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Having an impact is a beautiful thing.

When the work you do inspires, influences, challenges,
sparks, motivates and helps people in a palpable way, you experience
existential validation, professional confirmation and personal gratification.

Unfortunately, you don’t always experience financial
compensation.

And that’s the problem with impact – it doesn’t always
convert to income.

Partly because of priority.
Our society rewards mediocrity, worships incompleteness, celebrates stupidity, encourages
negativity and retweets cynicism. Clearly, impact is not high enough on our
value list.

Partly because of choice.
Do gooders aren’t usually do wellers. It’s the curse of the idealist and the
cross of the change maker. Apparently, impact is something the world expects
for free, out of the kindness of our hearts.

Partly because of time.
Impact always takes longer than we’d like to become evident,
measurable and reimbursable. But that’s the reality of making change. It rarely
adheres to our timetable.

But who am I to make a moral judgment on some sleazy
internet marketing zilchbag who makes millions of dollars spamming total
strangers with bunk offers based on disturbingly detailed personal information
that they bought from some secret database?

The good news is, impact eventually leads to income. Doing
work that matters eventually yields financial dividends. The hard part is trusting
that process, believing that the world will reimburse our efforts accordingly.

Because sometimes, as an impact maker, waiting
around for cash returns to show up can feel like banging your head against a
brick wall.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What have you declined this week?

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* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Writing, Publishing, Performing, Consulting

[email protected]

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dozens of free video learning modules on sales, frontline service,
entrepreneurship and marketing, spend a few minutes or a few hours
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Mattering is a choice.

The choice to be consequential.
The choice to fulfill your whole capacity for living.
The choice to take responsibility for feeling insignificant.

At work, in life and in love.

Consider making these choices to assure your work matters:1. Art that mirrors, matters. People need to see their own truth staring back at them. That’s why artists are artists: They have an unmatched sensitivity to the human experience. How does your work reflect people’s reality back to them?

2. Work that dares, matters. Safe is a very dangerous place to be. If you’re not risking failure, risking your face and risking you future, you’ll never get anywhere. When was the last time you did something for the first time?

3. Innovation that simplifies, matters. If your idea doesn’t solve a real problem for the world, you’re just doing something cool. Never underestimate the marketability of practicality. Does usefulness has a palpable presence in your work?

4. Leadership that infects, matters. Infection has nothing to do with being sick. It’s about transferring emotion, putting something into people and influencing them through your state of being. What are you breathing into people?

5. Love that sends, matters. When you love someone, you should want to parade them around the room. Their existence should be a reflection of your own. And when you gush about them, you should glow like a gas lamp. Who sends you?

6. Technology that humanizes, matters. If you create a collaborative experience, you win. If you create acts of individuality in moments of conformity, you win. And if you encourage regular expressions of digital personality, you win. Are you a robot?

7. Interaction that elevates, matters. The point is to leave people better. To help them walk away from an encounter with a more colorful vision of what they can contribute to mankind. How do people experience themselves in relation to you?

8. Experience that educates, matters. We learn not from our experiences, but from intelligent reflection upon them. It all depends if you’re willing to listen for lesson, then document and share it. What did you write today?

9. Design that points, matters. Information expects a passive recipient, but design demands an active participant. Pierce people’s consciousness, create a smile in the mind and put your audience to work. Do you make people blink and think?

10. Attention that accumulates, matters. If people complain that you’re only doing something for attention, good. Attention is a scarce resource. It’s an endangered species. That’s why anonymity is bankruptcy. How are you turning your attention into permission?

11. Content that confronts, matters. Writing is a contact sport. You have to reach through the page, grab your readers by the lapel and whisper sweet nothings into their hearts. Are you a great date for your reader?

REMEMBER: Mattering is a choice.

And if you commit to it, people will thank you for making that choice.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What’s your mattering strategy?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
For the list called, “50 Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask,” send an email to me, and you win the list for free!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author, Speaker, Publisher, Artist, Mentor
[email protected]

Never the same speech twice.

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Tag: work that matters

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