Thirty years separate these pictures of me at work. While so much has changed - the technology, the classroom, even the hair - one thing that remains at the “front of the room” is still me.
Just like YOU!
Every day we’re inventing, deploying and enjoying better tools and innovations. We used to wait two weeks for the latest inventory; now we wait two nanoseconds on our smartphone. We used to hand write envelopes and lick stamps on a newsletter to hundreds; today we can beam a seminar around the world with three cameras, two computers and an iPad. In so many ways our work - whatever we do - is easier, more enjoyable and dramatically more impactful than almost any time in our careers.
As long as we use the right tools.
“What is the most important tool salespeople should be using today to grow their business,” an interviewer asked me recently. “A database? Video? Drip marketing? Social media?”
You know the answer I gave them. All of those tools help us connect and discuss and determine if a sale is good for both parties. But no tool can do that work if the PERSON who shows up doesn’t have their best foot forward.
What the world needs now isn’t just the latest stuff - new cars or apps or ‘bots that write books on their own. What it needs now is the -
LATEST YOU:
Attitude open
Optimistically charged
Prepared and practiced
Creating moments of time well spent
Thirty years ago I thought my most important classroom asset was a set of expensive color-printed transparencies. I was always worried about losing one or getting them out of order. Today, we’re all still using visuals, on par with a movie studio. Yet something important has happened in the years in between:
If we were to lose our slides or get them out of order today, it wouldn’t really matter much. Because we’d just look across the room or into the camera and see a smiling face that has been waiting all along for the most important piece to show up:
You!