I love Twitter, that company, application, website that lets you nano-blog - write something, anything, in 140 characters or less whenever you want. Twitter updates, or postings, are called tweets.
Mojo is a slang word long used to mean one's personal groove. In antiquity, the term referred to a magical charm or amulet or magical powers. I admit to being a fan of science fiction. I'm a lifelong fan of the television show Star Trek and all its incarnations; I enjoy Stargate SG-1 - I'm working my way through all 10 seasons for about the third time. In Season Seven, in one episode, the character of Teal'c undergoes a severe challenge to his sense of self and when this is resolved at the end of the episode, the team leader, Colonel O'Neill, tells him that he has his mojo back.
Marshall Goldsmith says mojo is, "...the moment when we feel we're 'on a roll,' firing on all cylinders, and everyone around us senses it...." Goldsmith is referred to as America's preeminent executive coach. He is among a select few consultants
who have been asked to work with more than sixty CEOs. His clients have included
many of the world's leading corporations. Goldsmith has helped to implement
leadership development processes that have impacted more than one million people
around the world.
He has a Ph.D. from UCLA and is on the faculty of the executive education programs for Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan. The American Management Association recently named him as one of fifty great thinkers and business leaders of the past eighty years. And he has written a little book called #MOJO Tweet - 140 Bite-Sized Ideas on How to Get and Keep Your Mojo.
I found this book relevant because to be a small business owner, a solo-preneur, requires you to be and stay on your toes. It requires:
- energy
- discipline
- passion
- a desire to make your dreams reality
Some of my favorite Mojo Tweets in this book are:
- #42: Five qualities that you need to bring to an activity in order to do it well are: motivation, knowledge, ability, confidence, and authenticity.
- #65: You don't write a mission statement. You live it and breathe it.
- #111: Fact: People with high Mojo tend to be assaulted with opportunities. This happens at all levels, high and low.
- #128: Live your mission in the small moments too. When to stay, when to go? It's better to jump than be pushed.
I find relevance in #42 because each of those five qualities is vital to the small business owner:
- motivation - the dream and passion for the initial business idea has to remain strong enough and alive enough to fuel the engine of the day-to-day activities
- knowledge - this is both a knowing yourself and your abilities, but also knowing your industry and specific business inside and out and maintaining a habit of continual improvement
- ability - it takes more than a dream to make a go of a business - the "what" of your business needs to be something for which you have the gifts and talents - both the intuited and the learned
- confidence - this is the quality of surety: knowing what you know and knowing you can find out what you need to know
- authenticity - being "real" is about being transparent...letting your customers, your competitors, all your publics see who you are and what your business is about
Number 65 is important. Every business should have a mission statement. Goldsmith's tweet is a reminder that the mission statement should be a reflection of the vision for the business and that both should be organic...a living, breathing reason to have your business.
The #111 tweet says that if your mojo is on, and as Goldsmith says is "...firing on all cyclinders," then it means that you are looking out at the landscape and able to see opportunities...when we're looking inward all we can see is ourselves and opportunities pass us by.
I agree with number 128 - know when to hold them, and know when to fold them, as the saying goes. However, when folded, just deal a new hand and stay on mission.
Not every book in our business library needs to have a 500 pages to be valuable. Sometimes bite-sized morsels are more than enough provided they are packed with value in every thought.
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