Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
Write letters to 10 influential followers, past client or old friends you know are working on something new.
The $10 it will cost in stamps and envelopes will certainly be better than the $10 you could spend on Facebook advertising.
“Hey, I know your wildly busy and striving for success. Is there anyway I can pitch in? Let me know. *phone* *email*”
You’ll either come out remarkable or memorable to the recipient, and even to those that don’t respond.
Stay Positive & Let Me Know How It Goes
1) No plan B: They choose not to have an alternative, a backup, a second choice. When the only way is forward, what choice do you have?
2) They don’t just wake up early. They wake up early and get shit done: That might be time to meditate and reflect or set up the game plan for the day or to exercise. As weird as it is, people are still amazed how early successful people wake up and start their day.
3) Shun the naysayers: They ignore the critics, avoid the crowds and shun the naysayers. They become successful and remarkable because they don’t let anyone in their circle that would stop them from it.
4) Proud, but humble: They cheer on their own victories within. They may celebrate with others, but pride stays inside.
5) Surprise: Successful people continue to give more, add more value to what they create before they ship and surprise those with the unexpected. They take the extra time between “done” and “shipped” to add unexpected value.
6) Along with surprise, they remain interesting: This is my favorite example.
7) Unconventional: They do what others might not in a way they wouldn’t. Essentially, they accentuate the weird.
8) Bring Engagement: In all they do, all they create, they engage in conversation, build interaction, and involve others.
Bonus
What they don’t do: Seek perfection, wait to be chosen, settle, follow status quo, listen to their lizard brain, gossip, define success with money, accept information without questioning it.
Stay Positive & Go Be Remarkable, Success Will Follow
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It’s going to take more than a day to create something remarkable. Whatever you can do in one day, someone else has already done in one day. No one is impressed anymore. Expectations can’t be exceeded in one day. Maybe they can in one week, but even that gap is closing.
It takes time to develop your own process, to walk a distance long enough that you’ve left the main path.
I want to create something remarkable in one day as much as you. I want a single blog post I write in the morning to go viral. I want to come up with an idea, call a friend, build it in the afternoon, push it out in the evening and find out it was a true overnight success.
Sure, there are outliers and a .0005 chance the one-day thing can happen, but are you willing to spend all of your energy and creative scope on that?
It’s likely the one-day work you’re doing now isn’t making you feel uncomfortable.
Instead of writing another blog post, start writing an article to be published on 99U or PRdaily or some other niche platform that coincides with your focus.
Instead of recording another five-minute talk about the industry you’re in, plan out a 30 minute segment that digs deep, makes you uncomfortable, and goes where few have been (or no one).
We can hate the truth that it’s unlikely we won’t create something remarkable in a short time period, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Stay Positive & You’ve Got To Leverage The Long Haul
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The opportunity to poke around, to try new things, to experiment, to create something remarkable has always been here, but there’s a fundamental change sweeping the notion in terms of people’s perceptions.
In the past, the opportunity was seen as a risk.
See, there’s really no difference between an opportunity or a risk except in how you look at it.
More and more people are changing their perspective, altering their worldview, choosing themselves instead of waiting to be picked by someone else, waiting to be handed an opportunity. Instead, they’re making their own.
They’re flipping the switch of “it’s too much risk” to “this just might work.”
The beauty of this movement, this moment, is that the opportunity will always be here.
The opportunity to create your own job, do what few others are doing, to play chemistry with your hands (work), your legs (hustle) and your heart (art/passion).
There’s a reason every post ends with a reminder to stay positive. I’ve chosen my perspective. Have you?
Stay Positive & Unlike A Mediocre Job, This Opportunity Will Always Be Here
HT to all my idols who through them I’ve learned to take the opportunity. I’m alive. I’m an artist. Thanks.
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The most lively writing I’ve written and read is when the author uses all five senses. The most remarkable inventions stimulate all five senses. The best stories incorporate all five senses.
Iscream is delicious tasting, but there’s something special about taking the label off the cone (touch) and to watching how the Iscream gets scooped from the tub (see). But there’s something lacking in the smell and hearing department. How could you change that? How can you appeal to all five senses?
Jinsop Lee has a great Ted talk about designing for all five senses: basically he answers why sex is so good.
The five senses are worth considering before you ship your next project. It might be what it takes to turn something great into something remarkable.
Stay Positive & The Senses Also Help You Differentiate Your Product
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A great way to sell your book might be to package it with someone else’s.
A great way to sell your webinar might be to ask an industry leader to add your product to their education bundle.
A great way to get people to see the remarkable work you create may be to publish it on different group-blog or community platforms.
You may want to create on your own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell your art with others.
Stay Positive & Why Pass Up On A Win-Win
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I tell my team I only want to hear how we can make an idea work. I don’t want to hear all the issues of why it won’t work UNLESS they provide a solution to it that makes the work more remarkable.
Otherwise we push through, we ship, and if it fails, then we figure out why it didn’t work.
More often than not, your lizard brain will speak up with bogus reasons why an idea won’t work, miniscule excuses to quit, to not create, to not ship. “Not everyone will like it,” “they’re not willing to pay that much,” “they already have B that does Y, they don’t need C to do Y too.”
Unless your gut says it’s a bad idea, then your lizard brain is merely shooting shit, unworthy reasons to not take the risk, the leap, and by extension, not do the work that matters.
When fear is shouting at you to stop moving forward, it’s worth reminding yourself something that might not work, might also go viral.
Work that might not appeal to 1,000 people, might impact 10 people who become your new tribe for your next venture.
The book that might not get downloaded a million times, might get downloaded by your future business partner.
Amanda Palmer’s record label said it was a failure her record only sold 25,000 copies. Yet, when she ran her Kickstarter, just over 25,000 backers gave her more than $1.1 million to create something remarkable again.
It’s only when we listen to the lizard brain and the naysayers; only when we don’t push on and ship our ideas, that we truly lose.
Move forward and ship something. If it doesn’t work. Follow Neil Gaimon’s advice: make better art.
Stay Positive & You’ll Be Surprised At How Often Your Lizard Brain Is Wrong
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