Whose Goal is it Anyway?

Raise your hand if someone (anyone) has ever told you, "You're doing it all wrong!".

People feel comfortable sharing opinions about your strategies and tactics even if they don't know your goals or objectives.

Let's establish the difference between a goal and an objective:

Goal: A goal is an outcome you want to achieve.

My goal for When Everybody Clicks was to be a curious thought leader and to learn. That is still the goal.

Objective: An objective is a specific and measurable action that can be reached in a specific and usually shorter amount of time.

My objective has been to host a website and blog and write a book in support of that goal.

Strategies & Tactics: Strategy is the action plan that takes you where you want to go. Tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there.

My primary strategy is to interview people smarter than me so I can learn. I write about that learning because it forces me to turn that learning into insights.

Yet, I constantly have well-meaning folks telling me, "You're doing it all wrong!"

• You have to have LOTS of subscribers!

• NO ONE will take you seriously if you host your site on Wix.com!

• You have to have a HUGE reach!

• You have to rank for MANY keywords!

• You CAN'T talk about...your family, politics, food...you can only talk about Marketing!"

It's ridiculous shenanigans for anyone (even your mom, favorite peer, or best friend:) to weigh in on your strategies without understanding the goal and objectives.

Writing is challenging and soul-affirming work. I'm not as good at it as some amazing writers and journalists I admire, but it brings me insight, joy, and helps me meet my goals. When people read something I wrote or present and talk to me about it, I keep learning from those conversations. I share things I've learned, but I also share the stories of me. My successes, my failures (spoiler: there are many) and how I'm changed and changing based on what I learn. I'm grateful for the conversations this work sparks. I'm grateful for the work it brings me in retail, tech, healthcare, and other interesting organizations.

So if you are passionate about doing something that educates you and brings you joy, but you're holding back because someone has told you you'll do it all wrong, remember whose goal it is...it's yours.

Notes:

• Wix has gotten way better at SEO:) Thanks in part to smart people who helped them get there, including Cindy Krum and Amanda Natividad.

• This article from was part of my PR push to launch my business; it was published in 2000 in Kiplinger magazine. I got amazing clients from this work, including my most lucrative client, whom I had for 11 years. The job also got me my best friend, Claudette.

• I'm currently working on interviews for my next iteration of my book, which will focus on mission-driven organizations (healthcare, non-profits, tech, and retail businesses with a mission other than money).

• My strategies and tactics met the established goal (grow my business) and met goals I didn't even make, finding my best friend. You be you. Make your own goals. No one else will do it as well.

• Any comments with ill intent and cruelty in any form will not be approved or displayed. I won’t respond to queries with those intentions; do what you will with your own time.

Rules of Engagement:

1. GOAL: My primary goal for When Everybody Clicks is to use it as a tool to be a curious thought leader and to learn. There are other secondary goals, but this is the primary goal and my metric is my primary metrics is my personal assessment. On a score of 1 to 10, how much joy is this work bringing me? I have other things I measure, like reach, engagement, consistency of my posting, or speaking and consulting gigs I secure. All important for different reasons. My joy metric is my North star. If that's not working, none of the other things work.

2. GUIDANCE: It isn't a revolutionary act to tell your truth. If you share or comment and follow these guidelines, I want to hear your truth. Lazy, vicious, or thoughtless comments won't be given air or space. Ask yourself these questions and if you can't say yes to all, maybe reassess why you want to say the thing:

   1. Did you mean it?

   2. Can you defend it?

   3. Did you say it with love?

3. TOOLS: I use Otter AI for transcription, Grammarly to help with clarity and proper grammar structure, Claude to help me define key themes in my research and break up content structurally for readability, I also use it for crafting artifacts, Notebook LLM to have one place to manage all the learning, and other technology/tools to do my work. When I'm working on a problem for someone else, I want to understand and use data from the tools in their technology stack. I bring my thinking and learning to the tools I use to improve how I clarify, communicate, and solve problems. Because at the end of the day, no matter what's in my toolbox, I'm the best tool.