Persisting Through Doubt

Doubt is a natural part of life, and it’s something that we all experience at some point. Whether we’re trying to achieve a goal, pursue a dream, or simply make a decision, doubt can creep in and make us question ourselves. But the key to success is not avoiding doubt, but rather persisting through it. In this blog post, we’ll explore some tips and strategies for how to do just that.

Identify the source of your doubt

The first step in persisting through doubt is to identify the source of your doubts. Is it a lack of confidence in your abilities? Fear of failure? Comparison to others? Once you know where your doubts are coming from, you can start to address them directly.

Reframe your doubts as questions

Instead of seeing doubt as a negative, try reframing it as a question. For example, instead of thinking “I’ll never be able to do this,” try asking “What do I need to do to achieve this?” This shift in perspective can help you approach your doubts as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles to overcome.

Focus on your progress

When we’re in the midst of doubt, it’s easy to get caught up in what we haven’t accomplished yet. But instead of focusing on what you haven’t done, focus on what you have accomplished. Take some time to reflect on your progress so far, and use that as motivation to keep pushing forward.

Lean on your support system

When we’re feeling doubtful, it can be helpful to lean on the people around us for support. Reach out to a trusted friend, family member, or mentor and talk about your doubts. They may be able to offer encouragement, advice, or simply a listening ear.

Embrace failure as part of the process

Failure is a natural part of any journey, and it’s something that we all experience at some point. Instead of seeing failure as a sign of weakness or inadequacy, try reframing it as a necessary step on the path to success. Embrace failure as an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve.

Keep moving forward

Perhaps the most important tip for persisting through doubt is simply to keep moving forward. Doubts may arise, but don’t let them derail your progress. Focus on taking small steps each day, and trust that over time, those steps will add up to something significant.

In conclusion, doubt is a natural part of any journey, but it doesn’t have to hold you back. By identifying the source of your doubts, reframing them as questions, focusing on your progress, leaning on your support system, embracing failure, and keeping moving forward, you can persist through doubt and achieve your goals.

Darkest Before Dawn

The phrase “darkest before dawn” suggests that success is most uncertain and difficult just before it’s achieved. This concept applies to our lives in many ways.

Reaching success requires hard work, persistence, and sacrifice. There will be times when everything seems to be going wrong, and it feels like success is impossible. During these moments, it’s important to remember that it’s darkest before dawn. We must continue to push through the difficult times and keep moving forward.

Having hope is also crucial when striving for success. It gives us the strength to keep moving forward and believe in the possibility of success. When we have hope, we can see beyond the challenges and obstacles in our lives and focus on the potential outcomes.

Failure is an inevitable part of the journey to success. It’s through our failures that we learn valuable lessons and gain experience that can help us succeed in the future. When we experience failure, we must remember that it’s not the end of the road. It’s a temporary setback that can be overcome with perseverance and determination.

In summary, success requires hard work, dedication, and a positive mindset. It’s often most difficult and uncertain just before it’s achieved, but pushing through the tough times, holding onto hope, and learning from our failures can help us achieve our goals.

Drawer Dollar

I couldn’t have been older than 6. We lived in a duplex in Glen Ellyn. It was the first home I remembered living in. My parents moved from Seattle to Kenosha to finally a suburb outside of Chicago. I still remember the first day I went to school and my father dropped me off at the bus stop.

My father told me stories of how when he was young, his brothers and him had very few possessions. He grew up extremely poor and had a small dresser he shared with his brothers. They each had one drawer for their special belongings. I don’t remember what my father kept in his: diaries, makeshift toys, or money. He told me he was so poor growing up he would gather the pits of peaches to use as toys and he would unravel cigarette butts for their paper. Even as a child I could understand how poor he once was and how I wasn’t as poor as he was as a child.

He asked me to place a few of my things into a drawer. I didn’t really have much, I didn’t collect anything from outside like rocks or stamps or coins and my father had yet to fill my drawer with teenage things like he did with pens and trinkets later in my life.

The only thing I remember possessing was a $1 bill. My mother or father must have given it to me to teach me to save or to treat me for candy. I stored this dollar carefully in my drawer.

One evening my parents were arguing. I heard them yelling about “qian,” the Chinese word for money. I listened from another room, scared of the situation. I had never seen my parents angry at each other. Why were they so upset? I thought they could work through anything together.

They continued to argue and I ran to my drawer. I didn’t want my parents to argue about money so I grabbed the only money I had and ran back to the other room. I must’ve ran to my mother for a hug and cried out she could have my money. My parents saw the dollar in my hands and laughed. They told me not to worry and to save my dollar. I was so sad I could not help.

The next day I walked to the corner store across the street. I took my dollar and looked for Wrigley’s Double Mint gum. It was 25c and I knew my father enjoyed them. I bought one pack of gum and excitedly ran home. I gave my father my gift and he smiled at me. He thanked me and told me not to worry.

Later in my life, I would be hit by a car and receive a decent amount of settlement money. My parents would ask me for a large loan and I would accept without question. They were able to pay me back, but I wasn’t really concerned on how or when and I don’t remember the details. All’s I know is they never fought about money after that. My father’s business stabilized and the arguments died down. He was right, I shouldn’t worry.

Cutco Leads

When I was a young college student, I spent a winter break selling Cutco knives. It was one of my first sales experiences working for someone outside of my family, as a young adult. I was asked to reach out to my network of friends and family to try to solicit knives. At that age, most of my friends and family were people I knew not by choice but by proximity. It was strange calling high school friends, especially since many declined and that may have been my last interaction with them.

There was one particular day I won’t forget. We typically had training and meetings once a week after the initial onboarding. Our sales director asked a few of us to come in on Saturday to try to get ahead. I was interested in seeing what additional effort and work would yield, so I decided to come early that Saturday.

We went into a small room, not our usual conference room. There were maybe a dozen other people in the room. Danny was our sales director’s name. Danny said that Cutco needed more sales members and that we would help him find them. He passed around a notepad and pen to each person around the room and went back to the front. He pulled out a $20 bill and said the person who produced the largest list of potential Cutco employees got the $20. He said, “Go” and everyone started writing down names and numbers and scrolling through their phone.

I recalled Biel, the person’s name I was told when I was first called by Danny a few months ago. I was told Biel recommended me and thought I would do well in this program. Biel was a student a year above me who I had met casually through another club. Since he was older, at the time of Danny calling I thought Biel was doing me a favor. After working with Cutco for over a month, I realized where I was sitting. I was sitting where Biel was sitting months ago. Except I had stopped seeing Biel around the office. When I first did training, I saw him here and there. As the weeks passed, I didn’t. What was going on?

I had a friend who got really sucked into the program. Every time we met, he was talking about sales. Looking back, it’s kind of cute seeing his entrepreneurial spirit. At the time, it seemed like any other indoctrination I had seen him face, from Jehovah’s Witness to environmentalism. It was extremely annoying, especially since I had known him before sales. His enthusiasm for Cutco began to become off putting. He would later be pressured to open an office in central Illinois by Danny, only to have it fail months later.

Back in the class sized room on this Saturday morning, I looked at my phone and all around the room. Danny was busy looking at his phone, smiling at the prospects about to roll in. I put my pen up the paper and then gave up. I couldn’t write down a single name or number. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get myself to fork over my contact list. When Danny’s phone timer went off, he asked us to finish our lists and turn them in. I turned in a blank sheet and ended up doing my last Cutco appointment that week.

Cutco primarily worked off of first hand recommendations. It taught me a lot of valuable sales skills, from scheduling tactics to navigating a close. While the products were good and the pay acceptable, it preyed on inexperienced college students and young adults to perform sales and to leverage young adults for their social networks, mostly of neighborhood families. The worst parts of Cutco were the assertiveness of their sales tactics and the indoctrination of naive salesmen. I am glad I was able to gather some practical advice from the little time I spent there and I’m glad I was able to keep my integrity when reflecting upon my situation and its inception. First hand recommendation is an incredibly strong sales tactic but a chance at $20 was not a worthwhile exchange with my adolescent phone book and it was a great lesson to learn early on.

A WoW Guild is a Business

In a previous post, we went over the differences between a business and a public service. In this post, we’ll cover how a World of Warcraft guild is not a public service, but rather a business.

While building a World of Warcraft guild may seem like a hobby or a public service, it is much more akin to running a business. Because there are so many competing guilds in WoW, a successful guild requires leadership, management, resources, and exclusiveness.

Leadership is Key

Just like any business, a successful WoW guild requires strong leadership. A guild leader must be able to set a vision, establish goals, and motivate their team to achieve success. Guild leaders must be able to communicate their vision and goals clearly to all members of the guild. They must also be able to listen to feedback and respond to concerns from members of the guild. Guild leaders must also be able to manage conflict and make difficult decisions that may not be popular with all members of the guild. They must be able to coordinate schedules and ensure that all members are working towards the same objectives. Guild leaders must also be able to identify areas where coordination is lacking and take steps to address these issues. While leadership is necessary in both businesses and public services, leadership is more often necessary in a business due to the need to adapt, takes risks, and compete with the others in the marketplace.

Management is Critical

A WoW guild is not just a group of players who come together to play the game. It requires careful management to ensure that all members are working together towards a common goal. Guild leaders must manage player schedules, organize raids, assign tasks, and monitor performance to ensure that the guild is progressing and achieving success. In contract, public services may be organized into different departments or divisions, but tend to be flatter structures with less hierarchy compared to businesses. Businesses are often empowered to make decisions quickly and independently, as the success of the business often depends on quick decision-making. These types of decisions cannot be easily reached through public and bureaucratic consensus, as their decisions often have broader implications for the public. Without central leadership, management becomes more self-delegated and results become more selfish or microscopic rather than for a greater good.

Resources are Limited

In a business, managers are focused on increasing revenue, managing costs, and generating profits for shareholders, while public service managers are focused on delivering high-quality services to the public, often within a set budget. Public services are funded by taxes from the government or local community, while WoW guilds, on the other hand, must rely on their own resources and fundraising efforts to support their activities. This means that guilds must be self-sufficient and manage their resources carefully to ensure that they can continue to operate. Just like a business, a WoW guild has limited resources. These resources include the player pool, player time, gold, and other in-game resources. Guild leaders must manage these resources carefully to ensure that they are being used effectively. This means making decisions about how to allocate resources, whether it be investing in new raid times, new gear, or purchasing more materials for the guild bank. Several factors such as funding, allocation, accountability, and risk tolerance vary greatly from businesses and public services.

Membership is a privilege, not a right

Membership has both rewards and responsibilities. In terms of rewards, unlike a public service, joining a WoW guild is not a right or entitlement. Members must meet certain criteria and be approved by the guild leadership before being admitted. This means that guilds can be selective about who they admit and can choose to exclude players who do not meet their standards. In terms of responsibilities, public servants are often expected to serve for a certain period of time, while WoW guild members are free to leave at any time. This means that guilds must work hard to keep their members engaged and motivated, and must continually recruit new members to replace those who leave. Businesses must compete with other companies in the same industry for customers, market share, and profits. This requires strong leadership that can develop competitive strategies, differentiate products and services, and build strong brands. Public services, on the other hand, often have a monopoly on the services they provide and do not face the same level of competition. As a guild, attaining and retaining members is never guaranteed and is a tremendous sign of positive growth.

In summary, building a World of Warcraft guild is more like running a business than a public service. A successful guild requires leadership, management, resources, and exclusiveness. Leadership is necessary for both businesses and public services, but more often necessary in a business due to the need to adapt, take risks, and compete with others in the marketplace. Management is critical for a guild to ensure all members are working together towards a common goal, something most easily accomplished in a hierarchical business structure. A WoW guild has limited resources that must be managed carefully, unlike public services funded by taxes. Membership in a WoW guild is a privilege, not a right, and members must meet certain criteria and be approved by the guild leadership before being admitted.

Public services are beholden to a general population, not a privileged subsection, are funded by taxes, not business revenue, are regulated and controlled, as opposed to free and creative, are owned by government or public organizations, not groups or individuals, and face little to no competition, unlike the free market. The only way a WoW guild could be a public service is if Blizzard provided a default community guild with no guild master or hierarchy and with no agenda or leadership.

Wringing Stones

wandering through drought and salt
finding some shade and resolve
wondering what it’s called
staring at open palms

it’s not a double tree
it’s a stand with no banner
what they couldn’t see
a test with no answers

fruit from a field unsown
neighbors have left from cold
a tree that bore only stones
squeeze them till we find gold

inspire the attendance
lead them with conviction
the toil seems endless
context breeds recognition

too tight of a grasp
we find blood of the rock
too light of a tap
is an unsculptured block

stand on two feet
in the discourse we listen
in the moment of heat
we strike with precision

a future unseen
with each seed of hope
we are a state in between
the blood and the stone

Leading with Conviction

As a leader, having conviction is crucial to achieving success and inspiring others. Conviction is a deep-seated belief in one’s principles, values, and mission. It gives leaders the confidence to make tough decisions, take risks, and pursue their goals with unwavering determination. In this post, we will explore why leaders need conviction and how it can benefit their organizations.

Conviction creates clarity

Leaders with conviction have a clear understanding of their values and goals. They have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and how they plan to get there. This clarity helps them make better decisions, prioritize tasks effectively, and communicate their expectations to others. When leaders are uncertain or indecisive, it can create confusion and delay progress. Conviction provides a solid foundation for leadership and ensures that everyone in the organization is working towards a common goal.

Conviction inspires confidence

Leaders who have conviction inspire confidence in their teams. When employees see that their leader is passionate about their work and has a clear vision for the future, they are more likely to feel motivated and engaged. Conviction also gives leaders the strength to face challenges and overcome obstacles, which can be reassuring to employees who are uncertain or anxious about the future. By demonstrating confidence and resolve, leaders can inspire their teams to believe in themselves and their ability to achieve great things.

Conviction fosters accountability

Leaders with conviction are accountable for their actions and decisions. They take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them, rather than blaming others or making excuses. This accountability sets a positive example for employees and encourages them to take ownership of their work. When everyone in the organization is accountable for their actions, it creates a culture of responsibility and trust. Conviction also helps leaders stay focused on their goals and avoid distractions, which is essential for achieving success.

Conviction promotes innovation

Leaders with conviction are not afraid to take risks or try new things. They are willing to experiment and innovate, even if it means stepping outside of their comfort zone. This openness to change and willingness to take risks can lead to breakthrough ideas and new opportunities. When leaders are too cautious or risk-averse, it can stifle creativity and limit innovation. Conviction encourages leaders to embrace uncertainty and explore new possibilities, which can be a catalyst for growth and success.

Conviction builds resilience

Leaders with conviction are resilient in the face of adversity. They are able to bounce back from setbacks and keep moving forward, even when the going gets tough. This resilience is essential for overcoming challenges and achieving long-term success. When leaders are resilient, they inspire their teams to be resilient as well. By demonstrating strength and perseverance, leaders can create a culture of resilience that can help the organization weather any storm.

In conclusion, leaders need conviction because it provides clarity, inspires confidence, fosters accountability, promotes innovation, and builds resilience. Conviction is not something that can be learned overnight – it requires a deep-seated belief in one’s values and goals. However, with time and practice, leaders can develop the conviction they need to achieve great things and inspire others to do the same.

Presenting a United Front

In any group or organization, whether it be a family, a team, a company, or even a World of Warcraft guild, presenting a united front is key to success. When everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal, it’s much easier to achieve success and overcome challenges. In this post, we’ll discuss why presenting a united front is so important, and offer some tips for achieving it.

First and foremost, presenting a united front builds trust and credibility. When everyone is working towards the same goal, and communicating clearly and honestly, it builds trust between team members, and with external stakeholders as well. When people see that everyone is on the same page, they’re more likely to believe in the group’s mission and vision, and more likely to support them.

In addition to building trust, presenting a united front also helps to avoid confusion and miscommunication. When everyone is working together and communicating effectively, it’s much less likely that messages will get lost or misunderstood. This can be especially important in high-stakes or sensitive situations, where miscommunication can lead to disastrous or escalating consequences.

Furthermore, presenting a united front helps to build a sense of community and camaraderie. When everyone is working towards a common goal, it fosters a sense of belonging and pride in the group. This can lead to increased motivation and commitment, as people feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

So, how can you achieve a united front in your own group or organization? Here are a few tips:

Define your goals and mission: Make sure everyone is clear on what you’re trying to achieve, and what your values and mission are.
Communicate regularly and openly: Encourage everyone to communicate openly and honestly, and make sure everyone is kept up-to-date on progress and challenges.
Address conflicts head-on: If there are disagreements or conflicts, address them openly and honestly, and work together to find a resolution.
Lead by example: Leaders should model the behavior they want to see in others, and set the tone for the group.
Celebrate successes together: When you achieve a goal or overcome a challenge, make sure everyone is recognized for their contributions, and celebrate together as a team.

In conclusion, presenting a united front is crucial for any group or organization that wants to achieve success. It builds trust, avoids confusion and miscommunication, fosters community and camaraderie, and more. By defining your goals and mission, communicating openly, addressing conflicts head-on, leading by example, and celebrating successes together, you can create a united front that will lead to success and fulfillment for everyone involved.

Inspiring Attendance

I’ve been leading a lot of raids in World of Warcraft, what else is new?

When I first started playing this expansion, I was in a much smaller, more serious guild. We were able to kill the content quickly and people were very competent. We weren’t the best of the best, but we were improving steadily. Before Ulduar came out, it almost seemed too easy. We weren’t the only ones who experienced this, I saw many players quit the game as soon as they got their achievements.

Logging in to the game to find players leaving, communities becoming smaller, is not a good feeling. There were times where I felt alone when I logged in, especially when playing an Alliance character, away from my Horde counterparts I had invested in years before. Raid nights were different and attendance would jump up to nearly a full raid. The numbers began to dwindle and I lost focus on that server, preferring to return to my old Horde characters.

On my Horde server, I’ve found an amazing community of casual gamers. The guild is so large that one players absence is not as detrimental. It’s nice befriending people and checking in on them when they’re unable to play, but it’s not so fun to try to replace these people and have them feel like they’re obligated to join. It’s a nice feeling being able to support an open raiding system with players freely coming in or out based on their schedule, with more serious players coming each week and more casual ones dipping their toes in and out of the water.

For many casual players, this is their first raiding experience or at least first in a long time. It’s a bit jarring for new players to work together in groups of 10 or 25 in real time, but once expectations are understood and the environment becomes more settled in, new players find themselves enjoying it just as much as veterans.

The most rewarding experience in these casual raids is not the RPG elements of the game, as killing the bosses could be done with a much more serious group and loot could be much more seriously focused on. The most rewarding experience is the MMO aspect, logging into a large guild and forming a large group with only guild members, working on content together, and most of all, coming together after the raid to chat about a bright future. I’ve began hosting optional town hall meetings after raids and almost all of the raiders stick around to chat and listen, only a few must sign off early. It inspires me to do a better job of leading the players in raid and a better job organizing the guild in general. Seeing everyone’s willingness to stay, improve, and socialize is truly beautiful.

A Business is Not a Public Service

From a Guardian article written over 8 years ago:

a public service and a business are inherently different beasts and asking one to behave as the other is like asking a fish to ride a bicycle.

The base reason is quite simple. Business survive on cash; money is their bloodline. Public service’s survive based on the people’s will; the governments or communities sponsor public services.

By nature, businesses have to attract more profits; failing to do so means the business dies. By nature, services have to please most members; losing majority popularity means the service loses funding, the only thing supporting it.

While it’s easy to blur the line between the two and believe that servicing the community is part of the business or that doing business is just a part of doing public service, they should not be mixed so easily.

Businesses are hierarchical, not democratic, and wages, terms and conditions are set by the executive and subject to the market.

Although there is some form of hierarchy in all forms of organization, businesses intentionally partition decision making away from portions of the business in order to meet market demands and unequal distribution of responsibilities and reward. This translates to the leader making the most decisions and being rewarded the most while the actors who hold the least responsibility get rewarded the least. Contrast this to public service where the entire organization is beholden to the wants of a community, leading a majority of the decision making, creativity, and responsibilities away from an executive branch to more of a community bulletin board.

When everyone is more similar than dissimilar and the incentive is pleasure not profit, why you’ve created a small communist society. But don’t take that word so negatively in its connotation. In many small groups, communism is a very preferred method of governing. For instance, within a small family or a house full of roommates, treating everyone as equal despite their output can be a very rewarding experience, full of love and understanding. This is not dissimilar from a service, whose goals are never to profit outside of its vision but rather to sustain and maintain what it was set out to do.

Contrast this with businesses, which also benefit from focus, sustenance, and maintenance, but also are willing to make decisions outside of its original vision in order to sustain profits, growth, and the company’s life. While the will of the people make a public service live, a business cannot survive on appreciation alone. Businesses, for the most part, live in a capitalist world in which the market decides what survives and what dies. So not only should businesses strive for more, in terms of profits and growth, they must always strive just to survive, because there is no base of taxpayer money or community goodwill (for the most part).

If public services are communal or communist and businesses are hierarchical or capitalist, how do we so easily blur the lines between the two?

This is because when operating or experiencing a public service or business, there will always be pros and cons unique to each side. Without realizing everything comes at a cost, people imagine the best of both worlds, particularly just for their personal experience. What many fail to realize is that the best of all things comes at a major cost, most of the time in the form of impossibility.

I want to make a business that doesn’t turn away anyone! I have a product or sale for EVERYONE.

This attitude alone drives away a lot of clients. Some clients like exclusion, some like to conform. Not every restaurant can be the Cheesecake Factory and support a menu of 500 items; most restaurants end up going out of business from a lack of focus or finances. The expensive places cannot cater to the lower income population and the affordable places cannot cater to the high income populations. From income, to background, to culture, to belief, there’s always a reason for people to prefer one thing over another.

I want to run our public service like a business! Let’s not settle for zero-sum and let’s grow this operation!

This attitude often upsets governments or communities that began as sponsors of something they wanted to becoming customers of something being held hostage from them. Despite understanding that everything costs something, public services are meant to be inclusive to such a degree in which a normal business may not be able to function, public taxes or community donations are required to keep services alive. Examples include art and music programs, which may not produce an immediate profit but are desired by communities. Other examples include college sponsorships, which are very different from college loans, and waste management services which are very different from junk collectors. Services are meant to be for all, with very little cost or commitment from the benefiters.

There are times in which a business will perform a public service and there are times in which a public service will contract out a business. A difference in philosophy should not stop these two parties from working together, it should actually encourage them to work together and focus on their strengths and weaknesses.

In a future post, I’ll cover how World of Warcraft guilds are actually a business, not a public service.