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Taking Initiative Means Taking Initiative, Not Waiting to be Told

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One more Godin post today. A really good point from a short profile of Sasha Dichter, Director of Business Development at the Acumen Fund, which he is doing as part of a series profiling a dozen people who have made the decision to lead and initiate:

It’s so easy to get hung up on reacting to incoming, on working through a checklist and on imagining what the boss wants you to do next. It’s far more productive, I think, to decide where you want to go and then go there. And the power and low-price of online tools makes that easier than ever.

The key difference between initiators and everyone else is the simple idea of posture. What do you say to yourself in between assignments? What do you do when you see something that needs doing?

Sasha asks himself (not his boss), “what’s next?” And that’s the shift. You look at a world of opportunities and you pick one. Initiative is taken, it’s not given.

Seth Godin's New Book Now Available

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Poke the Box — that is, take initiative — is Seth Godin’s newest book and it releases today. It’s his first book published non-traditionally, and here’s what he has to say about it:

Here’s a little-spoken truth learned via crowdsourcing:

Most people don’t believe they are capable of initiative.

Initiating a project, a blog, a wikipedia article, a family journey. Initiating something even when you’re not putatively in charge.

At the same time, almost all people believe they are capable of editing, giving feedback or merely criticizing.

So finding people to fix your typos is easy.

A few people are vandals, happy to anonymously attack or add graffiti or useless noise.

If your project depends on individuals to step up and say, “This is what I believe, here is my plan, here is my original thought, here is my tribe,” then you need to expect that most people will see that offer and decline to take it.

Most of the edits on Wikipedia are tiny. Most of the tweets among the billions that go by are reactions or possibly responses, not initiatives. Q&A sites flourish because everyone knows how to ask a question, and many feel empowered to answer it, if it’s specific enough. Little tiny steps, not intellectual leaps or risks.

I have a controversial belief about this: I don’t think the problem has much to do with the innate ability to initiate. I think it has to do with believing that it’s possible and acceptable for you to do it. We’ve only had these doors open wide for a decade or so, and most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

There’s a huge shortage… a shortage of people who will say go.

Today we’re shipping my new book Poke the Box. Writing a book isn’t that difficult for me (I’ve done it before), and it would have been easy to keep publishing books the traditional way, the way it’s supposed to be done. Instead, I took the opportunity to start a new publishing company, to reinvent a lot of what we expect when we think of when we consider publishing a book. I took my own advice.

I hope you’ll check it out.

Go!

A Seth Godin Book You May Not Know About

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I hadn’t heard about it, at least. It’s short and was published last fall as an e-book. Here’s the description: “In this 32-page short eBook, New York Times bestselling author Seth Godin presents 30 ideas for making a difference in a world that needs you.”

The Organized Heart Now Available

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Staci Eastin’s book The Organized Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Conquering Chaos releases today from Cruciform Press.

As a quick aside, I’m excited about Cruciform Press because it is seeking to rethink publishing in light of the new digital environment that we are in. And because it began in the digital era, it is able to build upon these new realities from the start. You can learn more about their vision here.

Back to Staci’s book. Here’s the description:

The fight against chaos is universal, whether it be the outward chaos of disorder and frenzy or the inward chaos of fear and self-criticism. Even if we already know how to do better, something falls apart between our good intentions and getting it done.

Most books on organization just add more rules to your life, whether it be another plan, another calendar, or another method. This book will show you a different, better way that is grounded in the grace of God.

Jesus taught that true change doesn’t come by the addition of more rules, but from the inside out, with a change of the heart that only the gospel can bring. When you identify the heart problems behind the chaos in your life, lasting change can happen. This will not only reduce the stress in your life, but help you be more effective in your service to God.

And here’s what I had to say in my blurb for the book:

“In The Organized Heart, Staci Eastin gives us a refreshing look at organization from an uncommon but incredibly important perspective: the spiritual. This is critical because without understanding the spiritual dimension, all of our productivity techniques ultimately backfire. So instead of focusing on adding new rules, she focuses on the heart. Specifically, she helps show how to avoid letting leisure, busyness, perfectionism, and possessions from becoming idols—and does so in a way that is encouraging and uplifting rather than guilt-driven. This inside-out approach should be helpful to women who are looking to be more organized but know that simply adding on another method is not enough.”