Erik: How do you define and measure success in what you do?
Michael: I’ve always been somebody who is a passion junkie. Especially when I started
consulting now probably eight years ago and started on that path, I started that journey
thinking about it as a learning laboratory. Like what are the things that I want to learn
and figure out about the world and how do I get paid to do that. So, that’s really
been more in terms of measure success is am I studying the things I care about. There
is a sense of momentum that gets generated over time about being in a place of, you shift
from being in a place of a push to a place of pull, right. Sort of like that notion of
exit velocity. I never was that smart at school in terms of science because I didn’t apply
myself that much. The one thing I learned was exit velocity and later in life I heard
entrepreneurs use it and I love this concept, it’s this notion of what does it take to
get this rocket into space and not only into space but into orbit. Because what happens
is this incredible concentrated amount of energy that you need to lift off. If you can
brave gravity’s pull and you get into orbit, what happens when you are in orbit, you just
sit back, you just coast along, man. It’s this thing called momentum, man. And I think
in many ways that’s what a lot of us are looking for, right? And so, I think a lot
of that, what is the exit velocity that I’m trying to create. And part of it is we also
usually have a lot of it co-efficiency. What are the things that are holding us back or
more specifically, weighing us down? And letting go of those things so you can concentrate
your energy not only on lift off but also getting into orbit. Cause what happens is
once you are in orbit and orbiting around the Earth, then you got to pick up a bunch
of extra energy so you can sling shot and go off on a new trajectory to the moon. And
then, it basically spirals outwards and outwards into bigger journeys. So that is my cliff
notes physics lesson, which I probably butchered to death but hopefully the metaphor is not
lost. It’s interesting you asked how I measure success again it’s something I still struggle
with, I mean, I can tell you what my vision is what drives me with this work, that’s
very clear to me, which is my vision is a world where entrepreneur, every change maker,
every innovative, every leader, every creator in the world speaks the language of narrative.
It’s that simple. If we all had that vocabulary, many of the other challenges we face would
start to take care of themselves. We would naturally become more empathic, more thoughtful,
more connective. We would be able to translate our ideas into greater acceptance. I mean,
all of it flows out of that. So, I continue to focus on, how do I bring the concept of
storytelling into collective consciousness, into the business vernacular, into popular
culture. And I’ve done tons and tons of things around it, I would say, some of the
lessons for me for the years have been, I get caught up doing so many different things
that perhaps I’ve lost that dispersion of energy versus focusing on a single rocket,
and really concentrating that energy so that one rocket can get into orbit and get his
exit velocity, so that’s a lot of what is shifting for me these days of really focusing
in and really more concentrated sort of errands.