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That’s my mandate/order/request/challenge to you today. Branch out.
Let’s face it, most of us live our lives on autopilot. We get up at the same time every day, we eat the same things for breakfast, drive the same route to work, listen to the same radio stations, read the same books, talk to the same people. And the sad thing is that we seem fine with that.
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We spend far too much time trying to avoid failure. It drives many (maybe even most) of our decisions—at least the bigger ones.
“What if I fail?”
“What if this doesn’t work?”
“What if I get embarrassed?”
“What if I get sued?”
Sure, these questions—and others like them—need to be taken into consideration. But all too often they become the primary decision driver. We make our decisions ...
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I recently had the privilege of delivering the opening keynote address at the annual convention of Mensa. This can be a little intimidating, because the sole requirement for membership in Mensa is that you be a genius (in the top 2% of IQ). Granted, I’m a member, but I’m pretty sure I got in under some sort of affirmative ...
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Creativity and innovation are the currencies of the future. This is not a surprise any more than it is debatable. The rate of change has never been as fast as it is today, and it will only get faster. Nobody—not even the so-called “futurists”—really knows what’s coming around the corner, so the only defense (which is also the best offense) is to nurture and cultivate the creative talent in your organization. Creativity is the ultimate skill set for dealing with ...
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“When everything is running smoothly, there’s no impetus to change, to grow, to progress. It’s only when things stop running smoothly—when they break—that we suddenly look at alternatives and discover, often to our amazement, that there’s a better way.”
Oh, I know—you’ve got enough problems to deal with without tinkering with the stuff that’s already working. “The water’s already choppy,” you ...
So I was reading an online article yesterday about the iPad (because, as we all know, there haven’t been enough articles about the iPad). The article itself wasn’t earth-shattering—something about how the iPad is outselling Mac computers—but I thought one of the comments was hugely insightful. The thread was about why Apple products, particularly the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, are so immensely popular. The comment that caught my eye (or, in AppleSpeak, my “i”) was this:
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You’ve got a nice little business with all the things that a nice little business requires: a great product or service, a company web site, maybe even an expensive sales and marketing campaign. The only problem is, you’re not getting the customers. You’ve built it, but they’re not coming. What’s the problem?
You have no hook.
One of the primary reasons for the Beatles’ enduring success is that, above almost anything else, those boys could write a hook! Some little musical idea ...
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As a professional speaker, I get to visit with many different businesses in a cross-section of industries. I’m noticing some trends that I find encouraging—trends that I’ve confirmed with several of my speaker colleagues. Now, I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that we’re completely out of the economic doldrums. You’re too smart to fall for that (except for you—the guy in the yellow flowered shirt—you’ll believe anything I tell you). But in broad terms, ...
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I’ve never run a pre-school daycare, but for fifteen years I was the boss of ten multi-Emmy Award winning comedy writers, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. As the Executive Producer of Seattle’s sketch comedy TV show, Almost Live!, it was my job to keep a highly creative team motivated and productive. I learned a lot of things along the way, but primarily I learned that a creative team needs two seemingly incompatible things in order to thrive: ...
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I’m tired of hearing people talk about “quantity vs. quality,” as if the two were mutually exclusive. [You: “Really? You’re tired of that? You’re hearing this conversation so much that you’re actually tired of it? What kind of lame parties are you going to, man? I never hear people talking about ‘quantity vs. quality!'”] Well, perhaps I hang out with a more erudite crowd than you. But the point is this: quantity and quality are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, when ...
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