Andrew Whelan argues that breaking large goals into smaller projects keeps you sane and moving forward. He recommends tracking contacts in a Google Sheet and using the Crystal Knows extension to match your email style to how each person prefers to communicate.
Chapters
Because I think that's important. Because look, this is what we're talking about. This is a lot of what you guys do. It's a lot of what I do because I'm a human being. OK? Can everyone see this screen? Sorry, I'm going to break your technology. They'd be like, and here's your bill for that huge flat-screen TV, Andy. OK. So this axis is time and this axis is happiness. Okay? And this is neutral. Like at this phase, I'm okay with life. Okay? This is being a little bit stressed and unhappy and this is being really happy and enjoying what I'm doing. Right? So most of us live a goal-based life. So we're like, if I get this, I'm going to be happy. And then when I get the next thing, so what we do is we put this goal up here that's like way up here. That's like I'm gonna get funding for my business. So we spend all of our time down here miserable, rushing and doing all this stuff to get that funding. When we get that funding, we're happy for like a day. Got that? Then we've got more goals. And the other goals I have are start the business, get a team, announce it, form legally. So then I go down here and I start looking at all these things and I'm living in that world of stress, stress, stress until I have that moment of finish that, now I'm happy again. Now I live back down here, now I'm happy again, right? But when you start to meet people and you start to focus on the things you need right now, And you put smaller projects in place rather than goals. I'm going to graduate. I'm going to finish this 10-day program. I'm then going to go ahead and I'm going to realign what my last year of school or what the next quarter is for me. Then I'm going to add 10 people to my network that are going to help me. Then I'm going to get funding for my company. Now we spend up— spend time living in this area where we're focused on the positives rather than all this stress because then this one thing doesn't determine whether I'm doing well or not. If I get those 10 people in my network, I'm doing well. This goal is gonna happen, but you've got to focus on it so the little things you do in between are what you can focus on to find Define that measure for what you're seeing as success. We too often only put the great holy grail of, I can tell my family I finally made it, versus, I'm actually a balanced, healthy, happy individual going through this process. So, it's something you want to start to look at as you build this company. Here's just a really simple example. I use a Google Sheet, which is a little bit different. But start your network list. Put everybody on it that you're currently in contact with regularly and start adding to it as you grow. Really, really important. I'm just looking at my graph and I'm like, yes, I am not necessarily a good graph maker. Congratulations to all of you. I do stick figures. Okay, so I want you to start to put it down because literally if you keep track of it and keep going, people will Reach back out to you and talk to you about what they're doing and help you. I know this, it's ridiculous, but every once in a while I get someone who goes, I don't care, and they just post a banner on LinkedIn that they're looking for a job in a specific field and they get responses from recruiters. People are out there looking at that and they want to know what you're up to. I don't like— does everyone here over the holidays get like an email from one of their aunts that's like, and then the dog did this, and it's like a 4-page letter? Yes. I don't love that. How many of you have ever seen a full-screen text on your phone and you're like, nope, I'm not reading that? People don't read anymore. You will because you want to achieve, but most people don't. So make it short and sweet and give people an idea of who you are, right? I always laugh when I get like that full-page text because then people get mad at me for not reading it and I'm like, what are you talking about? Of course I'm not going to read that. I've got other stuff going on. Anybody here Crystal Knows? Oh, you're going to like this one. So I like Crystal Knows. It's fun. It's free. You can always upgrade. I am not a big buy everything now kind of person. I like trying things. I do like the freemium model, but you don't have to buy it. Just use it for fun. So Crystal Knows is an application that when you— it's actually a Chrome extension. When you put it into your into use, and I use it in Gmail. It will pull all the emails linked in from the person that you're emailing, and it will create a personality profile of them. So it will tell you who they are, and it will give you hints on how you might formulate a specific email to them. So that if you are not— and some of you said, I don't really write that often— if you don't have a lot of practice with professional writing, It will guide you. It offers templates. It will help you to make sure you're connecting with that person on the level that they are used to being connected on. So here's just a joke, but here is an email to my boss. And on the right, you see that it tells me what her personality profile is. I could select an email template. It will also tell me when I start emailing, if I hit an area that's wrong, it will give me a hint and say, Netta doesn't like when people write this way. Based on emails she's given, I know that this happens to be pretty true. So you can test it. You can use it if it helps you and then just stop using it. I don't really use it because I have years of experience writing to people. But it's nice because it's just a gentle reminder as you start to build and learn how to network with people. Because down here, if anyone understands personality type, it gives a personality type for this individual. I'm not gonna rely on it and be like, that's exactly who they are, but it's a way for me to start to check how I write things.
