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.

Advice and Context

Advice and information are essential components of decision-making, problem-solving, and personal growth. However, they can be of limited use when one lacks context or experience. In this post, we will explore why advice and information become most practical once there is context and experience.

Context is critical because it helps us understand the circumstances surrounding a situation, event, or decision. Without context, we lack the necessary background information to make informed decisions. For example, if someone gives us advice on how to negotiate a salary increase, it may not be practical if we do not have the context of the industry standards, company culture, and performance metrics. However, if we have a clear understanding of the context, the advice becomes more applicable and useful.

Experience is also essential because it helps us understand the practical implications of advice and information. Experience enables us to recognize patterns, anticipate outcomes, and adjust our approach accordingly. For example, if we receive advice on how to manage a difficult employee, it may not be practical if we lack the experience of handling similar situations. However, if we have experience, we can draw upon our past successes and failures to apply the advice more effectively.

Furthermore, experience allows us to personalize advice and information to our unique situation. No two situations are identical, and advice that works in one context may not be practical in another. However, with experience and wisdom, we can adapt and tailor advice to fit our specific circumstances.

In conclusion, advice and information are valuable resources, but they become most practical when there is context and experience. Context helps us understand the circumstances surrounding a situation, while experience allows us to understand the practical implications of advice and information. By combining context and experience, we can make informed decisions, solve problems, and grow personally and professionally. So, the next time you receive advice or information, take a moment to consider the context and draw upon your experience to apply it more effectively.

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.

Holding Onto Poison

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Falsely Quoted as the Buddha

I had not known this quote was falsely contributed to Buddha until I had Google’d it.

Fake or not, I find the saying to be true. It does very little to the other person to hold resentment. Some take their resentment further, finding ways to manifest it and to attack their villain. Whatever the outcome, whatever the result, whatever route anyone takes, resentment requires a source.

The second law of thermodynamics:

“…heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects (or “downhill”)…”

This law of thermodynamics introduces entropy, a constant force at play causing a reduction in energy over time, over steps. It also implies that energy cannot go backwards without something supplying energy to reverse the flow. Meaning once something starts off as something, it cannot reverse naturally.

What does this mean for anger?

Sending out anger out into the world bears very little fruit, as every moment and every step away from its source reduces the power of the anger. The recipient will never receive the same amount of energy as the sender originally had. Additionally, the little fruit anger bears will be fruits of anger, as the only way there could be any other yield would require an equal and opposite force.

Anger, and negative emotion in general, is difficult to wield. We must be careful not to cultivate it actively or passively, as it will grow and become more difficult to manage.

A famous analogy in psychology popularized by Jonathan Haidt describes us in two halves, a rational rider and an emotional elephant.

The rider represents the rational thinker, the analytical planner, the evidence-based decision-maker. The elephant, on the other hand, is an emotional player, full of energy, sympathy and loyalty, who stays put, backs away, or rears up based on feelings and instincts. The elephant is often on automatic pilot.

How we navigate the world atop of our emotional elephant tells us what we think of our own emotions and their role in our decision making as well as the temperance and attitude of the rider mastering their emotions. There are lots of different views on the topic of emotion, varying from always listening to them to stoically holding back all feelings. Like many things in life, there is no one right answer. A common answer a friend can share with you, on the relationship between a rider and its elephant, is that the rider should decide where the two go in life, no matter how the elephant feels. Feelings can change and feelings are not the best predictors of new lands, which is why knowledge and experience are used to navigate the unknown.

We need not be cruel or uncaring to our emotions in totality, but the reverse is death of the rider. Without any emotional control, the rider is no longer in control of their destiny; the rider is at mercy to their emotions. This makes very little difference in times of peace. When times of war strike, chaos shall ensue and the rider must do his best to weather the storm. I pray that we all see sunny days, and on the few rainy ones we are prepared and optimistic. Hold on steady to your emotions and decide between the two of you who is in charge.

Think in Prosperity

It’s easy to catch yourself in a rut or to experience a rainy day or two. There’s steps to take beforehand to make these times easier on ourselves. There’s also steps to take in those moments to let optimism and prosperity in.

Think big. Bigger and better.

This relates to our environment. For many people, it’s not easy to change their environment or their headspace. It’s much easier to become complacent or comfortable in a familiar surrounding.

But did you know it’s easier to change your environment than it is to change your habits?

Some people are shocked when they hear this, while others connect with it very quickly. Ever gone on a diet and removed all of those foods from your home? You have to leave the house to cheat on your diet! Ever put yourself in a library to get some peace and quiet and to focus? Have you ever turned off your phone or deleted an app?

Environments and headspaces inform us of the likely outcomes ahead of us. We can have the best attitudes and intentions, but our limited choices may lead us to the same result over and over.

So why do I keep equating environments and headspaces? It’s certainly possible to purely change one’s environment, placing themselves in better locations with better friends. But it’s also much more easily possible to change the landscape within your own mind. People do this by reading books or listening to self help tapes. People do this with the free time they have, watching television or playing video games. A powerful saying is:

A man is what he thinks about all day long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

No matter what the activity or the setting is, the space our mind is in plays a part in how we navigate the world. Similar to attitude, similar to environment, shaping our mind allows us to reach beyond what is simply around us or before us. With creativity and entrepreneurship, something must appear from essentially nothing. So with every endeavor, we have the choice to simply make what is around us or the choice to make what we can imagine. So, think in prosperity. Imagine bigger. Because I cannot see a bright future in which we do not choose to do this. How can there be a best version of the world if we don’t imagine and believe in one? It’s not to say we shouldn’t prepare for the worst, as this post began. But it is to say that what we make is a combination of what is around us and what we believe in. So believe in the best. Believe in yourself.