How can people root for you?

If they don't know what to root for.

“People wanted to root for me,” my friend Chris Keener recently told me over dinner, “But they didn’t know what to root for.” 

Chris is a creatively potent soul. Actor, Director, and former podcast guest, so you know he’s legit. He was recounting his move from Philly to LA in his twenties. He had three grand in the bank and dreams of taking the city by storm. It turned out to be a drizzle. Six months later he moved back to Philly, three grand in the hole and “nothing to show for it.”

He’s since gone on to become the, ahem, Creative Director at MUD\WTR, and lives in a sylvan panoramic with a nook and everything. Take that early-aughts LA! But since he said “They didn’t know what to root for,” I’ve been thinking about it all week, finally crystallizing into these questions.

How do people root for you? Do you make it possible for them to root for you? Do they know what to root for? 

It’s easy to see the world as cruel. But it’s also full of generous people who want to help. Genuinely help. If we would only tell them what we are trying to do.

There’s wisdom to not talking about our goals. See Derek Sivers TED Talk. It could make you feel closer to your achievement than you are. But a spoken goal, the big one you feel in your bones, the one you’re afraid to say out loud because to not achieve it would be crushing. That takes courage. We reward courage by rooting for you. Some people call it manifestation. I call it improving your odds.

So, what’s your goal? How can people root for you?