Hurry To The Edge

It’s really difficult to get people to go to the edge. It’s foreign to them, it’s too risky, dangerous, new, uncertain. What I’ve noticed and experienced myself is some of us want to go to the edge, but we don’t want to go there alone. So we try to convince others to go with us, we try to persuade them to visit the edge when we ourselves haven’t yet been to it. I’m writing this to say it’s best to visit the edge yourself, alone, just you. There are so many people on the edge ready to welcome you with open arms. You won’t believe what you can do once you connect with others on the edge.

Hurry, before there are too many people on the edge.

 

Stay Positive & Race There, Perhaps Your Friends Will Follow

Before You Get Clientele

You obviously need to know what service you’re providing, what you can offer them and what you will charge them in return.

More importantly, though, you need to know what more you’re going to provide than what they are paying for. How will you manage to go the extra mile with each service you deliver?

It’s a hell of a lot easier to build the extra-mile into your strategy than to figure it out along the way.

 

Stay Positive & Think Of The Extra Mile As What Differentiates Yourself

It’s Not Just About Showing Up

You’ve got to check if you’re showing up in the right place. Are you where all the bright-minded people are hanging out? Are you really where the people you want to be like are hanging out? It matters.

I hang out on the 4th floor of the journalism and communications building in Madison. It’s the floor where all the professors and TAs are constantly walking. It’s where you find the students who care most about journalism because they are meeting with the professors and TAs. It’s where all the visiting celebrity journalists check-in. It’s where I’ve made some of the most special connections.

Think of it like dating in college again. The someone you’re interested in is in the same class as you, but it always seems inappropriate to make a move during class. However, you know he/she grabs coffee every Saturday morning at that one coffee shop. Don’t lie. You’re there every Saturday morning. Why? Because it’s not just about showing up (to class), it’s about showing up at the right place (to the coffee shop).

Same goes for getting venture capitalists to invest, for selling your book, for getting a mentor…

 

Stay Positive & It Helps To Have A Pick-Up Line Ready Too

Assorted Links

1. 6 keys to breaking into opinion writing (read)

2. 1.5 million balloons (watch)

3. Patatap (interactive)

4. Ad of the day (watch)

5. Watch it, Read it or Tweet it: How Americans View and Share News (read)

5.5 Infograph of the above (click to zoom)

Using All Your Potential: Bullying And Psychological Cardio

There’s extreme power in balance, in meditation, in flow. I just don’t believe you can use all your potential that way. If you think of an idea and proceed to ruminate, perhaps you’ll reach a symbolic conclusion. Then what? What if you think of an idea and then run with it, try it out, make it happen? Psychological cardio.

Forget all adjectives used to describe ideas. An idea is an idea. The real meaning of it is defined by what you do with the idea, how far you run with it, what you shape it into. Don’t tell me what kind of idea it is. It doesn’t matter. Show me.

How do you run with an idea? That’s where bullying comes in. I’m not fond of the connotation bullying has taken on; it’s completely negative. There’s so much more we can learn from it. We are our own best bullies.

Track coaches are great bullies too. They push you to run further, they yell at you to run faster, they blow their whistle to get you to try the jump again, only this time, jump higher.

B2B bosses are great bullies too. They’ll tell you to go back and do something again until it’s right, they hold meetings with you just to tell you where you are failing and how to improve, they adapt negative reinforcement strategies into their training.

And as I said, we are our own best bullies. We have the chance everyday to steal our own lunch money, to trip ourselves up on a project, to hate on ourselves when we half-ass something. However, we can also yell at ourselves to get up off the ground, to blow a mental whistle signaling to try something again (practice, practice, practice), and to threaten ourselves with unemployment.

Every person I’ve spoken to who states they are self-employed, also tells me “my boss can be a real ass sometimes.”

Rightfully so! As a friend Tweeted at me yesterday, it’s not about seeing just the forest or just the trees, it’s not all in or nothing. She means that it’s a dance. We can institute positive reinforcement, but if we want to reach our fullest potential, there must also be negative reinforcement. To get the most out of our rumination, we also need to act on our thoughts. Think about it in terms of bullying.

What you hear about bullying is only the negative extremes of it. You never hear of bullying gone right even though it happens in our lives everyday and turns out some of the most talented artists.

You have a chance to redefine bullying, you have a chance to build up your psychological cardio, you have a chance to use all of your potential. You can read all the inspirational quotes you want, but follow them up with the crack of a bull whip.

 

Stay Positive & Yes, Bullying CAN Be A Good Thing

Don’t forget to help stop the bad bullying

What Matters Most About Your Reach

It’s about what people keep of yours, right? They keep and hoard your books and are the first to buy one when it’s released. They keep their name tag they got at your event they attended. They keep the t-shirt with your logo you gave them. They keep remnants of you in their memory box or inspiration folder or Safari bookmark. Was any of this your goal?

I think it’s better to be talked about, to get someone to wear the t-shirt in hopes someone else asks about the logo, to encourage your tribe to share the books they buy with friends who can also benefit from them and to create an online space where like-minded followers can connect with each other.

Impact is about moving, about connecting, about shaking people into action, not about storing memories.

 

Stay Positive & What Are You Getting Your Audience To Do?