If you are reading this post on the morning it comes out, it's a national holiday in the US: my birthday (well, it's Labor Day too, I guess). It's a big birthday because I'm turning 4o today! To add even more fun for the month, in just a few days I'll be getting married to an amazing woman. That's a lot of life changes in less than two weeks. Combine that with my new focus on Hyper-Connected Selling, and it's been an interesting summer! And it's been an exciting summer. And at times... a frustrating and challenging summer. I'm always amused by the personal development types who throw out quotes and sayings about how awesome change … [Read more...]
Your Intuition is Like a Needy Cat
I was in a bit of a panic this morning. I couldn't think of what to write in this month's MMMU! I'm sitting here at my desk, wracking my brain, and my little black cat, Swing, decides that she wants some attention. If you have a cat, you know that their reputation of being standoffish is only half of the story. When they want attention, they are relentless. I gave up and let her into my lap, all the while thinking, "But I need some inspiration!" It just so happens that in giving myself a few minutes to scratch her behind her ears, I found my idea. This stretch of August seem to be a no-(wo)man's land for many professionals. We … [Read more...]
Monday Morning Mash-Up – Independence Day
It's Independence Day here in the United States. When sitting down to write, I found I had an overload of topics I wanted to dive into: the resurgence of interest in the founding of the country brought about by the musical Hamilton, the fact that most of the signers didn't sign the Declaration until August, and the question of whether you can be truly "independent" in an interconnected world (inspired by the Brexit vote). I'm going to keep it simpler and closer to home, and tie it into a process that I've focused on the past few months. As you can see below, I've "rebranded" the work I do. It's still the same great stuff, but under a new … [Read more...]
Beginner’s Mind
I wanted a challenge, so I'm going to mash-up my first band, Zen Buddhism, and business re-branding. Here I go! I recently found a trove of promotional material from my early music days. One of the pieces was a flier for the first show of my first band, The Armadillo Society. We had no idea what we were doing and the flier was really just a bunch of written out information that we photocopied at the library. I had a lot to learn about music and marketing, but it was a start. In Zen, there's an idea called "Beginner's Mind". It's the concept of approaching each moment as a beginner, without the baggage that we bring from our past or … [Read more...]
The Drums Were Only Part of the Lesson
I tell people that I'm a self-taught drummer, but that's not quite true. When I was twelve I had about 3 "lessons" from my Uncle Tommy, who was a wicked good drummer. He was my mom's brother and like all of her siblings (9 of them), he had played in drum corps growing up. Even as an adult, he continued to play in marching bands and he was fast, precise, and tight. All great things for a drummer. He stood me and two of my cousins at a 2x4 balanced on kitchen chairs, and he taught us how to hold a stick, how to count time, and what a paradiddle is. We only met a few times before the busyness of life discontinued our lessons, but it must … [Read more...]
Monday Morning Mash-Up – Embrace Your Story (You Are in the Middle of It)
One of my favorite posse cuts is the song North by Northwest by a lesser-known group out of Seattle called the Blue Scholars (a posse cut is a hip-hop song which features 4-7 verses by different rappers - the whole "posse" is in the song). One of the verses is from a guy named Macklemore. You might have heard of him. His song Thrift Shop has 881,134,271 views on YouTube and he won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2014. ...Which is ironic, because this posse cut is from 2007 and he started releasing albums in 2000. That's fourteen years before his "new artist" designation. I'm not here to question the Grammy's idea of new, but I … [Read more...]
Monday Morning Mashup – Move Past Inertia
People think that inertia means standing still. But that's not actually accurate. More specifically, inertia is the tendency of an object to keep moving in a straight line at constant velocity unless some outside force acts on it. That could mean standing still. But it can also mean doing the same thing, the same way, at the same pace. Where is there inertia in your life and business right now? Are you waiting for the perfect time and place to change? I have a true philosophical mash-up for your today. Three separate strands of thought that add up to one challenge: In physics, the idea of relativity means that every frame of … [Read more...]
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