Five Lessons We Can Learn From Biz Stone
I have decided to share with you, the most meaningful and hopefully life changing lessons according to Biz. What I intend here, is to spread his word and perhaps enlighten someone´s life with a bit of truth.
Biz is one of Twitter´s Co-founders and writer of the book "Things a Little Bird Told Me.”.I enjoyed every word in that book but mostly all the possible interpretations and positive outlooks all around.
The book tells the story and lessons learned from the time he was a kid, his first work experiences, and all the way through founding and leaving Twitter. I got super emotional when I got to the part of him leaving the company he had founded - weird enough I can even say I could feel an emotional connection which made some chapters much more heartfelt. I was not expecting to find so much truth and feeling identified with many of the situations Biz describes in his book. What I mainly loved, was the positive outlook he had when facing even the most critical situations at work and his way of solving them.
I have decided to share with you, the most meaningful and hopefully life changing lessons according to Biz. What I intend here, is to spread his word and perhaps enlighten someone´s life with a bit of truth.
"Once true passion hits you, you can recognize all the times in your life you were chasing the wrong dream”
How much do we ever think about the paths we want to take or the job we want to have? Do you ever sit down to think if you are satisfied with your work/life? Do you wake up excited for the day ahead?
If you want to make a change in your life, describe it to yourself - how do you want that job to be? Take steps that move you in that direction. Only then you won´t settle for less than that ever again in life.
"When everything´s wrong and broken, find what works, and build on that (Bright spot Theory)”
Like Biz elaborated in his book, solutions emerge if you look for the positive. A good way to illustrate this is through Coca Cola´s recipe change in 1985. It was a disaster! Coca-Cola had been selling its original recipe for several years when in 1985 they decided to take the risk in launching a new recipe. The new formula did not sell and in fact, it was retired some months after its release.
However, in all that storm Coca-Cola learned that their customers had built a relationship with the brand – therefore the terrible reaction. Coca Cola´s customers had been drinking the classic ”Coca-Cola” as kids, now as adults – the formula change had an emotional impact in their lives. You can now see Coca-Cola as one of the biggest brands ever created. Plus, the positive effects of this "negative change" had an impact on how much they continue to connect with all their customers through their iconic advertisements that feature mainly family and friends themes.
"Waiting to give is a mistake”
Somehow many of us seem to have a preconceived notion that helping others in need should always involve donating money. We go through life thinking we would like to help the poor, the ill, but we think of it in the future tense; ”I will help when I get a job and earn some money”. The truth is that helping others should't always be seen as a financial transaction. What I liked about Biz, is that he explained how helping others is a process that can be nourished through time as your life progresses. You can always start by volunteering or donating some of your time where it can be needed. If you start now with the means available to you, your efforts will start to have an effect right away, whereas if you keep on waiting we won´t see change.
"We should always seek knowledge even in the face of fear”
We are filled with assumptions and that prevents us from learning and seeking the truth. It happened to me quite often, until I realized that fear is keeping me away from my own greater self. We fear to lose our jobs, we fear, we fear, we fear – but what is on the other side of fear? I dare to say bliss and I want to continue finding that out.
You see, Biz is quite a wise guy (no sh..! he founded Twitter). If you have the chance to read his book you will love every word of it. I have become more and more interested in the start-up community in my location so I feel this was a great addition to my "start-up fetish". Clearly, I don´t want to spoil the book for you so I highly recommend you read it and draw your own conclusions.
This last phrase I leave it for you to internalize:
”The true promise of a connected society is enabling our dormant potential for empathy”