Don’t worry, this week I won’t be trying to convince you to try BDSM. Instead, I’d like to talk about the importance of compromise, understanding, and making decisions on your own time. I feel this is extremely important given the divisiveness in our society and the meandering feeling that you might be totally wrong about everything.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think anyone is about what they believe in. Call me a pacifist, but I think every opinion can be true given the right context. Let’s apply this to business.
Everyone seems to have an opinion on how to run a business. When starting
Phuse, I wanted to soak in as much as possible from others. I’m grateful to have people I consider older brothers, sisters, and mentors who helped me find my way. These people shared experience and
perspective.
Take the conversation around how to bill clients in agency life: people are extremely opinionated on the best way. While some will argue everything comes down to hourly / time-based billing, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t translate well to knowledge / creative-based work. Value-based billing has certainly gained traction, but has flaws if you work with smaller businesses with less-specific needs.
Like all feedback, you have to break it down to better understand how it applies to you given your current experiences. That last part is key: certain opinions, experiences, and approaches may not apply to you now but they could apply to you in the future. Continuously reflecting on how you do things and the perspectives given to you by others (which you should always been looking for, no matter how hard they are to hear) is critical to making sure you’re always at your best.
Often, we allow ourselves room only for one approach to solve problems whereas multiple can be true in different contexts. To use the same example, do different projects and clients benefit from different billing models to benefit both sides of the relationship? The ability to adapt your approach to context is important and sometimes gets lost in the discussion of specialization. Sometimes the best decision forward is one of plurality.
Ultimately, you have to find your own path based on your experiences. We have to be wary that we don’t allow our current experiences to blind us from adapting to change. Whatever the context this may apply to you today, take the time to embrace perspective to be a better neighbor, colleague, and friend.
PS: If you enjoyed this week’s issue, I’d really appreciate your support sharing it. Whether it’s a forward, a Twitter post, or buying me a coffee, it would mean the world to me.
