Inbound Unwound - Marketing Insights

Inbound marketing metrics are fantastic – but only if you take action on your findings. If you simply track for the sake of tracking and never make any adjustments to your program, do anything different or try anything new, you’re never going to realize the full potential of your inbound program.

One of the major advantages of inbound marketing is that you're able to identify what is and isn't working right now, implement adjustments to the program today and see the results tomorrow.

It's not that you’ll be 100% sure your adjustments worked, as you might need a week or month to really let your experiments run their course. But, you should get at least an indication that the results are moving in the right direction.

Specifically, consider the following workflow:

1. Review your results daily, weekly and monthly.
2. Analyze the data and make sure that you understand exactly what’s working like you expected and what’s not.
3. Respond with a set of program improvements or adjustments and a set of experiments or tests designed to push the results up and to the right.
4. Take action by installing or implementing the responses you’ve created in the Respond stage.

Then, make sure you set up the rhythms you need to keep this process going on a monthly basis, at a minimum. Here are some other considerations to make sure you take action based onmarketing metrics.

Track High-Level Performance Daily

If you’re not looking at high-level performance data daily, you’re missing the opportunity to make more course corrections more frequently. Today’s inbound marketing optimization tools come with smartphone and tablet apps that make checking the data easy – no matter where you are in the world. A quick check on visitors, conversions and leads reveals how you’re tracking versus last month or versus your goals.

If this data is down and you don’t have tactical plans to increase the numbers, you need to get a plan up and running pretty quickly. Data without action is just data.

For instance, if visitor traffic is down, you have to step up your "get found" tactics, like blogging, guest blogging, social media, email marketing and influencer outreach. If leads are not doing well, you need to step up your on-site content creation or conversion optimization efforts, or you have to make a few website upgrades to turn those visitors into leads. Almost all of these tactics can be acted upon in a matter of days, not weeks or months like some of the old, traditional marketing tactics.

Spend An Hour Each Month Digging Into The Data

There are going to be some numbers that require more thought and analysis. Schedule time – at least an hour per month – to go deep into the numbers. Look at your social reach and landing page conversion rates. These are two areas where you can see which social sites are working and which ones are lagging.

Review all of your landing pages for those that are outperforming benchmarks and those that are not. If you find pages that are underperforming, get to work making minor adjustments. Tweak the copy, add a different image or shorten the number of form fields. All of these adjustments take mere minutes, and the impact can be significant. 

Always Create An Action Plan

Once you see what’s working and what could be working better, you should take action. The action plan is the most important aspect of inbound optimization. It's the key. Create a list of 5-10 action steps, assign them to key team members, set timelines and deadlines, make sure you get an update on when the changes have been implemented and keep an eye on the metrics in real time. You should see improvements in just a matter of days – assuming the adjustments are effective, of course.

If these adjustments don’t bring about the lift you’re looking for, just rinse and repeat. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t get discouraged if your planned improvements don’t deliver the first time. Making mistakes shows you what NOT to do again. You learn almost as much from what doesn’t work as you do from what does.

Once you get into the rhythm of Review, Analyze, Respond and Act, you’re going to start noticing a continual movement up and to the right for overall program performance. Even better, once you start to string together six, seven and eight months of this up-and-to-the-right motion, you’ll look back and see a 10x improvement in website visitors, a 5-6x improvement in leads generated and significant improvement in social reach, keyword performance and email marketing open/click-through rates.

This continuous-improvement approach is often undervalued until you look back six months and see where you were then compared to where you are today. The sooner you adopt this methodology, the sooner you start to see the results, which translates to more customers and higher revenue numbers.

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7 Key Strategies That You Must Learn From Apple’s Marketing

Coming off the heels of yet another successful Apple launch debut, it’s increasingly clear that Apple is on top of their game in a way like no other. Which other company could turn an ordinary press conference into a live global event?

The secret lies beyond their product line and design standards; it lies beyond even Steve Jobs’ emphatic adherence to Apple’s core philosophy, which is that the user doesn’t always know what they want.

Looking at the company’s latest product lines and revenue models, I’d be a fool to call them anything less than what they are, which is:

• A design firm
• A media platform
• A publishing company
• A software powerhouse
• A computer builder
• A movement

Break down each of these bullets individually and you’ll find a company at the top of their respective industry, but combine them into a single entity and you’ve got the recipe for building one of the most influential businesses of all time.

So how did they do it?

Rather than tell you how I think they did it, I thought instead I’d turn to their fans on Twitter, who helped me uncover 7 of the greatest marketing lessons that Apple brings to the table.

1. Ignore Your Critics

As an entrepreneur, you’ll hear a lot of people tell you that you need to reach out and figure out what people want, which means listening to your critics, often times more patiently than you’d like.

Apple decides to flip the script and instead focus on building what they want to build, no matter the perceived cost. When Steve Jobs debuted the iPad, the critics stood in line, throwing every insult they could muster. The critics said that the iPad would fail. The numbers say otherwise.

Each and every time Apple decided to innovate, they were laughed at. They prevailed anyway.

“Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

- Albert Einstein

2. Turn the Ordinary into Something Beautiful

For quite some time, PC fans enjoyed the work of buying their own parts and building their own tower systems. At the same time, PC makers were building standard hardware for standard applications.

Apple would have none of that.

They’ve been pioneering not only the features of standard operating systems and computer systems, but simultaneously reinventing the design standards as well. As a result, we have the gorgeous iMac, the beautiful new Macbook Air, and who could forget, the amazing iPhone 4.

Where others focus on one aspect of the equation, Apple focuses on the entire product, and it shows.

3. Justify Your Price

We’re in a time when pricing strategies are all over the place. People don’t know what to charge, and in many cases, prefer to race to the bottom instead of pricing strategically to a market that can bear the cost.

Once more, Apple ignores the standard by not only pricing their technology more than 2x what their competitors charge, but doing so without blinking. How can they get away with it?

Well, the answer is twofold:

1. They build beautiful products for an audience that loves them passionately.
2. They justify their price with features and benefits that can’t be matched.

Since we’ve already hit point 1, let’s work on #2.

No other computer can match the display of a 27” iMac…it simply can’t be done.

No other software can match what iTunes brings to the table.

No laptop is as thin as the Macbook Air.

No software is more intuitive, no product more valuable than the Apple product. Any other smartphone looks like it was developed by rookies when compared to an iPhone 4. You simply cannot compare the two.

Critics will play on the fact that the core features are the same, and they might be, but that’s not the point. The point is that Apple is the Rolls Royce of the technology and design world, and their customers will gladly pay a premium because of it.

4. Communicate in the Language of Your Audience

It makes no sense to talk about things like megabytes, gigahertz, and processing power to customers that simply don’t care about technical jargon.

Take a look at any Apple product page and you’ll find that though they do discuss product specifications and technical information, it’s hidden behind the benefits that their audience is truly after.

Instead of display resolution, you’ll see phrases like “edge to edge glass,” “retina display,” and “LED backlighting.”

Sure, the jargon is there for those that need it, but it’s presented in a way that makes you want to learn about megapixels, rather than shy away from them. The art is in the copy, not in the features.

5. Extend the Experience

Have you ever heard of an unboxing? I hadn’t either until recently, when I learned that not only was I not the only one keeping Apple packaging post-sale, but that there are legions of people that record the actual process of unwrapping their newly purchased Apple products.

Do a search on YouTube and you’ll find hundreds of Apple unboxings, each from different users from across the globe. It’s pretty crazy right?

No one tells these people to video their experience, but they do it because the process is so Zen that you can’t help not to.

Apple does this by making sure that the experience doesn’t end at the cash register. They take great care in designing a user experience from browsing to unwrapping, which relies on incredible packaging and installation procedures.

By reducing installation to the lowest common denominator, they make buying new products a snap, and by spending as much time on designing packaging as they do on the products themselves, they’ve ensured that the box matches what’s inside.

As a result, they’ve built an experience that is nearly impossible to match.

6. Build a Tribe

It’s no secret that Apple has built one of the most hardcore fan bases of any product and of any time. There’s a reason they’re called “fanboys.”

But who cares, right? Most of the chatter is out of jealousy more than anything, but Apple doesn’t really care. They know that they serve an elite audience, and rather than back away from that fact, they embrace it.

7. Become “The Name”

You don’t buy tissues, you buy Kleenex.

You don’t buy MP3 players, you buy an iPod.

You don’t buy a smartphone, you buy an iPhone.

Have you noticed what they’re doing here? Apple isn’t content with being a leader in sales alone, they want to own the market itself, which explains why they’ve engineered iTunes as the major music provider that it is, and why the iPad, having the luxury of being the first, has now set the trend for future tablet devices.

From here on out, everything will be compared to the iPad, iPhone, iPod, and iTunes. Sadly, this sort of thing is tough to duplicate, but it’s not impossible. You need to have one of two things:

1. A clear head start in terms of being first to market.
2. A USP that differentiates your product in a way that makes people wish it were first.

The iPhone wasn’t the first phone, but they engineered it to be so unique that you couldn’t help but think it was. The iMac isn’t the first all in one, but it became the only one that mattered.

It’s not so much the marketing angle that matters as it is the way that people identify with that angle. Take a look at any Steve Jobs product release and you’ll watch as he tells you why every other product in the market pales in comparison to what he’s created.

You know what? We believe him.

About the Author: Nathan Hangen is the co-founder of Virtuous Giant, creator of IgnitionDeck, a crowdfunding plugin for WordPress. You can follow him on Twitter via @nhangen.

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Why Sir Ken Robinson Is My Thought-Leader Spirit Animal: 7 Important Ideas on Innovation?

Sir Ken Robinson recently presented a video talk and Q&A at MarketingProfs on the nature of innovation at our own organizations.

Why is innovation critical to all companies? And are we all capable of the creativity and imagination required to fuel real innovation? (Spoiler alert on that last one: YES.)

I’m one of those people who gets antsy at webinars. But last week I was zero percent tempted during Sir Ken’s video talk to start scrolling through my email or to check Instagram.

Part of that was Sir Ken’s delivery – he’s hilarious and articulate. Which makes the big concepts he talks about feel accessible and real and suddenly relevant to all of our lives. 

I came away from Sir Ken’s talk feeling inspired to do things differently within my own organization as well as in the world itself. And when’s the last time that you had that reaction to a marketing webinar?

Here are 7 must-read highlights.

If you’re wanting more, you can watch the whole seminar here at MarketingProfs.

“Innovation has to become a habit…. Innovation needs to be systematic, deliberate; it is what defines you as an organization."

Innovation is simply a habit that should be nurtured, not an art or a gift. In that way, it reminds me of my philosophy toward writing as a habit, not an art.

“Make innovation part of the daily conversation,” Sir Ken said.

"Innovation feeds on itself."

When the iPhone came out, in 2007, there were a few hundred apps for it. Now, there are a ka-frickin-zillion. (That’s not Sir Ken’s word, it’s mine.)

“You can now download an app that turns your iPhone into a blues harmonica,” Ken said. “Why? I have a blues harmonica that’s smaller than the iPhone…” 

The bigger point is that tools and technologies allow us to channel creativity and innovation in new, unexpected ways. “Tools stretch our minds in new directions. They allow us to do things, but also tools extend our minds.”

“Innovation feeds on itself. It becomes pat of a multiplier effect” in which things are launched that were unanticipated by the original design or intent, Sir Ken said.

"Organizations are mortal."

Organizations are mortal – most last only 30 to 40 years. And they don’t survive if they don’t evolve.

“Companies are living organisms; if they don’t evolve, they simply don’t make it. Innovation isn’t an option,” Sir Ken said.

One good example is Kodak. They invented the brownie camera, which Sir Ken called “the iPad of its day.” The Brownie camera made photography accessible to everyone, and as a result Kodak went on to be the dominant force in photography.

Now the company is in receivership. Kodak didn’t fail because people stopped taking photographs – we take more photos, not less (“an irritating number,” said Sir Ken in a mock grouse). 

Rather, Kodak failed because it didn’t adapt to a digital culture and instead bet its future on film – “when things really went quite differently, of course,” he said.

Kodak was created by chemists and run by chemists, and Sir Ken speculated that that might’ve contributed to a kind of innovation blind spot.

“Kodak created a habit of mind, a culture that stopped them from innovating,” Sir Ken said.

"The second driver of innovation is the sheer number of people on the planet."

"There are currently 7 ½ billion people in the world – more than any other time in our history. By the middle of the century, there will be an estimated 9 billion. Much of the population growth is expected to come from emerging or developing economies.

That may affect the future of your own organization. But more broadly, it’s also likely to affect our collective futures.

More people means more need for food, fuel and water. Beyond the question of whether our planet can handle the growth is the question, “In what fashion?” Sir Ken said. If we all consumed resources as most people do in India, the earth could sustain 15 billion people, he said. But if we all consume fuel, food and water as we do in North America, the earth could sustain a mere 1.5 billion. 

“Which means that by the end of the century, we’re going to need another 4 or 5 planets to accommodate us all,” Sir Ken said.

"Creativity is the applied wing of imagination."

Innovation is the drive to find new ideas and new ways of doing things, to launch both new products and better processes. “But you can’t go straight to it,” he said, because the foundation for innovation are two things: Imagination and creativity.

Imagination gives you the freedom to consider alternative views. Creativity is about applying imagination to existing systems – to challenge what we take for granted. It’s the process of figuring out if your imagined, original ideas have value.

“Creativity is the applied wing of imagination,” Sir Ken said. And innovation comes from the application of that creativity in context in an organizational context.

"Creative does not equal artistic."

“A myth is that you’re either creative or you’re not,” Sir Ken said.

“Creative” does not equal “artistic.” You can be a creative team leader or a creative scientist or a creative marketer – which means only that you look for new ways of doing things.

We all have creative capacity. But most organizations don’t give people permission to be creative.

In an organization, he added, “Culture is about where you lay the lines of permission.”

I wrote a full post on this one alone here. 

"Great ideas aren't accidental."

“Creativity is a process, not an event,” Sir Ken said

Pixar bans no or but during company meetings. Great ideas aren’t accidental – rather, they come from a practiced point of view which encourages new ideas and innovation.

Support a “yes and…” brand of improvisation at your own organization, Sir Ken said. In comic improv, the actors accept what those around them suggest and work with it – you accept what you’ve been given and build on it, saying yes and instead of no orbut. 

Banning no and but might “sound trivial,” Sir Ken said. “It’s really not.”

If you’re a creative leader, he added, it’s not your job to have all the great ideas. Instead, it’s your job to allow those you lead to contribute as well.

“Take that weight off yourself,” he said.

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Pebble vs. Apple: David and Goliath This Ain't

By this time next week Apple will have, once again, sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Next Monday, at one of the company's time-tested high-profile events, we'll all be attending the coming out party for Apple Watch.

But this week, the smart watch news is all about Pebble, which can reasonably claim to have energized the space three years ago in a very Apple way: Exploding onto the scene with a breakthrough device someone else thought of first.

Pebble returned to Kickstarter last week in a bald attempt to capitalize on the smart watch buzz created by Apple's imminent entry into the space with Pebble Time, a sportier model with a new approach to notifications it calls Timeline. They've promised a month of news, timed to the 30-day campaign, which includes today's reveal of — surprise! — an upgrade option to Pebble Time Steel, a steal at only $80 more than the (long since taken) $170 batch (Yes, I'm in. Again).

Pebble and Apple isn't David and Goliath, at least not as far as Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky is concerned. "Whether delusional, manically focused or simply well-rehearsed, Migicovsky chose to view the Apple announcement as a plus for Pebble," Steven Levy writes in Backchannel. 'It’s pretty incredible to see the world’s largest company come into the watch space,' he said. 'It’s validating something I’ve known for the last six and a half years — that the next generation of computing will be on your body.'"

What is undeniably true is that Pebble has sold more than one million watches in three years, and six days into a 30-day Kickstarter campaign, has sold another $14 million worth. With that, the company has re-claimed the title (it first took with the original Pebble) as the most funded Kickstarter project ever.

So, there is that.

I first took notice of Pebble in my Reuters column when they broke all records on their first Kickstarter campaign, in April 2012:

A Kickstarter project for a device you wear on your wrist, but that needs a smartphone to do anything really interesting, has raised more than $5.3 million in eight days. This is this far and away the most anyone has ever raised on Kickstarter, and it’s happening – with a gadget in a category that has a pretty dismal track record – at a sales pace that would make even Apple sit up and take notice.

As much as I like to dine out on those last words, I'm not really sure Apple did "sit up take notice" as much as it might have already been working on the idea for quite some time.

The smart watch has all the earmarks of the sort of device-that-time-forgot Apple often manages to turn into something relevant. Microsoft had tried and failed with it a decade before the first Pebble (note the similarities to the tablet, which Apple reinvented a decade after the Redmond giant tried to market its own). Various kinds of smart watch have been around ever since, getting little love. Even Pebble was going nowhere fast as a developer of a device tethered to Blackberry phones, which were about to fall off a cliff.

What changed? Two very important, intertwined things.

Smart watches were originally conceived of as stand-alone devices. The limitations are now pretty obvious, chiefly the tiny screen. Remember, though, at the time ofMicrosoft's SPOT, watch screens on mobile phones were also pretty tiny.

But they didn't do all that much. Unlike the Dick Tracy device people of a certain age remember fondly you couldn't even talk to anyone with it. I mean, we KNEW that watches were communications devices in the early 1960s. So why aren't they in the year 2002?!

Apple went a long way towards setting the stage for the emergence of the smart phone as must-have mobile device in 2007, with the first iPhone. Among the new features was a ginormous screen, which made activities like web surfing credible on a mobile device. So successful was the smart phone that it created a new version of a problem futurist Alvin Toffler had identified in 1970: information overload. Hard core techies, like Gigaom's Mathew Ingram, would soon argue that you should choose a smart phone based on how well they wrangled notifications above all other features.

And that was the new opening for the resurgence of the smart watch. The trick, from my perspective, is to avoid mission creep. It is to remember that the opportunity lies in extending the utility of the smart phone, not replacing it.

But the existential question about whether smart watches are a mainstream consumer item is valid. Notification management is pretty hard core. One new use case: There are unique health monitoring opportunities for something strapped to your wrist. Pebble steals a little of that thunder today — surprise! — with a reveal that of the smartstrap: "straps can now contain electronics and sensors to interface directly with apps running on Pebble Time."

Apple may bury Pebble, or its entry into the smart watch space might lift all boats — even Android, whose fans will tell you already boasts a range of excellent choices with features Apple will reinvent, or steal, depending on your point of view.

So, for a smart watch aficionado these are exciting times. If Apple is wildly successful, look to them to even extend coverage to Android devices, like iTunes spread to Windows. Apple's entry is a make-or-break event which will answer whether there is a massive, pent-up hunger for this kind of device, or whether it's only a play thing for people like me.

Either way, it's about time.

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7 Lies Employers Use To Trick You Into Working For Them

I got this letter from a LinkedIn reader:

Dear J.T.,

Why do employers lie to get you to take the job? The last two companies I've worked for have done the same thing. They promise me things, but once I'm in the job, they don't deliver. I'm tired of getting taken advantage of and don't now how to make it stop. What am I doing wrong?

This happens a lot. And frankly, it's going to get even worse as the talent shortage increases and companies play dirty to get candidates to take their jobs. Here's an article which explains this growing trend...

Why Some Employers Have Rose-Colored Recruiting Glasses

While some employers are starting to properly reveal their Employment Brands, it could take a while for others to recognize the need to accurately convey what it's like to work for their company - and that will hurt their ability to hire effectively.

For example...

Companies that pull the bait-n-switch (like what the poor professional experienced above), are usually desperate to improve their troubled company - and assume hiring new talent will fix their problem. They make promises to themselves, "If we can just get the best talent in here and turn things around, we can actually make good on all these promises we're making while recruiting them." In their minds, hiring you will give them the results they need to make those promises a reality. Unfortunately, hiring alone can't fix a failing company or a broken corporate culture. Before you know it, the company is making excuses why they won't deliver on those promises - and may even try to make you feel bad for asking. As if it was your fault!? Sound familiar?

7 Potential Lies Told In The Hiring Process

Any time a company makes the following claims, you should push back and try to get more information before assuming it's the truth. While some can deliver, others can't - and it's up to you to figure out which ones are sincere. The potential lies are:

1. There's a lot of opportunity for advancement.
2. The bonus structure will double your income.
3. Your territory is protected and we won't change it.
4. You'll get extensive training.
5. You'll have scheduling flexibility and can work from home on occasion.
6. We'll hire you some help when it gets busy.
7. Once you fix this problem/department/project, etc., you'll get to work on something new and exciting.

In order to avoid being taken advantage of, the secret is to learn to master the very same technique recruiters have been taught to spot a fake in an interview.

Use "Reverse Behavioral Interviewing" To Reveal Employer's True Self

Behavioral interviewing is a technique recruiters use to help determine the personality, aptitude, and true experience level of a candidate. They're historically open-ended questions designed to force candidates to provide more detailed answers to questions that address things like their:

• ability to work in teams
• work style
• track record of success
• ability to overcome adversity
• capacity to cope with change

Recruiters use behavioral interviewing to explore candidates' depth of knowledge and ability to answer the questions in a way that matches the goals, values, and needs of the organization. [A free tool with some of the most common behavioral interview questions can be found here.]

They're also trying to identify and eliminate any liars, under-performers, or high-maintenance candidates. Hiring is expensive. Behavioral interviewing is meant to help minimize bad hires.

What If You Could Do The Same?

You can!

When your turn comes to ask questions in the interview (usually, at the end of the conversation), you can prepare a list of open-ended behavioral questions that will force the employer to articulate more clearly how they deliver on the promises they're making. For example, check these seven questions as they relate to the potential lies above:

1. Can you give me an example of someone who was hired in the last two years to a similar role who has already advanced in their career here? In particular, can you explain what they did to make that happen?
2. Can I meet someone in the company who has doubled their income with the bonus structure? I'd like to learn more about how they accomplished that.
3. I know territories can change as the business changes, what do you put into place to ensure this never happens? Is there a written legal contact of some sort?
4. Can you break down the formal training versus the informal training I will receive? And, may I speak to someone who has been in this role a year to see how they best used the training to their advantage?
5. What is the procedure for requesting to work from home? Can I speak to someone who uses this scheduling flexibility so I can learn what he/she is doing to make sure she is meeting the company's goals when working remotely?
6. Can you share with me a recent example of someone who was hired on to help due to growth. What is the company's process for identifying and funding additional headcount?
7. Can you share with me a recent example of someone who was hired on to fix a problem and has now gone on to a new project? What did they do to ensure they were given the opportunity to move on?

Each of the questions above are positively framed to show your sincere interest in the company's approach to delivering on these promises. It's up to them to give you an answer that sounds accurate and compelling. If they start to dance around the subject, or don't have a clear cut answer, you know they aren't telling the truth.

Difference Between Working "For" An Employer & Working "With" Them

Learning how to reverse behavioral interview a potential employer is a very important step in becoming a more sophisticated and successful job seeker. When you realize you want to work "with" employers and not "for" them, you can begin to approach the job search with your eyes wide open. You deserve the best opportunities, and that means improving your interview skills so you can spot the less-than-ideal employers. Use the technique above to help you get better at finding the right fit for you!

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You Will Never Find Work/Life Balance

You have been lied to and so have I. Blame our parents, teachers, and the last 20 years of business gurus for their deception. We have been aiming so hard for success -- under the guise of "work/life balance." There's just one problem: we've been grasping for the wrong trophy.

Let me share a little secret -- there is no "work/life balance."

I have tried to stay quiet on this topic for some time, but I can't any longer. For what seems like the 98th time since I co-founded Aha! (which is product roadmap software), someone asked me today, "How are you able to balance your work and life?" It's just a more elegant way of asking, "Do you work really hard?"

Of course I do. And I love every minute of it.

If you believe what you read, nirvana would be achieving perfect harmony in our lives between the version of ourself that toils and the other parts that don't. But what if real harmony comes from being happy in all areas of life?

My dear friend, Emily Hall, is the CEO of the strategy consulting firm Olive Grove. She recently pointed out that the fundamental problem with "work/life balance" conversations are that they assume these two things are oppositional. The starting argument is that work and life are in conflict with one another.

This is incorrect -- work is life, and life is defined by our efforts. This argument assumes that work makes us fundamentally unhappy, and only "life" can balance out that misery. It doesn't have to be like this.

To find joy in all aspects of life, we need to start talking about a new concept. I judge myself on my ability to achieve sustainable happiness, not "work/life balance."

If you remain unconvinced that we should change the conversation, consider the following:

You have one life

We have one life and we should fill it with what is most important to us. We are told to focus on achieving a positive "work/life balance," but rarely stop to question if that's what really matters. We should check in with ourselves even once per week to track what we do and how happy it makes us. If we did, we might realize that although we appear to be successful, we don't actually do much of what makes us happy. "Work/life balance" doesn't solve this problem; optimizing for sustainable happiness does.

Balance has no value

"Work/life balance" is an empty goal. It's a state of equilibrium, but nothing more. Our focus should not be to balance work with our life; it should be to design our lives so that we purposefully do more of what makes us happy. When we regularly engage what makes us happy, the feeling carries over into everything we do. This makes us more productive people -- better partners, parents, and professionals.

If you love it, do more of it

Fill your life with what you love. Fill it with your passions, family who you care about, and positive experiences. Sometimes, this involves small changes (such as taking a midday walk). Other times, bigger changes must be made (such as leaving a bad job or lackluster relationship that cannot be fixed). Make deposits every day and discard things that bring you down whenever you can.

Our ultimate goal should be sustainable happiness. By sustainable I mean that you must be able to continue to enjoy what you do for long periods of time -- and it must not impact other's ability to find their own joy. This inherently rules out quick-hitting highs and destructive behaviors.

I understand that sustainable happiness is not always possible. Some people are struggling with poverty and others are ill. Many people do not even have the fundamental freedom to pursue their own higher purpose or must serve others first. But for those who are free and can make intentional choices to be sustainably happy, the rewards are uplifting and lasting.

Sustainable happiness is a journey, because we all have lows. And life is unpredictable and even cruel at times. Reaching and holding on to this level of self-content is not easy to achieve, but it should be our ultimate aspiration.

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I Left an Elderly Woman Beside the Road, and What That Says About Me

My wife called from the hospital. "Can you bring over a pair of your shorts and a T-shirt?" she said.

One of her patients had been admitted with a fairly serious condition that resulted in... let's just say his clothes were no longer fit to wear.

I wasn't surprised by the nature of the call. She worked in Manhattan for a few years and always gave money to people begging on the streets or on the subway. One time I asked her, "How do you know what they'll do with the money?" (And yes, I'm still embarrassed to admit I asked that.)

"I don't," she said. "And it doesn't matter. If someone looks you in the eye and asks for help, how can you ever say no?"

While her patient had not asked for help she could tell he felt self-conscious and uncomfortable in a hospital gown. Plus by then she also knew he didn't have family or friends that would bring him other clothes.

I grabbed a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Then I thought about the weather. It was fairly cold and she said he didn't have a coat so I stuck a couple of hoodies and a pair of sweatpants in the bag. Why not -- I have too many clothes and would never miss them. Easy.

Later she told me he was so happy he immediately put everything on, even both hoodies.

I felt pretty good.

Some time later I noticed an elderly Mennonite woman leaning heavily on her cane as she shuffled slowly along the side of the road. When I drove back by later I saw she had only managed to walk a half mile or so. There was no sidewalk and she was clearly struggling on the uneven ground.

I turned around, drove back, and pulled over beside her.

"Can I give you a ride?" I asked.

She was bent over her cane so far she was forced to turn her head sideways to look up at me. "No, thank you," she said.

"It's no trouble at all..." I said.

She shook her head.

I understood. Maybe she didn't feel comfortable getting in a stranger's vehicle. Maybe, like many Mennonites who live in the area, she only would ride in a vehicle in an emergency (if then).

I drove away, and as I did I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw her half-stumble before moving slowly forward.

I felt bad... but told myself I had done all I could.

Still, hours later I hadn't stopped thinking about what my wife would have done. If a ride was out of the question she would have parked the truck and offered her arm. If nothing else she would have walked with the woman. My wife would have automatically done more, without being asked, simply because doing more is always the right thing to do for someone in need.

She would have.

I didn't.

Oh, I was willing to help, but I only offered what was easy for me to do. Only later did I think about other ways I could have helped.

When we decide to help someone -- a friend, a family member, an employee,anyone -- it's easy to think about what we want to do. It's a lot harder and much more important to think about what that individual needs and can accept.

Giving a person, however much in need, some clothes I rarely wore and would never miss? That was easy. For me.

Throwing your colleagues an occasional encouragement bone? Saying yes to a request when it doesn't cost you anything? Those things are easy. For you.

Helping your employees learn, develop, and achieve their goals in the way they actually need help -- and especially when doing so is difficult for you? That's not so easy... but that's the true nature of giving -- and of genuine leadership.

I like to think the elderly woman made it safely to her destination.

No thanks to me.

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