What is 5 Billion? A bunch. It’s a bunch of anything.

It’s also an important and relevant number to you.

The number of people who own mobile phones is 5.28 Billion.

The total number of people in the world is 7.8 Billion.

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Where WE Connect and Encourage

Mobile phones are where most of the people in the world gather and meet, connect and encourage each other.

The mobile phone is today’s meeting place and market place.

It is where we meet and gather, connect and encourage.

The mobile phone is where we are – all 5.28 Billion of us. Most of the day. And most of the night.

You already knew this. So what’s the point?

It is the easiest and fastest way for us to meet.

In the USA, our phone is within three feet of us for 24 hours per day.

At night. On holidays. On weekends.

That’s true for 97% of us in the USA. It’s the “three foot rule.”

Your EVERY thing Device

Your phone is your alarm. It is your music system when you are in the shower.

It is your podcast system when you are walking.

It’s your best friend when you are in the kitchen cooking.

It’s your navigation system in your car.

Your phone is where you live socially.

Your phone is where you see pictures of your granchildren.

Missed a BIG Moment. Oh no!

It’s where you saw your 12-year-old granddaughter score that game-winning goal on Saturday.

The ONLY girl on a competitive traveling team.

And you got to see her score that winning goal thanks to your mobile device.

And you got to connect with her after the championship game.

Without this device, you would have missed that moment.

Where We Meet and Gather

The mobile phone is where we meet and gather.

The mobile phone is where you celebrated your nephew’s high school graduation.

During the chaos of 2020, many organizations have suffered.

Others who recognized earlier that we are a “mobile device world” have walked victoriously through the decade of chaos called 2020 – the toilet paper pandemic in the USA.

Other organizations and entrepreneurs who recognized that we are a mobile-connected world have embraced 2020 almost seamlessly.

And have grown. With some growing pains. But many organizations have grown during 2020.

Here’s ONE tip. . .

. . . for those organizations and individuals who want to grow and not be left behind.

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ALL of Your Content needs to be created to be Consumed on a Mobile Device.

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Create ALL of your content to be viewed and consumed on a mobile device.

For example, write your emails and blog posts on your laptop.

But when editing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd draft – read it from your mobile device.

Does your content read fast enough that it can be consumed while someone is walking, running, or waiting in a car line to pick up their food order?

Are the images and headlines compelling enough to grab my attention in a NEW YORK NANOSECOND?

Are there enough white spaces and bolded headlines to make your content scannable?

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Your Readers are Scanners

Remember, your readers are not readers anymore.

They are scanners.

Design ALL of your CONTENT for my mobile device.

The mobile device is where we meet and gather, connect and encourage.

At least, that’s where 5.28 Billion of us meet and gather.

B-o-n-d! James Bond! You’ve heard his name many times in movie clips.

Bond! James Bond! You know, the fictional hero who overcomes and who in the end always gets the beautiful lady.

But there is a real James Bond – a man of courage and convictions.

Meet James Bond Stockdale.

A real man of courage. A man of principles. A man you could model and be proud to model his convictions.

A real man who was a prisoner of war for more than seven years.

James Bond Stockdale was a United States Navy vice admiral and pilot who served in the Viet Nam War.

He was shot down in North Vietnam on September 9, 1965. 

Stockdale was a prisoner of war for more than seven years – four of those years in solitary confinement.

Stockdale suffered continual torture for more than seven years.

That’s more than 2,555 days. Imprisonment and torture.

But somehow James Bond Stockdale survived.

The Defining Event of my Life

When asked by James C. Collins (author of Built to Last and Good to Great) how he survived, Stockdale replied,

“I never lost faith in the end of the story.

I never doubted that not only would I survive,

but that I would prevail in the end.

And I would turn this experience into the defining event of my life,

which I would not trade.”

The Stockdale Paradox

Stockdale continued to explain how he survived,

“You must never confuse. . .

(1) the faith that you will prevail in the end with. . .

(2) the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality,

whatever they might be.”

This is now called the Stockdale Paradox.

Stockdale never lost faith in the end of the story.

He never doubted that he would turn this experience

into the defining event of his life.

What about you right now?

Ask yourself about your current reality.

Are you focused on your faith to prevail?

Motivation ALONE will NOT get you through this crisis.

Nope, sorry, all of your positive thinking by itself will NOT get you through this crisis.

Faith and Reality

(1) The faith to prevail.

And (2) facing your current reality.

These two ingredients do work.

Ask, “What does my current reality make possible?”

Then focus on (1) your faith to prevail to your end goal.

And (2) face your current brutal reality.

Ask.

What does this make possible?

And do it.

Are you still using a rotary dial phone in an iPhone world?

Two good questions.

Embarrassing questions.

So you want to reach your market in a challenging global environment?

Or you just want to reach the people in your neighborhood?

Do you know that 97% of mobile users (that device in your hand) are three (3) feet from their phones 24 hours per day. In the USA.

Their mobile device is their “everything” device. They seldom make a phone call with their device. But they do respond instantly to “pings” and “dings.”

All day long.

And they respond in seconds. In milli-seconds.

The average person touches their phone 2,617 times per day. (study as of February, 2020)

Watch your pre-teen and teenage children. Many, many more times than that.

That’s all the market research you need.

In comparison, the average person touches their face 2,000 to 3,000 times per day. (study as of March, 2020)

So you want to reach your market in a changing world?

Learn how to be RELEVANT on their phone.

Short, short blog posts. Daily. With content that is relevant. And content that your audience can use today. Or inspiring and motivating. Or interesting. Or content that is funny.

We all need some “funny” today.

Create short and direct videos for your audience.

Make your vids short, very short. And make my day better and my life better because I watched your video.

I watched some church services online recently.

Let’s talk about how church is done online. And treat it like a business trying to reach their audience.

The church leaders are trying to deliver online what they used to deliver inside of a building. That’s “dial-up” internet thinking in a high speed 5G world.

And they think that it works for me on my phone. It doesn’t.

Online Sunday church is too long and too predictable. And boring compared to everything else on my phone.

The Sunday services I watched were well-produced and choreographed. With good images and technology.

But they were using “rotary phone” thinking and delivering outdated material via a smart phone. They were looking “old school” and were irrelevant to today’s consumer of online content.

They delivered old and outdated content using new technology.

And they thought delivering outdated thinking using new technology made them relevant.

And remember. . .

. . . the other 167 non-church hours in the week.

To engage with your market as a business or a church create content that is relevant to me the other 167 hours in the week.

Not just the one hour on Sunday morning from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Create content that engages me, not just informs me.

Engage me with content that demands my response. Whether you appreciate my response or not.

Engage me.

Or lose me.

This applies to businesses and churches talking to me online.

Is your content / video / blog post worth sharing? If so, that is engagement that matters.

With an online “share” you just received your audience’s endorsement.

Your audience votes with their “shares.” That’s their online currency.

Create content daily (or more often) for short two to three minute bursts. And information / content / humor with some punch that is worth sharing.

Sharing is caring.

How to do this?

Experiment. Experiment a lot.

And then follow the data.

Online data and metrics are your audience’s votes. Online data is unfiltered feedback.

Treasure this information.

If you have content (blog posts / videos) with no likes and no shares, your audience just spoke VERY LOUDLY.

Try something different. And / or be more consistent.

Publish daily, not weekly.

Your online metrics will tell you quickly what your audience wants.

Experimenting like this takes courage.

The courage to handle criticism. It will get messy for you and your team.

You will be criticized by your peers and everybody on the sidelines.

But you will find what your audience wants. Just follow the data.

Your people will vote with clicks and views and shares.

And that’s how you reach your audience.

You may even create a movement.

More to come. . .

Keep watching and listening here.

You have toxic people in your life.

And you don’t even know it.

We all do.

I call them disguised / covert / hidden / secret / silent toxic people.

Because they are not purposefully mean or overtly annoying.

They are nice people. Maybe even funny. And they have been friends for years. No one would openly describe them as toxic.

But they bring some disguised toxicity to your life. And yes, they do affect your life negatively.

I’ll do my best to describe them. And you see if you have any covert toxic people in your life.

You have that well meaning and bighearted friend that makes you smile and laugh.

But who is always late to meetings and makes every one else wait.

That business friend or volunteer who makes commitments and forgets or delivers late on their promises. Consistently.

Now you are thinking of one or two people, aren’t you?

Or you realize that you may be that toxic person.

You are always (or often) making other people wait. Or making every project late.

Or making every project incomplete because you did not keep your commitment. You did not do your part.

It’s a blind spot that many of us have.

Two blind spots. Both that covert toxic friend you have. Or being that disguised toxic team member who is always late. And undependable.

Many of us have a toxic friend like this – hidden and disguised, but not overtly toxic.

Or we are that toxic member on a team. Always adding to every body else’s work load. Creating a burden on everyone else.

And they are (we are) not aware of this. Or not wanting to be aware of the negative effect we have on others.

My solution is: (and I am facing this issue right now, so I feel your discomfort) . . .

My solution is limiting contact with these toxic people.

No need to delete them from your life if they are bringing friendship and value and laughter to your life.

But set some clear limits. Like not having them on your team or your committee. Or not depending on them to get critical work done on time.

Of course, this may involve an uncomfortable conversation. Or an uncomfortable decision as a leader.

But let them know that they can no longer have a critical role on the team because they are negatively affecting performance and creating more work for others.

Or just stop waiting on them because they are late to every meeting.

And do not rewind / or review / the part of the meeting that they missed.

You’re just giving this toxic person an opportunity to “adult.”

It is their opportunity to become an adult. To act like an adult. And to take adult responsibility.

This is the conversation you would have with your children and grandchildren about being on time and keeping their commitments.

With your friend or colleague, this could be a messy conversation.

But you owe it to yourself and others to place a higher value on your time – your only real resource, and a resource that is non-renewable.

And stop putting everyone else in second place behind this toxic team member.

Your reliable friends and team members deserve to be treated better.

And, if you’re like me, you constantly carry a irritating resentment towards them for always being late and affecting your team’s performance. Or making you and your project late.

Even if you would not say this out loud, you do carry that resentment and it becomes an internal toxin.

So this nice friend not only makes you late and makes your project late – they are occupying valuable space in your brain.

You deserve better.

Your team deserves better.

Set limits with this toxic person soon . Today.

You will gain some much deserved freedom.

You’ll be glad you did.

Last night I killed my morning routine because I was seduced by a video at 9:00 p.m.

I hate when this happens. Hate is a strong word for me, but I do hate when this happens.

What I mean is – I was walking through my evening routine which says no screen time after 9:00 p.m.

Per my health coach, no screen time after a certain time allows for better sleep.

Easy to say, but difficult to do.

And you know that this is difficult to do because most of us check our phones the LAST thing before bedtime and the FIRST thing in the morning.

And most of us know that performance coaches recommend exactly the opposite.

But we do it anyway out of habit.

Back to last night when I killed my morning routine because I was seduced by a video at 9:00 p.m.

I saw what I was doing as it was happening. (And I wanted to stop.) But I found an interesting video on Amazon Prime Video.

I promised myself I will only watch it for 30 minutes. Then 90 minutes later I am still watching it. And I am wide awake past a reasonable bed time.

And I know that I have just killed my morning routine.

I have made my morning routine difficult. I bust my morning routine by being tired and moving slowly. I am one hour late already BEFORE the day has started. And moving slowly.

Solution: screens out of the bedroom.

Start with your phone and your tablet.

Leave your phone (and your tablet / iPad) in the kitchen on their chargers.

And smash the OFF button on those devices. OFF ALL NIGHT LONG.

So you don’t hear the “pings and dings” all night long. And learn how to disable notifications. Another simple way to control your life.

Limit the “pings and dings” in your life.

You take control of your life instead of your phone and other people controlling your life.

Buy a $10.00 (less than $10.00 for mine) alarm clock for your bedroom. That’s your new alarm system now. NOT your phone.

And take control of your evening routine, your sleep and your morning routine.

It’s sad but many people do not realize that they destroy their morning routine and productivity because that late-night video destroyed their evening routine and their sleep.

It’s time to take control of your life.

Instead of video binging and those annoying “pings and dings.”