Keynote presented March 17th to the Project Managers Institute (PMI) of Saskatchewan

Think Different. Help People. Get Paid.

byJeph/Apr 15, 2022/inPresentations

Kind of a mantra for life around here, think different, help people, get paid.

Get paid to help people think different

For the full presentation, you can download the slides here: Think Different, Help People, Get Paid

Like Apple, you must think radically different than your competition.

Like Patagonia, you have to care about people or the planet OR SOMETHING, or else people won’t care. Your team won’t care and finally, at one point you won’t care.

Like Amazon, you must understand your path to profitability, and generally, it’s non-linear and illogical. Amazon lost money for years understanding precisely what they were building. An ecosystem where they can play in and profit from for years to come.

The presentation was broken down into three Acts. We also had one only one but TWO trivia competitions throughout.

Act 1: do you assume thinking the same is going to help you in the future? It’s the idea that the style of thinking that got you this far isn’t the same style of thinking that’s going to take you to another level. Bad things are always going to happen, this won’t be the last pandemic, what are you doing to help your future self? Writing? Creating? Learning? Volunteering?

If you don’t have an answer to that last question, it’s time you set some goals around personal development.

One of the easiest ways to “think different” is to write better emails. I learned this from teaching a University Class on Social Media. 48 students emailing me weekly gave me a wonderful insight into how students communicate AND how poorly it sounds to the reader when you don’t put in an effort.

Start your emails off with something pleasant, and finish them off with ANYTHING other than “best regards”. HA! I make jokes about it but people can feel your enthusiasm in an email. If you don’t have time to care about how you’re communicating you need to get out of your career now. Some of my favourite email salutations:

Keep on rockin’ in the free world
We built this city on Rock n Roll
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Roses are red violets are blue, this is the best email I’ve ever written to you!
Love, Jeph
Damn it feels good to be a gangster

A job isn’t worth having if you have to stress out over email.

Act 2: Help People. If you aren’t happy because the pandemic has decimated your friend circle then this section is for you. People preach “self-care” as the answer but I disagree. I think helping others is the answer! It’s the easiest way to make your day better! It sounds counter-intuitive but helping other people is the easiest way to help yourself.

Mattress Mac is a great example of what we should all strive for in business. This video is worth a watch, Mattress Mac is a hero to me.

Act 3: Get Paid. Making money isn’t the hard part, it’s fulfillment we should be worried about. Fulfillment > achievement.

After you make $70,000 a year you aren’t getting any more happy day to day, so what are you focusing on? How will you measure your life? We all need to get paid to live, but for those who do work they’re meant to do, the money always follows. Those who focus on the money, always seem to struggle with not having enough of it.

Find your purpose early on. Find what you’re meant to do as soon as you can. That’s hard and involves trying many different vocations until something stands out to you. If you’re lost, watch the Mattress Mac video. That should help.

If you’re struggling with the whole “purpose” thing, I’d suggest Clayton Christensen’s How To Measure Your Life. It’s a fantastic book that gives you perspective.

For the full presentation, you can download the slides here: Think Different, Help People, Get Paid

Get Directions

Maps were disabled by the visitor on this site. Click to open the map in a new window.

Contact Us

"*" indicates required fields

Cheryl Lloyd

Strategy Lab has been amazing to work with! Brandon Wu helped build my website many years ago and is always quick to respond and assist if I have any questions or concerns. He is so kind and patient and I really appreciate his knowledge and professionalism. I would highly recommend.

Nicholas Villani

Carter at StratLab is an amazing web designer and coach. Not only did he create a spectacular website for the studio that I've co-founded, he's trained me on how to use wordpress, and is always available whenever I have questions. You wont regret going to StratLab for all of your website needs.

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.

Visit us at Path Cowork
200 – 1965 Broad St, Regina, SK

Think Different. Help People. Get Paid.

Get paid to help people think different

Share this entry

Contact Us