Intentions

Last quarter we talked about Presence.

The argument was simple. People cannot remember you, trust you, or refer you if they never hear from you. Showing up is the precondition for everything else.

A lot of people took that seriously. And for some, not much changed. How did it go for you?

That gap deserves some thought.

I know something about this from my own life.

For years I watched my weight go up forty pounds and come back down, up and down, the same cycle repeating. It wasn't that I didn't understand what needed to happen or that I didn't value my health.

It was that I'd heard the advice a hundred times and "make it a lifestyle" had lost meaning for me.

In a conversation with my friend Jared James, I realized why that wasn't working. Lifestyle is temporary. Identity is permanent.

The shift wasn't about discipline or a better plan. It was about moving fitness out of the "nice to have" column and into the "I am" column. I am the kind of person who does hard things. Once that was true, the decisions that followed it were different.

That's an intention.

Not a goal. Not a destination. A decision about who you are in the next moment.

Goals are measurable and time-bound, which is why we set them and why we talk ourselves out of them. Ask someone what their income goal is and they anchor to last year. Ask them how much income their ideal life requires and something opens up. The brain starts looking for the path instead of rehearsing the objection.

The same conversation works completely differently depending on what you're trying to create in it.

A follow-up sent to check a box reads like a box being checked. A follow-up sent because you actually want to be useful reads like someone who actually wants to be useful. The words may be similar. The experience is not.

Technology isn't going to solve this. It can produce the words. It cannot supply the reason behind them.

Which means intentions may matter more now than they did a few years ago, not less.

This quarter, before the meeting, the call, the email, the conversation in the parking lot, try one question.

What am I trying to create?

Then proceed from there.

Dan