A crazy idea
You’ve chosen not to specialize yet, because of… No niche? Hard decision to make a decision? Multi-hyphen whatever? Afraid you’ll pigeon hole yourself? Afraid you’ll die of boredom IF you choose? Or maybe just don’t know how to decide? I feel you. Walt Stanchfield is famously attributed to saying: “We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better.” Same is with your ideas. The sooner you get them out the better. The only way I’ve seen and tested to do so is one,…
A Bolt use of time
Usain Bolt is considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. The assumption we go under is that he uses less time to get from point A to point B, making time the measurement. However, the perspective is not accurate. In words of Ron Baker, “Time is a constraint. A constant constraint”. [Context starts at 4:04, gold at 5:43] You can’t take it, store it nor use it. You simply get faster/more efficient within that time constraint. It’s not that Bolt “uses” less time, he just gets more…
A push
Would your clients describe you as Rick Rubin is described? “He is the end all of listeners,” said Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, following their time working together on last year’s Unlimited Love.” Source: MusicRadar There’s a (hidden) definition of leadership in this interview, because leadership is about elevating others: “[…] It’s all about helping to push the musicians he’s working with, and the music they’re writing, in the right direction. This is accomplished by…
Simple and repetitive
“The power of playing simple and repetitive.It doesn’t take long for people to get it.” Victor Wooten He’s got a definition of how music needs this naturality so that you stop listening and start feeling. Once you get it, you can be pulled where the other cool, more nuanced (or sophisticated) stuff is. Same is with your writing. Same with choosing your niche. Same with specializing. Start with that. Play simple. Make people stop listening. Have them feeling. Then you move into deeper…
5 ways to see things… different.
Strategic creativity. Unlike the usual take on creativity (drawing, creating art, “inventiveness”), it aims at pondering questions about what could be, instead of what is. It’s not about “How can we be creative?” but about What if this could be different? Is there another way? Can we make another way? Here’s a (sort of) manifesto: BTW, this is not a How-To run/manage creatives. This kind of strategic creativity has nothing to do with that. It’s about how you can leverage your strategic…
Category creation
“Category creation” really is creating sub-categories or niche markets. Hank Barnes. Rethinking Categories Which is not wrong. It’s just *not* creating a new category. To stay in the game of business, you need 2 things: will AND resources. To create a new category, you rely heavily on resources: you need money and time, a.k.a. big pockets AND patient investors. Louis Grenier lists here 4 reasons why *not* to create a “new” category. And it’s bloody genius. BTW, niching down ain’t category…
Quit charging your worth
“Charging your worth” focuses on you, not on the outcomes and transformations you can drive. It doesn’t focus on what your clients are after. It assigns the subjectivity to your POV (what you think it’s worth), instead of figuring out what is valuable for your clients. It implies that your worth has a fixed price. So that for whatever task you do, the price will be the same. Design a strategy? X price. Mown the lawn? The same X price. Wash the dishes? Same X price Implement a whole biz…
What the hell is water?
How’s the water?Asks one fish to other two.One of the other two replies “What the hell is water?” David Foster Wallace, Kenyon Commencement Speech The curse of knowledge. We assume what we know MUST BE known for others. Because we do something so natural that feels like breathing to us, doesn’t mean everybody else does too. Today’s email from Louis Grenier made my head click. You do something so easily it feels like breathing. It’s just natural. The thing is, you’re too close to it to really…
You’re not getting this guitar back!
“II would never pay a couple million dollars for just about anything.”Guitar plugged and 30 seconds later…’ll give you what you want. But I’m keeping this thing.” Would you pay $2 million for a guitar that was previously re-sold for 150 bucks? Meet Greeny. And his owner: Kirk Hammett (from Metallica). He didn’t buy a 2-million dollar guitar, he bought the unique sound he could make (that this Les Paul —in a specific setting— sounded like a Fender, when they’re not supposed to sound like…
Trout & Bass
Jonathan Stark and Ed Gandia had this talk on Ditching Hourly about positioning, niching down and fishing —in the ocean v in a barrel. And they talk trout and bass. [,,,] You’re [fishing] in the ocean or standing next to a barrel full of trout. […]Would you rather have the thousand trout that you can see right there, that are jumping into your hands?Or would you rather be out in the ocean in a dinghy with a single hook? You don’t get a big net. That is for big companies.You always only have…