Archive for » 2010 «

Thank you Seth Godin

There are lots of people worth listening to, but post for post Seth Godin probably scores higher on the “pure wisdom scale”  (if there was one) than anyone online.  On a daily basis he explores some concept and makes it relevant.  He doesn’t sell, he doesn’t instruct and he doesn’t preach.  He just offers up knowledge to whoever will drink from the spring.

For those of us who may have found ourselves chained to a desk for the past 20 years, it helps rekindle those flames of business revolution that we may have flirted with in days past.  For what Tim Ferris does at dissecting reality, Seth adds a conceptual dimension to give things new meaning.   I encourage you to sign up for his blog to get a daily dose of wisdom that is rare to say the least.    - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Regardless of where you are in your life and what you want to do with it, unless you are already have the lifestyle you want, you aren’t there now.  You are where you are because of the choices you made and the way you think.  Some of those things you might have changed in retrospect, but I’m also sure you wouldn’t trade some of those experiences either.  So I look at everything as foundation.  Some people just take longer at laying it.   It’s never too late to start.  So again if your attitude needs a little adjustment, a daily dose of Seth Godin is just what the doctor ordered.

And one last note for Seth if he is reading.  I was one of the late convertees to gmail.  Once I got the hang of things (I was a Eudora user), I started organizing my emails into folders.  Gmail is nice enough to give you a starter set, but I had my own filing systems.  About the same time, I started subscribing to Seth Godin’s email list.  Every day a new nugget of wisdom showed up in my email.  It didn’t ask me to click a link, join a webinar, or sell me private label widgets.  It was just there to do with as I please.  Initially I read them and left them (I’ll be lucky if I ever use over 10% of my allocated storage), but I’ve come to view Seth’s emails as some of the few generic emails worth keeping.  The logical thing to do would have been to create a Seth Godin folder, but I realized that one of the default folders that I hadn’t used was called “Personal”.  It seemed like a non-decision at the time, but it has become the only thing I store in that folder.  And the irony for me is that dispite the mass focused nature, for me they are truely personal.

So once again – Thanks Seth Godin.

(My favorite Seth Godin book so far)

But I’m Over 40

When I was in my twenties I invested in real estate, traveled the world, would go running at midnight, and generally got around 4 hours sleep.  Wine (actually more beer), women and song played a large part of that as well.  You’re at that stage in life where you are past being an invincible teenager, but you have haven’t gotten to the soccer dad, occasional medical procedure, wouldn’t it be nice to sleep in on the weekends stage.  It’s this window of wonder and uncertainty that rock stars are born – or not born.  The Internet is full of them.   Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Shaun Fanning, etc.  And especially in Internet Marketing circles the list of 20 somethings who are raking on 7 figures doing something that sounds almost too easy, continues to grow.  For those of us over 40 who didn’t become a millionaire before age 30, it’s inspiring and frustrating at the same time.  Most of us eased out of that magical time into a little house, mini-van and 2.5 kids without even noticing.

I’d like to think there is still hope.  The key is unlearning bad habits and start identifying ways to reclaim time from your 9 to 5, get the kids to volleyball practice and walk the dog life.  Start identifying those things that you tolerate in your life.  It may be doing yard work, paying bills, etc.  Now start looking for ways to eliminate them.  Hiring your kids to do yard work, setting up electronic payments, etc.  The key is creating space in your life so that you have time for the things that you may have wanted in the first place.  And most importantly, start weening yourself from email.  Do not check email first thing in the morning, and try to schedule times of the day that you check email.  You will find that you recover quite a bit of time in the process.

This is just a start though.  Start thinking about what else you would like to do with your life.  It’s easy to look at some of the rock stars out there and think you missed your chance, but history paints a different picture.  Divinci, Michelangelo, Grandma Moses and Horace Sanders (Mr. KFC) all were well over 40 when they came into prominence.  Also, statistically if you start a business over age 40 your chance of success more than doubles compared to if you started the same business in your 20s.

And the last of these first steps is opening your mind to some of the possibilities out there.  There’s plenty of unlearning to do.  As homework I would recommend The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz.  Some people get hung up on the title of Tim’s book but it’s really not about getting your work week down to 4 hours, it’s about what would you do with an extra 36 hours.  More to come.