“I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!”
~Jeff Bezos – Founder & CEO of Amazon speaking to the class of 2010 at Princeton (read the entire address here)
P.S. Enjoy the weekend.
A lot of people believe that through the simple act of putting in the time at their chosen careers or jobs, the natural progression will be to slowly climb the career ladder, get promoted every couple of years, and see a steady increase in pay.
I think 30 years ago this was an excellent strategy. I don’t believe it works anymore. I think those days are over. Forget the ladder.
The problem is that there is someone hungrier sneaking up behind you. There is someone who wants it more than you do and is eyeing your position. There is someone RISKING more than you and is ready and willing to take it away from you. There’s a linchpin building a resume that doesn’t require two sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ inch paper. He doesn’t need it because his work, his ideas, and his reputation have already found their way to your employers.
And when push comes to shove, who do you think your employers are going to take? Sure, you’ve put in the years and the time. You followed the rules because that’s the way they told you this all works. That was the lie you believed. It would be a shame to realize this too late.
What about this new fellow? He’s risked it all. He’s gone to the edge. He’s taken chances. While you sat around getting older and waiting, this little bugger took what you thought you were entitled to from right under your nose.
So what’s the solution?
The solution is to stop waiting and get on with it. You need to must become the linchpin.
Today I just feel like I need to say Thank You.
Thank you for reading what I’ve had to say over the past few months.
Thank you for leaving comments.
Thank you for sharing my thoughts and ideas on Facebook and/or Twitter.
Thanks so much.
P.S. Feel free to continue to conversation with me via eMail. I always respond to all emails. You can contact me here. If you have any comments, suggestions, requests, or just want to chat, send me an email.
A friend of mine asked me the other day where he might find an idea to start a business.
I asked him, “What kind of business do you want to start?”
He responded and said that since he was so knowledgeable in his current career, and loved what he was doing, he could see himself starting a competing business.
And then the lizard showed up.
The excuses rolled in. His current employer had been around forever. It would be hard to persuade people to switch to a new startup. There is no way he could compete… Yada Yada Yada.
I suggested that before we allow the lizard to lay a smack down, we spend a little time looking for the cracks.
Is customer service slipping?
Are they ignoring customers?
What could be done better in sales and marketing?
Are they simply surviving in the middle-of-the-road? Can you go to the edge and pass?
Has their guard been dropped?
Maybe the business idea you’ve been looking for is right in front of you.
If you can find the cracks, and fill the gaps, you might just have a winner.
My wife doesn’t like to fly. She hates turbulence. I used to be the same way. Her energy would easily put me into a panicked state as the plane would flip-flop all over the place.
I think there’s something to be learned from turbulence.
Expect turbulence on every flight you take.
When you set out on a new adventure, plan to start a new business, prepare to roll-out a new marketing campaign, set optimistic revenue goals, decide to get your real estate license, buy a dog, have a baby, start laying a hardwood floor, hope for the best – but expect it to get bumpy.
A positive attitude is important, but too much of a positive, nothing-can-go-wrong type of attitude, and you’re walking on the edge of naivety.
Of course, you need to plan for some “what-if” situations, but you can’t possibly plan for all of them. Do everything you can to plan in advance, but be ready for anything.
If pilots and airlines waited for the perfect conditions to fly, we’d never get anywhere. They anticipate turbulence in advance and take the appropriate steps to ensure a smooth flight. But when the shit hits the fan, the true professional uses her skills and knowledge to deal with it accordingly.
Do the same.
It’s Friday and it’s late. My daily post should have been up hours ago, but I’ve been in a car traveling most of the day. My wife and I just sent the past three days at the most amazing cottage in Northern Ontario with some great friends.
The cottage was absolutely stunning even with its lack of hydro, hot showers, flushing toilets, and massive swarms of killer mosquitos.
I thought about this blog post during our final moments of relaxation this morning while sitting on the dock waiting for a boat to take us back to civilization.
When I say go away, I don’t mean it in a rude way. Instead, I just want you to take a vacation.
And I don’t mean a tour. A tour is what happens when you’re on a bus or a cruise ship. I also don’t mean trying to see six European countries in 10 days – that’s just a collection of snapshots. I mean a real vacation.
No plans. No advanced tickets. No reservations. No Rick Steve’s travel books.
The type of vacation I’m talking about can happen in your backyard. It can happen on your lunch break. It can happen this weekend. And it’s relatively affordable. And while a pristine Northern Ontario cottage helps, it’s not absolutely crucial.
Most people use vacations to escape from work, and end up bringing the stress of work with them. I used to be as guilty as the next guy. I’m talking about a different type of getaway.
Here’s the itinerary.
Find a spot/time/place where you can allow your mind to truly reflect on your future goals. Don’t dwell on the past. Learn from the past, but let it go. Stressing about the past is simply wasted energy.
Attempt to gain some perspective and clarity around your goals and future plans. Search and strive for pure relaxation. Let everything else go. Simply focus on where you want to go…and aim yourself in that direction. (personal or business)
These vacations can be short and sweet, or they can be long and extended. Spread them out and take them often.
It’s those moments when you’re most likely to have a major breakthrough. It’s those moments where the real magic is going to happen. It’s those moments you’re going to solve that problem that’s been driving you crazy, or come up with that new idea you’ve been searching for.
That’s a vacation.
Go.
There seems to be a point when we believe our need for coaching, mentoring, and the acquisition of new knowledge are no longer needed in our lives.
We’re adults now. We know everything we need to know. Why would I need any help? I’ve put in my time.
Coaching? Why would I need a coach?
This of course, brings up the obvious question, why do sports teams need to be coached?
After all, these are guys and girls that have played the sport their entire lives, they’ve reached the pinnacle of success – the pro-leagues, - and yet they are still constantly under the wings of professional coaches and leadership.
Of course teams are different from individuals, right?
But…
Why would Lance Armstrong need a coach to improve his cycling?
Why would the manager need a coach to improve his management skills?
Why would the brain surgeon need coaching on learning new brain surgery techniques?
But us regular folk – we’re beyond that, right? We finished school. We got our degrees. We got drafted into the real world. We’re pros now.
But we’re driven by our egos. We believe it’s easier to look strong, stand up tall, and put on a smiley face, than it is to resort to asking for help.
Seeking help has been typecast in our society as a sign of weakness. We’ve gone and made it almost embarrassing. We’d rather just muster on and try to do it ourselves.
Before Tiger’s “issues,” he was often used as an example by coaches about the importance of continued coaching and training. Tiger is adamant about constantly improving his skills. He was never beyond learning from his coach. He could always learn from his coach, or even other golfers. Tiger was known to practice for hours and literally BEG for his coach to point out an issue with his swing, or his stance, or his grip.
He obviously could have used coaching beyond his sport, but that’s beyond this post 
Here’s my take on it.
When you’re willing to accept that there IS a lot more to learn, you can drastically improve your skills. A coach can actually teach you something, or point out your flaws or help you with where to focus your practice time. That’s when you’ve entered the professional league.
Seeking help, guidance, and new knowledge to become bigger, stronger, faster, is the ultimate sign of strength. The real pros always know there is someone better out there who can teach them a thing or two.
So ask yourself, what league are you in? Pick one.
The Pros or the Amateurs?
Every small business knows the importance branding.
Repetition, repetition, repetition. The message needs to remain the same. Keep your brand in tact.
Some businesses go insane when it comes to branding.
The only font we use is size 14 Arial Bold in color #367286
Here’s the thing. Small businesses don’t need to worry about this as much as say Nike does, and we all prove this point every day.
Think about a local restaurant that you drive by every single day. Every single day you drive by this place. You may even have driven by it for the past 15 years! And yet, you’ve never ever stopped.
Maybe it’s not a restaurant. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. But you know what I’m talking about, right? There’s that place that has maybe piqued your interest on occasion, maybe even daily, but you’ve never take the time to stop and check it out.
The thing is, they did what they were told. This is what all the books on marketing say about branding through repetition. The sign never changes. The branding is always the same. So if brand consistency is the key, we would have stopped after driving by the first 60, or so, times. I’ve now driven by 6000 times and still haven’t stopped.
This is a small business mistake. Your brand and branding is 100% absolutely important, but sometimes small businesses need to shake it up!
Branding for big business is even more important. Over the years, big brands have written their stories. It might be a story of trust, or customer service, or great taste, or quality engineering. It resonates with us. We all know what many of the big brands stand for.
If you’re a small business looking to grow, you can stop fretting about the traditional big-business rules of branding. I’m waiting for this restaurant to surprise me. Six thousand brand repetitions and I’m still bored. And I don’t mean throwing snowballs at my car, or paying someone to stand outside and shake a sign. I want you to find a way to disrupt my image of your brand; because right now, you’re just the boring little restaurant I know nothing about. I know your physical logo inside and out. On a moments notice, I can conjure up your logo, its color, and the font you use instantly. That part of the branding has done its job.
But I want a shake-up.
I want this to happen through my friends and your friends. I want you to create buzz. I want to hear your story told and retold, or I want you to create a new one. In a nutshell, I’m begging you to kick me when I’m not expecting it, please.
Stay up tonight, flick on the TV, and check out all the amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities on the infomercials.
I’m being sarcastic.
Infomercials about money-making opportunities, to me, represent a speeding one-way bullet train.
My advice is to skip the train. Let it go on by. Don’t get on.
When an opportunity presents itself that looks like the over-capacity speeding bullet train, and these trains don’t just show up on TV; they show up in the stock market, real estate, and business opportunities, to mention a few. I suggest you save yourself some grief and let it go on by. These trains almost always get derailed just out of the station.
There’s a far more reliable train coming along shortly. It’s just a slower ride.
The words used in the title of this post are all words that came from my thesaurus for the word “mediocre.”
mediocre |ˌmēdēˈōkər|
adjective
of only moderate quality; not very good: a mediocre actor
It makes me wonder if this is the way my English teachers would have explained my skills to my parents during my early years of school.
Mom: How’s Noah doing in creative writing this year?
Teacher: Noah’s only writing at a moderate level of quality. If I was to be perfectly honest with you, he’s just not that good at it.
Looking back now at my blog, specifically between the years of 2006-2009, and questioning the reasons I chose not to blog more often, I may have been mistaken in the reasons why I never actually wrote more.
I usually attributed the lack of posting to “no time.” But now I’m wondering if I was simply scared of mediocrity. The fear of mediocrity is just as strong as the dreaded, and evil, fear of failure. How can we overcome such an opponent?
I read hundreds and hundreds of blogs on a weekly basis. Many of the writers are simply brilliant. The creators of the content inspire me daily.
Bloggers like; Derek Sivers, Ben Coe, Quoteflections, Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod, Caitlin McCabe , Jason Seiden, Liz Danzico, Chris Guillebeau. Jonathan Fields, to name just a few.
The fear of mediocrity bubbles up from within. It’s easier to do nothing, than it is to appear mediocre to others, or so we think. We allow that fear to debilitate us and then nothing happens. Fear of this kind can cause our blogs to sit empty and dormant for years.
It’s been pounded into us for years that perfection is the ultimate goal. Is it really worth doing if you can’t do it right?
I mean, if you can’t write as well as the millions of other great bloggers out there, is it really worth the time and effort to spend every day putting fingers to the keyboard? (That’s our internal fear talking, or lizard brain, or the resistance, or whatever we want to call it….)
Here’s the thing, It’s worth it.
The task doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether the task is writing a blog post, or starting a new business, or finishing an essay, or writing an outrageous advertisement, or creating a piece of art, or building a piece of furniture, or developing a website, or rewriting your resume, or telling a story at a campfire, or calling an old friend, or drawing a cartoon, or recording some music in your basement, or expressing your intention to start a diet and exercise.
It will never be “perfect.”
This form of resistance will rear its ugly head to try to convince you it’s not worth it at every step of the way. It will get stronger, and stronger, and stronger until the very last moment when you get close to the end. Close to the moment of actually finishing it, it will make one last-ditch effort to try to stop you. It will do it’s best to convince you that what you’ve created is nothing more than a big steamy pile of mediocrity.
For me, that moment is right now.
And then I hit publish.
