Tag Archives: Work/Life

The Secret Isn’t in the Sauce

It’s time to take off your floaties and do more than follow your passion.  If you’re trying to figure out what career to pursue or how to make the biggest difference in this world, you’re going to be searching for a long time.

The secret is that no one area of concentration is magical, all-knowing or more important than the other. The architect can design the house, but without the brick layer–it’ll never get built. Making our world better takes a multi-disciplinary network of individuals, communities, organizations and talents. Your passion only gets us so far. So stop searching and start doing.

Before You Eat Your Breakfast

Go. Don’t put if off any longer or wait until “you have it all figured out” to cultivate your talents, expand your knowledge, build connections and move plans forward. Albert Einstein once said “success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” In other words, ideas inspire but execution leads to impact.  How are you going from dreamer to doer?

Make the Leap

Traditional models for change are not keeping pace with today’s challenges. The remedy? “Be fearless,” says the Case Foundation. To help you move from dreamer to doer to achiever, they suggest adopting a five step mantra:

  1. Make big bets and make history.
  2. Experiment early and often.
  3. Make failure matter.
  4. Reach beyond your bubble.
  5. Let urgency conquer fear.

Is there room for more bravery in your mission? Let it marinate. When you’re ready, consider making the “Be Fearless” pledge.

Once you know fearlessness, it’s easier to recognize. You may even decide to nominate a Fearless Changemaker who has touched your life in the Case Foundation’s Finding Fearless competition which offers $650k in prizes and awards. In a guest post written for Marketing for Change, I share Laura Vandekam’s research on what successful people do before breakfast. Some additional motivation may also be found in the Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki, Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun, Rework by the founders of 37 Signals and Echoing Green’s Work on Purpose resources.

 

Quote of the Week: Unleashing Love

This week’s quote comes from one of my favorite people in the non-profit tech community, Stacey Monk of Epic Change:

In America alone, we spend $14.6B annually on Mother’s Day for “stuff” that could just never say what’s in our hearts. What if instead, we all just unleashed that love on the world? How would it impact our world if we stopped using stuff as a surrogate for love? What if we invested that love to make the world a better place for Mamas & children everywhere?

Love Your Mama

This thinking led to Epic Change’s latest fundraising initiative, ToMaMaWithLove.org in honor of mothers everywhere–including Mama Lucy. Mama Lucy is Epic Change’s Tanzanian partner–the money raised from the effort will go towards the children’s home Mama Lucy wants to build for her primary school.

To date, over 200 mamas have been honored and over $11,000 has been raised–making a home for 12 children. The goal is to create a home for 50 children. You can contribute by unleashing your love and honoring your own mama by create a heart space–an online, visual tribute to your mom over at ToMamaWithLove.org.

Unleashing Love

The idea of unleashing love, however, can live beyond Mother’s Day and can be applied towards an organization as well.

  • Have your employees felt appreciated lately?
  • Is there an organization with an unmet need in your community?
  • Are you following the golden rule–treating others as you want to be treated?

These are just a few examples–but you get the picture, we can unleash love in our daily lives. As As Stacey suggests–What type of impact would that make? Imagine how that could change our world–your world?

So go love–unleashed and with wild abandon.

A.c.r.o.n.y.m.s.i.a – A Crisis Rampant Among Numerous Yams Making Speeches In Associations

Acronyms run beyond the entertaining Cingular cellphone commercial, ‘my bff, Jill.’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o&rel=1]

They run rampant in every sector, no matter where you work. For example…

“I got an MPH after my B.A. from my NCAA accredited school. Now working towards my Ph.D., joined the AMA, volunteering with BBBS and the PHS. This weekend I attended the annual AMA dinner. I work at UNICEF, but hope to switch to UNESCO.”

Does this not sound glaring close to… omg, like nbd, text-speak? I deem both these: acronymsia. This made up condition shows symptoms of broken up language, when short, choppy phrases carry long meanings. Side effects include weariness, fatigue, total work obsession or when you’re trapped in a glass case of emotion (thank you Ron Burgandy…).

I find this especially true when working in the non-profit and social marketing arena. Since social marketing and non-profit marketing often involve collaboration among NGOs, government clients and partners, education institutions and more. NGO itself is even an acronym!

So for fun. Try this brain teaser activity. At work on Monday when you find yourself embarking towards a case of acronymsia…

  1. Chuckle to yourself.
  2. Make the word acronym into an a.c.r.a.n.y.m. that may apply to your job.
  3. Share it with the rest of us to share the fun.

Here are some examples:
(Warning-This activity is harder than it seems and may cause prolonged amusement.)

a.c.r.o.n.y.m.s. – A crisis rampant among new young marketing students
a.c.r.o.n.y.m.s. – All chapters revolve around new young mind-bending spells (Author)