You’re starting a business. Getting a promotion. Having a baby. Traveling around the world. Getting married. Moving in with your boy/girl/personfriend. Pursuing a new hobby, fitness regime, eating program, parenting approach. Proclaiming your love for a new band you’ve discovered. Sharing a blog post you’re proud of. Whatever. Fill in the blank, from the mundane to the life-changing.

You know him or her. The person who says, in response to your news and often unsolicited:

“That’s great! But …”

• Here’s what I know that you should know
• Here’s how I did it too/better/more awesomely
• Here’s you ought to look out for
• Here’s why that’s too risky/not risky enough
• Been there, done that.
• Here’s how many people have tried that and failed

You get the drift.

I won’t negate the possibility that there are mostly well-meaning people out there who will tell you that their input is meant to be supportive, or helpful, or otherwise provide guidance and advice that they themselves may have found valuable once upon a time. We are humans that do thrive on affinity and find connection in shared experiences, too, in our similarities as much as our differences. That’s true enough.

We share news and adventures and discoveries with the world for a bunch of reasons. We’re proud. We want to celebrate. We want to share something that’s new and exciting to us in hopes that more people will find joy in it, too. We want to show people what’s possible. Sure, maybe we even crave a bit of affirmation and support.

The difficulty is that many people don’t have a clue how to be genuinely happy for someone else, or encourage them in an important moment without forcing in their personal commentary, opinion, or self-doubt.

It’s also true that many people warn others off – consciously or otherwise – using precisely the reasons that have scared them away from doing something that they wanted to do, or prevented them from pursuing or enjoying something of their own.

I’m guilty, too. I’ve certainly done my fair share of “That’s awesome, now let me tell you my experience”s in the past without being asked. I’ve even let my own fear of a thing tumble out in a string of words warning someone off about that thing. Shame on me, right? I’m not particularly proud of that, and when I noticed how much it hurt when people did it to me, I became so much more conscious of how and when I do it to others.

The truest definition of grace is being able to look at someone over there – doing something you want to do, feeling something you want to feel, having something you want to have – and finding happiness for their sake. Without caveats.

Behind every “should”, “ought”, “need to”, there is judgment. Behind every “Oh yeah? Here’s MY story” is the need for a bit of attention in the midst of someone else’s moment. The me-too/one-up can be well-intended (look at us having something in common!) but requires deftness and true humility to be executed well while still supporting the person in question. More often, it backfires. The tricky part?

The Killjoy can be right in the mirror.

If you’re on the other end of a statements like these,  you might feel slighted or deflated, even hurt. Doubtful of your decision to share. Wondering who and what you should listen to, and when. Letting other people instill doubt in you is like a virus. It feeds on itself. Likewise with letting someone’s momentary self-centeredness derail you from a happy moment or a decision that’s important to you.

The most graceful reply you can offer is simply “Thank you so much for sharing your point of view.” With a smile. And move on. Most people mean well, or will tell you they do, and you can leave them with the benefit of the doubt for that.

But don’t give in to the Killjoy.

He’s unkind in the moments when we need to enjoy our own promise, hope, success, and happiness. We need our own joy and ideas of what could be to fuel our determination when things are bumpy. We also need to trust our own intuition sometimes and be our own champions.

I’ve learned that the greatest – and sometimes most difficult – gift that I can give to myself is to actually be happy. The greatest gift you can give someone is likely to see them happy, and be happy for them. Grace is not an easy thing, or we would all demonstrate it effortlessly. But the Killjoy can really take the wind out of someone’s sails when they need it most. Let’s make each other a promise that we’ll work hard not to be one.

Deal?

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Thwarting the Killjoy

I spend the better part of my work life framing out strategies, too, trying to provide a guiding and overarching path and plan for doing things. But aside from all of that, there *has* to be room for the unpredictable. The unexpected. The unforeseen.

Human connections – if you really want them as an individual or a business – are not forged on a map or outlined within a framework. Inspiration doesn’t strike within the bounds of the carefully tabbed spreadsheet you created. People come and go, and they evolve, too. Some things change underneath your feet. Some things don’t change when you expected them to. You have to be able to not only adapt, but sometimes just chuck the playbook altogether and go with the flow.

The magic spark of true innovation, friendships of affinity, emotional attachments to things or people are knitted through thousands of moments captured as they happen, when they happen, sometimes nowhere near the script we’ve written.

But too often, we try to harness spontaneous by taking a fleeting, special moment and “scaling” it, repeating it, or jamming it into our slide deck that outlines everything we’re going to do for the year and making it into a “strategy”. And therein lies our eventual downfall.

The intangible fabric of humanity is not made of formulas, but the everyday mingled with the absolutely un-scriptable. Happy, fun, and interesting are not things you effectively engineer. You can recognize it, you can run with it in the moment, but you can’t plan for it. You have to embrace it when. And you need to let the people around you – including your clients, your employees, your teams – do exactly the same thing.

We routinely kill all of that in our work. Stifle it. Policy the crap out of it. And yes, we “strategize”, because that’s what we’re supposed to do in order to prove that we do indeed have a plan. Somewhere along the way, we learned that if it isn’t deliberate, it has no value.

But if you have any interest at all in truly being “human”, “authentic”, or any of the other words we’ve made so empty through our manipulations? Be willing to say to hell with strategy, set aside your carefully plotted binder with the color-coded tabs, and recognize the value of being present in a moment that you didn’t exactly plan for.

I promise it won’t kill you to have a conversation that doesn’t have a discernible ROI. (In fact, it might even encourage someone to have a conversation back.) Let inspiration strike. Consider an idea that’s out of left field. Laugh in the middle of a meeting. Share a cat video. Jump in a puddle. Write something simply because it moves you. Wipe off the whiteboard and scribble.

Most of all, quit planning everything. Life – and business – often happen in between the lines.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Not Everything Needs a Freaking Strategy

Such momentum and shift often brings about personal change as well, and for me it means an exciting albeit bittersweet crossroads. As of December 1, I’ll be leaving my post as Radian6′s VP of Social Strategy to start a new business. I have a brilliant business partner and we have some big ideas, but we’ll share more on that later.

For now, I’m really taking stock, and I’m immensely proud of what the Radian6 community has become.

Over the course of the last three and a half years, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to contribute to Radian6′s growth as a company, and to watch our community of social businesses grow along side it. From the early days of understanding what it meant to be “listening” in social media to the much broader and more exciting picture of a social enterprise that we’re illustrating today, it has been a remarkably exciting journey of learning, exploration, experimentation, and lots and lots of interaction with our many thousands of customers.

Our successful acquisition by Salesforce.com this past May really put an exclamation mark on Radian6′s important place in the social business community. There is so much potential in the future of this industry, and so many ways that our work to build truly social enterprises will change the way companies work at a fundamental level. The conversations I’ve been part of internally are exhilarating, and you’ll see great things yet from the Radian6/Salesforce crew.

Radian6 and I grew up together in many ways over the last few years, and I cannot begin to tell you how much I believe in this company, its leadership, and the opportunities that lie ahead for all of my colleagues and our customer community. It has been so incredibly rewarding to be a part of a company that believes in asking great questions, empowering the people within it, blazing new trails, and walking the talk of being a constant resource for their community.

It’s hardly farewell for good, as I know I’ll be working with Radian6 in the next phase of my social business career. For now, I need to say a personal thank you to David Alston, who first gave me the opportunity to be part of the Radian6 team, and who has been an outstanding colleague and friend over the last few years. I’m also incredibly grateful to the leadership team of Marcel Lebrun, Chris Newton, Chris Ramsey, Daniella Degrace and Chris Himes for allowing me to be a small part of something truly special. It’s not often you get to say that in your career, and I most definitely do. Thank you, thank you. I can’t wait to celebrate your continued success.

To the Radian6 community of customers, partners, and friends, you are in the very best of hands. I hope our relationships carry long into the future, and that Radian6 will remain a partner that you rely on to help you power the social aspects of your enterprise. These teams are passionate about seeing you thrive, and I look forward to hearing about your enduring achievements.

So, onward. Not away from something, but toward something.  Toward the next step in an evolution that I hope never really ends.

Thank you all for your support and advocacy these past few years, and I look forward to sharing more with you in the very near future. There’s exciting work to be done. See you on the other shore…

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
My Own Adventure in Wayfaring: Saying Farewell to Radian6