One of the endless “knock-on” consequences of our time is that we have prioritized and fetishized the esoteric presence, and esoteric opinions of, the hyper-skilled, narrowly focused, specialist.
In any field.
We call these people “experts.”
Except…
A problem arises when an “expert” in one area has an ego so large that they cannot admit what they don’t know about another area of specialized knowledge.
Please just scroll back in your newsfeed and look at all the amateur epidemiologists (“experts” all in their own field of specialization) who were around in your social media feeds during COVID.
This is where a generalist would be helpful.
The challenge of being a generalist is that having a broad base of knowledge can blind you (along with your ego) to the blind spots in your own knowledge.
But a generalist, usually unbound by the cognitive biases of escalating to a point of specialization, is open to new knowledge and more curious.
But…
It’s hard to monetize a generalist’s knowledge, because, in the hyper-financialization of everything mode, most generalists are framed by most specialists as being “unable to do the ‘hard’ work of specialization.”
And thus, worthy of being paid less.
But in our social media era, where more knowledge (not wisdom) is created every minute than ever before in human history, it might be helpful to adopt a broader acceptance of the wisdom of the broad generalist.
Should there be support for people who are experiencing the traumas of life?
Yes.
But merely existing, in and of itself, is not a political act.
However, when we are held deeply in the sway of lazy-yet-attractive ideologies, as a substitute for doing the hard, uncomfortable work of dissecting and disassembling the areas of our lives that are politically driven, religiously driven, or even economically driven, we run into a problem.
Here’s the problem: If you believe that existing is a political act, and I disagree with your political position—on any topic—then inherently I am disagreeing with your very existence.
And, of course then the logic follows from there, giving you permission to do violence and to oppress me. Or, at least, to place enough pressure on me to “get my mind ‘right’.”
Because, of course, when you’re on the side of the angels, or the “right” side of “history” then everyone and anyone else who is not on your side deserve justice.
Innovators don’t have a competition problem, though they will tell you differently.
However, in general, human minds have a chaos ordering problem.
Thus human beings, in order to solve this chaos problem that too much competition and choice brings, have created hierarchies.
These systems foster more competition in the pursuit of determining relative merit and negotiating reality toward a manifestation of the absolute good.
It is easy to be reflexively, and unthinkingly against the thing that the principled crowd is against, based on a quick, hot take that gets your dopamine and adrenaline going.
It is much, much harder to engage with principled nuance, investigate the claim, determine the truth of the claim, avoid rushing to judgment, and, of course, put the action in historical context.
It is almost impossible to engage with principled nuance, investigate the claim, determine the truth of the claim, avoid rushing to judgment, and, of course, put the action in historical context, and to then disagree with the crowd’s conclusion about the truth—not the facts—of the claim anyway and take another, equally principled position on the opposite side of the argument.
Sometimes, people who operate in this way are tagged as being “uncompromising.”
So be it.
In our digital age, principled destruction happens in front of our eyes, and thus publishing, independent of the dominant players in the social media-search media-advertising media complex becomes not only a responsibility but also a command.
Let those with eyes to read, ears to hear, and a mind to understand, understand.
In case you haven’t noticed, the last few months have been very dynamic, but not very solution oriented, in the world of social media.
And, as this lack of orientation toward solution manifests itself as more gaslighting, trolling, and in poor communication behavior in general, it has come time to make an announcement.
Jesan is pulling his “Banksy” muscle and exiting out the back of the gift shop…
Along with Instagram and Twitter.
Let me clearly explain so that there’s no misunderstanding or thinking that “I just couldn’t ‘hack it'” in the rough and tumble game of social media.
An Open Letter With Clearly Laid Out Reasoning…
I’ve had a mixed relationship at best with social media going back to the old MySpace pages and profiles in the early 2000s. I was always a person who liked forums (like what Quora is now) but I wasn’t a big fan of putting myself out there, so to speak.
Then, Facebook burst on the scene and I have ridden this wave–good, bad, ugly, and indifferent, for the past 16 years (yes, I remember when Facebook was The Facebook because I worked with college students and they were the only ones on it) and now, well, all of that is slowly coming to a close.
There are business uses for Facebook, but even the utility of those is questionable and over the next few months you’ll notice me slowly fading away at the personal level as I launch new projects (like my podcast, Leadership Lessons From The Great Books), and in general begin to pull away from platforms that are just about shouting, gaslighting, trolling, and “being right” and have little to do with engaging people in nuance, focus, or real problem-solving.
Which our country–and our world–desperately need.
An Open Letter… To Anyone Who Has Ears to Hear
Lest you think I am going to head to another platform, fear not! I have always been more of a Twitter person than a Facebook person, but I exited there about a month and a half ago and I don’t even have the app on my phone, nor do I much care about what happens there anymore.
LinkedIn is another beast that is gradually transforming under the weight of social pressure to conform to the crowd and the requests of the mob, and surely as I am leaving Facebook and have left Twitter, I’ll eventually exit there as well.
I have little patience for corporate and marketing virtue-signaling under the guise of solidarity for whatever “cause de-jour” of the moment might help a brand get “traction” and a few more dollars.
Instagram I will stick with for a while because there is a video play there, but I do not think that will last long.
The fact is, there are higher levels of engagement there than here and have been for a few years now and there is less vitriol on Instagram to be sure. But I expect that will change in time as well.
If you understand human nature and, then it will come as no surprise that inevitably that even a “pretty pictures” photo-sharing app must bow low to the whims of the gaslighting crowd.
An Open Letter With Solutions…
If you’ve read this far, you might be asking “Ok. Well, how can I get in touch with you then, if I really want to?”
Well, there’s always email.
We need to return to long-form conversations in order to generate the kind of clear-eyed, courageous leadership that can solve difficult problems.
This will be a project in which talking with people who disagree with me but who can do that while not being disagreeable, will be the “coin of the realm.”
And we’ll learn from each other (or not) and get sharper (or not) but at least we won’t have to contend with our conversations being drowned out in your feed by memes, advertisements, and other meaningless tripe.
Maybe I’m a Pollyanna.
Or maybe I’m the last realist.
Either way, I am building an email list and if you want to be a part of it, please send me an email (put your email address in a comment at the bottom of this missive) and I will add your name.
I am connected to 1,000+ people on the Facebook platform, 2,000+ people on the LinkedIn platform, and 3,000+ people and brands on the Instagram platform.
That’s an audience of close to 6,000 people and brands who see barely .005% of content I have posted.
The fact is, many who could see this message will not see this message because fails to “play the game” that social media demands.
What a shame.
Not for me, or for the message.
What a shame that we have outsourced our communication and our ability to connect to corporate giants, begun with good intentions, run by groups of people who no longer care about connecting us in meaningful ways, but only about farming our attention to harvest another buck.
Instead of pouring more gas on the fire, hopefully, this message will provide a pinprick of illumination at the end of a very long tunnel.
It’s time to go. There are other fields than just the social media one to plow.
If you’re interested in joining my Leadership Salon Project and becoming part of conversations that matter for the future, send me an email directly at jesan@jesansorrells.com and I’ll be more than happy to add you to our Early Adopters email list.
The problem with role-modeling, if we’re honest, is the fact of other people.
Other people have their own motivations, motives, and
intentions. They have their own desires, appetites, and needs.
You and me, we’re in this together now.
And very often role modeling doesn’t address any of that, because role modeling is always an external act; whereas, the behaviors a leader seeks to change are always internal to individuals.
It’s a minor problem, indeed.
If Not Role Modeling, Then What do We Do?
Leaders lead. That’s the nature of leadership and the fact of
being a leader.
But expecting that other people will do as you are doing as a
leader, might just be creating an internal environment in you as a leader, that
will raise fake expectations.
What are my options here?
Or, at least, creating internal environments where you will
always be frustrated as a leader, because “they” aren’t following your lead.
Give Me Something I Can Use!
Here’s a tip: lead by example but change your expectations of
your followers. Expect them to follow the smallest possible example that works
for them.
And then, ask them this question: What am I doing in my
leadership that you can see yourself replicating?
Then write down the answer, and double down on that.
Where Can I Get More Information?
Get more tips on how to navigate the hairy world of leadership by ordering My Boss Doesn’t Care, the latest book from Jesan Sorrells, today!
My expectations with this blog started out high minded and then crashed to earth and then became high-minded again.
But with 1,000 published posts, some of which are guest posts, podcast episodes, and other sundry items, I can say, with some assurance, that I have gone further than I thought I would.
And you have responded.
You have retweeted, e-mailed, reposted, commented, Facebook “liked” and “shared” posts, and have even gone as far as to reach out to me offline to give me feedback.
That’s how this blog grows.
It’s not like kudzu, where you plant a vine and then come back a year later and there’s growth without investment.
It’s more like planting corn: Some years it’s good. Other years it’s not so good. But the farmer still tills the soil, plants the seed, prays on the knees, and then brings in whatever harvest there may be.
Year after year. Bumper crops and thin ones.
What comes next? What does post 1,001 to 2,000 look like?
Well, there’s another book coming this year, a collection of my best posts about work, disrupting your workplace, and how to accomplish all of that while also disrupting your boss. And it’s about why external training and development doesn’t work for the creation of change.
Look for that in the Fall of 2018.
There will also be a shift as parts of this blog go elsewhere on the web to serve other functions.
Articles about personal leadership, business development, branding, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, risk-taking, marketing, social media, the future of human communication on the Internet, and other more personal brand based content will migrate to a new site, focused on building my personal brand with an eye towards keynotes and speaking opportunities.
Look for this split to happen gradually, and then all at once by the Fall of 2018.
But no matter how it plays out, I want to thank you for joining me on the journey so far.
I write this blog because it’s good for my mental and physical health.
I write this blog because it’s good for my writing muscle and it further establishes my own “voice” in my own head.
I write this blog, because it connects me to you, whether that connection happens now, or one, two, five, ten, or twenty years from now.
I write this blog, whether anybody will read this blog or blogs in the future that I may launch, or not.
I write this blog, because the acts of thinking, writing, and then publishing to the world, is still an amazing thing—even in a world of Internet thinness.
So, the real question is where would you and I like to go next?
The internet, fundamentally, is a publishing and connecting machine.
Not an entertainment machine, a surveillance machine, a dating machine, or any of that other stuff.
The radical promise of the Internet is this: If you interact with it as a connecting and publishing machine, you will have massive success.
The problem is, too many people are distracted by the second order stuff (the entertainment, surveillance, dating, and on and on) and are less focused on engaging with the first order promise.
Such engagement rarely produces explosive wealth, explosive fame, or explosive influence. It more than likely will produce none of these things.
Which is why, when anyone can publish and connect, many still rarely do.
White space is everywhere if you know where to look for it. However it’s becoming more and more of a luxury item everyday. Here are tips to preserve and grow it.
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