WANT A JOB THAT GIVES YOU MORE SUCCESS AND JOY, NOT MORE WORK?

WANT A JOB THAT GIVES YOU MORE SUCCESS AND JOY, NOT MORE WORK? There’s one thing you may need to let fail first.

I discovered this rather late.

My wife and kids had apparently discovered it considerably earlier.

Their suggestion was:

Fail now. Retire.

They had a point.

Years ago we bought a shitty old railway station because of the cheap land for the horses.

My late mother cried when she saw it, it was so bad.

Today it’s a wonderful 70-acre estate. I could have sat in the sun. Unfortunately, I live in the snowiest, worst weather village in Britain.

Sensibly I’d have bought snow shoes - I started another bbusiness.

Problem: B2B buyers can be as reclusive as a hermit with a tax bill.

So naturally I chose them as my ideal customer.

It was painful.

Then I tried an experiment: post twice a day for a quarter. My own team unfollowed me.

Until I found some old psychology notes and wrote about something interesting.

No funnel. No pitch.

I loved it.

Then something odd happened.

People stopped telling me to go away.

Some asked: “Hey Stuart, what would you do about this?”

Sometimes people even laughed - with me.

Hmmmm.

I was just trying to add value.

And it worked better.

Experiments do that. You look for one thing.

And find another.

But be ready to fail.

Eg Viagra?

Well, I’m sure you know it wasn’t originally invented for…

you know what.

Then I realised my experiment had done the same.

Years ago, a friend and I taught people to write. Somewhere along the way I lost that.

Now I’m writing again. Stories. Psychology. Strange connections.

I’ve started filming too. I’m rubbish.

But I get to go to nice places.

Perhaps my consultant years are over. But, I’m not sad.

My favourite Bond scene is when he asks Moneypenny if he’s finished.

“I think you’re just getting started.”

This was after she shot him tho.

But that’s exactly how I feel.

Here’s the business bit.

McKinsey found leading innovators are 3× more likely to encourage experimentation.

Microsoft tested a tiny Bing idea ignored for six months.

Revenue rose 12%. More than $100 million a year. Nobody predicted it. That’s the point.
Yet organisations want the ROI before trying something.

“Tell us what the experiment will discover before we approve the experiment.”

Maybe we should experiment more.
Most won’t work. But occasionally you’ll find something you weren’t looking for.

A better idea. A better way.

Maybe something that makes you excited about what’s next.

And every once in a while…

you’ll get lucky.

I did.

You fail and get something better.

Hang on I’m supposed to sell you something…

Newsletter here if you want more information on psychology, business and low effort ways of working.

https://lnkd.in/eHMQXuve

And you can get your low effort score at

https://www.loweffort.com

Jay Rahman, Edward Lamont, Chris Stanley this one’s for you my friends.