In case you were wondering, here are some examples of awesome. I’ve seen too much in the last week to let them go by. These are remarkable (Obviously. Here I am telling you about them.)
“Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we’re not resting on our laurels,” said Mark Rubin, executive producer of Infinity Ward.
Below is a picture of the letter and gift card I got from H&R Block. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that most people don’t expect their tax information to be processed in one day. It’s not really the money that matters, it’s really not even their apology. What is remarkably awesome is the simple fact they took the time to construct a letter, set up the mailing, invest their time and energy (still in the middle of tax season, I might add!) to send the letter.
And to top it off, Nicholas Hanson is my professional photographer. He’s incredible, but for more reasons than just his photos. The other day I got a txt from him saying that he noticed that the pictures I have on my website still have his watermark and that they didn’t need to. (He gave me a collection of photos with and without the his watermark.) Naturally, I told him that it was an honor to have them on there but the noteworthy part is on his humble and professional end.
There is awesome everywhere and if you don’t see it… go be it.
You take internships, you jump in groups, clubs, associations, you work for organizations or companies in hopes that a meeting is called and you can be the one person to shout something brilliant out.
Everyone loves that person who – out of nowhere – comes up with a phenomenal idea. For the one meeting, you take the stage, you get the spotlight, you get the credit you finally deserve.
And then it dies. Lights off. Curtain closed. Meeting over.
Is it worth it though? To work for the blind until they call a meeting? Only for the possibility of you coming up with a great idea off the cuff and them accepting it? Then waiting for the next meeting?
No one loves a light that flickers.
Or are you: Better off connecting with the few who love your constant stream of ideas. Better off interacting with members outside of the meeting and showing them what you have created. Better off doing your work for the sake of doing your work instead of for the chance to be picked.
Or – my personal favorite – skip the meeting completely to connect with someone who is also not attending the meeting. Hell, they may not even be associated with the meeting group. They may even be someone who impresses you and changes the way you work. Instead of trying to be the remarkable one, you may just meet someone who is.
The difference between a good factory worker and a great one is small.
If a factory worker is just good enough, then they are average, it’s expected. If a factory worker is great, they are still just good enough…or fired. Factory workers don’t get paid to be remarkable to invent a new way to do their work better or quicker. Nor do they get noticed when they are great, they are only ever viewed as good enough.
The difference between a good artist and a great one is incomparable.
A list of the top 100 vocal artists or even the top 1,000 don’t get there for being good enough, they get there by being great, by diving into their creative muse and ignoring constant prods to be average, obedient, disciplined and held back. They become great only by finding ways to do their work better and quicker, to be remarkable and to give their passion everything they have.
Now when you compare a good factory worker to a good artist, the artist is hands-down the better choice.
Stay Positive & What’s The Difference Between You And Them?
It’s been over a month and a half since I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca (NY). There’s a specific reason I waited so long to reflect on the event. I wanted to prove a point, not just about Seth Godin, but what any business must produce, whether in product or experience.
Simply put, it must be astonishingly remarkable, something so memorable it is still thought of and excites a person’s senses a month, five months or a year after the product is purchased or the service is used. Essentially, that is what Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event manifested, so it is with easy honor that I will hit some points from it again along with my own curves and twists of ideas.
I had no inclination to write this so soon. I decided to after I created a new motto the other day, tweeted it and it got retweeted by a few people. It was just another tweet, another 140 characters that my mind spit out and that I needed to share.
My motto: Give yourself authority.
It was only after I expressed the motto on twitter that I was tapped by the memory of Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event, which it’s theme was to not wait for someone to pick you, not wait for an authority to notice you, to get lucky; but to pick yourself, solve the problems yourself, find the opportunity yourself, to lead yourself and quite plainly, as my motto states, give yourself authority.
72 Steps To Starbucks Coffee
While in New York City every 72 steps, either if I turned left or right, I would be facing a Starbucks. In Manhattan alone, there are approximately 300 Starbucks stores. That means that out of all the registered Coffee Shops in New York, Starbucks consists of about 60% of them. In a city dominated by the outlier of the Coffee Industry, how can any other coffee shops even make it?
That’s a simple answer that you can come up with. The better question is how Starbucks was able to take a symbol from Moby Dick, use it as it’s logo, and create a brand – an understanding of when you see the symbol, you are going to smell the richest Coffee in town and get free Wi-Fi along with the absolute best customer service.
It’s A Revolution
The dictionary says that a revolution is a single turn of event. Our revolution, the one we don’t quite understand, the one we thought could be easily understood, the one that is making us question nearly everything, is not a single turn of event, it’s a million turns. This revolution is something that is a collective change in one sense, but deep down to it, it’s about the turn each one of us makes, a turn that may be different than the person next to us. While putting it in the most simple form, the revolution is about giving yourself authority, ridding yourself of the chains of tradition and following your passion to create art. Yet, to do each of these things is not something that we can do collectively, being collective is what got us in this grave. No. This must be done individually; each person must make the choice, must give themselves authority and use it. In its entirety, this revolution will turn Perfect into impossible
Instead Of Giving It Our All
Seth gave a long description about the industrial age and this new age of connection. The one take I want to share with you from the event is this.
“So one quick example, just to show you how deeply ingrained this is. If you don’t mind, raise your right hand just as high as you can. Okay, now raise it just a little higher.”
Instead of giving it our all the first time, we give enough and then a bit more when told to. Some people raised their hands 20% higher, others 5% higher when told to raise it a bit higher. In a room of about 200 people there was about 4,000% of potential not being used until told to. The way I see it, even if you gave 100% and raised your hand as high as possible the first time, you would still find a way to raise it higher.
I No Longer Market To You
I had no clue what real type of marketing I was doing on my website until I heard Seth Godin say this, “Because marketing has shifted from me marketing at you, to you marketing to each other.” So, when creating a product, running a business or writing a blog, you can provide all the strong content you would like, but unless you know what you want to do with your audience, your tribe, unless you know how to give them strategies to market to each other and other people that will join your tribe, you have nothing.
Juggling
Seth Godin also inspired me to write this post: The Juggler’s Perfection. On the note of Juggling, of doing what you love, of taking that risk…
“Is it worth getting arrested for?” – Seth Godin
Bluffs, Excuses and The Promise
You think you have a hundred reasons not do something, not to take leap, not to go out on your own or start your business or take a risk to achieve what you really want. Actually, you probably only have 15 to 20 excuses, or rather, they are bluffs. When you sit down, write the list of the 15 to 20 bluffs, and work through it, you will find that either you don’t have anything holding you back, or you just need to work out a way to get around one or two excuses (a lot easier than working around 20). What it comes down to, what it really comes down to is that you want a promise it will work. You want the paper to say, after you have crossed all your bluffs out, that it will work indefinitely.
There will never be a promise that it’s going to work. Once you realize that, you realize there’s no point in making a list, not because there’s no point in achieving your goal anymore, but because you realize that you are going to have to take a risk and that there isn’t a promise, you will say “something is better than nothing” and get on with it, ship the product or start the business. As humans, if we are not promised lobster (perfection), we would rather have crawfish (anything) than nothing at all. Once you realize there is no promise of perfection, no lobster, it makes doing the thing you made a list of bluffs for, all the more easy. You may even find that you like crawfish more than lobster.
A couple of sayings to use/share
Money is a weight you can run much faster without
You will be wrong a lot, but you will be right a lot too
All you need to care about is being human
The Two Achievements I Made After The Event
Seth made a simple, yet such an extremely interesting point about entrepreneurship and freelance. A freelancer gets paid when she ships, delivers the product, finishes. The entrepreneur gets paid while she sleeps. I am happy to say that, while I still do freelance writing, I have crafted a segment of it into a businesses in which I have hired two employees already! I now sleep easier (because I know I’m getting paid for it) and I have more time to do $100 an hour work that makes a much larger impact on the world – which leads me to…
The second achievement is nearly ready to be shipped. My 30,000 word manifest on what school is for: a view from an 18-year-old graduate who received his associates degree and plans to go back for a master’s degree. Not for the diploma, but for the information and experience being within the system will produce, in order to write a 90,000 word sequel upon graduation. The eBook, Start Schooling Dreams will be released at the beginning of August, 2012, completely free. More background information to come soon.
Stay Positive & Take The Authority, Make A Badge Even
A person just following orders, just trying to reach the finish line, just trying to complete something, with no intention of creating inexorable value, does a two-step forward, one step back process.
They make progress, with some setbacks and eventually reach the destination but there’s not much value in that.
Every person running a five-mile race gets to the finish line but only a few significant people are the first to reach that destination with even more passion and vigor than when they started. They are the ones to get the audience standing, whistling and applauding until their hands sting. That is value.
To make anything remarkable, creative and irreplaceable, it’s still a two-step forward, one step back process, there is nothing special to it, there is no natural born talent, they merely have more passion. That’s it. That’s how to create value.
Notice, those who finish last in the race get the same type of applause as the winner because the audience can see the passion burning, the determination to complete the race, the relentless effort that the last place person is putting in. That is value.
Also notice that the audience is going just as crazy over a few runners that are in the middle. The ones clapping for them know how passionate they are about running the five miles. The runners made sure to express their passion, whether they win or lose. That is value.
See, whether you finish first, fiftieth or last, you have the ability to create value. All you need is to declare, bespeak and manifest your passion.
