I think it’s disrupting business as we know it for the better, and I have personally benefited greatly from an era that doesn’t care whether or not I have a degree, and allows me to work in exciting positions and take my own crack at being an entrepreneur.

Much like other people in my position, I’ve worked really hard, made big sacrifices, and put a lot on the line to do this. But I’m frustrated that there’s another group of folks that are driven more by shortcutting, mooching, and shirking the hard work and aren’t afraid to ask for stuff that to me feels out of line. It has me thinking a bit more about helping others, and whether there can and should be limits.

Where Help Is Plentiful

I’m often happy to get together over coffee or on the phone and answer questions, or offer a take on a particularly sticky question or puzzle. I’m happy to share some of the lessons I’ve learned through my career, many of which I write about right here too.

I respond to a lot of emails, speak at a ton of events, give away my book, point people to resources I’m familiar with that can be helpful, all that jazz. In short, I’m not at all averse to being helpful and giving stuff away, which is why I’ve written here for four years, published free ebooks, done a bunch of webinars, all of which are chock full of real-world things I’ve experienced and want to share.

That doesn’t make me some kind of an altruist, In fact, I think helping each other is part of how we forge great relationships in our professional careers, and find the people that we like to work with and share our vision and aspirations. That’s a great feeling, and it benefits the greater good while it benefits me, too.

The short way to think about it: I’m always happy to share a lot of the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of my experience to people if it can be useful to them.

Sharing certain types of the ‘how’ is where it gets tricky.

When Help Isn’t Forthcoming

Forgive me for being a bit selfish sounding here and tell you when you’re going to ask me for something and get a big resounding “No.”

No I’m not going to give you a copy of one of my proposals as a “sample”.

No I’m not going to give you my rate sheet and pricing.

No I’m not going to share with you the details of how I run my social business audits.

No I’m not going to give you a strategic plan or executive workshop materials I’ve developed for a client, anonymous or otherwise.

No I’m not going to share with you the contracts and terms I’ve worked hard to develop (and likely paid good money to lawyers to review as well).

I’m all for collaboration and knowledge sharing in the right environments with the right colleagues, namely people I trust and have a wonderful, cooperative working relationship with. That’s relationship that is earned over time. I can count those people in my circles on one hand, and they might be exceptions to the above.

But I’m bothered by the entitlement that can sometimes come with a superficial connection, say a Twitter follow or having met once at a conference in passing, or the commonality of being in the same line of work.

The “how” of what I do what I do is my secret sauce, my championship BBQ rub, my individual recipe for problem solving. That’s what makes me valuable to my clients and that’s what I’ve developed the ability to get paid for. My “how” is comprised of years of experience, lots of trial and even more error, hard work, failures, feedback, more work, and lots and lots of road miles putting this stuff into practice for the better part of 15 years.

There’s a big difference between swapping a few tricks of the trade over coffee and giving away very valuable, expensive, labor intensive and competitively advantageous materials or processes that I’ve worked incredibly hard to develop for my work and my company. Which is also my livelihood.

Rather than hand those over to you and give you a short cut, I’m liable to tell you to go build your own. Learn like I did. Pay the money to get expert help (I’d be happy to help you develop your offerings, but I have fees. But I’m also likely to offer my feedback for nothing on materials you’ve developed yourself). All in all, it will serve you much better anyway because you’ll actually learn and come to understand the work and process that goes into things like this. Which prepares you better for later, and the business you’re trying to build.

Where’s the Love?

I know, I know. Stingy me. This is all supposed to be “social”, which means there aren’t supposed to be barriers to sharing and communal knowledge, right?

Sorry. I don’t buy that. Being social does not equal being an absolutely open book, especially when business success is sometimes about sharing…and sometimes about knowing when to protect what’s uniquely yours.

You’ve worked hard for what you’ve earned, too. I would never call up someone I hardly know and ask them to give me the secrets or critical tools to their business. If I’m calling a colleague for advice, I’m going to ask what their rates are first. I’d never ask you to give me your Gramma’s secret apple pie recipe. (Ok, that one I might try to wheedle out of you unless you were making millions selling them on the internet.)

Business is tough. It’s rewarding. It’s exhilarating and can be world changing. And it’s also work.

I’m surprised that these sorts of things need talking about, but two inquiries to share substantial stuff this week had me thinking that perhaps this isn’t so much common sense at all.

What do you think? Am I being a hard ass? Am I dead wrong? Should it always be share and share alike? Do you have boundaries for what you’ll give away from the backstage of your business, and what are they?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Often, I’m asked what constitutes “success” for me. In other words, what factors do I look at and consider when I’m determining whether I’m doing what I want to be doing (and whether it’s time to make a change). My list is far more qualitative than quantitative, but perhaps you’ll find a few things in here that resonate with you, and that you can use to keep a pulse on whether your professional work is headed in the direction you want.

1. Compensation

It’s not the most important thing to me, it just happened to be the most obvious. Compensation to me isn’t about just earning a massive salary either. It’s about things like good benefits, vacation or personal time, stock options, bonus programs, and the ability to pursue side projects or other pursuits. Everyone views money differently.

For me it’s a means to a particular lifestyle, and I walked away from a well-paying executive job and a promising future path at that company to basically have no salary and use my savings to help fund a fledgling business. Money is simply an enabler of other things. You have to decide what it drives for you.

2. Autonomy

I don’t want to go to an office or commute anymore. I want to be able to work from wherever I am, and adapt my hours around things like my kid’s school activities or a visit from my dad. I also seek a large degree of autonomy on my projects. Give me a goal, hold me accountable to it, and set me loose to get there.

Mind you that kind of trust is earned and not bestowed on a rookie just out of college with no track record. But at this point in my career, I believe I have enough proof points for success to warrant having some freedom on my projects and schedule, because I always deliver. (This is also another reason why I work for myself).

3. Milestones

Everyone has goals of some kind. For you it might be to aspire to a particular title or role in your company, or in a professional organization you belong to. Maybe it’s to get published in a prestigious publication or to write a book. Or to complete a large and significant research project that can change the way something is done.

I aspire, for example, to write another book or two, and to eventually earn a spot on the big TED stage to present an Idea Worth Spreading. I also aspire to build SideraWorks into a thriving, innovative consulting company that really does tackle the hard work. Hey. Aim High.

4. Life Balance

I’m not sure I believe in true work-life balance. But does your work afford you the kind of lifestyle that balances it inasmuch as it makes you happy? Can you pursue non-work things that give you joy? Spend time on hobbies or on your porch or whatever you want to do without the constant feeling that your job is going to suffer if you do those things? I think finding a balance – whatever you can live with – is really important.

5. Passion Projects

Do you get to work on things that not only serve a role in a company and an ultimate goal for that company, but do you have the freedom to also pursue projects that support your values, ideals, aspirations, causes, or wild and crazy ideas? I want my work to give me a little bit of crazy rope to use now and again to dream up the unimaginable.

6. Relationship Development

Are you forging a strong network of people that compliment or augment your strengths and help mitigate your weaknesses? Is “networking” useful for you personally as well as something that the company demands you do? Are you meeting and connecting with people that are changing your life for the better, be they a mentor or a boss or a mentee or great friends or champions of causes and initiatives that excite you?

7. Adaptation

Can you change course when you need to in order to respond to opportunities? Are you bound to someone else’s roadmap, or can you draw your own to some extent (or at least have some input? When the circumstances around you change, are you trusted enough or unburdened enough to pay attention and pivot when you need to?

8. Challenge

Make my brain work! I’m never quite happy until I’m teetering on the edge of my comfort zone, as much as I might whine about being terrified and overwhelmed. Are you pushed or allowed outside your comfort zone on occasion, enough to grow and learn different things? I want to know that I’m being handed the toughest problems, and creating extraordinary value for someone by solving them.

Stagnation is the enemy of progress and the roadblock in the pursuit of passion and dreams. Never be stagnant.

9. Momentum

In short, do you feel like your consistently moving forward, even in small steps? Can you always see that there’s something ahead of you, even if it’s blurry as all hell? Did I mention how much stagnation sucks?

Now.

What you should never measure against?

Someone else. Run your own race. Everyone’s circumstances and context are different, and you can drive yourself in circles comparing yourself to other people.

We’ll all fall in the trap once in a while of a little envy or jealousy or aspiration to what someone else has achieved but the choice in that moment is simple: make it a goal to do something comparable yourself and go after it like crazy, or realize it’s a good thing for them but that it’s not the right thing for you.

Success and failure are wildly subjective ideas, and only you know what yours means to you.

What are you keeping your eye on?

Here’s me, enjoying the sunshine and warmth of a beautiful Mother’s Day, lingering in bed with my kiddo and flipping through a magazine and the internet. Then my peace is broken by a bunch of obviously auto-posted links to yet more articles about social media stuff and getting more clicks or money or something. So I tweeted:

“It’s okay to take a day off from trying to get clicks, for crying out loud. The stream of auto posts just makes me nuts sometimes.”

Yeah I know. There I go being all crabby and preachy again.

So let’s back up for a second. Here’s what I consider “automated” stuff:

• Sharing a constant stream of links through something like Triberr
• Using Buffer or a similar tool to schedule posts
• Using a cross-posting tool to post the same thing to Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, Pinterest, whatever…simultaneously
• Auto-posting stuff from the RSS feeds you read every time they publish a new post

But as with anything else, I need to rein myself in a bit here and apply a bit of temperance and context. [I can be a little hotheaded. I know you're shocked.]

Automation has its uses, times and places, and it’s not inherently evil.

I understand and have experienced the difficulties of trying to, say, scale a corporate team of people responding to customers, sharing content, and doing it all masterfully. I also know that sometimes we as individuals have day jobs, but we don’t want to forget to share that amazing article on neurology that we ran across during our insomniac reading at 2 a.m.

So here are my points of qualification.

I think scheduling has it’s place in the world, so I need to retract my absolute blanket statement of distaste. I’ve used automation myself, with care I’d like to think. So I’m a hypocrite but I do have a point here.

Matt and I might find a bunch of articles that we think are relevant to our clients and audience, but we don’t want to bombard everyone with fifteen tweets in a row, so we’ll go ahead and use something like Buffer or Tweetdeck’s schedule function to distribute them throughout the day. That makes sense to me.

We’re also not trying to be everywhere at once. We know what social platforms we’re focusing on and to what degree, so we’re not panicky about PUT ALL THE THINGS EVERYWHERE because we know that’s not an effective strategy. We’re a B2B, higher end consultancy and we’re just not going to get a bunch of relevant traction by blasting the internet full of link-laden holes. Volume isn’t our game, and never will be. The point is to spread out focused content, not just to keep bombarding the web with stuff to click on.

Individually, for every hundred or two hundred tweets I post, one might be an article I schedule because I want to remember to share. I never feed my tweets into Facebook or blast out a bunch of duplicate content to all the networks. If you see me on the web, it’s me, and the chances are 99% that I’m right there, typing.

It goes back to intent. Again.

The key for me, personally, as to whether or not I give my rubber stamp of approval to occasionally flipping the auto-post switch is whether it’s balanced by a deliberate, purposeful presence that demonstrates some kind of intent to be responsive and personally involved.

Occasionally, I want to know that you – the human – is on the other end of the keyboard, whether you’re an individual or representing a brand. I want to talk with you about the article you posted. I want to banter about whether my Bears are going to lose this week, even if that’s a short conversation. I want to say hi and see what’s new with you and your business.

There are also times when automated stuff just comes off a little funky. On a holiday. In the midst of a national disaster or a sobering crisis, or even a major happy event. It’s at those moments when cranking out the “8 Ways To Make A Better Pinterest Board” stuff just reads out of context and — dare I say it — oblivious or insensitive. There’s an off switch to these things, and you need to sometimes use discretion about when to flip it.

Yes, this is just my taste. Yes I can unfollow people (and do) to apply my own filters when it gets to be too much. So there’s no right answer for everyone, and I’m sure many of you can argue with me about why automating your links gets you more clicks and better exposure and more availability to do other things that are important to do with your time.

I think that’s great, but know that there are people out there like me that are really hoping that you’re still out there somewhere, clacking away on your keyboard, ready to reply and chat. Maybe that matters to you. Maybe it doesn’t, and you’re in it solely for the end game. But for me, if it’s important to do, it’s important enough to do personally.

After all, how else will I know how truly charming and fascinating you are?