Love Is The Killer App
I had a fantastic Christmas. It was a privilege to spend time with my family and friends, to go for long peaceful walks with my dogs, and to concentrate on the really important things in life.
The Christmas break also provided an opportunity to look at business from a different perspective. It allowed me to evaluate things that weren’t working, to be encouraged by those that were, and to start putting in place plans to change and grow in 2012.
As part of this review and evaluation, I met up with a group of five friends. We meet twice a year, take a room at a pub up in North Yorkshire, and in an open, honest, and frank way, critique each others’ businesses. Each of us prepares a review of the year covering finance, business, projects, worries and concerns. We then present this to the other four who feed back on various aspects of that review.
It’s fantastic. I’m asked the questions I don’t want to hear, I’m supported by those who’ve been there before, I get corrected when I’m wrong, I’m pointed towards things I’ve missed, and I come away with far more knowledge, insight and practical help than I could have imagined.
Throughout the day, a running theme for most of us was honesty and selfishness. In some form or other, most of us had been impacted by someone else’s selfishness or dishonesty over the course of the previous six months. It’s also fair to say that we’d probably been selfish at times too!
We continued those discussions over dinner, and also compared book lists for the coming six months and chatted about blog posts we’d read or columns we follow. What we became aware of was the considerable number of ‘me-centric’ content we’d all read. Whilst I’m not suggesting that reading this sort of stuff directly leads to the symptoms we’d been discussing earlier, it did leave me wondering whether there’s actually not as much outward-focussed content available. Perhaps that’s a result of lean economic times, perhaps it’s not popular, or perhaps I’m just reading the wrong books and blogs; probably a bit of all three…
The conversations over dinner and the themes we’d been discussing earlier really challenged me on the quantity and quality of material I’d been reading. My Twitter contact Richard Wanderman has a great expression (that I frequently copy!), “…that guy’s breathing his own exhaust…”. I think it really sums up some of the content I’ve been reading over the last few months.
I left our day in North Yorkshire with a seemingly endless list of notes and actions for the year. The first action was to re-read what I think is one of the best business books ever written – Love Is The Killer App, by Tim Sanders. I was given a copy by a friend when it was published years ago and it sums up the challenges I took from the day.
Sanders’ main points are:
1: Learn and share your knowledge
2: Grow and share your network
3: Show compassion
It’s a fantastic philosophy – it’s about sharing, about giving and about focussing on others instead of yourself. It’s also hard to do it genuinely. I’m fortunate to be in such a group that does have this philosophy at its heart, so I experience the tremendous value there is to me in other people living this out. Sanders shared some of these tips in an excellent article in Fast Company back in 2002.
Focussing on something that’s more than just about personal gain is a very powerful and healthy way of working. That’s not to say we put aside personal goals, just that a different focus may actually be the better and more fun way of achieving those goals. Furthermore, by doing those things, we build our own personal brand and the trust, respect and goodwill from others.
Hopefully, those three points will be my theme for the year. I’m looking to read and learn more – particularly comment and opinion. I’m looking at ways of being less selfish and also sharing knowledge with existing clients, prospects and friends. I’d love to share this with you and also to learn from you, so please do get in touch!
Have a great 2012!
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