Lisa for Real

2.65 A new American dream

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My family came to this country for the next generation. It is one of the greatest sacrifices that someone can do – leave their homeland, everything they are familiar with, so that their child and grandchildren can have a better life.

There is so much to the way that my mother raised my brother and me that has penetrated my way of living and being.

How I interpret her sacrifices around work have colored how I see work for myself. And it is her sacrifice that makes me feel guilty for wanting more.

Since graduating college, I have wanted to pursue my own business. It has manifested in many different ways.

There is a pattern in our culture to want to make a living doing what we love to do. Some may call it entitled. Some may call it naïve. And some may call it the natural of things. To me, it feels like the new American dream, an evolution of the one that my mom had.

However, mixing pleasure and work feels like mixing oil and vinegar. When something we love turns into work and reflection of worth, our relationship with that task/skill/hobby gets complicated. The hurdles of succeeding as an entrepreneur are already high. After we throw in our passions, it feels very much like we are running two races that require us to go in opposite directions.

The separation of joy and money runs deep in our culture and within ourselves. Those two measurements of success are quite in opposition which is why I think that becoming an aligned entrepreneur requires the most ultimate self-work. It takes self-development to the umpteenth degree.

To achieve this new American dream, we have to align both parts of the business together and be unafraid to find where there may be gaps in our marketing/strategy/branding or in ourselves that are holding us back.

272. Living the Agile life

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The concept of “building a plane while flying” was never meant to be the most effective or efficient approach. In reality, it is messy, requires constant tinkering, and feels repetitive and slow with its incremental gains.

I’ve heard this phrase many times in my corporate life, and at first, it took me a while to grasp this seemingly impossible concept because aren’t products and projects supposed to have a defined start and finish? Aren’t we supposed to stow away with an amazing idea, create it and then release it out into the world and make millions?

With more finicky consumers and the increasing speed of technology, more and more companies are using the “Agile” approach to manage their projects which precisely follows this idea of building the plane while flying. The projects I have been involved in using this approach have seemed inefficient and a bit forced, but it gets the project progressing at a pace that a linear process would not, so the messiness of it is worth it to its stakeholders.

As humans, you and I are constantly building the plane while flying. We are always a work in progress while out in the world doing the things. And really there is no other way to live. “Flying” (living life) actually helps inform “building” (develop) who we are. We have to be building while flying or we come to a dead stop. We have to follow this process because life is an iterative process – it isn’t linear. We can’t start at point A, create an amazing version of ourselves while in hiding and then release ‘Me version 3.0’ in the world after 3 years. How do we create a new, amazing version of ourselves without living, making mistakes and trying new approaches?

Maybe this is why life feels like an impossible, scary task at times. A linear approach would be so comforting for the nervous system – direct, predictable, and safe. But life isn’t like that!

For someone who wants to “make something of myself,” it can feel like a very messy, frustrating and incomplete process. But maybe we are never meant to “release” ourselves out in the world. Maybe we are always meant to keep building while flying.

224. My favorite kind of storm

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My favorite kind of storm is filled with tension in the air, flashes of inspiration, and thunderous applause – it’s a brainstorm!

Brainstorms take place at a beginning completely full of possibilities. You can’t brainstorm wrong – there are no “incorrect” or “bad” ideas. Everything is a contribution towards progress, and anything is possible. All of these points make me absolutely giddy but for some people, the idea of a wide world of possibility can be scary.

I have offered to brainstorm with dozens of people but few have accepted the offer. Starting something can be overwhelming and bringing another set of eyeballs can feel intrusive or vulnerable or unnecessary.

However, having a brainstorming partner, or even better – multiple partners, can completely change the trajectory of an idea. We only need to be brave enough to allow others into our space to weather the storm together.

143. Whose price is it?

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The price of a product or service is not simply the cost plus % upcharge and ultimately, irrelevant to the seller.

The price is representative of the value to the purchaser. The value is completely subjective and a logical approach to pricing is not going to be effective.

To find the right price for our products or services, we have to tune into our buyer, understand what is the value of our product or service and charge that.

Paying is a commitment of the buyer to themselves that they value our product and service and feel it will improve their life in a certain way. Paying is a commitment for them to that change. It has nothing to do with us though our ego wants to think otherwise.

As buyers, we pay what we want to pay, and that determination is steeped in self-beliefs and our sense of worthiness. How much we are willing to pay is linked to how much we believe we deserve that thing and as much as we want to blame a seller for pricing an item “too high,” the price has nothing to do with them, but everything to do with us.

061. Beyond the job description

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If you’ve ever embarked on a quest to answer “Who am I?,” you have probably found many a dead-end.

We naturally try to answer with words that describe what we do.

But we are more than mom, teacher, entrepreneur, artist, lover, partner, activist, learner, writer, etc. And even if we were not limited by 140 characters or 10 second attention spans, there would not be enough room to fit it all in.

How about a different approach? How about asking – “What is my brand?”

A brand feeds all of our senses – sight, sound, taste, touch and smell which ultimately evokes experiences and emotions. How do you want people to feel when you interact with them?

A brand is about “how we do” and not about “what we do.”

That’s who you are.