How do I know if this is really my passion?

Where do I look for my passion?

I’m not sure what I’m really passionate about.

Check this out.

“You might be thinking, “How do I know what I’m good at?” All you have to do is listen and learn. Listen to the environment and other people. Pay attention, because they’re trying to tell you what you’re good at all the time. It’s in you, but there’s also feedback—the world is trying to tell you who you are. There are signals. It’s all a big mirror of your own soul. If you feel wonderful when you read a sentence in a book and somehow get goose bumps, that’s the world trying to say, “That’s you!”

The Hands-Off Manager – Steve Chandler & Duane Black

The weird thing is, this entire book is giving me goose bumps.

Enjoy the weekend.

As John says,”According to a recent study, less than 5% of Amish businesses fail within their first five years. That’s astounding considering 50% of (non-Amish) small businesses fail within their first five years.”

One of my favorite parts of John’s short review is the following statement about what makes the Amish so successful, because it’s something I’ve been harping on you about for months now….

The Amish Maintain a Learner’s Attitude

The Amish businessman is always seeking knowledge. Their learner’s attitude begins early in their business life. The Amish gain hands-on experience in their chosen trade before they start their own business. From there, the Amish will seek out mentor relationships with respected community business leaders to continue their business education. The successful Amish entrepreneur views every learning opportunity, including learning from competitors and customers, as vital sources of business knowledge.

It reminds me a lot of a great quote I read in a book the other day.

“The reason why most people are so pathetic is that they will not take the time to develop and refine their skills.” ~ Stuart Wilde

I’ve heard it said in so many other ways…

Someone once remarked,

“How can you call yourself a _____ salesman, if you’ve never read any Zig Ziglar?” (insert any of the following before the word salesman: car, boat, carpet, furniture, ice cream, hot dog, life insurance, etc…)

I’d like to take that a step further.

How can we take your marketing skills seriously, if you’ve never read any Seth Godin?

How could we possibly hire you as our copywriter, to write and create our ads, if you’ve never studied Claude Hopkins, or Gary Halbert, or Dan Kennedy?

How could I possibly hire you as my “life coach” when you’ve never studied the works of Napoleon Hill?

How can you call yourself an investor when you’ve never read anything by Warren Buffet?

What would you add to the list?

I read another book recently where the author said,

“During my first business I read 7 business books and the business failed miserably. During my second business, I read over 700 books and the business was a huge success. It’s not hard to figure out what made the difference.

Be like the Amish and never stop learning. It’s clearly working for them.

Let me give you a brief introduction to this post, and then I’ll share the secret to making one billion dollars.

The CEO of Zappos.com,Tony Hsieh’s new book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, comes out today. I had a chance to read an advanced copy last week.

Hsieh discovered his entrepreneurial drive at a very young age and continued to lean into his passion and work towards achieving ultimate success.

After reading of Hsieh’s early stints in the business world, we learn of his first major success during the dot-com boom. Hsieh co-founded, LinkExchange, which was later acquired by Microsoft for $265 Million.

This is where the book sparked my interest. It wasn’t that Hsieh had sold his first company, but rather it was that Tony realized he wasn’t happy.

As part of the deal with Microsoft, Hsieh was required to stay on as an employee for twelve months and then walk away from the deal 12 million dollars richer. He left after a month or so which meant he was walking away from millions of dollars. His reason? He wasn’t happy.

When I told my wife this story, she didn’t believe it. She said, “nobody would walk away from millions of dollars just for sitting around for a year.”

Tony chose happiness over profits and this laid the seeds for what was to come next.

It wouldn’t be the last time Tony would take a major risk with his money. For example, when Zappos was nearly broke and couldn’t find a single investor; Tony took EVERYTHING he had earned, and EVERYTHING he had acquired, even down to selling his apartment at a 40% discount, and bet it on Zappos.

I sent Tony a direct message on Twitter and asked, “Did you really bet the entire farm? Everything? Is that part really true?”

He responded, “pretty much yeah, but things worked out in the end ”

In July of 2009, Zappos was sold to Amazon for One Billion Dollars. Tony’s earnings from the sale were $214 million.

Buy the book. It’s out today, and it’s fantastic!

If you want to win a copy – leave a comment below, and I’ll pick someone at random to receive a free copy.

Without further ado…

How To Make One Billion Dollars in Five Steps.

(Things I learned from Tony Hsieh and his book “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.”

Step 1:

• Realize money cannot, and will not, deliver happiness…ever! (no matter how much you think it will)
• The way you feel, think, and love now is the same way you will feel, think, and love when you have a lot of money. Sure, you can buy more stuff, but you won’t feel any differently.

Step 2:

• Realize you will win and lose. If you never lose, you’ll never win big. Look at the long-term picture. Aim high.
• Risk only what you can afford to lose.
• Be prepared to lose it all.
• And, as we’ve seen above, be prepared and have the balls to bet it all.

Step 3:

• Have principles you’ll take to the grave. Understand that your business may change over time, but stick to your principles.
• Don’t look for short-cuts. Cheaters will always lose – eventually.
• Patience is a virtue and required for success. Stamina is required to win the game.
• Look around at what everyone else is doing and then do the opposite. Don’t think just because everyone else is doing it, that’s what you should be doing too.

Step 4:

• Never believe you’ve learned everything you need to know. Read books and learn from others. Read more – and then read some more after that.
• Understand that everything you read is great, but if you never do anything with the knowledge, it’s worthless. Put what you’ve learned into action.
• Success is largely determined by the people you surround yourself with. Choose your peers wisely.
• Understand luck and don’t get too cocky. If you win a few times, realize you might have just gotten lucky.
• Again, don’t get too cocky. There’s always someone better than you out there.

Step 5:

• You’ve got to love what you’re doing.
• One hundred percent happiness is the goal. If you’re not happy, don’t fool yourself. You get only one go around in this thing called life – happiness can’t be bought or purchased. Figure out the problem and fix it.

Seth pointed us to coffee store owner and World Barista Champion, Gwilym Davies, who created the “dis-loyalty card.”

You all know about loyalty cards. I’m sure any of us could open our wallets or purses and find a variety of them at any given moment.

“Visit us 10 times, and you’re 11th purchase will be free!”

Gwilm Davies flipped it. He said, “Here’s the deal. Go to our competitors, drink their coffee and come back and I’ll give you a free one.”

The catch is … , I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking that Gwilm wanted to show how inferior his competitors products were to his own.

In reality, there wasn’t any negative intent to his actions at all.

He wasn’t trying to do any harm to his competitors. Instead, he was promoting them.

Gwilm wanted people to drink high quality coffee, plain and simple. He wanted his customers to support his competitors who also make a high quality product.

He’s basically saying, “If I was to buy a coffee, it would be from one of these eight places! Check em out!”

Gwilm loves coffee so much that he’s willing to give business away so that people don’t have to drink bad coffee. It’s brilliant.

We tend to focus too much energy on beating the living daylights out of our competition. We’ve been taught that business always has to be cut throat. “Business is  WAR!” they said. Yet, here’s an example that flips that traditional business mentality on it’s head.

I can see this same concept working in so many different industries.

Think of small town restaurants trying to do  battle against the easy and convenient fast food giants. They could come together and present a similar concept.

“Eat at all six of these local restaurants and you’ll be given a $25 gift card to use at one of the six locations.”

The gift card could be picked randomly so that all participating businesses get their share.

Just because the business schools and marketing textbooks like to show us the way things have been done for the past 50 years, doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do them now.

The original story can be found  here.

The next book on the list of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, that I’ve been reading from, is titled “What Should I Do with My Life?” by author Po Bronson.

Funny… I go from being a reading maniac to taking almost two weeks to get through a book called “What Should I Do with My Life?”

What does that tell ya about me?

Bronson found himself in a position many people find themselves in these days, unemployed and at a crossroads of  life. He was at a point in his own life when he was asking himself the same question, “What Should I Do with My Life?”

Po decided that he would look for others who were asking or had asked that question, at some point in their lives, and share those stories with us.

Bronson interviewed over 900 people. The book provides the stories of about 50 of those people who were wondering what they should do with their lives.

The book is interesting because it’s a collection of the types of stories we hear about, but never believe could apply to us.

Stories like a PR executive, on the verge of doubling her salary, leaving her well-paid career to work outside and do low-paid landscaping.

Or a professor with tenure who decided to leave and pursue a new career in law, at 70 years old.

The book offers us both a glimpse and an understanding that we actually do have a choice in life to follow our passion, and a glimpse at those who actually took the plunge and followed it.

Bronson profiled about 50 different people in the book. What I enjoyed about the book is that not every story has a happy ending. It wasn’t always what you expected. Some people made the jump, but then realized it was just another step in the road. They had to keep looking.

It was a great book.

If you’re still wondering, “what should I do with my life?”, this is a great read. At the very least, it will show you that you’re not alone. Millions of us ponder the question at various stages in our lives. This book will give you a look at what happened when people tried to find the answer.

I recommend you read it.

I was anxiously awaiting the books release. So on launch day, I ordered a copy on my Kindle. I took a quick peak, which turned into reading a few pages, which then snowballed into reading the entire book in one sitting.

Rework represents the new rules of business from the guys who are walking the walk and not just writing books. The CEO, Jason Fried, started 37Signals as a small web development company back in 1999. As of today, the company has created  on-line tools such as Basecamp, Campfire, Highrise, and many others. 37Signals now has over three-million customers worldwide. Not such a small web development company anymore are they?

To me, this book solidifies many of the assumptions I’ve carried for a long time. Those spending time learning the concepts and theories in business school might be wasting their time. Learning in-depth concepts and theories maybe outdated and may not work as well anymore.

Mark Cuban’s quote represents that pretty clearly. He says,

“If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I’m investing in REWORK every time. A must read for every entrepreneur.”
-Mark Cuban, co-founder HDNet, owner of the Dallas Mavericks”

I tend to agree with Cuban here. So Mark, if you’re looking for someone…. drop me an email

It’s a fast and enjoyable read, and I highly recommended it to anyone with an interest in working for themselves or starting a business.

I wanted to say it’s a great read for anyone with an interest in entrepreneurship, but David and Jason say, “enough with entrepreneurs!”

They suggest we should retire that term immediatley. They say that the term entrepreneur is loaded with baggage and smells like a member’s-only club. They continue to say, “everyone should be encouraged to start his/her own business, not just some rare breed that self-identifies as an entrepreneur.”

If you’ve ever wanted to start your own business, but you’re worried that you don’t have the business savvy of an MBA graduate, this just might be your ticket. This could be the tool that  provides you with more real-world applicable business knowledge than an MBA, and you can acquire it in just under two hours for about $10 bucks.

Buy it. It’s worth it.

This weekend I finished Switch by Dan & Chip Heath. It was fantastic and I highly recommend it.

On Saturday night I started a second book which is blowing me out of the water. I find myself mesmerized by every word, sentence & paragraph. My typical fast read has turned into a slow and methodical journey that still has me hanging on to the edge of my seat.

The book I’m reading is The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

I’ve only read about 60% of the book, but I have no doubts this will be one of my favorite reads of the year. I’m hooked.

Jacqueline’s story is the quintessential case-study of a linchpin in action. It’s no surprise that Seth has been pushing  us to read it.

What’s really struck a chord with me about Jacqueline’s journey is that not once did she ever have a map or a manual telling her what the next step was. Everything she experienced and learned was the result of taking steps into the dark unknown. Sometimes the road was extremely bumpy, sometime it was an utter failure, but she kept on moving.

Just like Joy, who we met yesterday,  nobody instructed Jacqueline on how to do it. She just did it.

I’ll review the book in-depth at a later date…But….

Being someone who’s sold information products in the past and has been  involved in the Internet Marketing niche or more specifically, the “how to make money” niche, it’s sad to see people constantly falling for the deception of the quick fix. I  feel apologetic  for any of my own contributions towards the search for a “manual.” I feel guilty for even slightly perpetuating that such a manual might exist, or that I’ve promoted products created by others that promised the manual.

People will spend thousands of dollars, even when the bank account is already overdrawn, on the promise of overnight riches and fast money.

The manual doesn’t exist, quit looking for it. The promise of a step-by-step manual in exchange for your money is a farce. Anyone who tells you it does actually exist, is lying to take your money. There’s no such thing as instant work-at-home riches, or wealth in your underwear with a few clicks of the mouse. It doesn’t exist.

As soon as you can accept this, you can do two things:

1) Put your wallet away, and stop stressing about missing out on the next super hyped-up thing (promising a map).

2) Start plotting your own course by taking steps into the unknown.

Read this book. It will change you.

One of the speakers at The Art Of Marketing conference, in Toronto, this past Tuesday, was Sally Hogshead. Her presentation was brilliant and amazingly executed. She’s one of those presenters who can keep the audience actively engaged, and she did it in one of the most unique ways I’ve ever seen – she offered shots of Jägermeister.

Photos by Sheila Goldgrab, www.leadership-gold.com

Sally was looking for “Jägermeister virgins.” Those are people who have never tasted the cult classic better known as “Jager”. Sally’s goal wasn’t to get the audience all ‘liquor’ed’ up in the hope that we might enjoy her presentation more, instead she was proving a point. Jägermeister is a brand that sells close to a 100 million bottles a year and most people don’t like it. In fact,  most people despise the taste of Jäger.

Since none of us like it, why the heck are we buying and drinking it at such an alarming rate? The reason we drink it is we’re fascinated by it –  hence the title of Sally’s new book “Fascinate.” (which I plan to read as soon as I can)

I can remember the rumors from back in High School, (all of which Sally mentioned) in ”It’s made of  Elk’s Blood,” “It’s got drugs in it,” etc. All of which are false by the way.

The real truth here is that this is the primary reason we continue to consume massive amounts of this stuff. Even though it tastes bad, we’re fascinated by it, and there is a trigger of fascination in play that’s influencing our decisions.

Sally says there are seven Triggers that are used to fascinate us and trigger a response or desired action from us, like buying something; Ta-da.

The seven triggers are:

• Mystique – Jägger is made of Elk’s blood and contains hallucinogens – McDonald’s Secret Sauce – The KFC Secret Recipe – That’s mystique.
• Power – We’re fascinated and influenced by people of power and control. Power is the ability to motivate but also create fear. To me, power is seen in the people and leaders who challenge the status quo. They rise up and say, “wait a minute, why do that when you could be doing this?” Everyone else is doing “that.” It’s the top film critic who motivates us to go see this movie over another. That is power.
• Lust – The seduction of pleasure! I want that now! The giant big mac on the billboard, as the perfect hamburger, is almost irresistible and we can taste it.  The dipping of strawberries into oozing milk chocolate. That’s lust.
• Alarm – “Only 20 copies left……Order now” “You’ve got to call in the next 90 minutes if you want all 743 knives for only three easy payments of $19.95.” That’s alarm.
• Trust – Sally gave the example of Toyota for trust. Trust is the hardest trigger to use properly. The entire brand of Toyota for over 100 years was built using trust. Trust of quality, trust of safety, trust they were doing things right. Now it’s broken. That “was” trust.
• Vice – Sally mentioned the story of Tiger and the temptation of the forbidden fruit. He  was obviously fascinated enough that he grabbed it, multiple times. We’re tempted by the vice trigger constantly, and that’s the reason we’re so fascinated by the Tiger saga. That’s  vice.
• Prestige -  Think of expensive watches or fine champagne like Dom Perignon. Of course, it’s not just expensive and luxury items to create prestige. It’s also present when Lance Armstrong wins another race , or  when Visa runs comeback story ads during the Olympics.  Success – the finish line – the accomplishment. That’s prestige.

Everyone of us naturally use these triggers within our personalities. Sally has provided a test you can take to see which triggers you naturally use to trigger fascination. Take the “F-Test” now.

Thanks Sally for a great presentation!

Yesterday, I finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I promised myself, after reading Outliers and What The Dog Saw, that I would take a very long and extended Malcolm Gladwell break. Then this book came up and I had the opportunity to knock it out.

I’ve decided that my reviews should be short and to the point, since I’m already five years late to the Tipping Point party. So here’s a quick understanding of the Tipping Point.

I call this review “When Uncool Becomes Cool Then Uncool Again” Or maybe it should be – “When cool becomes uncool then cool and back to uncool” I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Malcom wants to give us the “WHY”  reason things became insanely popular, or why suddenly crime in New York City, that was increasing dramatically every year for over 20 years, suddenly just dropped.

The bad people in New York didn’t just wake up one day and decide to start behaving themselves.

Remember when Crocs were kinda cool, or maybe they weren’t really at all. I had a pair and still do. Then they hit the tipping point and suddenly everyone owned some.

Not cool anymore. When George starts wearing them, we’ve tipped.

Malcom says that ideas, products, marketing campaigns, etc. spread just like the flu. He calls it a social epidemic when something takes off and hits the tipping point.

I sneeze on you. You sneeze on twenty people. They sneeze on 100 people. Those 100 people sneeze on 5000. They sneeze on 50,000 and then we’re all sick, laying in bed and ticked off.

Malcolm states three rules of a social epidemics.

The Law of the Few - These are the people who spread the disease. There are certain types of people who can spread diseases but not everyone can. In fact, Gladwell says epidemics start because there are three certain types of people.

See if you can figure out who these people are within your group of friends…..

1. Connectors – Your overly social friend who knows everyone. Everyone has that one friend that seems to be able to bring everyone together on Friday night for a great time. He or she is the connector type of personality. If he started wearing Crocs, you started to consider it…But you wouldn’t have before.

He’s the friend who, somehow or another, also knows everyone at the bar. He’s your friend with 1200 friends on Facebook.

2. Mavens – This is your friend who knows everything. He has knowledge on every subject and is willing to share it whether you need it or not. Want the best price on a pizza? The best place to order shoes online or find the cheapest shipping, this is your maven.

The thing about Mavens is, even if you don’t ask for this information, he is going to share it.

3. Salesman – The friend who makes you jump. The persuader. The peer pressure friend….. He/She has the ability and personality to convince you to wear those giant rubber clogs and, therefore, you do.

The Stickiness Factor

Great marketers have figured out how to make messages stick.
It’s all about finding the sticky element. When Sesame Street was first starting, all the professionals told the creators that they had to separate fact from fiction. Big Bird couldn’t be seen having conversations with real humans because this would be too confusing for most children.

When they tested the format, it flopped. They decided to go against all the professionals and mix the elements that became Sesame Street.

I don’t think we’re too messed up because of it, do you?

The Power of Context

The Power of Context is really interesting. This law states that we’re heavily influenced by our environment.

Crime dropped dramatically in New York when they simply started cleaning stuff up.

OK…. I’ve had enough.

I’m cutting this post short because, quite frankly, I’m five years late and there are 10 billion reviews of this book online already. Read it if you want

Final Takeaways

It was a decent read. I’m not sure I totally agree with everything Malcom is saying, but it will certainly make me think about things just a bit differently.

When looking to spread your message, look for the three types of people I listed above. Don’t waste your time on anyone else. These are your disease infectors.

Change is possible. Your message just might not be sticky enough though. Look for subtle ways to make it stick. This might require meticulous testing and going against what the professionals say. Test, Test, Test.!

Surroundings Matter. Check out the Broken Window Theory.

Sometimes the things we think are very unexplainable are actually quite easily explained. We could just be assuming the wrong explanation.

And don’t forget, cool becomes uncool, but can always become cool again. It just needs to tip.

An example of something this is building momentum and moving toward the tipping point: Vibram Five Fingers!

The book I finished yesterday was The Leadership Moment by Michael Useem. What an amazing book! Nine amazing and inspirational stories of leadership and what happened when the moment to lead presented itself.

I highly recommend this book and give it a big two thumbs up. I’ll  be referring to this book in the future and most definitely reading it again.

Here’s a quick rundown of the nine stories and moments of leadership that are discussed in the book. You can click on the names of those involved for further information.

Roy Vagelos: Roy had to make a huge decision while he was leading, as CEO, to the billion dollar pharmaceutical company Merck. Merck had developed a cure for river blindness, a disease which was effecting millions of people around the globe, especially in developing and poor countries. The problem? The people who desperately needed it, couldn’t afford it. Roy Vagelos made a decision, which will forever be criticized by some and praised by others. Merck will give away the medication for free, forever. Final answer.

This was a decision made by the CEO. A CEO’s goals are to increase profits, and nothing more, as some  would argue. Roy Vagelos made a decision as a leader that people came before profits. Brilliant.

Wagner Dodge: Wagner was a leader, but in his moment of need, his team experienced some leadership breakdowns. He was a strong and an amazing leader. But what we learn from Wagner is about the links that must be strengthened amongst teams and the bonds that must be solidified by their leaders. We can learn a lot from what happened to Wagner Dodge and his team of which 12 lost their lives in the Mann Gulch Fire. In a time of desperate need, as Wagner and his team were surrounded by walls of flames, the leadership chain was broken.

Eugene Kranz: Have you seen Apollo 13? This is the guy who brought people together to bring those boys back home safely. What seemed like an impossible situation become Eugene’s Moment-of- Leadership. Failure was not an option. This is an amazing story of someone who took charge, when the chances of survival were poor, and many team members had already given up hope.

Arlene Blum: Arlene led the first all-woman ascent of Annapurna. Another amazing story. She was one of the first to say “A Woman’s place is on top.”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Led his demoralized and battered troops into what would be their greatest battle of the Civil War. This story reminded me of Braveheart and the way Mel Gibson rallied his troops…. FREEDOM!

John Gutfreund: He made some critical errors as a leader. He became too busy and paid little attention to important matters that required immediate attention. He almost brought down the  now defunct Wall Street investment bank giant, Salomon Brothers. It was Warren Buffet who came to the helm of this severely battled ship and managed to guide them to shore safely. His role of leadership at the time of need is remarkable. There are some positive takeaways to learn from John Gutfeund and the mistakes he made.

Clifton Wharton Jr: He became CEO of a 50-billion dollar pension fund that needed a total restructuring. It was a new set of eyes that brought the fresh leadership skills to this massive and seemingly impossible situation.

Nancy Barry: Nancy gave up a high paying position of a lifetime so she could lead an organization with a vision and outlook more aligned with her own. She was one of the pioneers of micro-financing. I wonder if she gives to Kiva?

Alfredo Cristiani: The political leadership of El Salvador was in shambles. People were being murdered left and right. No one could agree on anything and, therefore, violence seemed like the only answer. What do you do in such political and tumultuous times?

Well of course! You bring in a former coffee grower without any political ties or existing biases to run for President. It worked for El Salvador. The leadership of a total outsider was needed to see things from each side and be able to lead accordingly.

This is a pretty brief run-down of the book and the stories involved.

Should you read it? Absolutely.

Does it deserve it’s recognition as one of the best business books of all time? Absolutely

Can it make you a better leader? Yes, of course. That can’t be guaranteed though; but if the moment does present itself, you may remember, in your time of need, the stories of these nine individuals, and it could make the difference between your success or failure.

This is part of the manual to being ready when the moment arrives.

Be ready.