Category: #dominoZ

The Six Stages of Kevin Kelly

~ Sasha ~ 10 Comments

Last week I encouraged readers to buy the End Malaria book.  When 62 great thinkers line up behind a cause and offer to share their ideas with you for free, PLUS you get to make a donation to end malaria…to me that’s a no-brainer.

(one important clarifying point in answer to a question that came from a reader: the book itself is not about malaria, it a series of short essays on living a productive life.)

First, a reflection on my experience buying the book.  To my surprise, it did actually feel, when I curled up with my Kindle, that I’d gotten the book for free and had also made a donation to Malaria No More.  It didn’t feel at all like I’d paid $20 for a book (I hadn’t).  Interesting to think about that buyer experience in terms of participating in something as opposed to just consuming it.

Second, I have both the Kindle edition and the physical copy, and for the first time in a while I think the print is better just because it is so beautiful.  It will make a great gift.

Third, Tom asked for reflections from the book itself, so here goes:

Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine, wrote an essay in the book called What You Don’t Have to Do, which really has amplified my thinking on the same topic.  Here are the stages of professional life, according to Kevin:

Stage 1: Don’t Screw Up.   “When you start your first job, all your attention is focused on not screwing up.”

Stage 2: Learn New Things. “At this stage, working smart means doing more than is required.”

Stage 3: Exploration.  “Working smart here means trying as many roles as you can in order to discover what you are best at.”

Stage 4: Doing the Right Task. “It takes some experience to realize that a lot of work is better left undone.”

Stage 5: Doing things well and with love. “At this stage, you can begin to do only the jobs that you are good at doing and that need to be done.  And what a joy that is!”

Now here’s where things get interesting, because it doesn’t stop there.  The meat of Kevin’s essay is about getting past this stage, which is asking a lot.  Stage 5 sounds pretty great.  But, Kevin tells us, through real dedication, hard work, and honest reflection, we can go a step further and discover the things that ONLY we can do.  Counter-intuitively, this means taking all things that are worth doing and that you do really well (but that others can also do well) and letting go of them.

As a magazine editor, that meant Kevin giving away all his story ideas to other writers, except the ones that no one would take on.  These felt like duds, but Kevin discovered that some of them would keep coming back to life AND that he couldn’t get others to write them.  So he hung on to them, and eventually he wrote them.  They became his best stories.

That’s the last stage, not just for Kevin but for all of us: finding those things to which you are uniquely suited, and doing only those things.

Think of the discipline that requires.  Think of the faith it takes to let go of all sorts of things you’re good at and that are worth doing – and the fear that if you do that, you’ll be left with nothing (which of course you won’t).  Think of the courage and conviction it takes to realize that when people are telling you something is a bad idea, they may just be indicating that this one, and only this one, is the one that YOU need to make happen.

Kevin’s essay is much better than this blog post, so I hope you have the chance to read it.

20 dollars, 61 authors, fight malaria

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

It couldn’t be simpler: today is End Malaria Day.  A million people a year still die from malaria.  Bednets keep out mosquitoes and save lives.  You can help.

So here’s the deal: for $20 (Kindle) or $25 (paperback) you can buy a copy of End Malaria.  $20 of the proceeds for every copy go to Malaria No More.  Full details on the End Malaria Day website.

This is worth doing because the cause is worthwhile, the organization is the real deal, and you can actually save lives with your $20.

If you need more motivation, you’ll be getting essays from the likes of Tom Peters, Dan Pink, Brene Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, Sir Ken Robinson…. (there’s 61 of them.)

This is the exact moment when you think “this is a good idea, I should probably do this” and then you don’t.  Go ahead and do it.  You’ll feel great about it, you’ll be part of something important, and you’ll get a great book in the process.

BUY THE BOOK.

Seriously, BUY THE BOOK.

Then post to Facebook and Twitter (for example: I just bought End Malaria to celebrate World Malaria Day: http://ow.ly/6nFUS).  Email this post to 10 people.  Tell a friend.

Free Kindle book – save your meetings

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago, I started a depressing Excel spreadsheet to track how many hours a day I was spending in meetings.  It was sobering.  Four, five, sometimes six hours a day.  When was I supposed to do real work?

It seems like an impossible problem to solve, but there may be a way.  Al Pittampalli has a new manifesto on how to save your company by rescuing it from death-by-a-thousand-meetings.  It’s called “Read this before our next meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard.”  You can read it in less than an hour, and it just might turn your company around.

Even better, it’s free for the next five days on Kindle, no strings attached.

Download here.

The first paragraph of the book:

Someone asked me the other day what I do for a living.  I found myself hard-pressed for an answer.  If he wanted to know my job title, or what industry I worked in, then all I had to do was recite what’s on my business card.  But he seemed sincere.  He honestly wanted to know what I do most of the day, so I was honest, too: What I do for a living is attend meetings.  Bad meetings.

Sound familiar?  Download the book for free.