To gain interest in your story, your business, your art, you have to be interesting.
It is that simple.
Stay Positive & Let’s Not Make Things Difficult When They Needn’t Be
Difficult
“I Won’t Be To Blame.”
Earlier this week I went out to lunch with my PR team. A couple of us began talking about where we would live if we had to pick one place for the rest of our lives. One asked if money mattered, if it had to be “a realistic place.” I hadn’t even considered that…
I responded, “Well, I’m not going to say you won’t end up being a billionaire. So I guess any place is realistic.”
It’s difficult to acknowledge our own moments of blame, when we seek a scapegoat, when we pin the responsibility on someone else. It’s even more difficult to stop others from blaming us.
If she doesn’t become a billionaire or even a millionaire, at least I know I won’t be to blame. I didn’t add to her tank of self-doubt. I didn’t tell her it was impossible. I didn’t let her off easy.
I’m not one for “realistic.” I know something is up when I hear it.
If we could just retain some spirit of possibility with one another, we may have a new world opened to us. Maybe not a millionaire world, but certainly something special.
Stay Positive & Lift, Don’t Level With People
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Enlighten Others
What Makes An Artform Remarkable
The Importance of Being Earnest is by far my favorite play. I’ve read it twice and quoted from it multiple times over in my writing. (Also bias in the sense Oscar Wilde is my favorite poet.) I was finally fortunate enough to see a live rendition of it last night, and the show reminded me what makes a play or any artform remarkable.
People never talk about perfection and if they do, they are lying.
From a three hour-long play, only two actors made one mistake each. They merely started a word and, half-way through, restarted the word. There was a millisecond moment they questioned whether the word they were saying was the right word or not.
Again, over the span of three hours and thousands of words, only two moments reminded the audience the actors are human, and those two moments make all the difference in a remarkable show and an unremarkable one.
Jugglers, Actors, Humans
The reason jugglers attract such a crowd is they are in a constant state of risk. Even the most professional jugglers in the world still drop what they are juggling. If jugglers were perfect, no one would be impressed. The same goes for a playwright. The same goes for any form of art.
Slight noticeable errors are what we all relate to; it’s part of being human. When a minimal error is made during an act, it reminds the audience just how difficult, incredible and remarkable the art you’re doing is. As Earnest would suggest, it is mixing pleasure and science.
If anything were perfect entertainment (pleasure), it would go without being talked about. People talk about great experiences, sure, but never perfect ones and if they do, they are lying. (Consider giving them dental floss and reminding them lying through their teeth doesn’t count as flossing.) When an error is made, science complements pleasure.
The universal relation of humans is we may all strive for perfection, but we will never reach it. Any reminder of this concept, say, a slip of a word during a three hour-long play is what makes art of any kind, remarkable.
Stay Positive & Do Something Remarkable, Anything Except Perfection
Enlighten Others
But, Where Is The Difficult Part?
Godin speaks so much truth today.
I sat in Camp Randall stadium today to watch the University of Wisconsin’s 2014 commencement. John Huntsman, the deans, the chancellor and the student speakers talked about the Wisconsin experience, the trials all the graduates faced throughout their time at university. What each speaker spoke around was one important concept: reflection.
Graduates were told to reflect on their experiences and who helped them along the way; to reflect on the adversity and celebrations of the last four years. What they didn’t come right out asking the graduates to do was reflect on the difficult parts of their experience. Were there any?
If there weren’t. Was it that much of an experience? Was there that much value? Was the degree, the debt, the stress worth it?
This doesn’t go for just graduates, it goes for everyone in the workplace, everyone in the freelance realm, everyone everywhere.
You can make accomplishments in life, but where’s the value of them come from? Where is the difficult part?
If you haven’t found it, you have some searching and stretching to do.
Stay Positive & Congratulations To Those Who Made It Difficult On Themselves, They’re The Real Graduates
Enlighten Others
Accuracy vs. Understanding
I went to a Deutch restaurant this last weekend and ordered Liver dumpling soup. The waitress, instead of saying “okay,” said, “You know there’s no dumplings in the soup, right? A lot of customers will order this and end up disappointed when they see there aren’t any dumplings. Do you still want it?”
Wait. What?
No dumplings in liver DUMPLING soup? After trying it anyway and researching it later, I can confidently say the menu was accurate. Liver dumpling soup is actually a “dumpling” made of liver.
It’s a tricky thing for businesses to be both accurate and understanding of their customers. Some will have read this post and thought to themselves I said “Dutch restaurant” at the start of it or wondered what “Deutch” was. Deutch means German. It’s more accurate, but lacks a slight context for understanding.
From what the waitress mentioned to me, it amazed me that the disappointment, the lack of understanding was and is an ongoing thing.
In the world of content marketing, where every word matters, when people will give up on you if they have even the slightest difficulty with you, is it better to be accurate or understanding?
Stay Positive & Can It Be Both?
Enlighten Others
Initiating Scared
It’s really quite simple. Just come up with a way to change something in your life, large or small. Are you going to drink more water each day this year? Are you planning to make a big move later this year? Are you wanting to write more on your blog this year?
There’s a lot you can do that is easy this year, but nothing is easier than initiating scared, so why not do it?
Do something easy so you can focus more on doing something that’s difficult, say, perhaps, overcoming scared?
By doing something easy, you create more time to focus on setting your expectations for the difficult, on building confidence for the difficult, on actually doing the difficult.
Stay Positive, But Not Scared
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