Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
is also the greatest student. Even experts have room to grow, and the only way to do so is to be sure those you decide to manage can teach you as much as you teach them. The moment you decide to only be a teacher is when you stop growing, stop learning, stop developing.
Stay Positive & Is That What You Really Want?
Remarkable ideas are made by finding a void and filling it, finding a unique problem and solving it, finding a neglected world view and creating a new way to promote it.
Everything you think is remarkable wasn’t, at one point, thought about by a large number of people, but those who thought about it, thought a lot about it.
Remarkable ideas are built on the foundation of one thing and of a few people.
What chasm are you filling? Who are you connecting? What void are you populating?
Stay Positive & Don’t Forget What Makes Your Idea Remarkable
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Rather than quitting, burning the manuscript, scrapping the design because it’s not perfect, not exactly what you wanted, not what you promised, what else could you do with your project?
The business model you began building, but never completed, could you put it online anyway? Perhaps someone could work off it. Perhaps it will inspire someone. Perhaps it would show people you’re onto something and they may start waiting to see what else you share.
The novel you started writing, but didn’t finish. Maybe you can manage writing a conclusion regardless it’s not where you wanted the conclusion to be, and shipping it. Someone may read it and be impressed. Someone may feel confident in shipping their own work because they saw you still did.
Shipping something that’s your second best can still be a place of inspiration, of growth, of connecting with others. When you know you won’t finish with a first place project, consider shipping a second best version.
Two benefits of second best:
1) There’s no resentment, no regret, no disappointment for not finishing and shipping your art.
2) Instead of sitting on the project, waiting to be inspired to finish it, you can just move on.
Stay Positive & Move On, Move Forward
Richard Branson. Bernadette Jiwa. Chris Brogan. These idols of ours, they weren’t always this remarkable, this flawless, this all-knowing, this helpful.
Jump back to page 400 of Seth Godin’s blog and notice how different the style of writing is.
Listen to the first few podcasts of Debbie Millman or James Altucher and notice how different their conversations are.
Watch some of Tim Ferriss’s old YouTube videos compared to what he rolls out today.
They weren’t always the way they are now. Through falling, failure, and feedback, they’ve come a long way. However!
If we asked any one of our idols if they are happy with where they are at, they would say there is still room for improvement, that they’re still tweaking things, still trying new ways of communicating, of growing.
The way they are now won’t be the way they are 20 months from now either.
You can’t glide at remarkable, you can’t plateau at incredible, you can’t pause at excellent. These labels are only stamped on those who keep moving forward. It doesn’t do anyone justice when we just accept that someone is talented.
Nor does it do us justice to think we can’t also work to where our idols are at now. They’ve made it to remarkable and work to stay that way. Why can’t/shouldn’t/won’t we?
Stay Positive & Let’s Do It
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1) Build your business backwards
Why do you exist? What is your mission? How can you see your mission changing from when you start it to five years from now?
2) Trash the map
But still set goals. You don’t need an exact step-by-step plan. Why? If you didn’t know already, plans change. They always change.
3) How you sing in the shower
is typically the voice that will resonate best with people. It makes you vulnerable, humble, and human. You need to have a voice that sets you apart.
I also suggest dressing the same way each day, too. Steve Jobs built his image around the black turtleneck, jeans and white shoes. Seth Godin has his bald head. And I have my hair. Here’s a good read on this.
4) Clear the fog
Be forward with potential clients and customers. Tell them exactly what you can do for them. Be sure it’s remarkable. Don’t hold back, but still find ways to go the extra-mile.
5) Wear cologne
People can smell your enthusiasm, your excitement, your passion. If you don’t have those characteristics, you’re not doing what you really love. Anyhow, a great chunk of what fills customers with joy is simply seeing you filled with it. Use them as a mirror.
6) Acquire a dislike for vanilla
Do what others are not. Try what others have not. Dream like anything is possible, because it is.
7) Don’t get attached
Be ready to change, adapt, and overcome. You can prepare for this by returning to step #1.
8) Stay Positive
It always works out. But more importantly, it always works out for those who keeping working at it.
Stay Positive & Start Incorporating These Steps Now
Feedback is one of the many practical, but often difficult practices of a leader, manager or the alike. It’s often ignored because it’s an uncomfortable practice to criticize someone’s work meaningfully; to provide legitimate advice that doesn’t pain the emotions of the one being critiqued.
To sit down with a person and carefully show them all that they’ve done wrong is not something anyone – whether they are in a leadership role or not – looks forward to, which is why so many resort to sending an email instead. I plead you refrain from that method.
Providing in-person feedback is vitally important for the future success of those needing the critique. Not only do you both work through being uncomfortably vulnerable and leave having learned from mistakes, there’s also a behind-the-conscious interpretation of feedback on the receiver’s end.
By receiving feedback, they know they can keep improving, that you believe there’s more to them than what they’re showing, and it gives them something to strive for.
Consider this perspective: What are you telling them when you don’t provide feedback? When you don’t provide feedback, you communicate that you don’t think they can do better, that they can’t learn from their mistakes, that you don’t see them as capable of improvement. Is that how you want your employees, partners, friends to feel?
Feedback. Provide it.
Stay Positive & It’s Time Well Spent, It’s An Investment, It’s Worth It
1,000 people may walk into your store today, may pick up your book, may scroll through your Tumblr. Do they all matter? Was your marketing strategy to reach the mass, to get eyeballs?
Who you’re already reaching and in what ways you’re moving them is necessary to know when evaluating your target market and marketing method for business success.
I can’t stand looking at my page view count on GarthBox for one big reason. How many doesn’t matter nearly as much as who does. The person who comments on a post or shares it on their FB to start a discussion is worth more than any number of eyeballs to me.
If given the choice to have 200,000 followers or 2,000, I’ll choose the latter because the 2,000 – I’m sure – are remarkable, personal, and are more “friends” than “strangers.” Whereas, the 200,000 followers would feel disconnected. I would struggle to connect with them all.
Marketing is about finding the people who want to listen, who want to interact, and ignoring the mass who may read, but inevitably keep scrolling past your tweet.
When action, response, engagement matters, the who stands out.
Stay Positive & You Might Have Traffic, But Is Anyone Parking?
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