Frequency, Cadence, and Consistency

Frequency

If you knew me back in 2008 or 2009 you knew a Jason Alba who was travelling quite a bit, speaking across the U.S. (and once in Turkey, which means I was an "international speaker").

Back then I talked a lot about using tools (like blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to share your personal brand. I talked about various aspects of a successful personal branding strategy, one of which was frequency.

I talked about how you could write, for example, one blog post (or one tweet, or one LinkedIn update), but that wouldn't do you nearly as much good as writing frequently. I didn't define the frequency you needed... that was up to you. But you should have figured out your frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.).

This also applied to reaching out to your network... how frequently should you stay in touch? I recommended a job search newsletter sent frequently. I still think this is a very important tactic for active job seekers. See my two posts about job search newsletters here:

Job Search Tool: A Creative and Simple Job Search Newsletter (In 2 Parts)

Frequency is important.

Cadence

Fast forward many years, back in 2018, I took a job for 10 months. Frankly, I needed a change of scenery. My schedule had freed up and I was bored sitting in my home office. I found the weirdest, made-for-me job on LinkedIn.

I remember reading this job description and thinking "no one has this background... this is such a weird list of requirements and anyone who's had a decent career would not have all these things on their resume!"

Fortunately, I had a weird background and had accumulated all those requirements. And so I got to work with one of the greatest bosses I've ever had. A maverick who had a vision the company could barely understand was starting a new department and he hired me to help him bring his vision to life.

There's a long story there, maybe for another day. If you want to learn about my old boss, check out his new company here: Life Engineering. Or his Ted talk here (his story is fascinating, way more than he packed into this few minutes), called Escape Velocity.

Anyway, at that organization we had an executive who talked a lot about cadence. Now, I'm no dummy (arguable, I guess), but I didn't understand what cadence was. I could kind of figure it out based on how she used the word (all the time), but I had never heard it exactly like she used it.

Basically, she was talking about frequency (like, frequency of when certain newsletters or messaging was sent out).

I was intrigued that she brought this jargon to the organization (because organizational jargon intrigues me!). More interesting, though, was how often she used it, and how often she thought about frequency. Frequency, or as she said, cadence, was a core principal of effective communication.

I felt validated that this smart executive making multiple times what I made was so focused on something I'd been talking about for years.

Consistency

This, though, was the most important messaging I got along these lines.

Years ago I got a Christmas card from a friend, mentor, and coach. This is the smartest, most impactful coach I've known in real life. Mark LeBlanc is a professional speaker (he was president of the NSA) and someone who I learned a lot from.

His Christmas card said:

Consistency trumps Commitment.

This is one of his phrases he used time and again... and it really hit home. I had been very committed, but I wasn't so good on my consistency. Or, I had been consistently frequent. I didn't have a consistent cadence.

We can get excited, and committed, but we need to avoid the natural tendency to do hot or cold, starts or stops.

We need to commit. And then we need to figure out how we'll build consistent frequency.

If this speaks to you, start small. Make your bed every morning (please tell me you've watched this video of Admiral McRaven talking about this). Or meditate or do yoga every day this week. Or whatever you decide is your baby step to consistency.

Creating consistent frequency is a muscle. In other words, it's something you can make stronger. As you practice using the muscle you get better at it, not just in making your bed but in other aspects of your life.

Commit

Last week I committed to this newsletter. I have a reminder on my calendar every Tuesday night so I can go to bed thinking about what I want to write, and a reminder on Wednesday so I actually do it.

I'm committed. But the value will be seen if I'm consistent.

What will you commit to being consistent about, with the idea of bettering your personal and/or professional life?