Learning To Let Your Light Shine

Last post, I discussed the problem with the “fake it ’til you make it” approach to business, namely the difficulty it creates for building open, honest, transparent relationships with your clients.  I promised to follow with a post discussing the benefits of transparency in your business, so here goes.

#1 – Transparency Builds Trust

When I read a post by Johnny B. Truant that detailed a financial difficulty he had in the past and how he dealt with it, I felt an instant affinity for him.  I could tell as I was reading the post that this was a guy who really got it, a guy who could relate to the struggles I was going through and, as a result, I trusted him immediately.

Funny how that works, isn’t it.  I mean, I’ve never met Johnny; for all I know, he could be a guy who beats up Boy Scouts and steals money from nuns to support his toad-licking habit.  Whatever he is, though, I trust him because he had the guts to tell the world that his life isn’t always sunshine and roses, and that occasionally he gets kicked in the crotch, too.

Continue reading Learning To Let Your Light Shine…

Posturing Is For Posers, Not For You

pos·tur·ing

1 : to assume a posture; especially : to strike a pose for effect
2 : to assume an artificial or pretended attitude

This post has been stewing in my brain for days, and I think it’s about time I get it out.  If it seems a little disjointed, well, consider the source.

I’m calling out the “fake it ’til you make it crowd”; I think it’s time to put that idea to rest.  While the philosophy seemed like a good one at first blush, I’m beginning to understand that “faking it” is just another way of hiding from the fear of being open, honest and transparent.

The thought is that by pretending you’ve already arrived at the destination, somehow the journey will be less arduous and time-consuming.  If you’ll just act like a successful business person (i.e. “fake it”), so the theory goes, people will assume that you are a successful businessperson and will want to do business with you (i.e. you’ll “make it”).  Sounds good, right?  You can move to the front of the class without doing any homework or passing any tests; who wouldn’t want to do that?  Where do I sign up?

Continue reading Posturing Is For Posers, Not For You…

Calling All Members of the Choir: It’s My Un-Bio

Great: they asked me to write a bio for a new collaboration project I’m working on. I hate writing bios. No matter how hard I try, they always come out sounding plastic and fake and manufactured. So instead of writing a bio, I just wrote a bunch of stuff about me.  I know that sounds like a bio, but it’s not.  In fact, you could call it my Un-Bio.

And since I’ve been railing on in the last several posts about sharing who you are and what you believe in and why you do what you do, I decided to post my Un-Bio here, too.  Let me know what you think.  Or, better still, share your Un-Bio (or a link to it) in the comments.

1. I’m pretty opinionated. I don’t think that’s a bad thing; in fact, I embrace it. Really. I even include it in my bio sometimes, usually preceded by the word “outrageously”. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my friends what I think of James Cameron’s “movies”, or anyone who’s ever met me what I think of Bob Dylan’s “music” (I don’t know how, but it always seems to come up in conversation…genius my ass).

2. I love ideas. I think ideas are what make life fun. I love having ideas, and I love sharing them even more (see #1). I love hearing other people’s ideas, too, especially the brilliant ones. I love it when my ideas have sex with other people’s ideas (you can blame Matt Ridley for giving me that phrase to play with), and my ideas are pretty promiscuous. They also refuse to practice safe sex, so don’t be surprised if our ideas get together, have loads of idea sex, and spawn lots of tiny new baby ideas.

Continue reading Calling All Members of the Choir: It’s My Un-Bio…

The Beauty of Being Stupidly Optimistic

I’ve come up with a new name for the affliction in my brain; from here forward, I will refer to myself (and those like me) as stupidly optimistic.  ”Stupidly optimistic” describes the condition of being excited about the future with no tangible evidence that it will be any better than today.  That’s me: stupidly optimistic, almost to a fault.

I firmly believe that optimism is a key characteristic of those who succeed in life, but I’m beginning to think it may not be enough to be just plain optimistic; I think you may have to be stupidly optimistic, to push on in full expectation of a better tomorrow in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.  The stupidly optimistic are the ones who never surrender; they find a way to keep moving forward when everyone else has given up.  They meet defeat often, but they’re too dumb to give up.  I admire people like that, and I hope to be counted among them at the end of my days.

I’ve managed to surround myself with some pretty amazing people over the past couple of years, particularly during the last six months, and I would describe every one of them as stupidly optimistic.  It seems that I have little patience anymore for people who are ready to throw in the towel and give up on their dreams, and I spend less and less time with them, even the ones I was close to once.  I like spending time with people who dream big and act boldly.  I like risk-takers and fringe-dwellers, and even the occasional ne’er-do-well.  The rebels are my tribe.

At the end of the day, the only thing that’s going to get you out of bed tomorrow is your faith.  If any of us were to stop and consider the reality of our situation, we wouldn’t bother.  And in that way, I guess, everyone who makes the effort to get up tomorrow is an optimist; that’s a great start, and we can build on that foundation.

Continue reading The Beauty of Being Stupidly Optimistic…

The “Secret Sauce” for Sales Success

For over a century, since the invention of selling as a profession, really, salespeople have been looking for the secret formula that would get more customers to buy.  They’ve developed sales processes and interview practices and presentation styles and closing techniques, and still they’re frustrated by the lack of results.  Countless millions of dollars are spent every year on books and training programs in an effort to uncover the secret to sales success.

Well, today is your lucky day: I’m going to tell you the secret to selling more than you ever have before, and I’m not even going to charge you for the information.  Sounds good?  Okay, here we go.

Before we get to it, though, let me warn you right now that you’re not going to believe that it could be so easy and obvious, which may cause you to ignore what I’m about to say.  Don’t ignore it, though.  Do your best to quiet the part of your brain that’s going to resist.  Take some time to evaluate the information, answer the questions presented, and see for yourself whether it makes a difference in your results.  If it doesn’t feel free to come back and call me an idiot…but not before you’ve tried it out.   So now, here we go:

Do something you believe in.

Continue reading The “Secret Sauce” for Sales Success…

You Can Be a Successful Marketer Without Becoming a Douchebag

I received an email today from a well-known information marketer (who I have the misfortune to share surnames with) inviting me to join him at a “Herd Building Day” at an upcoming seminar he’s putting on.  I’m sorry, but something about the title of that program just screamed “Come on out…you can learn to be a douchebag like me!” when I read it.

“Herd Building Day”?  Seriously?  I have a question: are they going to teach me how to build a “herd”, or am I going to become part of the “herd” that they’re building?  My guess is the latter.  But wait, there’s more: if I’m one of the first 800 to sign up, I get a super-razzoo discount AND they’ll let me to be part of the “herd” day for free!  Please.  Spare.  Me.

I’ve had my suspicions about this particular marketer before.  The worst was when I received a series of “invitations” to a previous event that became progressively more abusive the closer the event got, eventually culminating in an email that seemed to question my intelligence, pleading with me to pay up and attend the seminar so I could be smart like them.  I wish I would have saved that email, since it was about the closest thing to a perfect example of how to market like a jackass I’ve ever seen.  Instead, I let it get under my skin and deleted it.  Oh well…I’m sure there will be another.

So, back to “Herd Building Day”.  Can you think of a more insulting way to refer to your clients than calling them your “herd”?  I can’t, and I’ve been trying to think of something for the past 20 minutes.  Maybe your “mindless zombie pack”?  No: I think I’d actually rather be a zombie than part of your “herd”.  At least if I was a zombie, I could still come after you to eat your brain.

Continue reading You Can Be a Successful Marketer Without Becoming a Douchebag…

Revelation: Everyone Else Is As Scared As I Am

OK, first things first.  I played a little hooky on the blog last week and  have gone a whole twelve days without posting.  I won’t bore you with the details; suffice it to say that I took on one too many projects and overwhelmed myself a bit.  Oddly enough, it was nice to have so much going on.

It feels like every possible good thing is happening at once: new products are being created (and sold!) over at Great Little Book Publishing, the Motivation 101 Blog was featured in the Sacramento Bee as their “Blog of the Week” last week, and everywhere I turn, projects I’ve been working on are starting to come together better than I ever dreamed they would.  I have a lot to be grateful for, no doubt, and one of the things I’m most grateful for right now in my life is the fact that people are actually interested in reading what I write.

It’s no secret to anyone here that I struggle with feelings of inadequacy from time to time.  What really comes as a surprise to me, though, is how many people I meet who feel the same way.

Just tonight, I was chatting with a friend of mine who has been gearing up to launch a new coaching program that is sure to explode the business of anyone who’s fortunate enough to grab one of the 12 available spots she’ll open up later this year (and yes, that’s real scarcity because she can only work one-on-one with that many people at once).  This is an extremely talented person who has demonstrated her ability to get results time and again, and yet she admitted to me that one of her most difficult challenges has been and continues to be the feeling that she’s not good enough to pull it off.

Continue reading Revelation: Everyone Else Is As Scared As I Am…

The Challenge of Being Attached to Outcomes

“You teach best what you most need to learn.” – Richard Bach

As I sat down to write today’s post, I found myself having to take a big heaping spoonful of my own medicine.  I didn’t like the way it tasted going down, but I know I’ll feel better for having taken it.  That’s the problem with sharing your ideas in such a public format: you leave yourself open to people calling you on your BS when you’re not applying your own wisdom.  I guess that’s not really a problem, though…probably more of a benefit since it keeps you in alignment with your own philosophy.

The scary (and kind of cool) part, though, is when you start to catch yourself in the act before someone else has to point it out to you.  That’s when you know you’re getting close to living your truth.

I’ve been having that experience more and more often.  Like today when I was driving home from the office.  I suddenly realized that I was in a funk (and had been for a couple of days) because I was trying to control the outcomes in my life (the things I can’t control) instead of focusing on the processes (the things I totally have control over).

Continue reading The Challenge of Being Attached to Outcomes…

Want a Better Life? Become a Better Reader!

“That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zandavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.” – Henry David Thoreau in Walden

I know he wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I’m pretty sure Thoreau was talking about the internet when he wrote those words. We have the greatest repository of information the world has ever seen, right at our fingertips. That said, we should be the best-read generation of all time…but we’re not. A study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004 found that fewer than half of American adults read literature for pleasure. Fewer than half!

That’s a stunner, particularly considering the overwhelming evidence that being an avid reader is the one thing that most successful people have in common. Self-education by reading great books is a key to your personal development, which has to come before you can hope to make improvements in other areas of your life.

Understand this: if you want to improve your lot in life, you’re going to have to get in the habit of reading. A lot. Every day. Sorry: the fact that you don’t enjoy reading is entirely irrelevant. You’ll get used to it, and you’ll probably even start to like it after awhile. It may (and probably will) become one of your favorite activities. You’ll begin to wonder what you did all those years before you realized how delightful a good book can be.

Continue reading Want a Better Life? Become a Better Reader!…

The Fight Club Solution to the Current Economic Slump

It seems like I’m finding more and more occasions to quote Edward Norton’s character at the end of the movie “Fight Club”: after realizing he’s been suffering from a split personality, brawling with the other personality, and, ultimately, shooting himself in the mouth to get rid of his other personality (oh, and did I mention blowing up San Francisco’s financial district?), he turns to his girlfriend and says “You met me at a very strange time in my life.”

That’s what I keep wanting to tell the people around me: you met me at a very strange time in my life.  Changing careers, starting new ventures and partnerships, reconsidering long-standing relationships, trying to keep my head above water and reprogramming my unconscious mind has made for a very interesting couple of years, to say the least.  Here’s the thing, though: I know I’m not alone.

If there’s one good thing that’s come out of the economic upheaval of the past year or so, it’s the fact that so many of us are stopping to re-examine what’s truly important in our lives.  Sure, the answers have been pretty startling to some of us, but it’s been a cleansing that’s been a long time coming.  We’ve been so caught up in the material and mundane for the last decade that a lot of us forgot who we really are and what truly matters to us.

I’m not saying that we need to start shaving our heads and pummeling each other in basements and parking lots in the middle of the night.  What we do need, though, is a good healthy dose of temporary insanity, a chance to step back from the routine of life and have a look at the ruts we’re wearing into our souls.

Continue reading The Fight Club Solution to the Current Economic Slump…