#MondayInsight:

Last week I talked about being a Zeitgeist Pioneer…

Which is a leader who has the capacity to tune into the spirit of the times (particularly in your field/industry/market) and sense what’s not working/what’s not serving them/what they’re done with… 

AND what people are hungry for that no one else in your market is seeing, naming, or serving up.

Because what isn’t working is what gives rise to that hunger for something new and the pain around it is what creates the willingness to try something new. 

I’m going to state the obvious here…

This world is in massive upheaval.

Individuals, businesses, and institutions are feeling overwhelmed, helpless and often hopeless in the face of so much that isn’t working for them personally and for us collectively….

Because the stories we’ve been using to create our experiences have come to an end.

It can be disheartening, discouraging, and creates a lot of pain.

But it’s also creating a massive vacuum for leaders who can help people and institutions inhabit a new story.

Which is why there’s a huge opportunity for leaders doing paradigm-shifting work to get paid handsomely for it.

After all, you’ll be bringing visionary solutions to people’s biggest, most pressing problems – the problems that are causing the greatest pain and costing them the most.

The caveat is that the vision you share and the story you tell must be a direct answer to the hunger they feel. 

Because even though we have a hunger within that’s palpable and ready for something new…

We often don’t know what that “something new” is… because we’ve never seen it before.

I was recently on a round table about Point of View Marketing hosted by the brilliant Tad Hargrave, where he shared a little story from mentor, Stephen Jenkins…

Stephen was on a date and hadn’t really eaten all day. Sometimes if you don’t eat for a while you lose your hunger, and he had. The woman wanted to get him some food, so she invited him to her home where her Eastern European mother had been cooking all day. 

The moment he walked in the door, his nostrils filled with the rich, savory smells of the food, his salivary glands started watering, his stomach started rumbling… and suddenly he realized he was very hungry indeed!  

The mother said, “Don’t you know what the old people say? Food makes hunger.” 

It’s not the absence of food that makes hunger, it’s the presence of food. 

Your people won’t know they’re hungry until they smell what you’re cooking.

That’s what makes them hungry for what you’re here to serve them! 

So be bold. Reach into the Zeitgeist, speak to what you see, hear and know. Find a way to package and deliver it so you can serve up what people are hungry for that they didn’t even know they wanted.