Month: April 2012

Baratunde Thurston,
director of digital for The Onion,
believes that career security
depends on broad thinking.

“That when change is the constant,
the thing that you have to cling to
is less the specific skill set of Job A
and more of a general mindset of Approach B.”

so instead of being a Facebook specialist,
you think of yourself
as a communications specialist.

Why?

Because the world is changing quickly.
Today, Facebook is the media of choice.
Tomorrow, it may be something else.

A broader view of what you do
will prepare you
when Facebook disappears.
It will position you
as being more adaptable.

Think of what you do in broad terms.

I highly recommend
watching
this fast, less than 5 minute video.

Travis Robertson has a great post
on the four phases
to living your mission,
living the life
you’re meant to live.

The first
and most important phase
is believing you have a mission.

“Many people don’t even think
they are called to something greater
than what they’re currently doing.
They’ve settled.
Perhaps you have accepted the lie
that you are “unlucky” or
that you are average.
In your mind,
other people having missions,
or callings,
or a purpose.
Not you.
You feel like you are doomed
to this average life.”

I’m about as average as a woman gets.
I’ve never been top of my class.
I’ve never been the prettiest
or the most popular person.
Even my writing skills started out
as being average.

But I had products
I wanted to see launched
and I had stories
I wanted to see written.

And I quickly saw
that being average was a benefit.
I launched products for average people
and I wrote stories for average people
and amazingly,
that made me extraordinary.

You can be your version of extraordinary also.
First, you have to believe.

Last week,
I was approached by a writer.
She had crafted a well written story,
had a blazing marketing program,
yet had no sales.

Why?

Because there’s no demand for her story.
She can advertise it
all she wants
but if people don’t want the product,
they won’t buy it.

John Bradberry
stresses the importance of market demand.

“Market demand for a product
is the first source of all commercial success.
Jeff Cornwall,
director of Belmont University’s
entrepreneurship program,
has estimated that
40 percent of all failing ventures
are doomed right out of the gate,
simply because the basic idea isn’t viable.

This may be because
the entrepreneur’s product or service
doesn’t solve a compelling enough problem,
or because
strong competitors are already
addressing the problem,
or because
of an inability to promote
and distribute the product
through the right customer channels.”

Ensure market demand
is there
before sinking a lot of time
and money into your product.

I get rejected every damn day.
My manuscripts get rejected by publishers.
My edits get rejected by editors.
My stories get rejected by readers and reviewers.

Rejection is such a huge part
of a writer’s life
that how she handles rejection
will determine how successful she is.
Deal with it well = success.

Dealing with it well
means not taking it personally,
learning from the rejection,
and trying again.

What are harmful ways
to deal with rejection?

Ron Ashkenas
shares

“While all employees should feel comfortable
offering ideas, raising issues,
and making observations —
they should do so
with the knowledge
that they may be rejected.
If they get discouraged or angry
about not having their ideas accepted,
they might shut down
and stop contributing.
Similarly,
if employees feel so self-important
that the organization should never
turn them down,
their sense of entitlement will make it difficult
to drive constructive change.”

No one likes rejection
but successful people learn
how to deal with it.

Today, on Good Friday,
my mom wakes up early
and bakes dozens
of hot cross buns.

This made sense
when she had a big family.
Today, however, she lives alone
and she still bakes dozens
of hot cross buns.

We’re creatures of habits.
We have thousands of habits
we don’t even realize are habits.

Charles Duhigg,
author of
The Power of Habit,
shares why habits are important.

“When a habit emerges,
the brain stops fully participating
in decision making.
It stops working so hard,
or diverts focus to other tasks.
So unless you deliberately fight a habit—
unless you find new routines—
the pattern will unfold automatically.”

Design products to work
with existing habits.
Make it easy for your product
to become part of a customer’s
daily/weekly/monthly/annual habit.

Jeff Stibel has a great post
on entrepreneurs and work-life balance.

“As entrepreneurs,
we have zero sense of balance.
We’re all in,
all the time.
It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night,
weekday or weekend —
each of us focuses on our vision
with a single-minded passion.”

He’s right.
We’re not balanced.
Sure, we do our best to spend time
with our family and friends
but we don’t often indulge in
other entertainment.

We don’t need to.

As a writer, I work damn hard,
producing product,
building a brand,
expanding the business.

I no longer need to go to the movies
or take work-free vacations
or to get away from the business.

Why?

Because I truly love what I do.
Sure, some days, it is challenging
but I don’t want to do anything else.

When you’re living your dream,
you don’t need a vacation.

Jim Collins asserts that
successful companies aren’t luckier
than other companies.
They get a “better return on luck.”

“On one hand,
Bill Gates was lucky.
He was lucky to be
in the right place
at the right time,
he knew how to program
just as the first personal computer
came into existence.
But thousands of other people
had access to computers and
knew how to program in BASIC.

Yet, the difference between Bill Gates
and others
is not that he was lucky,
it’s that he did more with his luck.
He moved to Albuquerque.
He dropped out of college.
He got BASIC ready in time
for the first personal computer
and for the Altair.
He launched Microsoft and
he didn’t stop.
He [put in] another 25 years of hard work.”

In other words,
we’re all lucky.
Some of us, however, recognize
the situation as good luck
and leverage that luck into success.

I belong to a writing group
consisting of five writers.
When I was invited into this group,
I stressed about
what I could offer
these more experienced writers.

I was told that
when I’m somewhere,
that somewhere is happier, upbeat, optimistic.
These writers needed that optimism.

Now, they hesitate to plan a function
unless I can attend
because they know
without optimism
meetings spiral into pity parties.

When I was laid off
from the big beverage company,
my V-P contacted me
and apologized.
He said he didn’t realize
how I had set the hopeful mood for the office.

If you’re a new product developer
or an entrepreneur,
the odds are good,
you’re optimistic

Never strive to be anything else.

And if you don’t have an optimistic tone setter
at your workplace,
hire one.

Optimism is contagious
and optimistic people change the world.

Some readers emailed me
about yesterday’s post
on not holding out for the big win.

They pointed out
that the media always talks
about the writer hitting the bestseller lists
with her first book
or the business that was discovered
by a celebrity using their product.

Here’s the thing…
normal is NOT newsworthy.
Media covers the exceptional.

Most successful writers
build up their reader base slowly.
Most successful businesses
grow as slowly.

That’s not exciting though.
It isn’t newsworthy.
The average person doesn’t find
hard work sexy or interesting.
So the media,
being in the entertainment business,
doesn’t cover it.

Slow and steady isn’t sexy
but it works.

Some of my writing and entrepreneur buddies
scoffed at the people
buying tickets for the 640 million dollar
Mega Millions lottery jackpot.
The odds of winning were so low.

I stayed silent
because I know many of those writers
are planning their careers around
“winning” a place on the bestseller lists,
the equivalent of the publishing lottery.
They won’t publish their books
unless the publisher has proven
they can land books on the lists.

Some of the entrepreneurs
are planning their business success
around “winning” a place on Walmart shelves
or “winning” celebrity endorsement.
They ignore smaller vendors
and other slower avenues to success.

Dreaming of the big win is fun.
Keeping those dreams viable
by writing a great book
or designing the product to be Walmart friendly
is smart.

Hinging all of your success,
on these wins,
however,
is risky.

Consider expanding your plan
to include slower routes
to success.