I'm preparing for the week ahead.
Marketing campaigns across different mediums.
People I'm teaching with projects,
marketing campaigns and students of their own.
People I'm leaning heavily
on to help me with various tech challenges.
Friends in my life with challenges
that stay close by.

I thread one thought
throughout my plans for the week:
There's a big difference
between good intentions and being effective.

Stage one:
Someone has good intentions and we all feel good.

Stage two:
Events go nicely - the direct mail campaign gets a good response. Someone agrees to buy.

Stage 3:
Adversity strikes - the mail house had a problem with printing a sales letter.

The crucial website is down and no one knows why yet.

The promising client disappeared on a student.

The superstar student has a meltdown over things not going their way.

I pretty much live in stage 3.
That is where it's all decided.
If you cover a lot of ground,
adversity is striking somewhere.

The website doesn't care about my good intentions.

The superstar student may have other things going on that can cause anything I say to be unheard, unseen and ignored.

There's a term - diffusion of responsibility.
A thumbnail definition in an example sentence:

Person 1: "I thought you were handling it."

Person 2: "Really? I thought YOU were handling it."

Person 3: "Really? I thought YOU TWO were supposed to handle it.

Person 4: - "I told Robert about it - I figured he had it covered." lol


Stage 4:
Adversity is managed and fires are put out for now.

Being effective is not just
being able to produce good results.
It's being able to manage inside fragile conditions, things breaking apart,
lack of monitoring,
unconfirmed statuses,
tech problems and sudden tantrums
and move the traveling tornadoes
to the finish line without incident.

Most people are great
if their ideal conditions aren't challenged.
Being really effective
means going beyond
your own sphere of preferences.
That's where a lot of good intentions fade away.

The survival of any major business,
friendship or relationship
is probably not decided
when things are going perfectly.

It's decided when the chips are down.
When everyone is in a bad mood.
Are you the person
that lifts people around you up?

Can you help them behind the scenes
without seeking credit or thanks?

Are you the person
that's stopping daily disasters
from happening?

Are you walking into disasters
and rolling up your sleeves?

Make a list of the people
in your life outside your family
who can count on you no matter what.

Pretty words and thoughts are great.
But at 2am - are you the one
people can count on?

If people you know had an emergency,
and they could choose to call 5 people besides family members...would you be their first call or their last?

You still have to negotiate your boundaries.
You can't be a doormat.
But being burned in the past
doesn't mean people
can't count on you now.

So when I plan out the week,
I'm factoring in the people around me
running low on energy.
People who feel unsupported at the moment.

They're first on my list for this week to help.

They just don’t know it. :)

Don't wait for a
formal title
to be a leader.

Robert