It Matters to That One

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I know, that poem about the starfish is so

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overrated. It's so over-told. Time after time, about the kid

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and the starfish and walking down the beach. And how can you

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get all the starfish? And it made a difference to that one.

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And when we come into business, it's even more like that. People

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are walking around talking to us while we pick up starfish

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telling us, "You can't, you can't pay attention to the

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starfish, you can't get the starfish back in the sea,

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there's so much to catch. There's so much to do. There's

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so many castles to build, holes to dig, and you can't possibly

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rescue all the starfish and do everything else." And anyway,

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there's so many starfish, there's always another starfish,

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there's always more, there's always more to do, there's

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always more you could be better. That is the cacophony that we

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are surrounded by. And I do mean cacophony. When I first came

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into business, I came from parish ministry, which is a heck

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of a transition, going from a business, a work, a calling,

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that isn't supposed to be about business at all, where marketing

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is a bad word. Where somehow people are supposed to magically

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appear on the doorstep, and be dedicated, intrigued, engaged,

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where people are supposed to love it, because of what it is,

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for its essence. Coming from that to a business, where 90% of

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it is marketing. At least 90% of it is marketing, it could be

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more. At the beginning, it's all marketing, you barely have

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enough time or energy to create the product that you're trying

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to sell, because you're too busy trying to sell people on it. But

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if you don't sell people on it, you won't have the resources

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that you need to create the thing. And if you can't create

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the thing that you need the resources to create, then you

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don't have a business at all. You've got to buy and sell and

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do everything all at once and stay up late nights coding or

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writing copy or developing that product that you're selling

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during the day when other people are awake. And for what? Like

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for why? Well, because you have an idea. You have an idea, you

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have a plan. You have a something. You have a something,

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a spark, and it won't let go. And maybe that spark is just

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that. You want to sell a thing that will make some money so

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that you can be wealthy so you can take care of somebody so you

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can.... But a lot of times it's more than that. For most of us,

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it's more than that. For most of us, there's some element of "I

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want to run a business, that's a good business, I want to be an

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honorable business person." I relate to Santa in 'Miracle on

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34th Street'. I want to be the person who's so strong and

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confident and well-off that I can send people down the street,

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if what I have is not what they're looking for. That's how

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I want to be in business. And what I want to be offering

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people in this business is something that they actually

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need, not a widget that will gather dust. Not a course that

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doesn't tell them anything they didn't already know. I want to

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to bring them from here to somewhere else. I want to carry

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them on a journey. I want to accompany them, I want to

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transform them. I want to transform their life. Even if

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it's just by having the perfect shower scrubber. Sometimes you

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need the perfect shower scrubber.

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Sometimes it's by bringing a whole new way of cooking into

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residential kitchens. Sometimes, sometimes it's by taking care of

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people one person at a time. Sometimes it's by figuring out

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how to take care of people more than one person at a time.

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Because taking care of one person at a time is actually not

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enough because there are too many people who need too much

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care and it's not their fault and they're not doing anything

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wrong, but we got to get more care out to more people and we

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only have so many skilled and trained caregivers. And so how

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are we going to give care on a larger scale? How are we going

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to reach more people? How are we going to give people the

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baseline tools that they need to get to the point where working

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one-on-one is actually a valuable experience, or maybe

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working one-on-one is valuable, so valuable that we have to

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create a way for everybody to have that one-on-one witnessing

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experience. How are we going to do that? Solving for the unknown

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variable, or set of variables, is the lifeblood of a lot of

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entrepreneurship- not all of it. Sometimes people are just

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building a better mousetrap. But sometimes, often, we're here

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because we want the world to be a better place. And we're pretty

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sure we're pretty sure that if we could do the thing, and get

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people to understand why the thing is helpful and important,

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if we could do all of that, then they would have better lives.

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And it doesn't hurt that we would do. Not only because we

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might make enough of a profit to pay our bills, and go home and

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save some up and buy a house and a car and take care of our

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families. But also, because our work will have meaning. Meaning

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making is one of those things that's gotten largely handed off

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from the religious world to the business world as more and more

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people spend more and more time at work. And so it matters, why

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we do what we do. And it matters what we're doing. It matters

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what the end goal is, it matters what the impact is, all of it

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matters. And so why do we do this thing, where we walk down

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the beach, and everyone is telling us that we've got to

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build more castles, we've got to dig more holes. And we're

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building castles and we're digging holes, and we're raking

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up various things out of the sand and looking at them and

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admiring them and maybe putting them back or maybe tucking them

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in the trash bag that we're carrying along with us. And

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we're throwing those starfish back in the water. We're

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throwing the starfish back in the water, and we don't see it

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as incidental. It's not like, "Oh, I'm here to dig holes, but

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also I will throw this starfish back." It's "I'm here to dig

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holes and throw starfish back." Of course, throwing starfish

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back is a metaphor, and what we're doing depends on who we

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are and how our businesses are shaped and where we're

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positioned. We might be creating much better work environments, I

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hope we're all creating much better work environments than

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the standard average run-of-the-mill work

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environment. We're being more flexible, we're treating our

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employees like human beings. We care about our employees' kids

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for real, not just, you know, in a line and a form letter that

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goes out to everybody from the CEO once a year. We mean it, we

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really do want them to be happy and healthy and succeed. We want

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them to build wealth of their own, we want them, we want them

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to work in a way that works best for them. And that works out

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well for us too. It's good business, when your employees

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are happy and working in their zones of genius. It's good

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business, because then you get the best work out of them and

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they're happy and they stay. And so you don't have to onboard

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eleventy-million more people. And you don't have to go through

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long interview processes. By the way, we do not need days and

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weeks of interviews for these jobs. We don't need that much.

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Let me just say, you're not going to learn more. You think

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you will. But you're not going to learn more, you're not going

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to prevent more mistakes, by interviewing people seven,

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eight, ten times; you're not going to make things better,

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you're not going to make them happier by making them keep

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coming back and coming back and coming back and piling on the

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stress and the homework problems. It's not-- no, no.

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This was never the norm before. And it's a waste of resources, a

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waste of time, a waste of energy. There are particular

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things you can look for- intensiveness and expansiveness

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that I talk about a lot. That's one of them. There are other

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things you can look for that are important, but you're not going

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to learn much more after the second or third interview.

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Enough is enough. In fact, I just saw an article about one

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organization that's paying people to interview. They pay

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the people $75 to come and be interviewed because the time is

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valuable and the people are worth honoring. And that's the

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kind of thing I'm talking about. We're throwing the starfish back

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each in our own way. But we keep doing it even when everybody

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says everybody says that that's not how you run a good business

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and the reason we keep doing it the reason it's so important is

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because it's not a side-gig. Starfish are not a side-gig.

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Starfish are integral to the beach. And so helping the

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starfish live is part of what we do. It is why we are here; we

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are as much here to build widgets or create personal

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transformation, as we are here to save the starfish. We are

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here to throw starfish back in the water. And so nobody, nobody

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who says that that's not a thing you can do, understands what

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we're doing. I used to have a little card on my desk that said

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"those that say it cannot be done should not interrupt the

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person doing it." My business is about starfish but so is yours.

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Where are you throwing starfish back in the water?