I absolutely love a good analogy.

Probably to the point of over-using them, to be honest, but I can’t help it. I like looking at things from more than one angle, more than one point of view. Finding a good analogy for a situation helps me do that.

“Spatial reasoning” is the ability to envision objects in three dimensions, even when you can’t see the whole object. So if you can look at a two-dimensional picture of a three-dimensional object and rotate it in your mind and correctly imagine what it looks like from all sides, you’re good at spatial reasoning. (Curious about this, by the way? Have a test!)

Analogies are like that, but for ideas. When presented with a situation, especially one that I’m trying to explain to someone else, I like to see if I can turn it around in three dimensions. Find a way of looking at it that unlocks different comparisons, because then new solutions might present themselves.

No situation is perfectly, 100% analogous to another. But especially if you’re feeling stuck, finding a different way to describe the situation can be a great spark for creativity. You might not know how to solve your original problem, but if you can compare it to a very similar problem and solve that, you might be able to turn that solution into something similar to your original issue.

Analogies can also be a great way to remove excess emotional bias from the equation. Sometimes we can’t find solutions because we’re too close to a problem, or we’re too emotionally invested in a particular way of looking at it. Creating an analogy that features the same fundamental problem but is “emotionally neutral” can help you realize that you knew the right answer all along, but it was difficult to admit.

Looking at my problems in three dimensions helps me solve them. It might not work for everyone, but I think anything that gives you a wider view of the world is a good idea!

I am very easily distracted.

I hear about this thing that lots of other people apparently do, which is “put the television on in the background for noise.” This utterly baffles me. I don’t have the ability. If I wander through a room where a screen is showing something, I’m either immediately utterly engrossed in it, or sometimes I manage to tune it out to the point where I don’t even register it was there. There’s no middle ground.

I can’t “half-watch” something. If I want to watch a movie, that’s what’s happening. If you say something to me while I’m watching the movie, I won’t remember what you said. If it’s important, you have to pause the movie and let me mentally switch gears in order to retain what you tell me.

If I try to listen to a podcast or an audiobook while driving, I won’t crash or anything, but I will absolutely miss turns and exits. I can only do those things when I’m on long drives where I won’t have to make any active decisions for the duration.

My brain just can’t seem to process multiple sources of information at once. My family jokes about it – even simple questions like “what do you want from the pizza place,” I’m incapable of answering if they ask while the TV is on, even if I’m not the one watching it. Either my full attention is being paid to the information source, or my full attention is being used to ignore it.

The information processing part of my brain is apparently a one-lane highway.

The benefit of that is that when I focus on something, I focus on it. I’m a laser when I’m in the zone on a particular task. The downside is that my house burned down while I was working on something else I’m not sure I’d notice.

It’s definitely a shame. I’d love to listen to more podcasts, and I audiobooks are often suggested to me when I say I’d like to read more, but I’ve just never learned how to do those things while doing something else. I once tried to put a podcast on while I was fixing something, and when I was done I realized that the podcast had ended and I couldn’t remember a single word.

This might just be one of my (many) flaws that has no fix, but I’m open to suggestions if anyone has good tips for either when to listen to these things (like activities I might be doing on auto-pilot that I don’t realize are good opportunities) or just techniques for focusing on more than one thing at a time in a way that actually allows the absorption of information. Give me your secrets, TV-on-in-the-background people!

A bit more than a month ago, I had the idea to just sit in a public space one day, and offer career advice to anyone that wanted it.

I was absolutely not sure how I was going to make it happen, or what the format would look like, or which of a million possible things would go wrong, but I didn’t really dwell on it. I just picked an arbitrary Saturday a half-dozen weeks in the future and announced that I would be doing it, and called it “Coffee Coach” (since I’m a pretty big caffeine addict, and also because I didn’t want to waste too much time thinking of a name).

I committed first. I could figure everything else out later.

The idea came from two pieces of information that were rattling around in my brain. One, the system by which people are matched with jobs is horribly, horribly broken. And two, I was actually pretty good at navigating that broken system. As bad as it is, it’s bad in certain predictable ways that I’ve had a lot of experience with. So I actually have some expertise that could help people.

In an ideal world, people wouldn’t need that help. In an ideal world, transaction costs would be minimal to the point of being negligible and potential employers would have good ways of correctly evaluating real skills and traits in people, instead of both parties having to maneuver through a byzantine and ever-growing system of proxies, guesswork and sometimes outright lies in order to get good people into good jobs.

We do not live in that world.

Until we do, I’ll keep doing my best to help people find the way through the thicket. Today I sat in a beautiful park in Philadelphia and did that.

It wasn’t a huge crowd. In fact, it was three people. But each of those three people came to me with worries, concerns, and problems. They felt stressed or stuck or anxious, and they were all struggling with some part of a system that is a huge part of almost all of our lives, yet that we’re mostly woefully unprepared for. And I helped them prepare.

They each left a little lighter. One of them had an interview coming up for a big opportunity, and she was worried she wasn’t good enough; we practiced and shared tips until she felt way more confident. Another has some circumstances that made it very difficult for her to find work, and was looking for advice on how to even look for things that could fit her specific situation; we talked strategy, brainstormed and found multiple ideas that could work. And the third was a recent graduate with no clear career path ahead of her who felt demoralized and intimidated by life; I listened, we talked, and we worked through a whole new way of looking at the world that left her energized and ready to try new things.

In the grand scheme of things, this might be small. But I got what I was after. I put out some positive energy into the world. I helped a small number of people in a small way. But those little bits add up. I’m happy.

We live in a big, big world.

Often people’s ambitions are too broad to start. They want to sell a product or service to a demographic that is way too large. I think a lot of the motivation behind this is the belief that if you don’t cast a wide net, you won’t have enough of a market to sustain yourself.

Let’s say you have a product or service aimed at people who work in education. Well, that’s a broad market, both in terms of your potential customers and in terms of your competition. There are lots of products and services aimed at people in education. You get easily lost in a crowd, it’s hard to get traction, and you can drop off easily.

Now imagine narrowing your focus. Instead of all education professionals, stick to just teachers. And instead of just teachers, aim your product at kindergarten teachers only.

Guess what? In the US, that’s still 160,000 people – because our world is so big that even very narrow niches have lots of people in them. But more importantly, owning a niche lets you become THE person in that niche.

“Is there any good organization software for education professionals?” Yeah, tons. “Is there a good organization program for specifically kindergarten teachers?” Yeah, it’s called KinderManage and it’s custom-made for exactly you! That’s a much easier sell.

I’m far more likely to engage with a product or service that feels directly tailored to my demographic than buy from a much larger company where it feels like I’m the one who has to change myself to fit them instead of the other way around.

Getting good at your niche lets you be the big fish in a custom-made small pond. You can pick your clients, you have way less competition, and you can become a major name. If you want to grow from there, it’s easy – because you established your reputation.

This isn’t just advice for entrepreneurs, either. Even if you’re looking for companies to work for, remember that smaller niches have less competition for jobs, too.

Don’t be afraid of specialization!

You’ve made mistakes.

That’s okay; it’s inevitable. You’re going to make a bunch more. My father once gave me some great advice: “You can’t avoid making mistakes; just try not to make the same one twice.” In other words, learn from it and move on.

I’ve written before about trying to maximize the benefit you get from failing, but today I want to talk about the other side of that coin – minimizing the harm. Mistakes by their very nature do some damage – damage to your plan, or your day, or your project, or something else.

But here’s the good news: they don’t do nearly as much damage as you think they do.

Sure, there are times where single mistakes can be fatal. If you’re a heart surgeon, for instance. Or maybe a fighter pilot. But 99% of the time, your mistakes are pretty small and low-impact in the grand scheme of things. What often does the most damage is the way we cling to those mistakes. Ask yourself honestly, have you ever done one or more of the following things:

1. Have you ever apologized for a mistake more than once, to the same person?
2. Have you spent more time beating yourself up about the mistake than you spent making it?
3. Have you spent more time feeling guilty about the mistake than it would have taken you to start over?
4. Have you lowered your own view of yourself for a single mistake?
5. Have you abandoned a task, project, etc. because you made a mistake early on in the process?
6. Have you hidden even successful accomplishments because of mistakes you made along the way?

Chances are good you’ve done at least one of those. Maybe more than one. I know I have. All six, in fact.

Don’t. Own the mistake; take responsibility for it and for fixing it. If you need to apologize, do so – sincerely, including your plan for fixing it. But once you’ve done that, don’t apologize for it again, and don’t tolerate being made to feel guilty by anyone – including yourself. Accept the changes that need to happen in order to improve, and then act. Make all steps positive ones, away from failure and towards success.

Don’t dwell. The mistake isn’t nearly as damaging as these behaviors. Don’t quit or beat yourself up for inevitable, normal things that happen to 100% of all humans.

Ty Cobb had the greatest career batting average in Major League Baseball history. He had a career average of .366. That means he hit the ball a little over one third of the time. In other words, he succeeded a little over a third of the time, and didn’t succeed almost twice as much.

Missing the ball might be a mistake, but making twice as many hitting mistakes as successful hits didn’t stop Ty Cobb from being a legend. You’ve got a lot of room for error in your life – don’t waste any of that time dwelling on mistakes that don’t matter in the long run. Just let it go.

In response to my post yesterday, soliciting requests for topics to cover, I received an excellent one. One of my readers asked me to cover how to be a better follower – it seems like there’s endless articles, think pieces and op-eds about how to be a better or more effective leader, but a dearth of such writing on following.

The reality is, you’re going to be a follower far more often in your life than you’ll be a leader. My first piece of advice: That’s totally okay. In fact, it would be insane to think otherwise.

No one is a leader 24/7. Even if you’re the CEO of your company, you’re not the CEO of your neighborhood soccer league or your buddy’s weekend barbecue. Sometimes you have to play a role on a team, and you should aim to do that as well as you would aim to lead when it’s your time to do so.

The best leaders come from the best followers. A take-charge personality is great, but nothing is worse than the person who’s constantly trying to take over when they lack expertise, support, or any of the other necessary traits. And a six-person team made of six alpha-types who all want to lead is a recipe for disaster. You end up with six guys who all wanna be Mr. Black. (I’d normally support that reference with a link to the relevant scene from Reservoir Dogs, but I try to keep this blog PG-13. It’s a great movie, go watch it.)

Just as much as good leadership is a skill that takes effort to develop, so is good “followship.” (By the way, I thought I was so clever coming up with that word, but it turns out I’m not the first. Oh well, I’m running with it.)

What does it take to practice good followship? Here are my thoughts:

1. It’s NOT about blind obedience. It’s about trust – and it takes a lot of it, in both directions. Your leader has to be able to trust you, so you have to always come through, or make sure they know before you don’t. If you can’t complete a task because you need more resources, more time, more knowledge – make sure they know that well in advance of the task’s deadline. If you know that you’ll only make the deadline if everything goes perfectly, then the time to call on your leader is the very first instance where something doesn’t. That’s the way you build trust – if your leader knows “I haven’t heard from Jim on this project, so I know 100% that everything is fine, because I know 100% that if it wasn’t he’d already be on the phone with me,” then you’re being an effective follower.
2. The “Hit By A Bus” Test. What would happen to your team if you were hit by a bus (Heaven forbid) and could immediately no longer work or even communicate? Did you leave enough documentation for someone else to easily pick up your slack? Were you so on top of your responsibilities that your replacement isn’t starting 12 steps behind? Then you’re doing an awesome job. Way too many people strive to be “irreplaceable.” They want to keep their work a mystery so they can’t be dispensed with. Guess what – everyone is replaceable. All you do by being cagey is separate yourself from your leader and your team.
3. Timing. Being a good follower means not only following, but making your leader better at leading. That means giving them information in the most effective ways possible. Don’t come to them with every little thing, but don’t hide information either. Create a pattern of regular check-ins, and recognize that they might be more constrained on time than you. Create documentation of your work that they can check when they have time on their schedule, not on yours. They might be pulling some long hours, but if they can read a detailed and accurate report about your work at 11 PM on their own time instead of having to have a 30-minute meeting with you every week, they’ll love you for it. That also ensures that they have the information they need from you neat and organized, instead of having to rely on their memory during hectic and stressful times.
4. Public praise, private complaints. Don’t undermine. If you have reason to doubt your leader’s decision, approach it privately (and follow step 3). Don’t call your leader out in front of the team and start a whole thing. The majority of the time, their decision might make sense given information they have but you don’t. And even if they’re truly a bad leader or making bad decisions, you still don’t do yourself any favors by being antagonistic publicly. If you’re in a meeting where team input is welcome, then go ahead and ask clarifying questions if you need to. But even then:
5. Offer solutions & alternatives, not pessimism. If you disagree with a decision, you have an obligation as a good follower to come up with at least one potentially viable alternative before you bring it up. If a plane is hurtling towards the ground and the pilot is desperately but futilely pulling up on the yoke, you’re not helping if you say “that’s not going to work” to the pilot. Unless you have a better suggestion to avert disaster, your comments aren’t helpful. “I think this is a bad idea, and we shouldn’t do it,” needs to be followed up with “I think this alternative will work better to get us to our stated goals. What do you think?” Note that it’s perfectly fine to offer “do nothing” as an alternative – if “nothing” is both possible and a legitimate strategy. Sometimes nothing is not an option, like when the plane is hurtling towards the ground.

Everyone can’t be #1 all the time, and there are going to be times in your life – probably a great many – where you have to be a follower. You’ll improve any team as well as your own life if you’re good at it. Don’t just think of it as some chore you have to complete on your way somewhere else. Think of it as a skill to master. Even if you don’t want to ever be a leader, I’m sure you’d still rather work on teams with less stress and greater efficiency. And if you do want to become a leader, it will be much better for you if you don’t arrive in your leadership role scratching your head at why those you’re leading aren’t good followers. The best leaders teach their followers how to follow well – and how can you teach what you don’t know?

I love helping people. It’s one of my favorite things – to have someone ask for my advice, for me to have actual advice that can help, and then for that person to find success as a result. Gives me the warm fuzzies all over.

The problem is that life is chaotic sometimes. There are occasions where someone will ask me something – for advice, a favor, etc. – and I really, really want to help, but am just swamped. I work a lot, I have three kids, and it just isn’t always possible.

My problem isn’t that I can’t say “no.” I have no problems setting boundaries and saying “I’m really sorry, but I’m just too swamped to get to this, but if it’s not urgent we can circle back in the future.” That’s not my problem – my problem is that I genuinely wish I could help more. It’s not just out of altruism; like I said, I get a big sense of satisfaction from it, so there’s personal benefit to me that I love to claim.

There’s good news, though! This blog has been really, really helpful in that regard.

Yesterday someone tagged me on Twitter and asked me for advice and insights on a topic that is 100% in my wheelhouse. But I was very busy, and even though I immediately thought of all the things I would say, I just didn’t have time. Then I realized – those things came to mind easily because I’d written them before, in a prior post on this blog. So I was able to send the link and send the advice, all in about 30 seconds.

That’s just one more benefit of making the time every day to put these thoughts down. It’s so worth it.

So I want to increase the likelihood that I can do more of it! This blog is mostly a “my thoughts, at random, as they come” sort of blog, but I also want to make it known that I’m very open to requests. If there are any topics you’d like me to blog about, let me know! I’ve always said that if you have a question, chances are very good that you’re not the only one, so anything you ask me that I answer publicly may help more than just you. It will definitely help me.

Even the most ambitious and decisive of us will have plenty of moments in our lives where we’re not sure what to do next. We want a change, and we’re not sure where to go. We’re in a rut and don’t know how to get out. It happens.

I don’t know all the answers to how to deal with that. But I know one thing that always helps: work.

Do something difficult and productive. Don’t worry about maximum efficiency or value; don’t worry if you’re working for free, giving away what you made or even making something of low importance. Just work. Fix a fence, volunteer at an animal shelter, pick up trash along a road, write a blog, anything.

Keep the momentum going. Keep your brain away from the quagmire of dwelling on not knowing what to do. Put energy in a positive direction.

The worst case scenario is a bunch of small improvements to your mood, attitude and maybe environment or health. You also might give yourself inspiration on what to do next, attract positive attention, or make friends – all good positive side effects. The worst thing that can come out of it is that you waste a few hours, but if you were feeling really indecisive I guarantee you were going to waste those hours anyway if you were to dwell on it.

There are certain things that are universally good in this spot. You can always grab a marginal benefit by working out, or cleaning something, or completing a project.

The wrong thing to do in that situation is leisure activities. I think leisure activities are good for the soul and you need them! If you want to watch a movie, play a video game, etc., you shouldn’t feel bad. But use those as rewards for jobs well done; as balance to the accomplishments you make. Don’t use them to fill in the gaps when you don’t know what to do, because that’s the path of sloth and inertia is a powerful force. Don’t let yourself say, “I’m feeling dissatisfied and I don’t know where to go, so I’m going to veg out in front of the TV/computer for a few hours.”

When you’re happy and things are good, take your leisure. But when in doubt, work.