Getting Unstuck + Creating Luck
Today, we’re reposting a conversation Equalman had with UpWork earlier this year. Erik discusses his journey to becoming a best-selling author and keynote speaker, the meaning of flawsome, how he came up with the idea for his book Digital Leader, how he came to be wearing his infamous neon green glasses, the concept behind a digital stamp, thoughts on A.I., whether or not business school is worth it, and much much more.
If you’re a business owner, chances are you’ve heard of UpWork. UpWork is an American freelancing platform, named on Time‘s list of TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022. If you’re unfamiliar, the way it works is; that clients post a description of their job and a price range they are willing to pay for a freelancer to complete it. The client may invite specific freelancers to apply for their jobs or post the job for any freelancer who is interested in applying. Once the client has chosen who they want to complete the job, they hire that freelancer by sending a contract with set hours, pay rate, and a deadline for the work to be completed. It’s a fast, easy, and safe way to hire.
Need a sneak peek? Below are the main takeaways from the episode.
Getting Unstuck + Creating Luck
Episode Preview:
“It was worked out because then people were asking me, companies were bringing me in to figure out, hey, how do we do this Socialonmics thing? How do we do this social media? And so an example would be I was brought into Mont Blanc, you know, the pen company and the wallet company, the watch company, and you sit down with them, like, alright, let’s, let’s unpack this. Let’s see what we’re gonna do socially. And then also they go, we’re gonna send them to your website, obviously. And then they go, oh, yeah, we don’t have a Montblanc website. What do you mean, you don’t have a website? Or we don’t sell directly to the customer? Like, okay, whoa, let’s have a bigger conversation. Let’s stop with the social media. Let’s go back like 10 years. Let’s figure this out.
So there are a lot of reasons why they didn’t have them because they have all these main zones, which are their retail outlets. They didn’t want to upset the apple cart. But fortunately, you and I knew what we were already dealing with that at Yahoo, that the front runners had already dealt with that same kind of conflict. And so that was an epiphany, where I said, “Wait wait, these folks, a lot of them don’t even know digital leadership,” kind of like this thinking in my head, like, “they don’t even know the brass tacks, the basics of digital leadership before we get into the kind of the new things, whether that’s social, whether it’s AI,” whatever you want to talk about. And so that’s where that came from, is trying to sit down with all these people, these leaders in their companies very smart, but they didn’t grow up with these things per se, or even if they did, they kind of lose track and get in the weeds. And so that’s where that whole concept of digital leadership came about really just talking with different leaders at different companies and organizations and nonprofits in developing stuff that would stand the test of time knowing that technology changes every second but human nature never does. What are the habits we can practice every day that aren’t going to change and help future-proof you at Upwork not only today the individual but also in the years ahead.”
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The Super U Podcast is hosted by #1 bestselling author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman.
