what is dipping below the “okay” mark. You don’t need to keep all of your tanks on full, but you need to know that there is a low gas indicator somewhere. Part of the ar

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about bringing the wrong size of clothes into the dressing room, comedian Kumail Nanjiani, and Jodi’s seeing eye dog, which is apparently our team member Kristi. And somehow, it all makes sense relative to this weeks topic: confidence. Why is all of that important for business? In an interview recently, Kumail Nanjiani, from the sitcom Silicon Valley and the movie The Big Sick, said: “I’ve learned that there is no difference between being confident and pretending to be confident. Nobody else can tell the difference. Even your own body can’t tell the difference. Through the exercise of “fake it till you make it”, I was learning to trust myself. I was learning to trust my decisions and my thoughts and my abilities. Because, all those famous comedians who were so confident in that New York show? They didn’t know what they were doing either. Nobody really knows what they’re doing. Some are just better at pretending like they do.” People talk about confidence as if it is something yo

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about jiu jitsu, palm writing, and other interesting things that totally make sense once you listen to the episode.      Why is that important for business? The whole premise for this episode is based on a story - that accomplishments should be written on your hand, and you should celebrate them only until they fade. The idea is that you should absolutely celebrate the moment, but that as it fades, you don’t continue to have it be “your thing”. That it not be part of your routine to wander through your trophy room. None of us should ever be resting on the thing that we did last week. Sometimes it helps to personify your company, to elevate the conversation above individual needs. What does that company need? Built into a lot of compensation structures is the idea of resting on your laurels; of being rewarded for past accomplishments.  Be conscious about what you reinforce. What do you want your organization to value enough that you would like you to write it on the limited space

This week, Jodi and Eliot talk about how emotions in business relate to dental hygiene and peanut M&Ms. Trust us – it makes sense.   Why is that important for business? Often people are apologetic about the emotional component of their response in business. Somewhere along the way, somebody made up this rule that business never has anything to do with ever feeling a personal emotions. And because of that made up, unspoken rule, no one has ever made it okay to do the emotional version of brushing your teeth in business, and then the plaque builds up and it’s problematic. Then the emotional build up gets in the way of what really needs to be dealt with. Whoever said “it’s not personal, it’s just business” is an idiot. The word “hygiene” is important here, because it alludes to a regular practice of cleaning and getting rid of what doesn’t need to be there anymore. We don’t apologize for needing to clean your teeth, and we need to get as comfortable with emotional hygiene. Not clearing the plaque results in

PLEASE Don’t Say Please What does thawing bait in the microwave have to do with boundaries in business? This week, Jodi and Eliot discuss hard boundaries and why it’s not always kind to be polite.  Why is that important for business? Often, in an effort to be nice or polite, we make ill-kept or porous boundaries. We try to ask for things politely, when really, we want to be setting a hard boundary. Sometimes, we are prioritizing the person’s feelings over the boundary. And other times, in the want to keep the possibility open, we put off the boundary. Yet, there is a soft hostility, or soft torment, to something less than a definite answer. Allowing expectations to linger can be crueller than a hard boundary; being more definitive about expectations can be a relief. This lives at the intersection between kind and nice, and they are not always the same. It shows both empathy and compassion to let no be a complete sentence. What story do you want to tell? So we told you our story – now it’s time to tell us your

Tamsen Interview This week, Jodi and Eliot interview Tamsen about when Imposter Syndrome shows up in organizations.  Why is that important for business? Imposter Syndrome is usually an issue with individuals: perfectly accomplished people who are worried about being “found out” as not expert enough, or just faking it. But organizations are just communities of people, and the neuroses and insecurities of those individuals often gets imbedded at an organization level. Imposter Syndrome can be deep seated, even in large, established, and respected organizations. This is why branding and marketing exist. At some level, as an organization, you understand there is something valuable in what you have. So you start to put it out into the marketplace. But at some point, some organizations just don’t have faith in what they can truly offer. No matter who we are, whether we are an individual or an organization, we think differentiation comes down to characteristics. But differentiation is actually the product of our dec

This week, Jodi harasses Eliot into seeing how critical it is to be able to take a compliment. Why is that important for business? Knowing your value, and using it as a foundation for growing your business, is the only way to create a truly wonderful experience for your clients and customers. It is typically easier to have a “hard conversation” and tell someone the “bad” stuff about them than it is to get someone to sit still and listen to a genuine compliment. But here’s the thing: Giving and receiving of any kind is a finely balance ecosystem. If I want to give something to you – a compliment or a favor or anything – you have to be willing to catch that ball, or it doesn’t work. It can’t be a one-sided exchange. There has to be someone on the other end of the seesaw. When someone tells you that you are wrong about a compliment – “no, no, I’m not actually that good” – they are taking something that is yours. They don’t actually get to weigh in on what you think (and admire and appreciate) about them. The

Have you ever had someone throw up a barrier when you are just trying to determine if you want to work with them? This week, Eliot and Jodi talk about how a $50 charge at a travel agency might relate to your business. Why is that important for business? Sometimes, businesses value their needs to the exclusion of the needs and expectations of the new client, and in so doing, they establish the first step in a new relationship as a barrier. There is a fear that if you give away, you will go down a slippery slope of giving it all away. But often the thing you do to protect yourself from something puts you on the fast track to that very thing you were trying to avoid. It might seem like a good idea to establish a policy that protects you from someone who will pick your brain and then not use your services; however, at the same time, that very policy may act as a barrier to the very customers that you are looking for. This isn’t about creating a policy that will protect you. It is about figuring out the generalize

Nutrition and business – how much do they have in common? This week on So Here’s My Story, Jodi and Eliot talk about the importance of taking a break, in nutrition, and in business. Why is that important for business? In nutrition or in business, there is a level of performance that yields results, and a level that means almost identical energy output, with diminishing returns. It is often better to take a week off and come back at full focus than to continue to work at a capacity that isn’t working. It’s important to play strategic hooky. So why don’t we? There is almost universal buy in on the smaller part of that picture – we know we get our best idea in the shower or walking the dog because of the mental break. But where people tend to get off the boat is making it strategic, because that seems like an abdication of responsibility. But everything – from yoga to nutrition to exercise – has built in ebbs and flows, and it is in the rest period that you actually gain the strength. It is counterintuitive, but

Why would you need a safe word in business? This week on So Here’s My Story, Eliot and Jodi talk about clients we don’t love. Why is that important for business? What do you do with clients that you feel like you can’t do your best work with? First, you have to know what IS a good client, so you can figure out when a non-ideal client shows up. Sometimes, we lack the courage to disappoint. We can get better at it if we get better at acknowledging the economic realities and responsibilities of a business. Sometimes we take these clients on because of those pressures. But the opportunity exists when we take these clients on because we haven’t crystalized what a fit is enough that we can say it out loud. Creating a “Go/No Go” chart can be helpful for this kind of clarity, and this episode talks about how to come to those decisions. Like when your wheels are out of alignment in your car and the steering wheel pulls, you can also feel that pull to say “yes” every time you respond to a request from a client that isn