Better late than never.

2011 was an amazing year. Here’s a quick look at what happened both personally and professionally in 2011, and where I’m going in 2012 with some goals and resolutions.

2011 Recap

1. Watched our sweet baby girl Avalon go from a tiny helpless newborn into a fast-walking, curious, and adventurous 13-month old. It was a luxury to be able to spend most of the year at home with both my wife and daughter.
2. Celebrated six years of marriage to my wife Heather.
3. Turned 31. No longer eligible to make the  ”top 30 under 30 lists.”
4. Spoke at a seminar held by the folks at WishList Member in conjunction with an event put on by Anne Holland of SubscriptionSiteInsider.com. This event was held on 5th Avenue in New York City where I met Jimmy Fallon outside on the street while waiting for the event to start.
5. Became the go-to guy on membership site retention for WishList Insider.
   
6. Conducted a Master Class on Membership & Subscription Retention with Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com
7. Created an online course with my friend Shawn Veltman on building successful online subscription sites around a topic you’re passionate about. One of our original members launched her first site and got over 100 members signed up!
8. Took on new local consulting clients. Watched numerous clients go on to have banner years. One client expressed their best year in over 20 years of business.
9. Took on new coaching clients. It’s always great to see people you’re working with make big steps and reap the rewards of taking those steps.
10. Had another great year with TheBrewersMarket.com – we had a fantastic Christmas processing hundreds of orders in just a few weeks. The business was featured on Etsy’s front page (again) and also featured in a Huffington Post gift guide.

And now… Let’s move on to 2012.

2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year. I’m working towards expanding my consultancy, specifically with regards to helping larger companies make use of the principles that have been so effective for my online clients in the areas of client retention, community development, and authentic communication.

1. Get back on the Paleo diet healthy eating train.
2. Attend the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island.
3. Take a 2-week vacation over the summer with Heather & Avalon.
4. Crossfit at least four times per week.
5. Spend time every single day playing and laughing with Heather & Avalon.
6. Blog at least twice per week.
7. Read at least one new book per week.
8. Continue to do more public speaking and live events. I’m scheduled to speak at another SubscriptionSiteInder.com event in San Francisco. You can read more about that here. And if you’re in the area, you should definitely check it out.
9. Join the Alan Weiss Mentorship Program.
10. Expand an exciting new consulting practice to work with larger companies and bigger brands. More on this to come….

Talk soon,

Noah

My wife is new to the whole blog world. Her and her sister have their favorite blogs. They enjoy getting together to talk about all the updates and going-ons in so-and-so’s life. This past weekend, I overheard them talking about their all-time favorite blog and how the blogger hadn’t made a peep for months! They were both fed up and had moved on.

It made me think of my own blog, and I thought that I should touch base.

No excuses here except that over the past 5 months I’ve been busy…. very busy.

Before I move on to The 6-month Rule, here’s brief bullet-point update of what I’ve been up to.

• Baby… Avalon is nearly 8-months old. I wouldn’t give up anything for the time I’ve been fortunate enough to be at home, and watch her grow over the past 8 months.
• I’ve been taking on a few new local business clients and handling their marketing systems.
• Met with Stu McLaren & Tracy Childers of Wishlist Member and Wishlist Insider - working on a top-secret venture with those guys. More on that later…
• In the process of building a local Windsor/Essex Business Mastermind Network.
• Concurrently working on a couple of new information products and membership sites.

There’s more, but that’s a start. Not nearly enough time to go out fishing over the past few months but all is well.

Here’s my 6-month self-employment rule.

A budding entrepreneur recently asked me when it was OK to leave his day job to work on his entrepreneurial ventures full-time. For me, I left my corporate-world marketing job in 2005 and haven’t looked back once. The 6-month rule is simple. You work on your venture, your passion, and your side-business at night or whenever you’ve got free time. When you are able to earn at least the same or more income (i.e. A bigger paycheck!) for a minimum of six months from your venture, you’re probably safe to make the jump.

Be strict. Feeding your spouse & children should always come first.

What have you been up to?

P.S. Here’s a picture of Avalon. She’ll be 8 months old in a few days. Scroll down, and look at the picture below taken at 3.5 months.

“What a nut!”

“Sure, good luck with that Henry”

In the Windsor area, where I live, folks jump for joy when a new call-centre decides to open up in town. You can’t blame them, jobs are good, and we certainly need them here. The problem is we’re officially replacing factory work with more factory work and the new factories pay less.

Of course, this is merely a stall-tactic as we’d be fooling ourselves if we believed these new factories will offer the same long 30-40 year careers our parents had.

Yet, we’ve decided it’s easier to take the factory work than it is to start something new. I’m starting to wonder what we can do to get over that hurdle, because I’m not sure we can stall that much longer. So what needs to be done? Who needs to speak up?

Do I? Maybe I do. Can you hear me???

We need to find our pokers. We need to find the folks willing to cause a ruckus. We need to find the ones willing to initiate and start stuff, because poking is infectious.

What we really need are people who are not afraid to be laughed at.

I’m not afraid of being laughed anymore, but I’ve certainly done my share of hiding. I’ve procrastinated and avoided starting something when I should have. I’ve left projects in the dust because I chickened out. I’ve spent time writing but didn’t hit the publish button because I was afraid of being laughed at. That’s normal folks. We’re all a bit afraid.

But the real magic happens when you suppress the fear long enough to get something out the door. I started a new business last year that was exposed to an audience of well over ten million people in its first 60 days of operation.

We need to be more like Henry.

He had three simple suggestions for me.

1) Only do what you love.

2) Have a big, big, big vision.

3) Work super hard.

Wise words that can be applied to anything we do in life.

So simple, yet how many people are wandering through the world not loving what they do, without a vision, and only doing the minimum amount of work required?

Simple steps can mean big changes.

Then came the businesses who said they didn’t need a website. Their customers would never use the Internet to find out about them.

After that came the people who said they’d never own a cell phone. Who can forget the people who said the iPod would never make it?

Next came your friends who said they’d never join Facebook or send a Tweet.

Now comes the people who believe everything will eventually go “back to normal”. The big three will eventually return to Windsor/Detroit, fire up the factories, and start creating jobs again. They say we’re just in a slump.

How many times are they going to be wrong?

You’re different though. You’re going to do something about it. Right?

When I started flipping through it last night, I saw a great list from Chris that I had seen before. The list originally appeared in his free manifesto entitled, A Brief Guide to World Domination.

Here’s the list.

Eleven Ways to Be Unremarkably Average

1. Accept what people tell you at face value
2. Don’t question authority
3. Go to college because you’re supposed to, not because you want to learn something
4. Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England
5. Don’t try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English
6. Think about starting your own business, but never do it
7. Think about writing a book, but never do it
8. Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it
9. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work
10. Don’t stand out or draw attention to yourself
11. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.

Chris’s new book isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK. There is no shame in living an average life. That average – “the life performance average” if you will,  could be a bit on the high side. But chances are we’re on the low side of things. But hey, don’t sweat it, it’s only an average.

If you’re unremarkably average, Chris is going to push you to ask yourself some tough questions. He’s going to push you to try something outside your comfort zone. Chris repeatedly gives you ways, throughout the book, to back out. Many will back out. The average will put it down, or send it back for a refund. The average will smile and smirk as they read Chris’s suggestions for a life of non-conformity.

Do you see yourself in this list? Do you care? Or is average and unremarkable good enough for you?

Then again, maybe Chris’s book is exactly what you’re looking for.

Did you know American job satisfaction is at an all-time low? And us Canadians aren’t doing much better on the job satisfaction front.

So then what exactly are we celebrating? Is it just another day off? Just another day away from the dreaded workplace?

Seth Godin weighed in on Labor Day today and said:

Whatever happened to Labor?

Not Labor with a capital L, as in organized labor unions. I mean labor as in skilled workers solving interesting problems. I mean craftspeople that use their hands, their backs, and their heads to do important work.

Labor was the key part of the manufacturing revolution. Industrialists needed smart, dedicated, trained laborers to solve interesting problems. Putting things together took more than pressing a few buttons, it took initiative and skill and care. Labor improvised.

It took thirteen years to build the Brooklyn Bridge and more than twenty-five laborers died during its construction. There was no systematic manual to follow. The people who built it largely figured it out as they went.

The Singer sewing machine, one of the most complex devices of its century, had each piece fitted by hand by skilled laborers.

Sometime after this, once Henry Ford ironed out that whole assembly line thing, and things changed. Factories got far more complex and there was less room for improvisation as things changed scale.

The boss said, “Do what I say. Exactly what I say.”

Amazingly, labor said something similar. They said to the boss, “Tell us exactly what to do.” In many cases, work rules were instituted, flexibility went away and labor insisted on doing exactly what they had agreed to do, no more, no less. At the time, this probably felt like power. Now we know what a mistake it was.

In a world where labor does exactly what it’s told to do, it will be devalued. Obedience is easily replaced, and thus one worker is as good as another. And devalued labor will be replaced by machines or cheaper alternatives. We say we want insightful and brilliant teachers, but then we insist they do their labor precisely according to a manual invented by a committee…

Companies that race to the bottom in terms of the skill or cost of their labor end up with nothing but low margins. The few companies that are able to race to the top, that can challenge workers to bring their whole selves–their human selves–to work, on the other hand, can earn stability and growth and margins. Improvisation still matter, if you set out to solve interesting problems.

The future of labor isn’t with less education, less OSHA and more power to the boss. The future of labor belongs to enlightened, passionate people on both sides of the plant; people who want to do work that matters.

That’s what Labor Day is about, not the end of a summer on the beach.

Seth’s right. The world of labor has changed. The future of labor has changed. Seth say’s the future belongs to the enlightened, passionate people, doing work that matters.

I found one of those people.

I received this email a few weeks back from Bill Henniger, the owner of Rogue Fitness. Rogue Fitness sells products designed and manufactured in the USA. Bill Henniger is creating jobs, lots of jobs (about 260 American Jobs). Bill Henniger is a Linchpin. But Bill is also frustrated. He’s tried of hearing excuses, and he’s willing to say it.

There was a time when we made things in the United States and we were damn proud of them. We designed, cast, forged, machined and polished steel. When I started this business, I couldn’t understand why we could not cast American Made Kettlebells, how is this possible? Well apparently it is possible because the fine people in Rhode Island are making them by the hundreds for us.

It is high time for all of us to begin building and inventing again, time to make things with your hands. I am tired of the excuses. Look at the talented people around you and figure out how to make things happen. It is time for a second Industrial Revolution. Is there a factory in your home town that used to make something? Where did all those skilled folks go? These people can sew shoes or build skyscrapers, but for now, they are doing nothing.

Time to be entrepreneurial and make something. Go find a journeyman.

Bill has a reason to celebrate today.

So here’s my take on it.

This is Labor Day. It’s a day to celebrate the social and economic achievements of workers. I like to consider Labor Day a fresh start.

Next year at this time, celebrate your achievements as a worker. Really celebrate your achievements.

To do that, you’re going to have to invest yourself into labor. It’s going to have to be a labor of love. Do whatever it takes to do work that matters. Do whatever it takes to do work that’s meaningful; work that’s built on on a foundation of both compassion and passion.

Do that and next year by this time, truly celebrate Labor Day. You’ll have earned that day at the beach.

If you’re the captain of a ship in the midst of a dense fog and you hear a foghorn, you need to realize that it’s being blown for a reason. Its purpose is to let you know there’s a danger or hazard ahead. It’s purpose is to warn you, loud and clear, that you need to change your course.

When a 12-time best-selling author tells you that he’s moving on, and will no longer publish books the traditional way, the same way they’ve been published for years – it’s time to pay attention. The foghorn is audible.

Captains who refuse to pay attention to foghorns, or take the warnings seriously, end up hitting shoals and sinking their ships.

The captains of the newspaper industry refused to take the foghorn warnings seriously. The captains of the music industry covered their ears and refused to listen – what a disaster.

Traditional employees, working in traditional organizations, doing traditional work, captaining their own ships need to realize there’s a foghorn blowing. It might be faint right now, but if you listen carefully, you can hear it. If you wait long enough, it will be loud and clear. Or, it will be too late.

Those working on writing resumes, following the traditional rules of resume writing, and following the traditional templates, writing the same old boring resumes filled with bloated and hyped-up job experience, need to listen, and listen carefully.

Whatever industry you’re in, take a moment and clear your ears.

Is that a foghorn I hear?

From Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com and his book Ignore Everybody

Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.

Human beings have this thing I call the “Pissed Off Gene”. It’s that bit of our psyche that makes us utterly dissatisfied with our lot, no matter how kindly fortune smiles upon us.

Your business either lets you go hunt the woolly mammoth or it doesn’t. Of course, like so many white-collar jobs these days, you might very well be offered a ton of money to sit in the corner-office cave and pretend that you’re hunting, even if you’re not, even if you’re just pushing pencils. That is sad. What’s even sadder is that you agreed to take the money.

From Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com and his book Ignore Everybody

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.