Tag Archive for: paradox of work

20 Ideas I Can’t Stop Thinking About by Sahil Bloom

May 2, 2022/in Blogging, Social Media, Strategy/by Jeph

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/best-tweet-thread-ever.jpg 1600 2400 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2022-05-02 13:43:012022-05-11 09:10:2520 Ideas I Can’t Stop Thinking About by Sahil Bloom

How Safe Is Your Job?

Jul 27, 2017/in Advice, Blogging, Leadership, Stories/by Jeph

A consultant from Calgary was in town working with one of our clients. As the marketing arm of this organization I was interviewed by the consultant. After asking a bunch of topical questions to what the organization was going through he then asked me a rather interesting question I thought;

“How are you staying current?”

How are you staying current? I’d never been asked that before. Well not in that context, I’m sure I’ve questioned my age and opinion’s relevance more and more over the past year. But every now and then I get a little too preachy and the coach in me comes out. It’s a bad habit I’m trying to stop.

The question at hand, “how are you staying current?” is a wonderful thought experiment. You ask yourself, “what IS current?”, “how would one stay current?”, “what’s the number one sign someone isn’t “staying current”?” I’m pretty sure he was wondering whether or not I was a growth or fixed mindset person. You know, someone who believes in the future and is bettering ones’ self. The growth mindset allows you to improve no matter what. If you have a growth mindset you’re probably staying current in a number of specific ways.

I’m definitely a growth mindset person. Growth mindset people never have to worry about a job, they’ll always be valuable because they can learn as they go. Reminded me of a podcast with an eerie subtext called: How Safe Is Your Job.

It’s worth a listen. Read more

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/how-safe-is-your-job.jpg 631 1000 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2017-07-27 00:07:582017-07-27 09:39:46How Safe Is Your Job?

My Favourite Business Book of All Time

Apr 17, 2017/in Advice, Books, Community, Consumer Behaviour, Design, Innovation, Leadership, Stories, Strategy/by Jeph

Maverick written by Ricardo Semler in Brazil published in 1993. A transformational business book from start to finish. Completely counter what you’d come to expect from a Brazilian industrial tycoon. I think Mr. Semler is one of the most thought-provoking, honest, most humble leaders I’ve ever come across.

Semco, a heavy duty industrial manufacturer has no rules to live by. You pick your own hours, pick your own pay, pick your own vacation times, heck you even vote on your own managers regularly! Twice a year you fill out a 30 question questionnaire about your management and division you work in.

No one has a long term contact. No one is employed longer than 6 months. Everyone’s salary is openly known by anyone who cares to know.

Semco is the most democratic company I’ve ever read about, and they did it in a 1980’s Brazilian economy. Not the beacon of sought after economies you once thought, on the contrary, Brazil was avoid by many businesses because of the government, high inflation rates, and a fast growing unpredictable future. It’s astounding what Ricardo and Semco accomplished during this period in Brazil.

How did they get it so right?

Ricardo lucked out in a sense, his father build a multi-million dollar company. He became of age and realized it would never last in its current state. Plus the fact that second generation wealth is squandered 70% of the time, Ricardo had to make a gamble.

He was courageous in his decisions but the theme throughout his career and the book was that he cared (and still cares) dearly about people. It’s so refreshing to see in someone like him in a leadership role, putting people before profits.

Telling, forcing, commanding, never works. Inspiring, helping, listening, always does. Read more

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Imagine-if-you-could.jpg 1166 2000 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2017-04-17 09:32:352017-04-18 15:07:38My Favourite Business Book of All Time

24 Quotes on leadership, shipbuilding, management and much much more

25 Inspiring Quotes On Shipbuilding, Leading, Design and Happiness [From 8 Books]

Apr 15, 2014/in Advice, Books, Marketing, Social Media/by Jeph

From 8 of my favourite books comes these inspirational quotes. From shipbuilding to eating order, you’ll find a beautifully selected cross section of smart, inspiring and quotes that simply make you smile. Enjoy.

Have-wild-expectations-quote
I love this quote because I think most people are driven to shoot for the moon. They’re told to have a modest life, sit in a row, do what your told, don’t talk out of line, and hopefully after 13 years of this they’ll want to work in a factory taking orders from people in big offices. Well it turns out that’s no fun, especially for those just starting at the bottom of the totem pole.

Have a vision, have a big hairy audacious goal, have something! Go on now, create your wild and crazy expectation.

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/8-Books-24-quotes-books.jpg 600 810 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2014-04-15 16:46:472016-12-18 22:10:0225 Inspiring Quotes On Shipbuilding, Leading, Design and Happiness [From 8 Books]

you-can-fit-in-or-standout-but-you-cant-do-both

How Long Should A Website Take To Build? A Highschool Website Experiment

Oct 27, 2013/in Advice, Community, Marketing, Research, Website/by Jeph

The other day, Brandon and I went to a Campbell entrepreneurship class taught by Jordan McFarlen. Mr. McFarlen invited us to talk about how we started Strategy Lab and the entrepreneurial experience. The way Mr. McFarlen teaches the class is he divides them in two groups and they have to start companies which over the semester they will run like an actual company (last years company actually imported iPhone cases from China, pretty awesome). Mr. McFarlen is one in a million and the Campbell Business program is very lucky to have him. The passion and excitement for learning he has is such a bright light in our ever troubled education system.

Instead of talking about ourselves for an hour, we decided to do something different.

In the first 15 minutes we talked about as a company what we believe in, our 10 values, and the story of how Brandon and I met.

Then Brandon went to work.

This first thing Brandon did was made each company decide on a domain name and he bought for them. Then he set each website up on WordPress and give them the login. There’s a lot of technical work that Brandon didn’t do (like 18 hours worth of work he’d do on a regular website) but the students will figure that out, they can learn how to hack WordPress to get it to do what they want.

It was amazing to see the looks on their faces. Something that most people think takes days, weeks or even months, Brandon created in front of their very eyes. It was amazing to witness. A website doesn’t have to take months to create, you can have one in an hour, it won’t look great but you’ll have your very own online publishing platform.

Websites don’t take that long to build. Yes there is a lot of technical and design elements that you should trust a professional on but for the most part people spend an insanely long time on design. Why? Because they’re trying to appease everyone. But when need to build a bridge, you don’t ask a committee or a board, you hire the best dam bridge builder around. Something to think about the next time you want to “re-design” your website.

I’m really excited to see what the students at Campbell will end up doing with the websites. The last thing we said on our way out was, experiment, try new things, and try to break the website. Get Creative.

Hopefully they teach us an entirely different way that websites should look and feel.

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/you-can-fit-in-or-standout-but-you-cant-do-both.jpg 1417 2000 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2013-10-27 17:41:012016-12-18 22:11:17How Long Should A Website Take To Build? A Highschool Website Experiment

Deep practice is built on a paradox struggling in certain targeted ways operating at the edges of your ability where you make mistakes makes you smarter

The Paradox of Work

Apr 24, 2013/in Advice, Human Resources, Research, Strategy/by Jeph

If you want something in life you have to work your ass off for it. Anything worth having is worth working for. So to be successful, to get what you want in life, you have to do an unhealthy amount of work for as long as humanly possible. Then you might have a fighting chance.

Whether it be your sports team, your health or your career, it’s difficult to see the results of hard work in the short term. But the only way to guarantee long-term success is to work unbelievably hard in the short-term. Sometimes it’ll feel like an endless upward climb going nowhere.

The harder the squeeze the better the juice.

Here’s the paradox.

When you’re done, when you ship, when it’s all over, no one will recognize the work you put in. No one cares about the amount of hours you’ve put in, the sleepless nights, the psychological battle, nobody cares about it. All we care about is the result.

It’s going to be up to you to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.

Begin with the end in mind. You must shy away from busy work (this won’t get you anywhere). You can’t just do work for the sake of work and expect to get somewhere.

Doing the difficult work is a recipe for success, but when you get there don’t expect people to be patting you on the back and praising you for how long you’ve been working at it. All they care about is the result.

https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Deep-practice-is-built-on-a-paradox-struggling-in-certain-targeted-ways-operating-at-the-edges-of-your-ability-where-you-make-mistakes-makes-you-smarter.jpg 1333 2000 Jeph https://strategylab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/strat-icon-2021-white.png Jeph2013-04-24 11:13:022016-12-19 00:20:48The Paradox of Work

Steel Mace Valkyrie

Carter from Strategy Lab designed my website better than I could have ever imagined. He took care of everything. Super professional and speedy! Thank you!

Jeff LS Security

We have worked with Strategy Lab for over ten plus years. Brandon has always been a true pleasure to deal with. He is very creative and made the design process very easy. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a New Design or Revamp of an old Website.

Doug Dimen

Brandon and his crew at Strategy Lab are amazing to work with. Not only are they very knowledgeable but they go out of their way to make sure their customers are beyond happy. Highly recommend!

Smb Construction

Fantastic experience with this company. They made things very easy and at a very affordable price. Will definitely continue to use this company in the future.

Carter Bezan

I honestly don't even know where to start with this crew over at Strategy Lab! We went to them on a whim from recommendations by a few other entrepreneurs in our city. We went to them over the big name companies who specialize in what Strategy Lab does because of the love that was being shown from people they'd worked with. To say we were blown away is an understatement!!! Jeph, David, Carter and Brandon took our social media and marketing to a whole new level and not just that but helped develop us into managing it ourselves in the end. They helped us create awesome content for our website and social media game as well as our advertising campaigns. Content the grabbed our audience and increased all of our viewing and impressions on everything we posted. Thank you doesn't cover the feelings of gratitude we have for the team at Strategy Lab. We cannot wait to see what they can help us do in the next year!! PS, we've only been working with them for 5 months!

Brenda MacLauchlan

Brandon and Jeph worked with Astonished! Inc. to create a beautiful website that reflects Astonished! and they are right there for any technical support we need. Thanks Strategy Lab

Jenni Bast

The Strategy Lab Crew will always be my GO TO for Marketing business and help. They did a (Real Estate) Business Video for me about 5 years ago and I am still proud to share it around the on-line world today. They are innovative thinking, creative minded, professional, approachable & a fun group of people. I have went to their past Social Media courses and have learned a lot. I have and will continue to refer anyone and everyone to them as I think very highly of them and their work!

Matt Robertson

Not all heroes wear capes. We wanted to make a difference in our community by undertaking an ambitious charity event. These things tend to be a lot more wok than anticipated and it was obvious the event would need a strong web presence to grow. That is where Strategy Lab became not a vendor, but a partner. Very quickly in our engagement with their passionate team, the vision of a website transferred from our shoulders to theirs. They took the ball and ran with it and the resulting website is incredible and much better than anything we could have envisioned. Thanks to their efforts, our plans for an annual charity event have grown quickly, and the impact in our community is significant. If you want an innovative and energetic team to make your online presence shine; look no further.

Nuit Blanche Regina

Tanisha, Marc and team do a fantastic job and are wonderful to work with :D

Mederic Lanoix

Jeph and all the crew are amazing to work with and provide a very high quality service. Highly recommended!!!!

Tag Archive for: paradox of work

“How are you staying current?”

How did they get it so right?

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