In which Our Hero builds the lazy river…
A guy who needs exactly my services is posting on Twitter about it.
I want to help. I know it’d be a good fit. I’m one of the five best people in the world at it.
Do I reach out?
Before you say “yes,” it’s a little more complicated.
He has to want it before I can close the deal.
We’ve already spoken… and he’s not ready.
So what do I do?
I make it easy for him to say yes.
—
Let’s talk about generosity.
Generosity isn’t martyrdom. It isn’t giving to others such that you can’t feed yourself.
Very few causes are worth dying for. Dying – or even destabilizing oneself – is rarely the most effective approach.
Generosity is finding what someone else needs and giving it to them.
And this guy needs ease.
—
At clown school, a fellow student told me that the creative people he knows don’t plan.
They go with the flow: having meetings when they have meetings, happening upon each other as needed.
I thought: that just means the powerful, successful people are the ones who make it look effortless.
That’s what this guy needs.
His current stress is mental load. He needs my work to remove that load.
I can’t convince him.
I need to make it easy.
I’ll be in his city in ~2 weeks.
I’ll wander to his area, grab coffee, maybe step into his office, meet his team.
And if I can make it easy enough for him…
Well, that’s the job.
–
Three key areas of my life came into alignment today. I said to my partner, “When you work hard, sometimes you get lucky.”
Is this generosity, or strategy?
I don’t think those are opposites.
Julian Wise 