(Disclaimer: everything in this newsletter is shared as a set of observations, rather than a list of instructions...)
My path through life looks like the dotted black line wanderings that characters used to take through Bil Keane's Family Circus cartoon.
I have prolonged periods of "what is he doing?" wanderings that puzzle my family and friends, interspersed with bouts of irrational confidence. I had such a bout last week, and that's why you are reading these words today.
“Ghostwriter” is a convenient label I use to give you a bit of context, but it doesn’t come close to describing who I am.
Instead, it simply tells you enough to motivate you to ask a few more questions.
“Could you help me do _____?”
“Can you make my life easier?”
But four weeks after you start working with me, you’ll understand that “ghostwriter” doesn’t come close to describing who I am.
As a ghostwriter, with 95% or more of what I write, only one other person in the world—my client—knows that I wrote it.
In this manner, I am able to reach a huge number of people with highly positive and actionable insights; this number is dramatically higher than I could reach on my own.
Does it bother me that I don't get credit for this work? Not at all.
I only have two goals:
1.) Delight my client
2.) Help other people
To help other people, do I need them to know that I was involved?
Nope.
By allowing other people to take credit, you can easily double or triple your impact. Is this ridiculously altruistic behavior that will sink your career? Not if you make sure the people who reward and promote you recognize the value of your contribution.
I'd argue that it's far better to make your boss look good than to worry whether your boss will tell his or her boss how much you helped.
I'd like to suggest that you redefine success so that it does not require a slap on your back, but rather relies on the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a significant impact.
Other content you might enjoy:
Create Your Own Reality—my online course
I've been writing on LinkedIn for over a decade, and have learned a few things about personal branding in the process. Today, I am sharing many of these lessons.
They apply to anyone who wants to have a successful career, but will be especially valuable to you if you are trying to find new clients or grow your business. If so, you should have two goals on LinkedIn:
1.) Help other people
2.) Get hired by other people
Number one always comes first. If you don't help others, people will have nothing good to say about you. Plus, you will get a great deal of satisfaction from going to sleep at night knowing that you made even a small difference in the lives of other people.
But number two pays the bills.
In his now classic 1990 work, Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work, psychologist William Kahn made the case that three psychological conditions—when present—encouraged individuals to fully engage at work.
These psychological conditions were:
Meaningfulness: How meaningful is it for me to bring myself into this performance?
Safety: How safe is it to do so?
Availability: How available am I to do so?
In the ensuring years, psychological safety has come to be applied by many as a corporate culture in which individuals feel comfortable displaying their genuine self at work. This has led me to create a two-part definition of what it means to be a genuine leader:
I'm not talking about an editor in the traditional sense of someone who takes what you write and corrects your grammar or cuts a few sentences.
I'm talking about a capable outside observer who can edit you (not just what you write) for clarity and consistency. Are you acting in a manner that makes sense? From an external viewpoint, are you doing what the person inside of you intends to do?
Unless you are the world's most self-aware person, the answer is often no. Almost everyone needs an editor, and I have two tips to share about finding and working with yours.
First, choose someone strong. Find a person who is willing to contradict your self-perceptions... but who also is impartial. Some people pay a coach or actual editor to perform this service, but you can also enlist a friend or colleague. Just make sure that your editor has the experience and skills to offer sound advice.
Personally, I use a number of editors... it depends on what I'm working on at the moment. Sometimes I enlist a CEO friend, and other times I ask my 20-something kids for advice. Long before an idea becomes tangible, I ask others for feedback. In many cases, their feedback is to take another path, and I usually listen.
Second, be vulnerable. The odds are you have your spiel down pretty well. But your "go-to" toolbox of how you position yourself, serve others, and go about your business can always be improved. Don't fall back on the same old stuff; this defeats the whole point of seeking out an editor.
It's possible that you are uncomfortable being vulnerable in a professional setting because you perceive this could threaten your livelihood. In fact, the opposite is true. Being vulnerable is not the same as being incompetent. To get better, you have to admit - and confront - those areas in which you need improvement.
By seeking outside guidance, you are embracing the concepts of aiming higher and being truer to your potential. From my perspective, that makes you a remarkable human being.
Rule number one: Treat people like people, even online
You wouldn’t give a party and never even talk to any of your guests, so when you post something online, be sure to reply to contents and engage others in conversation. Be warm and curious. Ask questions to show interest. Listen, learn and give positive feedback.
Rule number two: Be human, not perfect
How many people do you know who consistently fail to make any progress because they are always trying to leap past all the folks who are actually working? I'm sad to say I know more than a few.
Our business world is filled with aspirational mumbo-jumbo, from the posters put up by HR to the latest pep talk given by your newest boss. Everyone aspires to be the best of the best. Besides Avis, I can't think of a business that advertised the fact it was number two.
That having been said, I'd be thrilled to: have a book that's number two on the New York Times bestseller list, help a client go from a startup to number two in their industry, or have one of my kids be number two in his or her class.
People are so terrified of these four words that I couldn’t even put them in the title, because NO ONE would read this post:
What do you want?
A client of mine gets asked for advice, a lot. Before he answers, he asks the other person, “What do you want?”
Most people don’t have a good answer.
In this case, my client tells them, “Then it doesn’t matter what advice I give you.”
You probably already know that other people—your boss, spouse, clients, and colleagues—expect you to have at least a basic answer to this question. Even a receptionist will ask you a variation of the question, “How may I help you?”
If you’re like most people, you lie.
You make up an answer to “What do you want?”
You say, “I want to be happy” or “I want to get promoted.” You claim to want to go back to graduate school, or you express an interest in someday living in a warm climate.
But then your behavior contradicts your answer, and the people who know you best get confused. You tell your boss that your goal for this year is to be more confident and assertive, but you are still the only person in meetings to raise your hand before you talk.
Here’s what should happen: your answer to this question should be so clear and vivid that it floods your senses as you drift off to sleep at night. You should practice seeing yourself as you wish yourself to be. You should meet and study people who have achieved what you want to achieve…then you should do the things they do.
It's hard to see what a ghostwriter does. My goal is to be invisible, known only to my client. But I can't resist sharing this anonymous but true story.
A few weeks ago, one of my clients told me that his wife has been reading the social media posts we craft together. "They sound like you, only better," she told him.
Like I said, one of my goals is to be invisible. The other is to listen to you so intensely that I can repeat back what you said, only a bit better.
A client once paid to pick my brain for a while, and we talked about the various opportunities and challenges he was facing. At the end of the call, it was apparent to me that nearly every best practice I described to him revolved around a single word: persistence.
Many of my social media successes came after relentless tinkering on my part. A post came out, and did only okay—which frustrated me—so I changed it once, twice, three times, four times, and five times.
Then, finally: “instant” success.
No matter what your goal, if you only have the energy for two or three attempts, don’t even bother.
Success requires hundreds, or even thousands, of attempts.
It requires constant learning and incessant refinement.
But you know all this…or at least most of you do. Here’s the part people miss.
It’s not enough to be persistent. You also have to be present.
After you try and fail, you have to be fully aware of what happened.
And, after you finally enjoy some success, you have to be fully aware of what happened.
Paying attention is the secret ingredient of successful people. Listen, learn, watch...then ponder. Be quiet long enough to allow your brain to make connections between pieces of information that do not appear to be connected.
Writing on LinkedIn, former Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett observed:
Being authentic is the best way to lead, but it’s no excuse for not thinking before you act.
In a sentence, Dean Garrett captured what often bothers me about offering advice to “be authentic.” Some people delight in saying whatever pops into their head, even if it hurts others, or is socially—or ethically—inappropriate. Other people act like a bull in a china shop, racing from one whim to another without any concern for the damage they do.
Do we really want a person like that to be his or her authentic self?
Authenticity isn’t a high-enough bar. You also need to combine it with a moral compass and an understanding of how human relationships work. You need to care about more than just what you want.
It’s tempting for leaders to think: I don’t have time for social media, I have a staff for that.
Nonsense.
Social media allows you to pierce the cocoon that sometimes surrounds you, where nothing reaches your desk until it has been vetted and polished eight times, and nothing reaches the public until a similar process has happened.
In fact, social media leverages your time, making it possible for you to speak directly to many people who otherwise would never have direct contact with you. These encounters allow you to shed the trappings of your office and act like the human being you are. Say what’s on your mind. Be tactful but direct.
Most importantly, listen. Don’t skip the step of reading and responding to comments. By investing a few minutes in doing so, you can have genuine interactions with a cross-section of people: customers, employees, or voters within the communities that host your operations.
One word of caution that may sound odd coming from a ghostwriter: never allow someone else to comment for you.
The comments section of LinkedIn reveal whether or not a CEO was actually involved in the publishing of his or her story. Too often, it is painfully obvious that a 23-year-old kid is pretending to be the CEO.
When you’ve taken a few decades to work your way up the ladder, you develop wisdom and a manner of communicating that can’t be faked in a fifteen-word comment. Show this to be true.
1. Every time you interact with another person, make a conscious decision about the energy you wish to bring (i.e. positive, uplifting, supportive…).
2. Give other people clues that you are really listening: nod, ask questions, repeat what they said.
3. When you help others, you are demonstrating the kind of person you are, and you are creating the kind of world in which you want to live.
It turns out that counting your blessings actually improves the quality of your life. A study of 389 adults found that gratitude was strongly correlated with a measure called Satisfaction with Life (SWL).
The researchers wrote that “grateful people were more extraverted, open, agreeable, conscientious, and less neurotic.” They also observed that “gratitude is increasingly being seen as a trait which is a major aspect of well-being.”
Similarly, a 2007 study concluded that “counting blessings seems to be an effective intervention for well-being enhancement in early adolescents.”
Evidence shows that counting your blessings increases your sense of satisfaction, and this is one of the simplest ways to feel better.
Sure, you could wait to feel good until you solve your problems, or until you shed those extra eight pounds, or until you get promoted, or until you get a raise, or until you get married, or until any number of in-your-dreams things happen.
But I hope you don’t do that. I hope you just adopt a habit of taking a minute or two each day to be grateful for your many blessings.
In “Positive Psychology: An Introduction”, Martin Seligman writes about the time he was weeding in the garden with his five-year-old daughter.
He yelled at her because she was throwing weeds into the air and generally fooling around. She ran away and then came back. According to the article, here’s what happened next:
“Daddy, I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, Nikki?”
“Daddy, do you remember before my fifth birthday?
“From the time I was three to the time I was five, I was a whiner. I whined every day. When I turned five, I decided not to whine anymore. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch.”
At that moment, Seligman resolved to change.
At this moment, you can do the same.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I posted this today because I was feeling a little, well, grouchy.)
The late Stanford professor Cliff Nass studied multitasking, and in 2009 Nass described how he and his colleagues were looking for multitasking activities at which multitaskers excelled.
In an interview with the PBS program, Frontline, Nass said, “We all bet high multitaskers were going to be stars at something. We were absolutely shocked. We all lost our bets. It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They’re terrible at ignoring irrelevant information, they’re terrible at keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organized, and they’re terrible at switching from one task to another.”
Translation: if you think you can multitask, you are delusional.
