Sometimes I forget important things...

It's true. Even with lists and automatic reminders and electronic calendars, I still forget things. Unfortunately, often times the things I forget are the really important things. You know, the things that shouldn't ever be forgotten but somehow do.

Like being authentic.

Sometimes I forget this. And sadly enough, it seems like 98.72348% of the population struggles with the same loss of memory. But why? Why are we afraid to be authentic?

Maybe because it costs more.

I recently read a story about a little boy who grew up in the 50's watching his favorite cowboy show set out in the Wild West. One year his parents took the little boy to see the set as a treat. With eager anticipation, the little boy imagined how great it would be to experience in real life what he had experienced for so long on the other side of a glass screen sitting in his living room. However, upon arrival at the set, his expectations were dashed. Turns out it was filmed on a studio lot and the Wild West wasn't really all that wild. And to make things worse, the town was little more than a meticulously constructed facade that looked great on one side but was propped up with a few boards on the other side.

I suppose the set designers could have created a whole town that would have undoubtedly captured the delight of the little boys who were fortunate enough to come visit the site where their action heroes existed - but they didn't. It would have cost too much.

The facade worked just fine. Well, until you saw the other side that is.

It's so easy to say yes when you really want to say no.
It's so easy to say that you understand when you really don't.
It's so easy to over-promise and under-deliver.
It's so easy to say what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
It's so easy to be something, or someone, else than what you really should be.

It's so easy to fake it.

And it's also so very easy to blend in.

It's much harder to stick out. It's hard to be unique. It's tough to be authentic. That in itself is almost reason enough to try it, but there's more to it than that. When you're authentic people take notice. When you tell the truth people are shocked. When you stand your ground it's as though you can feel the solid surface beneath you rising up and connecting with the skin of your toes and the bottom of your heels. It becomes firm. Unwavering. Unyielding.

I'm going to do a better job of reminding myself to be authentic. And you?

The Extra Mile (It's not a requirement)

"Going the extra mile". We've all heard this phrase many times probably without understanding where it originally came from. So, without further delay, allow me to provide a small history lesson gathered from the cobwebs of my brain (and Google).

During the times of the Roman Empire, there was a law that allowed Roman soldiers the right to force Jews to carry their heavy packs for a mile. The law was very specific though, it was only for one mile. The soldier would actually get into trouble for making a Jew carry their pack for a greater distance than was permitted. So Jesus, in his infinite wisdom, told his followers that if they were made to carry a Roman soldiers' pack for one mile, that they should not drop the load at the mile marker- but keep going. This accomplished two things. It first made the soldier uncomfortable because someone was doing more than was expected from them. It was truly an expression of freedom. And secondly, it was a clever way of potentially getting that soldier in hot water with his superiors for seemingly breaking the law. Pretty interesting hunh?

Fast forward a couple thousand years and now we have this saying, "Go the extra mile." We may not know the meaning but the addition of the word "extra" seems to imply that it's not compulsory. No one is going to make you do it. And going one step further, no one is going to expect you to do it and they certainly won't hold you accountable for NOT doing it.

And that, my friends, is the key to it all.

I recently talked about a guy named Jay Abraham, a marketing genius. Jay talks about the difference between a client and a customer. A customer is someone who purchases a product or service from you. A client  is someone under your protection.

Read that again.

What this means is that when you have customers your responsibility is pretty much complete at the point of transaction. "You have a product, I have your money - hope your happy." In other words, I walked the one mile that I was compelled to walk.

But when you have clients, your responsibility for their well-being is never over. Not even after the transaction is completed. Hmm, this sounds a lot like an extra mile. Or two extra miles. Perhaps three.

The point is, when you have clients you have the responsibility to protect them; to care for them; to watch over them. And maybe even when doing so is outside the normal scope of your normal products or services.

No one is going to make you walk the extra mile, that's the point. But if you decide to walk it, you'll have a client for life.

"You take the front, I'll take the back."

It sounds like a clichéd line from some cop show you've seen a thousand times. Two cops pull up in front of a house and jump out with guns drawn. Their faces etched with menacing confidence, they survey the situation and prepare to move in. The 'perp doesn't even know what's coming.

"You take the front, I'll take the back."

It sounds pretty good- knowing that someone is on your side...

Someone is looking out for your best interest...

Someone is there to protect you... 

But what about in real life? And what if you're not a cop? Who has your back then?

Who will take a risk on your behalf?

While this question can be applied to any situation or any relationship, I naturally place it in the context of business. Who is looking out for me and who am I looking out for?

Jay Abraham is a highly paid and very experienced marketing consultant. One of the key concepts that he teaches is called the Strategy of Preeminence. This strategy is at its core simply saying, "I've got your back, and I'm always going to do the right thing for you."

Pretty basic and yet not many businesses function with this philosophy. Because the truth of the matter is that it's risky to trust someone else. How do we know that what they are trying to sell me is what I really need? Far too often, it's much easier to not trust, to not engage, and to not seek to understand. 

This is the safe route, but it's ultimately hollow and exhausting. Far better to take a risk and say, "I've got your back."

Hi, ate us?

I was curious about where the word "hiatus" came from, so I looked up the etymology online. It's a Latin word meaning a gap, or an interruption in events. This is a pretty accurate description of what I've been going through over the last several months - I've been on hiatus. I haven't blogged in quite a while and honestly, I haven't had much to say.

There are many reasons for this, the details of which I won't bore you with at the moment, but it's been a valuable time of reassessing a lot of things in my life - some good, some bad, some painful. Regardless, I think it's good for everyone to recognize the season of life they are in, whether it's in our businesses, our relationships, our finances, our purpose, etc, etc.

I've learned a lot of things over this process and I can look back at the not-so distant memory of 2010 and say with confidence that it was a significant year for me. It didn't always go how I'd planned but that seems to be the general nature of life anyway.

So, now with 2011 already underway, I don't feel it appropriate to do the normal rah-rah pep talk about making this your best year EVER! For some reason this year feels a little quieter. I don't know what to expect for 2011 but I expect good things, extraordinary things, and I hope you do as well.

Signs of drowning

Apparently the signs of drowning are unlike what we saw on Baywatch (not that we ever watched Baywatch - but that's neither here nor there). There are no cries for help. There isn't a massive struggle with hands waving in the air.

Here's why.

They can't. Most drowning people are unable to speak because the natural response in a drowning situation is to breathe - not to talk. Breathing must be taken care of before before speech can occur. Kind of important that breathing...

Turns out they're also unable to wave for help. A drowning person is essentially programmed by nature to extend their arms and press down on the surface of the water to try and keep themselves from being submersed - not to wave them wildly above their heads. (info sourced from Lifehacker.com)

And so since the drowning victim doesn't display the expected "signs" of drowning we don't even pay attention.

It's so easy to go unnoticed. 

It's so easy to blend in.

It's so easy to make it look like nothing is wrong - even though we might be frantically sinking.

In other words, it's pretty easy to drown.

Luckily lifeguards are trained in this sort of thing and they can quickly identify the nuances of behavior that alert them to avert such crises. So if you begin drowning at the beach or in a pool, there's probably a fairly good chance you'll be rescued.

Life and business is another story. There's no one perched on a tall chair slathered with sunblock watching you intently for signs of trouble. You're on your own. You succeed, bravo! You fail, so sorry, we didn't even really notice you sinking.

Scary. Unless you have a plan that is. So here's the metaphorical plan I recommend: Wear a lifejacket and go into the water with friends that you can trust to watch out for you.

Be knowledgeable, seek and gain wisdom, don't be afraid to ask for help, recognize what you're good at and outsource what you're not. And above all, don't drown.

Manufactured vs. Organic

There's an amusing discussion taking place amongst my family at the moment. My wife is an evangelist of organic, whole foods that have not been processed or tainted by chemicals. She believes food in it's natural state is best for consumption. This explains why our refrigerator looks like a garden minus the dirt...

On the other side of this lively debate is my cousin who is a chemical engineer. His point of view is that processing is only done to provide an improvement of some kind. Chemicals aren't bad, rather they are the necessary components to making something better. He's not defending the over-consumption of Twinkies, but he also doesn't believe that processing equals bad.

Organic vs. Manufactured 

Now consider the same topic, but in a different context...

• Enthusiasm
• Sales
• Communication
• Motivation

If you really pay attention to the world around you, it quickly becomes apparent that we don't know how to grow anything. Ultimately we don't know how to be real so we're forced to manufacture - which is hard work.

Go pick up any sales book and you'll find the following commands:

• Be enthusiastic about your product or service
• Sell more by using these closing methods
• Communicate carefully so you can build rapport and create results
• Get motivated by talking to yourself in the mirror, verbalizing your goals, and jumping up and down 26 times!

And yet the question remains...How do you be or express what you're not??

Several years ago, when I was looking for a job, I interviewed at a lot of different places. I walked in with a suit on, resume in hand, and pre-programmed answers to the questions I thought would be asked. For the most part I believe I interviewed well. But I got very few offers.

Why?

I didn't want it. I guarantee it didn't show on the outside because I was saying all the right things, but I lacked convincability. I was communicating extremely well on a subconscious level to the interviewer that I didn't have belief in the company or the product. I didn't really want to work there. I was there because I needed a job and a paycheck - not because I believed in the company or the product.

Manufactured vs. Organic

I tried to manufacture belief but I couldn't and so ultimately I was ineffective. I was trying to produce something that hadn't actually been grown organically. So at the age of 33 I'm focusing on developing myself and designing a life and a business from an organic perspective. It's a longer road, it's frustrating, and I lose patience very easily with this process. But it's better. Much, much better.

The Edge

The Edge.

A scary, awesome place.

Rumor has it that people of long ago thought the world was flat. We've all heard this before. Everyone stayed in the safe middle because if you ventured too far you'd go over the edge. That was the prevailing philosophy of the day and it was truth. Until someone proved it false, that is.

Thinking outside the box.

A popular term meaning to do something unexpectedly brilliant that produces inspired innovation, heroic ideas, and celebratory parades. Or something like that. But can we really just think outside the box?

It didn't take thinking to discover that the world was round and not flat and that you would indeed live if you sailed past the horizon. Someone actually had to go discover it. They had to do something. They had to risk their very life and limb to sail right up to the edge and look into the supposed chasm of death.

Except that there wasn't any such chasm. There never was. And yet, from what we know, an entire global population was held captive to the middle, to what they knew. They were imprisoned by their own ideas.

And the same thing holds true today. We live in the middle because its safe. We dare not venture past where we can see because we assume there is a chasm of death eagerly waiting to swallow us up. We play it safe in our own backyards and so we ultimately play it small.

We risk nothing and gain the same. The people that you and I admire have stepped out of their own yards and are consciously and continuously moving toward the edge. This isn't to say that they don't have doubts and that sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs at what could happen - but they don't stop.

Why then should we?