Last night I went to a Meetup that featured Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better. It was a great event, full of positive energy, and I ended up learning a lot.
Womack gave some great advice on how to be more successful. One example is to handwrite letters to journalists you enjoy reading. In the letter, write
- Thanks for writing the article
- I specifically liked “x” about it (be sincere)
- Here’s what I would have added…you can contact me at phone #
He said people who respond to handwritten letters are more likely to help you out, and if they don’t respond, then you don’t want them in your network anyway.
Another piece of advice is to ask at networking events, “Who do you know who…?” or “Who can I stay in touch with?”
You should try to get a mentor too, someone close to you who can see what you can’t yet see about yourself. This will help you keep going.
When emailing people, you should use verbs/call to action in your subject line. He said he got much better results when he started emailing clients his invoices with the subject line ‘Please confirm you can open the attached PDF.’ The attached PDF was the invoice.
Ideally, you should do two of these three things each day: create, consume, deliver. Try not to do all three. Also, reduce friction to implementation. Jason also recommended reading the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.
Lastly, there are four resources we have that we should keep in mind:
- Time (96, 15-minute blocks each day)
- Energy (mental and physical)
- Focus
- Ecosystem (our environment)