So we ended 2010 with a to-do list to make your job more interesting and meaningful in the new year. And so now we’re here.
But what is our approach – not just to the new year – but to the way we view our jobs, our careers, our roles, and how we spend our time?
Mitch Joel (pictured) is a name you should know. He is President of Twist Image and author of the book Six Pixels of Separation.
And in a blog post late last year, he equated the routines of many people’s lives to the film trilogy, The Matrix. If you remember the particulars, The Matrix was a place with set rules, controls, and boundary lines.
And then, there was Morpheus, and the group who bucked those established tenets. And that’s when Neo entered the scene. As Mitch puts it so eloquently in his post, “For some (people like me), we feel blessed that everyday is what most might consider a vacation.”
For me personally, the line often blurs between work time, “off time,” and vacation time, because I am happily “on” during all these moments, excited about what’s coming next and the things my company can do to be an integral part of it.
We all choose how we view our purpose in life, our career missions, and the contributions we can make to our industry, the larger media world, our communities, and beyond. And that’s precisely what Mitch talks about in his post.
Remember that choice as you log into 2011 and look at the symbolic two pills sitting in front of you just as Neo did in The Matrix. As Mitch quotes from the film, “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
>CLICK HERE TO READ MITCH JOEL’S ENTIRE POST<
Mitch Joel is President of Twist Image — an award-winning Digital Marketing and Communications agency. In 2008, Mitch was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media, one of top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly-prestigious Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation (published by Grand Central Publishing – Hachette Book Group), named after his successful Blog and Podcast is a business and marketing best-seller. You can find him here: www.twistimage.com/blog
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That’s a very effective Matrix-generation metaphor, one I cannot wait to use on my next station visit, during the inevitable “Doing More With Less – Motivating Your-Already-Collectively-Thin and Individually-Spread-Too-Thin Staff.” Ala a modified interpretation of Jack Welch’s “10% Rule,” a manager needs to idenitify those on his/her team that will not just “concede” their willingness to do more – he/she needs to find/ attract/ identify/ encourage/ motivate/ engage/ reward those whose daily diet includes extra helpings of “Red Pills.”
Of course, this goes nowhere unless the manager is a red pill “pusher” and sports a bottomless jar of red pills in plain view on his/her desk.