People are awfully protective of their ideas (myself definitely included). There are plenty of reasons for not sharing ideas:

• we’re afraid people won’t like them, or worse, won’t understand them.
• someone might steal them
• they might, in reality, be total crap
• they’re hard to explain, especially when the proverbial ink is still dry in the mind
• etc., etc., etc.

But the biggest fear I have of sharing ideas is losing control.

There is an awful lot of ego that gets attached to our ideas, (see: the God Complex), and the thought of losing that grip is crippling.

One of the most intoxicating aspects of having an idea is having control over the idea. We thrive on building, planning, analyzing, almost anything but actually doing.

It’s not just little companies or amateurs that struggle with letting go. Some of the biggest companies in the world suffer from these “idea insecurities” listed above.

Microsoft’s Decline In Innovation

I read an interesting sad article about the causes of the downward spiral of Microsoft’s innovation. For the past ten years, Microsoft has been playing catch-up to companies like Google and Apple. Instead of creating breakthrough products that once made the software giant famous, the company has relied on a monkey-see, monkey-do approach to production.

The article goes on to explain that the top brass at Microsoft were directly responsible for the void of innovation, simply by harboring the fears listed above. Products were never made because of petty differences between divisions. The main reason for the lack of innovation was the stubbornness of division heads to work together on technologies.

They were afraid of losing their ideas in favor of someone else’s better idea.

Letting Go of the Idea

Some people never understand that if they hand over control of the original idea, something better might come out of it. Flickr was set to be a gaming company until the founders discovered a really efficient way to serve photos. There are plenty of examples of this happening throughout history.

Letting go is one of the absolute hardest concepts to grasp as an entrepreneur. But sometimes our idea outgrows us. The trick is to swallow the thick pride and embrace the potential of what could happen.

If the powerful suits at Microsoft had put aside petty differences and allowed other departments to improve their products, who knows what Microsoft would be today. They might have had a Google killer, or the iPod. We’ll never know.

This wasn’t an excuse to single out Microsoft. Every single company and entrepreneur deals with control issues at some point. I know I have. The important thing is recognizing when we’re holding on a bit too tightly on what’s “ours” and not recognizing the full potential of the idea, with the help of others.

I’ve been heads-down creating a new design for LifeDev for the past week and a half. It’s been three and a half years since I’ve changed the design, so it was about time change was made.

I’m also a bit ashamed to admit that I’ve seriously let the design slip. There are tons of unused divs, inline styles and other big design no-nos. (I’ll save the other reasons for the redesign for a later post.) The current template has been great, but it’s about time I flexed my design muscles and created something unique. Above is a tiny sliver of the new LifeDev to whet your appetite of the coming changes.

While I don’t have any new material for you, here are a few articles I’ve truly enjoyed and found helpful this past week.

What You Don’t Do Doesn’t Matter
Chris is one of my favorite bloggers. This post reminds me of my favorite adage:

You can wish in one hand and crap in the other. Which do you think gets filled first?

What I Learned from the 100 Business Launch
Another gem by @chrisguillebeau. Never compromise when it comes to business.

Would you Pay to Read Your Own Blog?
The New York Times decision to put up a paywall last week sent shock waves around the ‘Net. Jonathan Fields asks a very important question that all writers/bloggers should have to answer at some point: Would you pay to read your own content?

Could You Be Ruining Your Blogging Business?
This CopyBlogger post addresses many of the problems that businesses have with actually brining in referrals with the writing.

“Let me restate the obvious: you are business blogging. That means your awesome content must be delivered in the context of your business goals.”

The Hustling Secrets No One Talks About
Love Jade Craven’s work ethic.

life is subject to change: what happened when I raised my rates
Danielle started working less and charging more. Guess what happened? She started selling more.

The Reason You’re Stuck (and the one best way to avoid the six ways that will keep you stuck)
A guest post on Leo’s blog by Seth Godin himself.

“What separates the few who ship from the masses who stumble, stall and ultimately surrender? The resistance.”

If anybody knows how to create killer content every day, it’s Seth.

How to Make Your Reminder System Totally Useless
Brett hits the nail on the head as to why your reminder system isn’t working, and gives a few reasons to fix it. Brilliant.

Brett’s blog is still new, and he’s cranking out killer stuff. (His blog masthead was designed by yours truly.) Subscribe to his feed for more tasty tech goodness.

Ok, that’s it for this week. You should be seeing a brand-new LifeDev next week and more regular posts (if there is such a term as “regular” around here.)

Abraham Lincoln walked into the heart of the Confederate Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, on April 4, 1865. Less than a day after Richmond had fallen to the Union, the President strode to the capitol building and placed his feet on Jefferson Davis’ desk.

It was a gesture that rang throughout America. The Civil War was officially over, and this President was the leader of the entire country.

If there was ever an authoritative statement in America’s short history, this was it. As the broken nation looked for unity and leadership, Lincoln proved he had both.

And it’s a perfect example for us to see what it takes to earn authority.

Don’t Play It Safe

Photo by yelnoc

What’s interesting about Lincoln’s trip is the size of his party that went into the city. He wasn’t in the middle of a battalion, he was with a handful of guards and advisors. An ambush by any remaining rebel forces could have easily wiped out Lincoln’s party.

It would have been easy to wait until the city was officially cleared by Union troops, but that wasn’t Lincoln’s style.

Think about how you can be daring. Daring says “I know what’s safe… let’s see if I can do the opposite.” Sure, you might fail once in a while, but you’ll have seen the edge.

“When one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.” ~ D.H. Lawrence

Don’t Pay Attention to “Experts”

Lincoln’s advisors told him not to go.

Guides can be helpful for gaining perspective. But sometimes you just have to listen to your gut, even if you know you won’t be popular for it.

Nobody liked Lincoln during the Civil War. Presidents didn’t start having approval ratings until after the 1930’s, but it’s widely believed that Lincoln’s approval rating would have had one of the worst. And yet…

Lincoln is one of the most revered presidents of all time.

When he decided to personally walk into the city without an entire militia guarding him, you can bet nearly everyone with half a bit of sense tried to talk him out of it. But the President stuck to his resolve.

What’s that voice in your ear telling you not to pursue something? Is it telling you it’ll never work? It might even pass as advice…

Don’t listen.

Get Out There

Photo by Marxchivist

Above all, Lincoln went where the people were. He didn’t stay home and make a speech behind the gates of the White House. He went to where the people needed him most. The newly emancipated slaves and supporters of the Union crowded the streets to thank the President as he made his way to the Capitol building.

Hit the pavement. Mix it up. Go where the people are talking and sharing. Blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook. Or, as crazy as this might sound, you might even need to meet people in real life.

There are tons of people surrounding you both online and off who need what you know. Go find them.

Don’t Wait

Lincoln was keenly aware of how timing would affect his journey. Had he waited a few weeks to journey into the battered city, the moment would have already passed to do something profound.

Instead, he struck while the iron was hot.

It’s easy to let things slip until later. “Tomorrow” is one of the most comforting words in the English language. But tomorrow doesn’t do anything for tomorrow. Don’t let the window close on whatever you’re working on.

Make a Statement

Lincoln knew the power of symbolism. He knew that sitting in Davis’ chair and propping his feet on Davis’ desk was a powerful statement that didn’t require any words. He didn’t need a lengthy speech to tell the nation he was in charge.

Sometimes the most profound statements are simple gestures. Being friendly to someone. Showing grace. Doing thankless work.

Our actions speak louder than words.

Do. NOT. Conform.

Photo by express monorail

Abraham Lincoln was hardly what we’d call a conformist. He didn’t look, act, sound, eat or walk like a President. When long-winded orators were using thousands of words, he used 10 sentences. While everyone in the Union cried for harsh treatment of the defeated Confederates, Lincoln instructed his generals to “let ‘em up easy”.

He’s still revered as one of the most-loved Presidents because he was different and didn’t conform.

So above all, don’t fall into the trap that you have to do “what works” with “proven methods”. There is no path to greatness.

In fact, the path to greatness isn’t a path at all. It’s a dense thicket waiting to be hacked through.

My friends Carolyn and Doug are incredible people, and I don’t think I’ve ever looked up to two people more. Doug and Carolyn work in a church, and if you’ve ever worked in a church you know that all kinds of needy people use (and abuse) the church with handout requests. Droves of people come to the church with a sob story of some kind, and literally expect the church to give them money. Here’s an example:

A man came into the church and said that he needed money for gas to go home to care for his wife in Texas. So, the pastor offered to personally go and fill up his car for him and buy him any supplies needed for the trip. (Quite generous, if you ask me.) The guy flat-out refused. He said that he just needed the money, and left hurling empty threats at the people who “wouldn’t help him”.

There are thousands of examples just like this, and the storyline is always the same. They have a need, but it usually just comes down to wanting cash. They take advantage of the Church’s helpfulness and reputation of helping the needy.

So, it naturally came as quite a surprise to Carolyn when an older woman came in with her grandson, asking if there was any work around the church that she could do to get a place to live for her and her grandson.

When homeless people come to the church, they typically never ask for work, and they almost always ask for just money.

So instead of just giving the homeless woman money to pay her bill–which they did–Carolyn offered her own house for the two to live while they got back on their feet. She literally welcomed two complete strangers into her home to live for a few months.

Now contrast that with something that happened yesterday.

A man claimed the Haiti earthquakes were due to the people being “cursed” because of a “pact made with the devil”:

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.

Aside from how ridiculous and downright crazy Pat Robertson sounded, his comments did absolutely nothing except catapult his own name. In a time when a whole country of people are looking for relief, Pat condemned them. (It’s estimated the death toll could rise to 500,00, half of Haiti’s population.)

I don’t think I would mind Pat’s stupidity if he actually did something about the problem. Contrast that with someone like Carolyn. Carolyn is doing what Pat should be doing as a “religous” thought leader: helping people. Not making stupid-ass prophecies and taking a holier-than-thou stance.

Statements like Robertson’s (and others) really pissed me off yesterday. I can’t think of anything much worse than someone using catastrophes as a way to generate attention.

We should think long and hard about Haiti. What if the roles were reversed? The best part about being rich (compared to the rest of the world) is that we are in a position to give. To help others that can’t help themselves. (Apparently people were miffed at the White House’s website redirecting people to organizations like the Red Cross.)

Even if you don’t have any money, you can still give. It cost Doug and Carolyn $0 to open up her home to complete strangers. Love costs nothing.

You don’t have to fly to Haiti to help with relief efforts. You don’t have to donate large amounts of money. You just have to be open to giving, whether that’s your time or money.

But we shouldn’t stand by and do the worst thing of all: Nothing.

There are plenty of ways to help Haiti financially, and a great place to start is the Red Cross.

###

Ok, rant = over :) We’ll be bringing you your regularly scheduled programming shortly…

I finished Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It! a while back, and surprisingly, I was a big fan. Nothing against @garyvee or course, it’s just that I had feared the book would mostly be an instructional for sites like YouTube. I was dead wrong.

While the book does have beginner training on technologies that most of us already know (Twitter, YouTube, etc.), it also adds some excellent thoughts on not being afraid to be us.

What’s Your DNA?

A major part of Gary’s book is about finding your true DNA and using it to rock your business. Gary, admittedly, is a bit of a “live wire”. The man is intense. If you’ve seen any episodes of Wine Library TV, you know what I’m talking about. Gary has reached incredible success by embracing his high-energy appearance. Sure, he could dial his rhetoric down a notch and possibly retain 4% more of his audience. But Gary knows that’s not him, and trying to be someone else is hard work.

Quirksmode

If you’re like me, you’ve got a lengthy list of quirks. For example, I have an unhealthy fascination with jackalopes and squirrels. I re-write radio tunes with my own corny lyrics. I’m an extrovert and an introvert rolled into one. I dissect songs to their basic elements, replaying them over and over until I’ve figured them out (much to my wife’s chagrin). I like to mix random ingredients while cooking otherwise simple dishes. And I’ll be a people-pleaser till the day I die.

I could go on and on.

Yet I spend most of my time attempting to cover up the things that make me different than everyone else.

Sharing the weird little things that I do–the things that make me me–makes me vulnerable. But I’d imagine that you’re a tad more comfortable with me for sharing these quirks. You know things about me that I have a hard time admitting to even myself. We’ve become that much closer, and you’re more comfortable with me.

I’ve helped earn your trust.

The Special Sauce

Often We don’t take advantage of our quirks, of the things that give us that little something that makes us interesting. Because let’s face it: the Internet is becoming a boring place. We have a serious “monkey see, monkey do” syndrome. Nobody wants to be different, we all want to copy what’s working and not what we are.

And I’m as guilty as the next guy.

Liz might be on to something…

How ironic is it that we try to squash things that make us unique to “help” our brand? Here are some things that I’ve done to cover up my weird unique qualities.

• I haven’t really tweeted any music recommendations. Music is such a huge part of my life. I figured that people would only be interested about stuff that they’d find on LifeDev.
• In the past LifeDev has had a lot of “list” posts (ie. “30 Ways to Make XYZ awesome“). It’s not that I think list posts are bad, I just find them draining to write. (And personally, I’m kind of getting tired of how often they pop up on the web.) From now on I’m writing what I want. If it’s a list post, then it’s a list post. I won’t feel pressure to do so.
• I haven’t started a number of projects for reasons like fear of failure. Nobody wants to read about a failure, right?.
• I haven’t starting posting daily pictures of jackalopes or squirrels. (Not sure I’ll ever do that… we’ll see. There’s a fine line between turning people away and scaring people away.)

By suppressing the bits that make me unique, I’ve watered my personal brand down. I’ve tried to sand off the edges that don’t fit in with everything else.

Photo by ynse

But can you remember the last time you were truly interested in something or someone really boring? We’re magnetically drawn to interesting people. People who have changed things and made us think differently about how we think and live. Gandhi, Einstein, Muhammad Ali, Lennon… these weren’t ordinary people.

They were people with quirks.

Sure, it’s hard being me. But it’s even harder trying to be someone else. It’s not easy being a fake; we’re never totally satisfied with who we are.

A disclaimer: The results won’t always appear to be positive. Since I’ve been eating my own dog food and changing the type of content I publish, I’ve dropped some Twitter followers on my account. Maybe I’ve lost some subscribers to LifeDev (though numbers have been up). I’m OK with that. There’s always going to be a small fraction of people who want a different me. But that’s not who I am. Odds are that I’d lose more followers faking my way through tomorrow.

So what aspect of you are you pushing deep down? What are you keeping others from seeing? It just might be the thing that brings them closer to you.

If anything, let 2010 mark the point in time where we stop relying on “experts”.

Gone. Buh-bye.

You see, the experts get us into trouble. They provide “insights” to guide our way when we think we don’t know the answer. Or they tell us we’re wrong.

It never fails to amaze me how many “experts” publish their predictions for the upcoming year. I wonder what would happen if we looked at all of their predictions from 2009 and compared them to what actually happened. (Wasn’t this Winter supposed to be warm?!)

But we eat predictions from experts up. We love to have the inside scoop and make our own predictions. It’s human nature.

If you take a look at many of the experts, most aren’t really that qualified, at least in a sense that we’d imagine. We’d like to believe that some sort of formal education took place in order to earn their lofty title, like education a doctor or lawyer goes through.

But, shockingly, most experts never earned a Harvard diploma.

They might have made been lucky enough to make an outlandish claim that became true to qualify them. Or they have “social proof” in their favor, with thousands of Twitter followers proving that they’re an authority. Some might have even had formal training or schooling of some manner.

I can’t tell you how many financial books I’ve read by average Joes who’ve failed with finance, did their research, learned what they did wrong, and shared what they learned through their failure. Those are real experts.

Still, one thing’s for certain: We don’t need modern-day prophets to hypothesize about the future. If they knew the future, then they’d be rich off the lottery or the stock market. Like Biff from Back to the Future II.

Let’s do a quick review:

1. Most experts aren’t really experts, they’re just opinionated people who have at least a passing knowledge of a subject. But more importantly…
2. We’re just as qualified to make claims as the experts.

Thanks to the Web, you can learn just about anything and become knowledgeable on about any subject. You and I are just as qualified as most of the experts. How many “social media expert” titles do you see on Twitter profiles? Apparently knowing how to toot on Twitter is enough to qualify…

So before you listen to an expert, ask yourself why he’s more qualified than you. (Here’s a tip: did he have to call himself an “expert”? Real experts don’t need to add their own title.) Trust and authority are earned, not found in a title.

And what if you want to be an expert? Learn every day about your topic. Keep your eyes open. Pay attention to trends. Fail a few times.

And for the love of pete, don’t publish your yearly predictions at the beginning of the year. We both know you’re just guessing.



]]> http://lifedev.net/2010/01/prediction-for-2010-the-era-of-the-expert-is-over/feed/ 10 http://lifedev.net/2010/01/prediction-for-2010-the-era-of-the-expert-is-over/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeDev/~3/wCHgsx7lDls/ http://lifedev.net/2010/01/authority-comes-from-failure/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:12:22 +0000 glen http://lifedev.net/?p=1067
Photo by Oncle Tom

It’s really simple: You can’t become an expert until you’ve failed at something.

Yet it’s funny how people with authoritative titles never talk about their mistakes. In fact, it’s a taboo. We want to put our trust in someone who’s more of an “expert” than us. It makes us feel safe and gives us warm fuzzies.

For example, you’d rather not be in the dentist chair and have your dentist proudly telling stories of botched root canals. And nobody wants to believe their doctor ever made a wrong diagnosis.

But they have. Many, many times.

This is where the world gets it wrong. It’s not really “failure” if we view it properly: it’s learning. You don’t know what works until you know what doesn’t work. Failure is all part of the learning process, and anyone who says differently is delusional.

I’d rather a chef tell me how many times he got the recipe wrong before he finally made the perfect pancake.

So don’t worry when you fail. It’s going to happen, and it should happen. Often.

Just don’t make the mistake of using it as an excuse to quit.

Further Reading: Here’s a post from a couple years back that I love and still reference today.

“There Is No Effort Without Error and Shortcoming”



]]> http://lifedev.net/2010/01/authority-comes-from-failure/feed/ 9 http://lifedev.net/2010/01/authority-comes-from-failure/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeDev/~3/9wLNNwZPTUo/ http://lifedev.net/2010/01/radiohead-creative-genius/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:41:04 +0000 glen http://lifedev.net/?p=1063 Post by Oleg Mokhov.

Photo by alterna2

Want to unleash your creative genius? Take a lesson from a band that knows a thing or two about creating remarkable work: Radiohead.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Radiohead are a major and remarkable band – especially their ‘97 magnum opus OK Computer, a creative, critical, and commercial success that sounded like no other rock music at the time.

You can take away a critical lesson from how Radiohead made OK Computer. One that’ll help you unleash your creative genius and create something truly remarkable.

And that lesson is (Phil Selway drumroll)…

Isolate Yourself

When you create, isolate yourself.

You can only create something remarkable when you completely believe in what you’re creating and let 100% of yourself and your ideas come out. And the easiest way to do that is to isolate yourself during creation.


Radiohead, together with producer Nigel Godrich, locked themselves in a country house to record their album OK Computer. No outside influences, people, or experiences. Just pure isolation during creation.

You can edit, polish, and market your work afterwards. But in order to have something remarkable to begin with, you need to keep your creation pure.

You don’t want to consider others when creating. You become self-conscious, thinking about the market or what an audience might want. Or you start second-guessing yourself. Basically, you turn off that subconscious state of creativity; the creative flow that brings out your best ideas and creations.

Isolating yourself stops outside influences that can taint and water down your work, making it less awesome and valuable to yourself and others.

So what’s the best way to isolate yourself? Whatever works best for you in order to stop outside influences. It could be as simple as shutting off the internet when you write, getting out into nature or some special spot, or literally locking yourself from the outside world for a brief moment (like recording a landmark album).

Glen found out during his honeymoon cruise that when he works in an environment free of distractions and outside influence, his best ideas flow freely and creative output quadruples.

Untainted Creation

When your creation is untainted by outside influences, it’s at its most pure. And when you create something completely unique and wholly you, you get something remarkable.

The reason Radiohead’s OK Computer is so remarkable—much more so than their first two albums, which were similar to other rock music—is because it sounded like no other album at the time. The band was untainted by outside influences during the creation, so they didn’t end up sounding like their contemporaries.

While you could trace back the band’s musical influences, the collection of tunes themselves are unique and wholly Radiohead. In other words, a remarkable creation.

It’s okay to be influenced by what you consume and experience. In fact, you can’t begin creating without having some starting point. But during the creation itself, there should be no outside influences – you want to let what’s inside of you come out unobtrusively.

You pull from your creative influences, but you keep the moment of creation itself untainted.

Remarkable Is Desirable

Okay, so isolating yourself during creation yields the most remarkable work. So what? What if you’re okay with good enough, or being just like the rest? Maybe your primary objective is makin’ da monayz. Why should you care about creating remarkable work?

Because remarkable is a lucrative asset.

Truly remarkable is rare. Even if your remarkable stuff doesn’t fit into what should work or sell, people desiring something of this nature will consume it because it’s the only one of its kind. Like Seth Godin says, instead of trying to fruitlessly compete in an existing category, you create your own category and dominate it.

Radiohead created and dominated their own category with OK Computer, and they were handsomely rewarded critically and commercially.

Unleash Your Creative Genius

Unleash your creative genius by isolating yourself when creating.

Learn from Radiohead and how they created their remarkable album OK Computer. By keeping your creative flow pure and untainted by outside influences, you’ll be able to create something truly remarkable.

When he’s not rocking out to remarkable and inspiring tunes, Oleg Mokhov writes unconventional life-maximizing ideas for remarkable people and makes energizing electronic dance music for melody-lovers on his site Lifebeat.



]]> http://lifedev.net/2010/01/radiohead-creative-genius/feed/ 19 http://lifedev.net/2010/01/radiohead-creative-genius/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeDev/~3/fswe0EF_RVc/ http://lifedev.net/2010/01/hustle-2-0/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:12:18 +0000 glen http://lifedev.net/?p=1052
Photo by pseudothoughts

My brother had an interesting job over the holiday season: selling fireworks. Fireworks are incredibly popular in the South on New Years, and every year a caravan of his friends goes to work a firework tent in Alabama. It gives them a chance to get away and make some quick money over the course of a week.

Thanks to some awful weather, sales were way down in my brother’s tent, selling only around $2,000 worth of fireworks in about a week. But on New Years Eve their tent sold over $11,000 alone. Sure, that sounds pretty normal considering that lots of people buy fireworks just on New Years Eve. Yet my brother had more than doubled every other tent’s sales that day.

And he did it in a really boring way. He hustled.


Move FAST

In the fireworks world (and customer service in general), people hate two things: waiting and waiting. Nobody wants to wait in line. Especially if there are plenty of other options all around you. My brother and his friend quickly learned that if they focused all of their attention on a) quickly restocking and b) moving people through the checkout line lighting fast, they retained more customers and sold more.

While the rest of the competition in other tents were lazily moving boxes and inefficiently stocking, my brother and his friend were busting their humps. So instead of customers waiting in line at other tents, they bought fireworks at the tent that had well-stocked shelves and fast-moving lines (not to mention a full parking lot).

For whatever reason, people seem to think that working more efficiently is the key. Sure, we have finite resources and there’s only 24 hours in a day, etc. etc. etc. But I’ve noticed that we’re becoming increasingly enamored with finding the better or faster solution, and not focusing on the important things in front of us.

And that’s when it becomes really dangerous.

When you’re spending all of your time working on ways to streamline, brainstorm, and all those things that are just sad excuses for action, then you’re not focusing on what’s important.

You’re the fireworks stand with poorly-stocked shelves and slow lines. And all you had to do was focus on the basics of your operation.

Hustle 2.0


Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It!:
Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Gary Vaynerchuk’s latest book has had a huge impact on me. I initially thought it was going to be your basic, run-of-the-mill “YOU CAN DO IT!” book on creating your own business. But it was so much more than that.

Gary is walking proof that hustle is a gajillion times more important than workflows, pie charts, and a well-groomed business plan. Not to say that he wasn’t incredibly smart in building his empire (because he was). He just did all the little things that other people really don’t want to do to become successful. Gary’s book is great for showing that ultimately, if you’re not passionate and constantly hustling (Gary’s favorite word), then you’re already dead in the water.

We like to spend ways finding the next big thing that will save us an hour a day, or make us a buck more, or give us just a bit more happiness. But really, a simple routine is what powers your business. You can only start worrying about streamlining and saving once you’ve got the system in place.

As we enter this new decade, hustle is going to become more and more crucial to becoming successful. The internet has matured enough so that nearly every vertical is saturated. If you’re going to start a venture, odds are there will already be players in your field. They already have the marketshare so you’ll have to steal it. How?

Hustle, baby.



]]> http://lifedev.net/2010/01/hustle-2-0/feed/ 4 http://lifedev.net/2010/01/hustle-2-0/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeDev/~3/A03RNgv7vbk/ http://lifedev.net/2009/12/the-valuable-throw-aways/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:55:31 +0000 glen http://lifedev.net/?p=1049
Photo by jared

I can’t even begin to count how many posts I jot down that I never finish. Some sit and rot in an ideas file for the rest of their life, and that’s as far as they get. Others get as far as a few paragraphs, even up to a nearly finished post before it’s crumpled and thrown in the digital trash. I typically end up writing only about 20% of the posts I start.

Yet if I published every single idea I’ve had for an article, then there’s no way you’d still be reading my drivel. (Thanks for sticking around, by the way!) There would be much, much more unfocused, sporadic and unfinished content lying around this place. You’d spend your time trying not to step in the really stanky posts while trying to find the good ones. Yuck.

So, in order to separate the wheat from the chaff and the “men from the boys”, I throw away the stuff that just doesn’t cut the mustard. Of the stuff that I don’t throw away, 9 times out of the 10 I revise the pickles out of it. I cut, scratch, peel and scour the suckers until they’re at a point that I can call good. Then, and only then, I hit publish.

I think this is a natural thing for writers to do, and an important one at that. Ask any accomplished writer how many drafts they’ve tossed in the trash, and they’ll say the same thing. When you write, you already know that every sentence you type is going to be checked over, modified and possibly even thrown away. It’s just a part of the creative writing process.

Yet I’m surprised at how people don’t use this practice for other aspects of life. Old businesses never revised or even threw the plan away when it no longer worked. Or they finished that mediocre product because management wanted to see something. The art of cutting and running is a valuable one, and businesses should study it more.

Businesses don’t value failure like they should. They don’t understand that throwing away 50% of bad ideas is a good great thing. But you and I know it’s a vital part of creating. Why, this year alone I’ve had at least one “failed” product launch, and I fully expect to have more in the next year. In fact, I’m planning on it.

Every potential post that I throw away or every idea I chuck, I’ve learned a little something struggling with it. The same with every failure in business or life. It’s just a part of the process.

But when you find that one stellar idea out of 10, then you’ve got something special…



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