Chris Ming, Author at Christopher Ming Blog

Everything Is Offense or Defense

“For parents, this is a Shackleton moment.”

This according to Tim Armstrong, CEO of the DTX Company (I’m paraphrasing).

“Your family is frozen in time. You have to spend more time with each other. During this time, I’ve gotten to know my kids 25% better.”

His interviewer, Scott Galloway added:

“You’re going to look back at this time as historic. You hope your kids and family look back on it positively.”

What Tim and Scott are saying is: play offense. Everything we do, we can frame as either offense or defense:

career

The Good Bones To A Good Life

A house with “good bones” is one with the potential to go from “frumpy-to-fabulous.” She is structurally sound, regardless of the missing shingles, broken windows, and peeling paint.

She may look beat, but like Tyson Fury in the 12th round against Deontay Wilder, she’ll weather the storm.

It doesn’t require a master architect to list the ingredients of a house with good bones: a solid foundation, a strong frame, put together with thought and care.

It made me wonder: what are the common ingredients of a good life? What does a life with “good bones” look like?

reflections

Leadership and COVID-19

What a week: six-hour bottlenecks at airports, toilet paper outages, billions of dollars erased in the markets, and over 6,500 lives lost around the world.

Let’s talk about one trait that’s crucial during these times: leadership.

During times of crisis, we look for guidance. We want a steady hand to navigate choppy waters. Leadership isn’t about winning an election or job titles. Leadership is about your behavior.

Some behaviors of good leadership:

career

Career Habits: How To Control Your Destiny at Work and Life

Recently, I spoke to three different students from my alma mater.

They wanted advice on getting started in filmmaking, developing online courses, and marketing.

They asked good questions, and most of it centered around a central theme: “what skills should I focus on?”

Skill development is crucial, no doubt. You must have the chops. However, looking back at my career thus far, in the 3-4 industries where I’ve done well, I focused a lot less on skills and more on habits.

I like to think this served me well, despite a scattered career trajectory, for a few reasons:

Skill sets change but the ingredients to build skills — your habits — remain the same.
Habits are always under your control. Control your habits, control your destiny.

career

How long should you work for free?

I’ve written a lot about the power of working for free, and how you can work for free to uplevel your career.

But how long should you work for free? How much time is “enough” before you ask for a paid position or move on?

career

3 High Leverage Life Changes You Should Make

My friend Michael Alexis keeps a running list of life lessons, the way others might keep a list of half-baked business ideas or ex-lovers. He started compiling this list 3 years ago.

The entire list is worth a deep read. Here’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot:

“I am constantly blown away by how little I know.

If you roll back to any ‘six months ago,’ I thought I knew a lot, but in hindsight I’m surprised I was even functional.

I expect this cycle to continue indefinitely into the future.”

I find this inextricably true in my life as well. I’m confused about how I got anything done six months ago. That’s doubly true if we rewind to a full year.

career

How to Get Better At Your Job This Year

Ever think you’re not very good at your job?

You’re not bad per se. You’re not incompetent or lazy.

You put in the hours. You don’t drop the ball. You check off your to-do list.

But perhaps when you look at your peers, you notice them stacking promotion after promotion on their LinkedIn profile. Or at drinks, they casually mention receiving a second raise this year.

Maybe it’s politics or luck. Perhaps they “play the game” better than you do. Sometimes that is why people get ahead.

But what if you suspect they’re just better at their job than you?

If that’s the case, how would you uplevel your skills? What skills do you improve, and how would you do it?

marketing

Our Japanese & Sushi Restaurant Ran Its First Instagram Ads

On January 6, 2019, I ran the first of two tests on our Shogun Albany Instagram account, as part of my efforts to run marketing for one of the family restaurants.

Test 1 : An Instagram contest where participants had to follow the Shogun account, tag 2 friends, and guess the type of fish in a photo. One winner would win a $10 gift card to Shogun.

Test 2 : I ran 2 ads to drive people to this contest, against two different Audiences: Mothers living in Albany and surrounding areas and Students living in Albany and surrounding areas.

career

Marketing Lessons From A Small Family-Owned Restaurant

I thought if I sold more sushi, I’d earn my dad’s respect.

On paper, offering to help with marketing for one of the family restaurants made sense: I knew the food. I knew marketing. And I was a millennial, so obviously I knew Instagram, #natch.

The upside potential was high. It was also a good way to give back to the family.

However, if I peel back all the layers of resume speak, the naked truth was much simpler:

I wanted to impress my dad. I wanted his approval. So I spent a lot of 2019 working on this, on the side.

If you have a family business, you can learn from my approach to marketing our family restaurant, what I experimented with, and why I failed.

career

The Passion Economy, The Gig Economy, and The Difference

The future of work is here. And it’s neither the golden age, nor the Hunger Games of our generation.

Li Jin of a16z thoroughly broke down the future of work here. Some highlight reel stats:

The top-earning writer on newsletter platform Substack earns $500,000+ a year from reader subscriptions
The top creator on video course platform Podiaa earns $100,000+ a month
One of the top creators on artist platform Patreon earns $95,000+ a month (source)