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- Jul 28, 2013
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Credibility (and excuse me for jumping immediately to my point) is about responsibility.
We think that rolling up in an expensive car and stepping out in a suit will create a buzz in the work place we are entering into. We think that having a well known title, the expensive apartment, and the cash to do favors for people that will change their life is what makes us credible.
When I grew up as a kid, I played little league type sports, and to do that I listened to some pretty questionable adults. Guys that were just plumbers apprentices, angry dads, and some old guy that wore baggy old and worn out pants. I got on the field and played around with the ball and the other guys, trying to get the team to a win.
As I got older, not too much changed, it was all the same questionable guys, but the game was rougher and the stakes higher.
My team would go on long road trips to remote parts of the country to play in the black of night. Fog would fill the field and dew would be settled on the grass. You weren't just in the country, you could smell the country, you were neck deep in a different place and the hustle and bustle of the other team brought you back to reality.
On that field, when the game started, all the people on the sidelines just faded away. And sometimes, not always, a game would become so consuming that the only hope you had for victory was the guy beside you. You would fight for each other, you would run yourself through walls for an idea, and you would take up the responsibility of every choice you had to make.
And when you did that, everyone magically appeared at your side, and you always had a guy behind you.
Because people didn't think logically on that field, they didn't look for holes to cover, they looked to hang with the guy who gave a darn, and they hung by him.
Credibility isn't built by the thousand things you do right, it is destroyed by the ONE thing you do wrong.
The status of the football field, is the guy who sweats, and keeps on running.
And in the same way, credibility in business, isn't measured in "bling" its measured in heart and grit.
Ask yourself what responsaibilities you are dropping. Then pick them up.
Because credibility and responsibility come together as a team.
When I started my job as a writer, I thought to myself "darn it, I can't write a book, I don't know what it needs!". I always languished at my lack of "credibility" and wondered why my expertise in the field I was writing in wasn't enough. I thought, incorrectly, that credible writing came from excellent structure when the truth was actually the opposite, great structure came from great writing.
When you write great you structure things in unimaginable ways, ways that keep everything together, and like magic, just like players on the football field paragraphs and chapters always hang by your side and stay behind you, allowing you to trust in your team of words and to go for the win.
When I started exploring business I thought credibility came from having material possessions; clothes, apartment, a successful company. I thought you could fake the image and magically make it. So I thought that all there was to a business was an idea and a webpage. I thought "hmm, how lucky are all these other businesses that they have graphic artists and coders and it just pays off", and I envied their "easy" position. What I didn't immediately grasp is that the coders and the graphic designers and all their staffing power didn't come from luck, or an image, it came from responsibility and how that transformed their company into a process that encorporates everything it must, to exist in a way that supports its team.
A company is often seen by beginners as successful by virtue of what it has now because they abandon logic. Just like a mirage in a desert, you see something that looks like water and you immediately say "that has to be water!" and run to it, without thinking "is it plausible that water exists in the desert?".
The desert in context of the beginner is his own lack of experience, credibility, fortitude and ability to reason productively. He assumes that companies can be built off an image and an image alone, and so seeks credibility by looking the part. He buys the website, he starts the blog, he puts up social media content and he crosses his fingers waiting for a big spike in traffic.
But success and credibility doesn't start with appearances, rather it is the opposite, appearances are something you shouldn't have to think about because AS YOU SUCCEED, your team will grow behind you, and you will become responsible for the components, and the look and all that stuff.
The more a business puts looks first the more fake they are, the more likely they are a mirage, the more likely they are just trying to be a virus or a con. And whilst people run to mirages, they never stay.
The reason big companies exist with their big teams is because the flash follows function, and the reason flash follows so closely is because their team play and the level of responsibility is high, causing every part of the organisation to click and coallesce to function as a unit.
As a beginner, you cannot start with a team of followers and a big audience, you MUST start small, or you will start FAKE (and who wants that). Desperation will drive you insane thinking you have to go bigger, faster, but you have to ignore that self doubt. What you have to do is become deeply responsible for a few people and try to scale that value in a way that it is not diluted, corrupted and torn apart by greater demand.
That is all easier IDEALISED than executed upon, and so in order to execute upon proper scaling of your business and its values, you need to act with ever deepening responsibility, consideration and courage so that all the pieces you need for success hang onto your coat tails as you drive a team towards success.
Credibility follows responsibility and responsibility is forced into its creation by functionality being taken to scale.
You cannot simply "take a business to scale" by getting the status, you need to work on the deeper and less obvious constructs, and by thinking deep enough, calling the shots well enough, things will roughly (like a team of players) structure themselves.
Upon reaching the goals of your company you will syncronise with images of success, however that isn't what brings everything together, its responsibility that goes beyond the call of mirages and abandoned logic. The sense to build from foundations, to utilise resources, to start conversations and view the desert differently, and see the possibility for success if you sweat and let things behind you follow, until you really do build something real, and hire the right people to tidy things up that at their core WORK first and foremost.
Credibility follows the people who are taking responsibility.
Forget stepping out of that car in that expensive suit and creating a buzz in a workplace, because you need people to respect you, and start to think what it feels like to have built that company up with your bare hands and how it causes you to see everything differently.
The car, the suit, the flashy new poster image, "ok, fine", but deep down, you know what REALLY built this company.
Do not stop until you are that responsible, that the credibility means very little to you, because that is how success is captured.
As a kid you followed courage, despite the baggy clothes it wore, because you knew the only way to make it to a win was by sticking by those who gave a darn.
Do no different in business, respect those who are responsible, because the credibility like those magic feet behind you will follow to back you up to score.
We think that rolling up in an expensive car and stepping out in a suit will create a buzz in the work place we are entering into. We think that having a well known title, the expensive apartment, and the cash to do favors for people that will change their life is what makes us credible.
When I grew up as a kid, I played little league type sports, and to do that I listened to some pretty questionable adults. Guys that were just plumbers apprentices, angry dads, and some old guy that wore baggy old and worn out pants. I got on the field and played around with the ball and the other guys, trying to get the team to a win.
As I got older, not too much changed, it was all the same questionable guys, but the game was rougher and the stakes higher.
My team would go on long road trips to remote parts of the country to play in the black of night. Fog would fill the field and dew would be settled on the grass. You weren't just in the country, you could smell the country, you were neck deep in a different place and the hustle and bustle of the other team brought you back to reality.
On that field, when the game started, all the people on the sidelines just faded away. And sometimes, not always, a game would become so consuming that the only hope you had for victory was the guy beside you. You would fight for each other, you would run yourself through walls for an idea, and you would take up the responsibility of every choice you had to make.
And when you did that, everyone magically appeared at your side, and you always had a guy behind you.
Because people didn't think logically on that field, they didn't look for holes to cover, they looked to hang with the guy who gave a darn, and they hung by him.
Credibility isn't built by the thousand things you do right, it is destroyed by the ONE thing you do wrong.
The status of the football field, is the guy who sweats, and keeps on running.
And in the same way, credibility in business, isn't measured in "bling" its measured in heart and grit.
Ask yourself what responsaibilities you are dropping. Then pick them up.
Because credibility and responsibility come together as a team.
When I started my job as a writer, I thought to myself "darn it, I can't write a book, I don't know what it needs!". I always languished at my lack of "credibility" and wondered why my expertise in the field I was writing in wasn't enough. I thought, incorrectly, that credible writing came from excellent structure when the truth was actually the opposite, great structure came from great writing.
When you write great you structure things in unimaginable ways, ways that keep everything together, and like magic, just like players on the football field paragraphs and chapters always hang by your side and stay behind you, allowing you to trust in your team of words and to go for the win.
When I started exploring business I thought credibility came from having material possessions; clothes, apartment, a successful company. I thought you could fake the image and magically make it. So I thought that all there was to a business was an idea and a webpage. I thought "hmm, how lucky are all these other businesses that they have graphic artists and coders and it just pays off", and I envied their "easy" position. What I didn't immediately grasp is that the coders and the graphic designers and all their staffing power didn't come from luck, or an image, it came from responsibility and how that transformed their company into a process that encorporates everything it must, to exist in a way that supports its team.
A company is often seen by beginners as successful by virtue of what it has now because they abandon logic. Just like a mirage in a desert, you see something that looks like water and you immediately say "that has to be water!" and run to it, without thinking "is it plausible that water exists in the desert?".
The desert in context of the beginner is his own lack of experience, credibility, fortitude and ability to reason productively. He assumes that companies can be built off an image and an image alone, and so seeks credibility by looking the part. He buys the website, he starts the blog, he puts up social media content and he crosses his fingers waiting for a big spike in traffic.
But success and credibility doesn't start with appearances, rather it is the opposite, appearances are something you shouldn't have to think about because AS YOU SUCCEED, your team will grow behind you, and you will become responsible for the components, and the look and all that stuff.
The more a business puts looks first the more fake they are, the more likely they are a mirage, the more likely they are just trying to be a virus or a con. And whilst people run to mirages, they never stay.
The reason big companies exist with their big teams is because the flash follows function, and the reason flash follows so closely is because their team play and the level of responsibility is high, causing every part of the organisation to click and coallesce to function as a unit.
As a beginner, you cannot start with a team of followers and a big audience, you MUST start small, or you will start FAKE (and who wants that). Desperation will drive you insane thinking you have to go bigger, faster, but you have to ignore that self doubt. What you have to do is become deeply responsible for a few people and try to scale that value in a way that it is not diluted, corrupted and torn apart by greater demand.
That is all easier IDEALISED than executed upon, and so in order to execute upon proper scaling of your business and its values, you need to act with ever deepening responsibility, consideration and courage so that all the pieces you need for success hang onto your coat tails as you drive a team towards success.
Credibility follows responsibility and responsibility is forced into its creation by functionality being taken to scale.
You cannot simply "take a business to scale" by getting the status, you need to work on the deeper and less obvious constructs, and by thinking deep enough, calling the shots well enough, things will roughly (like a team of players) structure themselves.
Upon reaching the goals of your company you will syncronise with images of success, however that isn't what brings everything together, its responsibility that goes beyond the call of mirages and abandoned logic. The sense to build from foundations, to utilise resources, to start conversations and view the desert differently, and see the possibility for success if you sweat and let things behind you follow, until you really do build something real, and hire the right people to tidy things up that at their core WORK first and foremost.
Credibility follows the people who are taking responsibility.
Forget stepping out of that car in that expensive suit and creating a buzz in a workplace, because you need people to respect you, and start to think what it feels like to have built that company up with your bare hands and how it causes you to see everything differently.
The car, the suit, the flashy new poster image, "ok, fine", but deep down, you know what REALLY built this company.
Do not stop until you are that responsible, that the credibility means very little to you, because that is how success is captured.
As a kid you followed courage, despite the baggy clothes it wore, because you knew the only way to make it to a win was by sticking by those who gave a darn.
Do no different in business, respect those who are responsible, because the credibility like those magic feet behind you will follow to back you up to score.
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