Join 📚 Christian Champ's Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Christian's read, .
Surprise Being funny is a state of mind, and the main ingredient for that state is a hunger to surprise: to give the answer we didn’t think of; to react with an emotion we didn’t expect; to care more than we predicted; to be more specific than necessary.
How to Be the Greatest Improviser on Earth
Will Hines
1 Mission matters.
Find ways to pull your items back to the soul and purpose of your organization. "Why it matters" is the perfect device.
• It is impossible to overdose on this: Your mission begins to sink in only when you've annoyed yourself with repetition.
2 Tell a story.
If someone read all of your newsletters from the previous year, they should tell a clear, powerful story about what you were doing, thinking, accomplishing. Each item or each newsletter should do the same.
• People bore easily. They want an authentic story to explain why they work so hard and bother reading your words.
• We give new employees a copy of the previous few months of 5 Big Things so they can hit the ground running.
3 Don't be a fraud.
Write with candor and authenticity. People aren't suckersthey can sniff out a lawyered line or constipated corporate nonsense. Quit doing this ASAP.
4 Don't quit.
You need to connect with your staff at least once a week.
Resist the urge to blow off the newsletter. If you don't want others to slack off, lead by example.
5 Be humble.
If you're a CEO, leader or manager, you're successful and hopefully smart. But not that smart. Show gratitude, admit mistakes, poke fun at yourself. It frees those around you to stop acting like self-important corporate jackasses too.
6 Encourage copycats.
The magic really unfolds when those around you start communicating in the same style and similar cadence.
Once we realized Smart Brevity was a game-changer within Axios as well as for our outside audience, we saw a spike in alignment among teams. Everyone has fun telling their own story and knows what colleagues are up to-throughout the company and around the country.
Smart Brevity
Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz
Keep showing up. 99% of success is just showing up. In fact, most success is just persistence.
Excellent Advice for Living
Kevin Kelly
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
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