Casual Fridays

Cats don’t have 9 lives. Most of them are perceptive and nimble creatures. Growing up, we actually had a cat that wasn’t perceptive or nimble. He fell on his back ALL THE TIME. Needless to say, he didn’t last long in rural Oklahoma. But this isn’t a cat blog, so I’ll get to the point.

Successful people don’t have 9 lives either. They’re not made of Teflon, nor are they truly golden. Most are nimble and resourceful. Yes, a few are just lucky. But, the bottom line is they were given one life to live.

Just like you.

What Einstein, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Maya Angelou and others like them have accomplished… has been in one life.

We all want to be world-changers. By now, you probably realize your life won’t be measured on an international, or even national, scale. Still, your impact could be just as important.

What if we thought about 9 lives in a different way?

What if you could choose 9 lives? Just 9 lives you could impact. How would it change the way you viewed being a world-changer? If you could be a positive influence – through encouragement, inspiration, support, acceptance, justice… love – you could change the world for one person. Then another. Then another.

You’ve been given one life, choose to use it wisely.

I rented and watched the movie The Soloist the other day. I want to buy it now. My wife asked me if I really thought we would watch the film enough to justify buying it.

I don’t.

I just want to support a good film and have it as a reminder of its message.

This made me thing about why I buy, or don’t buy, certain things from certain places. I don’t have the same intention to seek out and support something “good.”

If we endorse what we buy, then shouldn’t we buy what we endorse? As Seth Godin said, we get what we pay for.

Some of our most cherished works of art originated from the Renaissance. Without the Medici family, many of these works would not have been created. Lorenzo de Medici supported artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo. So, without patrons, The Mona Lisa and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would not exist for our appreciation.

What we need today are “many micro-Medicis.” We need small armies of patrons who recognize what they appreciate and are willing to support it. Buy from manufacturers with good labor standards. Buy from stores that support the community. Donate to churches involved in good work. Donate to candidates who not only stand on proper (however you define it) values… but prove it with the way they operate their campaign. And yes, purchase movies that communicate rich and powerful messages.

“Patronizing” should cease to connotate negativity. We should all aspire to be more patronizing.

“People might laugh at me.”

“I might lose it all.”

“You might say no.”

“Might” is mighty. It holds so much power over us. It makes many decisions for us. It enslaves us to the safe and known… as long as we allow it to.

By living in the “might” of the moment, we lose out on what truly is mighty. We abdicate our authority to potential futures of pain and suffering. The problem is this: these futures aren’t real. They only exist in our mind and that is the only place where “might” is mighty.

Next time you are faced with a decision and you begin to worry about what might happen, go out of your mind. Get out of the potential futures you are creating and remain in the moment. Strip “might” of its mightiness, and wield it yourself!

Embrace the moment for what it is and make a mighty decision, not a decision of “might.”

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. We need you… or we wouldn’t be here.

I’m a lucky one. I’m blessed with a wonderful mother of my kids, and a wonderful mother of my own.

The world continues to move at ever-increasing speed. Twitter is not going to slow down for you to catch your breath.

Not only is work filling your day, but so are non-profits. Even consumer marketing seems to be vying for your time (“Visit our website.” “Fill out this survey.” “Engage in these conversations.”) instead of directly reaching for your billfold.

We’re all busy. It isn’t going to change anytime soon. If I could visualize this phenomenon, it would look like a monstrous fitness center with people on treadmills. So many treadmills you can’t see the end of it.

What can you do? If we’re all stuffing our lives this way, how do you do anything that gets noticed? How do you define success in a line-up of people all running in the same direction, yet going nowhere?

Margin.

On a sheet of standard notebook paper, there are a few inches of space reserved along the edges where the writer doesn’t write. I remember my elementary teacher guiding us, “Write your name in the margin.” If that space were not preserved for our names, it would have been much more difficult to discern which paper belonged to which student.

It is the same in our lives today. Sure there are going to be meetings to attend, traffic jams, paper jams, invoices to create, bills to pay, meetings to attend, paperwork to fill, inboxes to empty, dinner to make, dishes to clean and meetings to attend (let’s not get carried away). But there must be space reserved along the edges of life. This is where we can leave our unique signature.

What are you doing with your margins? Are you filling them up with other’s “stuff?” Are you letting others into your margins and giving them what should be your space? Or are you writing your name? Your way. Your signature.

Create the space to be uniquely you and claim your masterpiece.

We’ve talked about the difficulty in discerning your unique, personal brand.

Here’s an exercise that can help you see a snapshot of your life and/or career, and ultimately help you define the ‘Brand Called You’ (ala Tom Peters).

Post-It Note Timeline

First, you’ll need three colors of Post-It Notes. In this example, we’ll be using

Yellow

Red

and Blue

And you’ll also need a sheet of poster board. 11 x 17 inches is a good size, but you can make it smaller or larger depending on how much information you want on the board.

Step 1: Brain Dump

The first step is to write significant events from your life (or career) onto the yellow post-it notes. Don’t worry about following a pattern or order. We’ll deal with that next.

Step 2: Order

Now you should have a group of significant events to work with. Place your post-it notes on the poster board. Take time to add events, filter out irrelevant events, and/or put items into chronological order. You may start to see patterns emerge or related events in a grouping or repeated cycles throughout many years.

If you see ‘chapters’ emerging in your life, you may group those together into the same column or stop a column when a chapter ends.

Step 3: Seeing Red

Take anything that has negative connotations and transcribe it to a red post-it note.

Replace the yellow note on your board. Now you may notice periods which were difficult in your life. You may also notice how these negative events affected the events that followed (even beneficially at times).

Step 4: Lessons Learned

Now, look at each chapter of your life/career. Try and discern what overriding lesson you learned in that time. Write a summary or title of that lesson on a blue post-it note.

Then place the blue post-it notes below each chapter in your timeline.

Step 5: Share It

The final step is to share your story with others. If you’re married, you might try it on your spouse first. Otherwise, share it with a close friend or relative. They’ll be pretty honest with you about what they found interesting or what you left out (or should leave out next time).

The more you share your story with others, the more comfortable you will be sharing your life experiences and lessons with people.

In the end though, you should be able to see what events have shaped your life… helping you see your personal brand. One that is unique and incredible. Just like you.

Thanks to Dave Jewitt at Your One Degree for sending me this process.

Boldly be yourself!

Do you remember chasing anything as a kid?

… chasing friends while playing tag.
… chasing your pet dog as he was running away with the chew toy.
… chasing your dad around the house, eventually falling in a heap on the couch and ending in a tickle fight.

At some point, many of us grow out of chasing and sign up for the (rat)race instead. We…

… race to a job before others can beat us to it.
… race against our peers to get the better car, bigger house and “perfect family.”
… race against time to try and find significance before it passes us by.

Simply running a race lacks passion. What can you do to rediscover yours? Maybe you just forgot what you were chasing. Maybe you need to know your red rubber ball. “Discover your passion and chase it for a lifetime.” As Kevin Carroll says.

Before you can do that though, ask yourself the question. “Am I just running? Or am I chasing something?”

That’s a good (even if it’s scary) place to start.

In our current economic situation, are you finding repeat business or intermittent sales?

This may sound crazy, but the difference may be found in your sock drawer.  I’ll explain in a minute.  First, I want to point you to a story about a Chicago cupcake boutique.  Molly’s Cupcakes, located in Lincoln Park, serves gourmet cupcakes to their patrons. During a recession, one would expect sales to suffer. When several competitors pop up during a recession, one might expect the worst.  This story from Medill Reports shows otherwise:

“Everytime a new cupcake place has opened, our sales have gone up,” said John Nicolaides, who owns Molly’s Cupcakes with his brother. “I’ve noticed it because four have opened since we opened and it’s always been positive for us. In some regard, I want another one to open so we can have more sales.”

This seems so odd in our zero-sum mindset.

More Competition + Poor Economy = Fewer Sales (right?)

Wrong.

How does this work?  When you open your dresser, which pair of socks is the easiest to grab?

The top pair.

The pairs of socks below are harder to get to, and therefore get used less. The socks underneath can complain about their lot in life, but this is just how it is.

So, if your business isn’t the “top sock,” what can you do?  You do have a few choices.

1. Be a different kind of sock.
   In a drawer of white tube socks, dress socks get their own space.
   Socks like LittleMissmatched may get a drawer of their own.
2. Become the top sock.
   This is probably harder to do than being different.
   Remember the Microsoft Zune?
3. Don’t be a sock at all.
   Redefine yourself completely.
   Maybe instead of competing with Molly’s Cupcakes, you can create a line of ingredients and tools for parents to bake gourmet cupcakes with their kids. You start selling memories of quality time instead of just a dessert.

So, if you’re wondering if you can fight off the competition during the recession… SOCK IT TO ‘EM!! (sorry, I couldn’t resist)

Fear of failure is overrated.

We don’t care as much about failing as we care about being embarrassed.

Picture yourself on a baseball team. If there wasn’t a chance of losing the game, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting to play hardball. The mantra is, “Win as a team and lose as a team.” Still, no one wants to be the batter who watches strike three pass by or the infielder who fails to snag an easy grounder ala Bill Buckner. The embarrassment would simply be too much.

Now picture yourself on a business team. If every business decision made was guaranteed success, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting. If your group doesn’t hit their numbers, hopefully you can absorb the hit, adjust and go on. Still, no one wants to be the one who launches an unconventional marketing campaign that fails to get a response, or the champion for the product that flops. The embarrassment would simply be too much.

Do you believe in something you haven’t acted on?  Is there something amazing stirring inside of you, but you quiet it because it scares you?

There are ideas and dreams inside of us, tied up by our fears and insecurities. Innovations and glorious endeavors never begun because we fear embarrassment as an individual.

We resign ourselves to “lose as a team” instead.

By the way, Bill Buckner was not a failure. Amazingly, he ended his (over 20 year) career just 285 hits shy of 3,000. This (near) milestone is so great, baseball enthusiasts created a term for it… The 3,000 Hit Club. Only 27 players achieved 3,000 hits, while still only 88 players reached 2,500 hits since the inception of the league in 1869.

I have a friend who owns a restaurant business. He does all his own marketing and advertising… and he’s quite good at it.  It’s really fascinating to see what he comes up with and how tightly bound it is to his objectives and his brand.  Part of the fascination is of how rare he is. Most small business owners can’t do what he does. Why? Because few people have the same level of creativity, humor and understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

I’m not going to say that every business should hand off every aspect of their marketing to an agency or consultant.  In fact, I think too many businesses live in the extremes on this issue. Either they do it all themselves or they hand it all over to a third party.  In almost every case, I think this is a mistake.

Turn on your TV or tune into your radio and you don’t have to wait long to encounter an advertising train wreck.  You know what I’m talking about. The ads you know are horrible, but you can’t take your eyes off them. Most of these are cases where the advertiser is working directly with a station or a production service, without the advice of a professional.  Some are cases of creativity gone awry as an agency has taken too many liberties with the client’s message and have lost the integrity of the brand which my restaurateur buddy manages so well.

Business Week had a recent article which did a great job of bringing light to this issue entitled Why Your Advertising Isn’t Working.  In this article, Steve McKee does an excellent job of hitting seven of the greatest infractions in advertising.

Here are the top 3:

1. It’s boring. Yep, boring. Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online? Three reasons: information, entertainment, and engagement. Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits flop. Just as nobody reads every story in the newspaper, nobody pays attention to every ad. You have to engage your prospects with something that is interesting or entertaining before they’ll give you their valuable time and attention. Creativity has always been the coin of the realm, but in our time-starved culture it’s truer than ever.

2. It’s boorish. You shouldn’t think of your advertising as being about your brand, you should think of it as an extension of your brand (see “A Practical Guide to Branding”). If it’s loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people will think the same of your products or services (see “The Cocktail Party Test for Advertising”). Remember the first sentence in the best-selling hardback book in U.S. history, The Purpose Driven Life: “It’s not about you.” What’s true in life is true in advertising; if you focus only on what you can get, you’re not going to get much. Instead, focus on giving, and good things will begin to happen.

3. It’s safe. The first time I saw a Ford Taurus (F), I took note, and I suspect you did as well. So did a lot of other people, and the Taurus went on to become the best-selling car in America. If the Taurus had been another in a long line of boxy sedans, it probably would have been just another car. Instead, it turned automotive design conventions upside down and made history. While being different isn’t in and of itself a guarantee of success, what you do is a lot more likely to get noticed if it hasn’t been done before. And keep in mind that when you do something different, people may not like it—at least initially. Most of us were shocked at our first sight of the Taurus’ curved lines, but it went on to have significant influence on automotive design. If you worry too much about offending someone, you’re likely to not attract anyone.

See the rest here.

Whether companies work with agencies or not, they still may fall into these traps.  It’s just a whole lot easier to fall into them if you don’t have a guide.  Choose wisely.

In her book The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp gives several creative exercises.

Creative Exercise #16 is Pick a Fight

Tharp states that “Creativity is an act of defiance.”

What are you defying?  Are you willing to defy your usual route to the office and see what the new scenery inspires?

Would you defy your typical lunch selection in order to experience a totally new set of taste sensations?

Dare you to defy your evening routine and pick up a book, rather than watching TV tonight… what ideas may come from that?

“Every act of creation is also an act of destruction or abandonment. Something has to be cast aside to make way for the new” says Tharp.

If you never destroy/abandon/change, then where is the vacuum creativity can fill in your life?

I just haven’t been happy with the look & feel of the blog lately.

Trying out some new skins.  Maybe if I get the right theme going, I’ll blog more often.

Here’s a quick brainstorming tip.

Next time you’re stuck on predictible, unoriginal ideas, try this:
Think 180°.

1. Ask yourself, “What is the LAST thing I would do in this situation?” or “What is an idea opposite of these?”
2. Make a list of the ideas that come to mind.
3. Read over the list and evaluate WHY each idea wouldn’t work.

Now, you may not use any of the ideas you’ve listed, but you’ve stimulated new thoughts. After you explore the opposites, you may go back to one of your original ideas with a twist. “What if we create this product, but market it to women in business instead of men?”  “What if we do the seminar on these topics, but the seminar is free, we charge for lunch and sell snacks during breaks?”

Sometimes thinking outside the box is most helpful when you eventually bring the ideas back inside the box.

The great folks at FuelYourWriting.com have asked me to contribute a monthly article to their site.

If you’re a writer of any sort (blogger, author, screenwriter, copywriter, etc.), FuelYourWriting is just beginning to fill with great tips and resources for you.

My first article was posted yesterday, 5 Tips for Tantalizing Writing.  Check it out and tell me what you think.  Did I leave anything out?

There are many hurdles to overcome in order to go, or take a team, to a conference.  Especially in a down economy. But what if:
• The conference is local.
• You can invite whoever you want.
• It would cost next to nothing (or maybe even nothing at all)

That eliminates most concerns, doesn’t it?

Before I talk about how to do this, we have to discuss WHY conferences are beneficial:

1. Getting to hear great content.
   Honestly, this is overrated.  That’s a big deal for me to say, because I’m a content junkie.  You can still have a successful conference experience without great content, but great content is the icing on the cake.  Most of us prefer our cake with icing.
2. Being around other people who are like-minded.
   This is underrated.  How cool is it to attend an event surrounded with others who value the same things you value?  You know that by attending a marketing conference, people you encounter read similar books and have similar challenges.
3. Getting away from “it all.”
   One of the biggest benefits of a conference is breaking your routine and escaping the busywork, appointments, meetings, phone calls, etc.  The time away sparks fresh ideas and creates space for retrospection and assessment.

We’ve all done the trips, which can be expensive and time-intensive.  Some of us have put on our own conference, which were not dirt-cheap and VERY time-intensive.  What if you tried something else?

1. The Internet is full of great content.
   TED is one of the premiere conferences around and their content is available online.  There are also DVDs available from a variety of past conferences.  Look at the websites of conferences you covet attending and check their resource areas for videos of past sessions.
   –Business organizations may be interested in Tom Peters’ videos.
   -Churches and ministries may appreciate video resources from Willow Creek in Chicago.
   -I’m sure there’s much more out there. This is a small sample.
2. Gather a group of like-minded people.
   Big or small, depending on what we want to accomplish. (not too big or you get into the expensive, labor-intensive and time-intensive stuff) This could be employees, clients, vendors, networking spheres… even competitors.
3. Find a place to ‘get away.’
   You may need Internet access, but other than that, you could be almost anywhere.  This could be the back room at your favorite cafe. Maybe a small conference room at a local hotel.  It could be a cabin or even a large home.  Point is, turn off email and cell phones, and block off some time (a day?).
4. Create an agenda.
   My goal would be to choose content, people and a schedule that fosters creative discussions about what you’re all about.  In the blocks for presentations, you could even allow other colleagues show a video that inspires them.  Give them some ownership.  Think about food breaks, snacks, note-taking and – most importantly – bathroom breaks.

Now, go get your conference on!