I have a lot of respect for Chris Guillebeau and Jonathon Fields. They are trying to get a panel at the next SXSW based around “Fear and the Art of Creativity” which I think is a great great subject.
The both of them recently presented at TEDx on this subject.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how hard it is to produce and create. To make something and put it out there for the whole wide world to see. You know what you need to do, you know what you want to do, but still, something prevents you. You complain about how you want to change but can’t bring yourself to do something about it.
Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.” ~Seth Godin .
Chris and Jonathan have achieved a lot and rightly deserve their piece of the success pie (which is something we should all be making bigger). To achieve anything in this world, we must overcome our fears and make our comfort zones bigger.
Here are some misc thoughts and notes I gained from the videos.
From Chris
- We all make a pact with fear. In exchange for a quiet life and one with no risk, fear takes a step back and doesn’t bother us.
- Sometimes fear doesn’t play nice. It’s like an untamed beast and sometimes it breaks it’s pact.
- Because of Fear our quiet life brings discontent, regret and dissatisfaction.
- Understanding fear helps us to move past it.
- Overcoming Fear means going through uncomfortable change.
- No one likes change and it’s so easy to defer the responsibility of changing or change vicariously through the lives of others – this is not enough.
- Change means an unknown future, it means compromise and sacrifice. There are a lot of reasons to be fearful.
- To overcome fear you need to step up. You need to believe and not be a cynic.
- We are all waiting for permission. Permission to change, permission to create, permission to grow. Permission to live our life.
- We believe that by someone giving us permission, we can defer responsibility if it all goes wrong.
- Permission is something which we can only give OURSELVES. No one else can give it to you and you can not give it to anyone else. All you can do for others is to show them what’s possible.
- Permission is taken not given. Permission is acted on not bestowed.
From Jonathan
- Remember that we all die. Life is unexpected. We NEED to follow our heart. We NEED to do something that makes us come alive.
- We see what we focus on. When we don’t see fear, when we don’t focus on fear, it quietly blossoms.
- It’s the things we don’t notice, the questions we don’t ask, the things we do not see that help fear creep up and paralyse us.
- Generally we fear three things – failure, judgement and success.
- Repetition brings belief. If we focus on how we will fail, if we focus on how it is uncomfortable, this becomes our belief. This is our truth.
- For most, fear of failure is the biggest fear. We all see the potential of what could go wrong – our mind is good at creating our “doomsday scenario”. We are very good at telling ourselves stories, vivid stories about how it will all go wrong.
- We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to re-frame fear. We must overcome fear and lead a life worth living.
- Whenever we are faced with a choice we have three scenarios:
- What if I fail?
- What if I do nothing?
- What if I succeed?
- We are so used to having Fear that we only see one choice. We only believe that we will fail.
- Failing is a real scenario. Allow yourself to produce the failure scenario but spend an equal amount of time thinking about the recovery scenario. What if you did fail? What could you do to get back to normal?
- Whenever you feel the resistance ask yourself how you can recover if it all goes wrong. You will see that most things are recoverable. Create a new pattern – failure comes with recovery. Repetition brings belief.
- Think about what will happen if you didn’t act. Would your unhappiness stay the same? Would your pain remain constant? Would your scenario change for the better or for the worse?
- Success is real too. What if you imagined what it would be like to succeed? What if the thing you want to do has been done. Think how this would feel? What does it look like, how does it sound, who could you inspire?
- Life doesn’t move sideways. We go up or we go down. We grow or we shrink. Life applies friction. Getting past fear means bringing the force and lubrication to move forward.
- Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all. We must find and do the thing that makes our heart sing. We are always teaching the next generation, through action or in action – our responsibility to grow is massive.
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.- Hafiz
Like everyone else I watched Inception recently. It’s a story about how to spread ideas, which to me is the fundamental part of marketing and the part of marketing that I enjoy so much. I love learning about ideas and the theory of why they spread. Sitting through the film got me thinking about how some of the ideas in Inception could be applied to marketing and even life itself.
I can’t remember all the characters and I’m too lazy to look it up. I know Leo DiCaprio was Cobb and it had Tom from 500 days of summer. Lets call the creative man with the plan “Gerrard” as he looks like one and the Japenese one “Sato” (I just watched Karate Kid 3). I think Bishop was the man who needed to be incepted so lets go with that.
On to the lessons! [Spoilers]
Keep ideas simple and connect emotionally
Ideas are layered like onions. What you are trying to sell or market can be stripped down to a basic idea that resonates emotionally. In the film “Sato” wishes Cobb and his team to plant an idea that involved breaking up of a massive company.
This idea was deemed too complicated, and “Gerrard” told the rest of the team the idea in it’s current form would not work. Breaking up the company was an end product. Instead, Gerrard suggest that the team explore the idea deeper and try to understand what feelings would result in “breaking up the company”
They took the idea and dived deeper. “Breaking up the company” turned into “Rebeling against your father” and after framing it in a positive manner turned into “Being your own person”. Each layer that was stripped away revealed greater clarity and simplicity in the idea whilst simultaneously connecting emotionally (as humans, our fundamental actions are to move away from pain or move toward pleasure, with pleasure being a stronger motivating factor).
Applied to marketing, figure out what core emotional need your product or service meets and use this as a starting point. Talk about how the benefits of your product or service can help meet these emotions. Think about how you can bring pleasure or remove pain.
Never be afraid to dream big
There is a great scene when Cobb and his team are underfire. “Tom” begins providing covering fire and is coming up with a fair amount of resistance. “Gerrard” pops up ever so nonchalant and says “you must never be afraid to dream a little bigger darling” and then brings out a massive rocket launcher to deal with those pesky bodyguards.
You must never be afraid to dream a little bigger. Step outside what you think is reality and solve the problem you are facing in a novel way. This is about thinking outside the box, it’s about deciding that the box is a limiting factor that doesn’t apply to you.
The key thing for me is that you must not be afraid to test assumptions (who says we can’t use a rocket launcher?) when you approach a problem. Sometimes we get stuck in the “fire fighting” and all that it takes to get over our blocks is to step back, breathe and bring out the massive metaphorical rocket launcher.
Have good intentions
The whole premise of the film is all about planting an idea into someone’s mind in such a way that they think it’s something they have thought of themselves – a moment of pure inspiration.
A lot of people don’t like marketing (the traditional, interruption based type) and maybe it’s because they believe that the tactics marketers use are a little sneaky. That they are using wizadry to trick us into believing that the never ending desire for faster, bigger and better stuff is what we need to make us happy.
Initially we were lead to believe that “Sato” wanted to incept an idea as his firm was in direct competition. We later found out his real motivations – if the company was not broken up, one firm would have too much control. The entire supply of power for the whole world could be controlled by one man and that is too much of a risk.
Having good intentions meant that the tactics they used could be accepted.
Marketing (the kind I like) is about connecting people with great products and services that really do have a positive impact on the “customer”. Fundamentally the intention is to do good and by starting in this place, marketing “tactics” are more likely to be accepted.
An idea doesn’t stick if it’s out of your reality
This is all about World Views. Every single person sees the world in their unique way and all the experiences they have provide biases and filters that impact this vision. Most people generally don’t like being wrong, they don’t like their realities or world view to be questioned.
When teaching the new architect how to build dream worlds, Cobb makes a point of not going too crazy, not going too far out of the dreamer’s reality. When the dreamscape got too mental, notice how all the people (that represent the subconscious) immediately began looking at the architect. Note how they obviously knew that there was a foreginer trying to invade their mind with ideas and how aggressive they became to the idea maker.
For any idea to stick or embed, it’s important that the idea itself matches the world view and reality of the person. Being so far out of someone’s world view could be met with aggression so the trick of the marketer is to ease the idea in. Idea’s on the edge of one’s reality are uncomfortable, but they can be accepted. Start with the world view and stretch.
Let others make their own story
One of the key points in the movie was when Bishop realised that his Godfather/Uncle/Mentor was not the person he really knew and had intentions to hide his father’s real wish from him. Through careful stage management, Cobb and his team convinced Bishop that the right thing to do was to break up his father’s company.
Bishop came to this conclusion by himself. This is why the idea stuck. When Bishop took in all the data from his surroundings he told himself a story about what the real situation was. This story, to him, was real inspiration – it became part of his world view.
Marketers can not tell people to agree with an idea. They cannot make others believe all the benefits and features of their product. Like the dream architects, all they can do is set up the correct conditions and environment that will let a customer come to their own conclusion, to tell their own story.
WTF. It’s August. What happend. Poof. 6 months gone in a flash. I thought this year was going to be different – the year when I stop talking and start doing.
I remember sitting down at the start of the year feeling excited about how much great stuff I’m going to do this year, about all the things that I anticipated getting done. Half way through the year and not much has changed. Still dreaming, still thinking about that project that I’m going to do someday.
Someday never comes. We have to accept two things.
1. We are all capable of doing great things.
2. Great things are not accidental. Great things just don’t happen by themselves.
Maybe you’ve got this sussed and are well on track to achieve your goals for the year (for this I applaud you). If you are like me and are feeling a little lost, rejoice, as now is the time for us all to take some responsibility and purposefully move towards achieving the things we want to do.
I used to believe that having a big dream was enough. That defining and visualising the end goal would be all that’s needed. That somehow, by keeping these goals in mind at all times, somehow the Earth’s energies would align and present these gifts to me.
Thinking is not enough. We need to plan. We need to track and review.
This last month I’ve been conducting a weekly review. I’ve been making time to sit down for 15-20 mins each week to plan where I am going and look back on what I have done.
I’ve progressed my goals more these last few weeks then the entire first half of the year.
You may think you don’t need a plan and that things will just work out. It’s easy to think this way – I did it for a long time. Things may work out, but without any action on your part, this working out may take a very long time.
Goals don’t achieve themselves. Big goals are really only a culmination of little steps. If you are not purposefully doing the little things, how will the big things become real. Can you honestly say that doing random acts each day will get you to where you want to be?
We think it’s ok as the day to day stuff is minor. It’s not. The days lead to weeks. The weeks lead to months and the next thing you know, a whole year has gone by. Again.
If you are feeling like you haven’t achieved much this year, I urge you to spend one hour to make some plans. One hour is all I want. Entertain me. Watch a little less TV, read a couple less blogs. This one hour will give you so much happiness in 6 months.
The aim of the plan is to connect the big stuff with the day to day (traceability) and also to review your progress as you go along (measurement).
The Planning Framework.
Firstly lets look at the next 6 months on a macro level. Ask yourself
* What did you want to achieve this year back in January?
* Of these things which items are still outstanding AND you still want to do them?
* Is there anything else you want to achieve or do this year?
You should now have a list of stuff (I hope you are writing this down) you want to do or goals you want to achieve before the year is out. Go through this list and pick 3-5 items that you want to achieve above all the others.
These are your priorities. These are the things that must relate to everything you do on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.
Next step. Think in terms of 90 days. 3 months. Doesn’t seem so far away, but is a sizeable amount of time which you can really make progress on your goals.
For each of your priorities identify a couple of really big milestones which you could achieve in 90 days. Remember, these milestones should directly relate to achieving your main priorites.
Once you have figured out what you want to get done in 90 days, it’s time to break these down further into monthly chunks. Write down what you are going to achieve this month to make progress towards your 90 day milestone.
Finally, look to the next week. What things can you do this week to help you achieve your monthly goal? Be realistic with your time – 1/2 things per day if you have other commitments is very honourable.
Complete this exercise and you have just planned. You have identified some tasks to do this week and the beauty is that every single task you are working on, every single thing you accomplish each day can be directly traced to your end of year priority.
Now keep up the momentum.
Every week spend 15-20 minutes reviewing your progress. Ask yourself:
* Did I achieve what I wanted to do last week?
* How did last week go?
* What am I going to do this week to achieve my monthly goals?
At the end of the month, spend a few more minutes and ask yourself (in addition):
* Did I achieve what I wanted to do last month?
* Overall thoughts – any recurring patterns that are giving you pain?
* Are my 90 day milestones still valid?
* What am I going to do next month to achieve my 90 day milestones?
After 90 days (half way) ask:
* How is my progress against my initial 90 day goal?
* What can I do the next 90 days to ensure I achieve my priorities?
* What have I learnt from the last 90 days that can help me with the next?
6 months > 90 days > 1 month > 1 week.
Remember. Traceabliity and Measurement. Break down the big goals to daily tasks and make sure that each task relates directly. Don’t forget to celebrate those small victories and achievements!
Fail fast.
Fail easy.
Fail often.
Repeat. Then Learn.
I’ve been reading Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It , a book about the importance of combining real passion, hard work and social media (notes later). One of the earlier snippets of value I got was when he talked about how we should all be hanging out in the Search – particularly the Twitter and Facebook searches.
This tactic was only mentioned briefly (on the iPhone Vook version) but I thought it was interesting enough to write up and share.
The basic premise is that you search the various social media sites looking for people who you can help and then connect with generosity.
This tactic, I expect ,works best if you have some product or service on offer. Find people in pain, then offer your solution.
Social Media, Twitter in particular, have really lowered the barriers to share what is on your mind with the rest of the world. It’s easy to tell everyone you are fighting procrastination, have tooth ache, a hurty knee or maybe just hate ironing. Whatever the particular pain point, you can share it.
People are connecting around interests and sharing everything. This is market research!
You can use the search to find people who recognise they are in pain that your product or service can solve. These people are in blatant admitted pain. Identify these people, introduce yourself, give them some value and more likely then not, they will be happy to offer you their attention. Keep adding value and they may like you and then even trust you.
Gain their attention. Get them to like you. Earn their trust. Offer your solution to their problem and then get paid. Rinse, repeat and build a following – all because you picked them out from millions of tweets, recognised their pain and offered a solution.
Here is a rough framework.
- Figure out what problem you solve
- If you had this particular problem, how would you tweet it? What are the keywords?
- Go to the Twitter search and plug in your keywords?
- Go through the results and see if they are actually relevant.
- Add value or give some kind of gift. Don’t just tell them to buy your stuff – can you help with the pain in a non spammy way?
- Repeat
- Crush It.
Any other ways you can use social media search to Crush It?
- Take note to the praise that people give you. via Danielle La Porte
- What do you think about on the toilet? via Gretchin Rubin
- Identify what you are drawn to in your spare time.
- What would you do if you had unlimited money and couldn’t fail?
- Look to things that excite you.
- What do you always think about?
- Sit down and write until something resonates with you. via Steve Pavlina
- Identify what you are good at. via zen habits
- What did you want to do as a kid?
- What do you secretly dream about?
- Analyse what makes you feel alive then connect the dots. via Forty Plus Two
- What makes you smile?
- What would you do for free?
- What comes easy to you?
- When are you most creative?
- What do you like to talk about?
- What makes you unafraid of failure? via I Need Motivaiton
- What would you regret not having tried?
- Ask the one question – “What should I do with my life?”
- Identify your internal goals then take action. Do 5% more (or less) then what you did yesterday. via Zen Habits
- Look at the things you hate. Your passion may be making these things better. via ClickNewz
- Take care of yourself, exercise and then listen to the thoughts that come to you. via eHow
- Ask your friends
- Be quiet and listen.
- Don’t find a passion just be passionate. via pick the brain.
- Keep a journal and envisage a perfect day, week and month. via Dumb LIttle Man
- Take an online test to find out your signature strengths.
- Take an emotional view and then take a rational view. via Steve Pavlina.
- Look at the things you secretly love. via GoodlifeZen
- Try diffferent things. Lots of them.
- What do people ask you for help on? via Wife.org
- Combine talents. via wikihow?
- Ask: Do you like it? Are you good at it? Does the world need it? via Steven Covey / entrepeneur.com
- Seek excellence in all you do.
- Don’t bother. The pain and turmoil that you get from comparing where you are at to where you want to be far outweighs any happiness passion will bring. Plus the grass is always greener. via ask metafilter.
- Experiment outside of what society thinks you should do.
- Pick a random path. Trust it will work out.
- Investigate why you like what you like.
- Listen to the advice of those that love you.
- Change your perspective and see passion as a relationship not an end goal. via ask metafilter.
- Keep your eyes open and your heart even opener. via Merlin Mann
- Write a list of everything you like. Compare and Eliminate. Winner takes all. via daily blog tips.
- Let go of limiting beliefs. via the change blog
- Observe your reactions to things. via Debra Moorhead
- Expand your comfort zone.
- Un-niche and transcend nouns. via DumblittleMan
- What makes you feel you have contributed? via Erin Pavlina
- What do you Google most often? via Toilet Paper Entrepeneur
- If university had no relationship to finding a job ,what would you study?
- Write your obituary. via mpoweruniversity.
List of Resources
- The Short but Powerful Guide to Finding your Passion – Zen Habits
- How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes – Steve Pavlina
- findingyourpassion.org
- Find Your Pasison in Life – Forty Plus Two
- 7 questions to finding your true passion – I need motivation
- What Should I Do with my Life – The one question
- The 5% Trick: Finding Passion and Purpose in Life – Zen Habits
- How do you find your passion in Life? – Click Newz
- How to find Passion in Life – eHow
- Find your pasison – PicktheBrain
- How to find your passion – Dumb LIttle Man
- The Meaning of Life: Discover Your Purpose – Steve Pavlina
- 15 Questions that Reveal your Ultimate Purpose in Life – Goodlife Zen
- Finding Your Passion – Wife.org
- Finding your Passion – Entrepreneur.com
- How do you find your passion – Ask MetaFilter
- Watching the Corners: On Future Proofing Your Pasion – 43 Folders
- 5 Simple Ways to Find Your Passion – Daily Blog Tips
- Finding Your Passion -The Change Blog
- How to Discover Your Passion – Debra Morhead
- Still Searching for Your Passion – Dumb Little Man
- How to Find and Ignite your Passion – Erin Pavlina
- How to find Your Passion – Toilet Paper Entrepeneur
- 10 Esoteric Tips to Discover Your Passion In Life. – mpoweruniversity
I think TED is one of my favourite websites in the world. I love reading about the life lessons of others and I always seem to find something which totally gives me an alternative perspective.
In this 5 min talk Stefan Sagmeister uses his art to tell the story of things he has learnt. T-Shirt Philosophy FTW.
- Helping other people helps me
- Having guts always works out for me
- Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now
- Starting a charity is surprisingly easy
- Being not truthful works against me
- Everything I do always comes back to me
- Assuming is stifling
- Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on
- Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted
- Money does not make me happy
- Travelling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life
- Keeping a diary supports personal development
- Trying to look good limits my life
- Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses
- Worrying solves nothing
- Complaining is silly. Either act or forget
- Actually doing the things I set out to do increases my overall level of satisfaction
- Everybody always thinks they are right
- Low expectations are a good strategy
- Whatever I want to explore professionally, its best to try it out for myself first
- Everybody who is honest is interesting
Value is a funny thing. We all have it but some of us are reluctant to share what we have. We decide not to share our gifts, to not help our fellow man, not through selfishness, but through fear.
Fear that what we provide will be of no use. Fear that we are have no credibility or authority to provide this value. Fear that there will always be someone with better knowledge and who is better experienced to provide this value.
It’s nonsense. We all have something to give – we need to give it.
Dave Navarro, in his excellent (and free) ebook about playing a bigger game has a whole section dedicated to this.
Essentially, to play a bigger game we need to recognise the value we provide for others and also decide to share our gifts with others. We all underestimate how much value we provide. We all think sometimes that only experts are the ones who can offer value. It holds us back from what we are capable of. Experts become experts because they built up their knowledge – they didn’t just suddenly become experts, it was the result of a growth process.
The biggest thing to realise is that value is relative. That value is relative to the person who is receiving. That if you are better than someone else and find a way of making them better, what you have done is provided value.To the recipient, they have improved as a result of your interaction – they have received value from you.
Yes, there will always be someone better than you or someone more qualified who can add more value. But at that moment, for that person, you have given value and that value is valuable. They have still improved as a result of your interaction. You have still added value.
You don’t need to be a “10″ to add value. As long as you are more than the other person you can add value. If that person is a ’2′ and you are a ’6′ then guess what – there is still so much value you can provide. The gap between you and the recipient is where value lies.
You don’t need a 10 when a 6 will do. Recognise the value you give.
I was first introduced to the concept of “Blatant Admitted Pain” through a call Jonathan Fields did with Pam Slim’s and Chris Guillebeau’s excellent $100Biz Forum(*). The concept relates to testing if there is a market for your idea and is explored further throughout a week of Chris’ Empire Building Kit (*).
The call explores the various things you need to consider when deciding if you should pursue an idea. Many concepts were mentioned, but “Blatant Admitted Pain” stuck out the most.
Most ideas exist to solve a particular problem. If the person who will benefit most from your idea is in “Blatant Admitted Pain” and your idea helps them remove themselves from this situation, it’s quite likely that they will pay you for the solution.
So what exactly is “Blatant Admitted Pain”? Some definitions mat help.
- Blatant – without any attempt at concealment; completely obvious
- Admitted – declare to be true
- Pain – feeling of great discomfort
So in simplistic terms, Blatant Admitted Pain, refers to how a person feels about the problem they are having. To accept a solution there must be an obvious problem (blatant), they must believe this problem to be true (admitted), and the problem must cause them some form of discomfort (pain).
If a person is not in this situation they may still accept your solution but more effort on your part is needed. As well as addressing the problem there is an educational burden that must first be overcome. You need to convince them of the extent of their problem before you can begin to solve it. A person in blatant admitted pain lowers the barriers between problem and solution.
With any new idea there will always be some element of “Educational Burden” but by assessing your market you can decide if your efforts are better spent solving a problem rather than convincing people they are in pain. There is nothing wrong with setting out to overcome a larger Educational Burden as these can be very nobel causes – just be aware that fighting a large educational burden is requires lots of resources, both financially and emotionally.
This model acts as a nice and quick litmus test to determine if the way you are trying to solve a problem is likely to be accepted and you can apply the model retrospectively to assess why some ideas were better accepted than others:
Bing (pain)- Bing may be a better search but Google is still synonymous with Internet searching. Bing advocates may suggest that Google search provide pain to the users, but for most users the pain is neither blatant nor admitted. Search isn’t broken (it might be but there is a huge educational burden to overcome).
The Green Movement (blatant pain)- It’s only recently that Green issues have come to the forefront of our minds. Most of the information we have accessible to us hasn’t changed from the 60’s. The pain is, and always has been, quite blatant but the “admitted” part has only come recently, so people are more open to accepting solutions.
Healthy Eating (admitted pain) – We all know we should eat better. We all know that putting so much junk in our bodies will prove to be detrimental yet we still do it. Despite this we don’t change. We admit our pain but it is not obvious what the alternative is. It is not obvious how we we solve our problems. Our pain is admitted but not blatant. We have too many thoughts on this (Low GI, Less Calories, No Fat, No Carbs, etc) and the options paralyse us (in addition specific diets are so accepted as they zone in on a blatant aspect of the pain).
A market that is in Blatant Admitted Pain is the one you should match your idea up with. They have a problem and are looking to you to help solve it.
Further exploration on how to asses if there is a market for your idea can be found in the highly recommended Empire Building Kit (*) (overview here). This product (available in the Unconventional Store (*)) takes you through the motions of building your very own Empire (profitable lifestyle business) through 365 daily emails.
