New Website.

Go Here now:

http://www.jasonslivingroom.com/

 

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Everyday Paradise

This is a podcast I’ve been working on. It’s not a finished product but I wanted to get these test episodes out there so that I don’t just sit on these recordings forever. I hope you enjoy.

I will post more episodes in the near future. Thanks for listening

 

Episode 1 and Episode 2

 

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

The Professional keeps his eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. He reminds himself it’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.

 Ancient Greeks felt that mortals were not responsible for their creativity. That was something from a higher plane. Instead the artist merely carried out the work that the muses whispered in his ear. The mortals did the dirty work but the gods were the brains of the operation.

Steven Pressfield addresses the relationship with creativity in The War of Art. The book is about overcoming blocks and winning the inner creative battles. Part manual and part poem this book is divided into three parts. First Pressfield defines the enemy, he named it Resistance. Resistance is the force within us that distracts, tempts, and convinces us away from the work that allows us to live our fullest selves. In book two he turns to the warrior ethos that is needed to overcome Resistance, he names the warrior the Professional (I’ll also use the Pro). The Pro shows up, everyday, separating himself from the amateur through his tactics and tenacity in the creative battle. In book three Pressfield turns to the nature of creativity itself, and the way we interact with it. It takes a divine tone of awe, and he refers to it as a mystical plane of existence inhabited by the muses.

The War of Art is a beautiful work. It’s a wonderful example of the magic that happens when you unleash a good fiction author on an urgent work of non fiction. It’s a masterpiece.

More than all this it’s a call to action. We gain insight into the enemy and his weaknesses and we’re left without any excuse to give up. The motivation this book provided me is enormous.

Right now, as you read these notes, a voice in your head is telling you not to do something. As I write these words the same voice is assailing me with reasons to stop.

The hard part isn’t writing. The hard part is staying in my seat.

The Unlived Life

• “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. B/w the two stands Resistance.”
• Put another way, Resistance is the barrier between us and our dreams.
• “As powerful as is our soul’s call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it.”
• “Look in your own heart. Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.

Book One. Resistance: Defining the Enemy

• “the enemy is a very good teacher. The Dalai Lama

Resistance is Invisible

• But it can be felt. A repelling force

Resistance is Internal

• We see it in those around us but in reality Resistance is inside.

Resistance is Insidious

• Resistance will go to any length to stop you. It’s always lying
• Resistance has no conscience

Resistance is implacable

• Resistance can’t be reasoned with. It seeks to prevent our work w/ every fibre of its being.

Resistance is impersonal

• Resistance is like wind or rain, a force of nature. It doesn’t care about me at all. It is objective.

Resistance is infallible

• Like a compass Resistance will always point true. It’s directed straight at the calling or action that it wants to stop us from accomplishing.
• Use it like a compass. Strong Resistance shows strong pursuit

Resistance is Universal.

• Everyone experiences it

Resistance Never Sleeps

• Resistance never goes away, no matter how long we live.
• “The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew everyday”

Resistance Plays for Keeps

• We were put on Earth to give a unique gift to the world. But Resistance wants to kill it. We fight to the death

Resistance is Fueled by Fear

• Resistance has no power of its own. It needs our fear

Resistance only opposes in one direction

• Resistance only stops us moving to a higher place.

Resistance is most Powerful at the Finish Line

• When victory is close at hand Resistance is vicious w/ its counter attack

Resistance Recruits Allies.

• As you begin to overcome Resistance those around you turn on you
• They are struggling with Resistance and resent your success
• The best you can do is keep moving forward as an example to others of how to overcome

Next we look at symptoms of Resistance

Resistance and Procrastination

• Procrastination is the most common symptom b/c it’s easy to rationalize. Instead of giving up forever we’re convinced to defer until tomorrow.

Resistance and Procrastination Part 2

• Procrastination is most dangerous b/c it becomes a habit
• Right now is the only time to fight Resistance

Resistance and Sex

• Sex is instantly gratifying and validating
• Resistance loves this combo and uses it against us
• Same goes for Sugar, fat, TV, gossip etc.

Resistance and Trouble

• “Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.”
• Sleeping with a boss’ wife, alcoholism, chronic lateness, all trouble resulting from Resistance
• “The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life b/c she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.”

Resistance and Self Dramatization

• Resistance causes us to make a soap opera out of everything
• Drama keeps us from our work

Resistance and Self Medication

• Some shortcomings are fabricated. EG: ADD can be totally made up
• We take pills to help avoid the real solution: hard work, discipline, delayed gratification

Resistance and Victimhood

• Ppl invent conditions to feel important w/o actually doing any work
• This is a passive aggressive and manipulative way to gain attention
• Being a victim is the opposite of working. Stop!

Resistance and the Choice of Mate

• Ppl who are avoiding living their life will choose a spouse who is overcoming resistance
• Don’t make your spouse live life for you

Resistance and this Book

• Resistance tried to convince Pressfield that he is a fiction writer and shouldn’t undertake this book
• It scared him

Resistance and Unhappiness

• Resistance feels like unhappiness, guilt, restlessness
• Eventually becomes clinical, like depression

Resistance and Fundamentalism

• Artist and fundamentalist tackle the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the meaning of life?
• We’re meant to live in a tribe, these questions are hard to face when you’re alone
• Artist believes mankind is making progress. Fundamentalist believes we’ve fallen from a higher state.
• Fundamentalism is a philosophy of the powerless
• Fundamentalists hate freedom. Cannot see how to move forward so retreat back in time
• Fundamentalism and art cannot coexist. Fundamentalist creativity is based on destruction and the creation of Satan (here Pressfield is suggesting that fundamentalists manufacture a Satan in the world. This gives them a rally point to fight against. They don’t literally create Satan they instead create his existence out of the world around them)
• Moral of the story: living with freedom is hard. We are only truly free to the extent of our self mastery.

Resistance and Criticism

• We criticize out of Resistance. We don’t like to see others live life when we don’t. (I noticed by this point that “live life,” create art, success, etc. are all roughly equal in Pressfield’s worldview)
• Especially bad b/c it hurts not only us but also those we lash out against.

Resistance and Self Doubt

• Self-doubt is an ally. Authentic artists are afraid.

Resistance and Fear

• Like self-doubt fear indicates importance
• “the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
• Resistance is experienced as fear. Therefore, the more Resistance the more fear. Indicates more importance
• The professional embraces fear in order to stretch
• “So if you’re paralyzed w/ fear, it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.”

Resistance and Love

• Resistance and Love go hand in hand. If you don’t love a project, you won’t feel Resistance

Resistance and Being a Star

• Amateurs have grandiose fantasies
• Professionals work and accept rewards in any form

Resistance and Isolation

• It feels lonely to embark on something new, leaving the comfort of our own tribe
• But we aren’t isolated, our courage attracts the muses
• The artist loses track of time, enjoying time alone working

Resistance and Isolation Part II

• We aren’t really alone when we’re with ourselves
• Imagination prevents loneliness

Resistance and Healing

• Resistance loves healing. The feeling that we must heal ourselves BEFORE we can do our work is a form of Resistance
• The part of us that creates doesn’t need to heal. Our personal life needs to heal. The two aren’t the same
• “What are we trying to heal anyway? The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt.”
• “The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do w/ work. Besides, what better way of healing than to find our center of self-sovereignty? Isn’t that the whole point of healing?”
• “Resistance knows the more psychic energy we expend dredging and re-dredging the tired, boring injustices of our personal lives, the less juice we have to do our work.”

Resistance and Support

• “Seeking support from friends is like having people gathered around at your deathbed. It’s nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.”
• Support is nice but unnecessary and unhelpful. Resistance wants us to feel that we need support. We don’t

Resistance and Rationalization

• Rationalization teams up w/ Resistance keeping us from feeling shame when fear prevents us from our work.
• Even worse than lying to yourself is believing the lie

Resistance and Rationalization part II

• Resistance is fear but hides its true form.
• Rationalization lies to us with half truth. The lies make sense. But at the end of the day, despite making sense, the rationalization is an excuse not truth

Resistance can be Beaten

• “Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.”

Book Two. Combating Resistance: Turning Pro

Professionals and Amateurs

• Amateurs play for fun; Pros play for keeps. For vocation. Full time
• “The amateur does not love the game enough”
• “The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it.”
• “Resistance hates it when we turn Pro”

A Professional

• Somerset Maugham “I only write when inspiration strikes, fortunately it strikes every morning at nine”
• The Pro doesn’t allow Resistance to faze him.
• The pro seeks inspiration from the Muse by sitting down and doing the work.

What a Writer’s day Feels Like

• This chapter was beautiful enough that I felt compelled to note its beauty
• The writer wakes up and meets Resistance
• 2 types of work: important/urgent. Important has to win
• Your work is as important to you as catching a mouse is to a hawk. You live or die by the hunt. You live or die by your work.

How to be Miserable

• The Artist has chosen a miserable life and must embrace it.
• “The artist must be like that marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is Hell.”

We’re all Pros Already

• We show up Everyday
• We show up no matter what
• We stay on the job all day
• We’re committed long term (we don’t stop working till we’re rich)
• The stakes are high
• We work for money not fun
• We don’t over-identify w/ our job
• We have a sense of humour about our job
• We master the technique of our job
• We receive praise or blame in the real world
• Amateurs do none of this
• Having a real life failure is still better than not showing up

For the Love of the Game

• Professionals get paid but are ultimately driven by love. Only love of your work can make you do what needs to be done

The Pro is Patient

• The Pro knows that you need to push through pain and use persistence to overcome Resistance.
• The Pro delays gratification

A Pro Seeks Order

• The Pro does not tolerate chaos
• “He wants the carpet vacuumed and the threshold swept, so the Muse may enter and not soil her gown”

A Professional Demystifies

• The Pro doesn’t focus on the mysticism of art she focuses on her own craft.
• She doesn’t depend on inspiration; she shows up anticipating it

A Pro Acts in the Face of Fear

• Fear never disappears. The pro acts anyway

A pro Accepts no excuse

• A pro doesn’t underestimate Resistance. He doesn’t allow excuses; he shows up no matter what

A Pro Plays it as it Lays

• Good and bad luck happen to everyone
• The Pro deals with whatever is in front of him

A Pro is Prepared

• “He is prepared, each day, to confront his own self-sabotage”
• He’s ready to fight Resistance

A Pro Doesn’t Show off

• His style serves the material not himself

A Pro Dedicates Himself to Mastering Technique

• He puts the craft ahead of himself
• He Respects those who have gone before
• His craft is an arrow in his quiver

A Pro Doesn’t Hesitate to ask for Help

• We all have more to learn
• Even Tiger Woods has a swing coach

A Pro Distances Herself from her Instrument

• A Pro doesn’t identify with her talent, body, etc.
• The Pro identifies with will power and work. The tools are just what we have to work with

A Pro Does Not Take Failure or Success Personally

• “The Pro cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance”
• Fear of Rejection is strong
• The Pro insulates his mind from this feeling

A Pro Endures Adversity

• Humiliation is an external manifestation of internal Resistance
• A Pro pays their dues
• “The Professional keeps his eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. He reminds himself it’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot”

A Pro Self-Validates

• A Pro won’t allow the actions of others to determine their work
• Amateurs are thrown off by the criticism of others, pros aren’t
• “The Professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keeps working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the Professional shows up, ready to serve the Gods.”

A Pro Recognizes her limits

• You can only be a pro at one thing. Bring in other pros to help with the rest (EG: lawyers, agents, doctors)

A Pro Reinvents Himself

• The Muses have more than one job for us
• We can’t get stuck in our current identity, we sometimes nee to change

A Pro is recognized by other pros

• A pro can tell who’s put in the time

You, Inc.

• Treat yourself like a corporation
• Gives you comes distance from success and failure
• Gives you mental credibility as a professional

A Critter that Keeps Coming

• Resistance is a bully; it feeds off fear. It has no strength of its own when confronted
• The Pro keeps confronting Resistance relentlessly

No Mystery

• Turning Pro is not a mystery. It’s a simple decision and an ongoing act of will

Book Three. Beyond Resistance: The Higher Realm

Angels in the Abstract

• Angels and muses are invisible psychic forces that support and sustain us
• If this makes you uncomfortable then think of them as an impersonal natural force (like wind or rain)
• They oppose Resistance

Approaching the Mystery

• Work is the most important part of art
• As we grind we approach the mysterious force that supports us. The force enters artists who work.
• Professionalism is the warriors path

Invoking the Muse

• Pressfield describes a time in his life when he was a person who gave in to Resistance
• Encountering a prayer to invoke the muses, given to him by another author, helped him finally finish his book
• “I remember rolling the last page out and adding it to the stack that was the finished manuscript. Nobody knew I was done. Nobody cared. But I knew. I felt like a dragon I’d been fighting all my life had just dropped dead at my feet and gasped out its last sulphuric breath. Rest in Peace, Motherfucker.”

Invoking the Muse Part 2

• The Greeks believed in muses which would possess the artist giving him inspiration through their intercession
• This mystical force, which they personified as muses, still operates today

Testament of a Visionary

• Eternity is in love with the creations of time – William Blake
• The higher plane wants us to create things, they send us blueprints. But we must do the building

Invoking the Muse part 3

• The Muse has been invoked since the beginning of time
• The prayer is divine of the highest order
• The invocation is specific to the work at hand

The Magic of Making a Start

• All acts of initiative or creation share one truth. At the moment we definitely commit, providence moves also
• “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has Genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.”
• Starting allows us to contact the angels that God has sent to help us

The Magic of Keeping Going

• Inspiration, ideas, editing, pops into our minds all the time. The subconscious is always working.
• Be open to this passive workflow. Our work will continue at all times
• “We’re all creative. We all have the same psyche. The same everyday miracles are happening in all our heads day by day, minute by minute.”

Largo

• In this section Pressfield recounts dreams that taught him lessons
• One Dream taught him that he was the source of his own power
• The other showed him that invisible forces are nonetheless powerful

Life and Death

• When someone is diagnosed with terminal cancer there is an immediate change in what is important to them.
• Ego is the part of our psyche we view as “I”
• At news of terminal illness, the seat of consciousness shifts from the Ego to the whole Self
• Therapists try to help the patient “live their unlived life”
• Why shouldn’t we do this now, without intervention of death threat?

Ego and the Self

• Angels live in the self, Resistance in the Ego
• Ego believes
  • Death is Real
  • Time/space are real
  • Individuals are different/separate
  • Predominant impulse in life is self-preservation
  • There is no God
• Self
  • Death is illusion
  • Time/space are illusion
  • All beings are one
  • Supreme emotion is love
  • God is all there is

Experiencing the self

• These sections are getting more poetic and harder for me to summarize
• The self is the highest part of us, the part that touches the divine
• The ego hates the self b/c when we access the self the ego is obsolete
• Ego hates artists and uses Resistance as a weapon

Fear

• Resistance feeds on Fear. Fear of what?
• There are many fears but the mother of all is the fear that we will succeed. In doing so we transcend everyone else around us. We feel we’ll be alone.
• We will lose friends during the climb BUT we also gain friends on that high place. We don’t transcend to loneliness we rise up to new people.

The Authentic Self

• Each of us is born with a unique and highly refined soul.
• Our job isn’t to become someone or something, but to discover who we already are and become that.

Territory Vs Hierarchy

• Animals define themselves by territory or hierarchy
• As kids we default to hierarchy
• Later in life some of us discover the territorial way, it can save our lives

The hierarchical Orientation

• Most of us define ourselves in a hierarchy
• High school, Hollywood, etc.
• But this only works in a small enough group, in large groups it breaks down

The Artist and the Hierarchy

• Artists define by hierarchy can’t succeed
• Ppl who think in terms of hierarchy
  • Compete with all others
  • Evaluate happiness/success by place in hierarchy
  • Act towards others based on rank
  • Evaluate actions based on effects they’ll have on others
• If the artist’s work is not done for its own sake, it’s prostitution
• Hierarchical thinking is up and down, means the artist isn’t looking within

The Definition of a Hack

• A Hack is an artist who produces exactly what he thinks the audience wants
• He writes not for himself but for others
• You can make money this way but you sell out your muse
• Pressfield’s breakout success was a very unlikely novel. Why? He did what he wanted, not what he expected to work.
• Artists must work territorially

The Territorial Orientation

• A territory
  • Provides sustenance
  • Sustains us without external input (it’s a closed loop)
  • Can only be claimed alone
  • Can only be claimed by work (it doesn’t give; it gives back)
  • Returns exactly what you put in.

The Artist and the Territory

• “The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don’t create new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her. ¶ When the artist works territorially she reveres heaven. She aligns herself with the mysterious forces that power the universe and that seek, through her, to bring forth new life. By doing her work for its own sake, she sets herself at the service of these forces.”
• Don’t second guess the muse
• Ask: What is growing inside of me? Let me bring it forth for its own sake, not my own reasons

The Difference between Territory and Hierarchy

• 2 ways to tell if you are territorial

1. If you are really anxious what do you do? Call friends for reassurance: hierarchical. Escape into your work: Territorial
2. If you were the last person on Earth hierarchical makes no sense. If you’re territorial you’d keep working

The Supreme Virtue

• Leonidas said the supreme virtue is contempt for death
• For the artist it’s contempt for failure

The Fruits of our Labor

• We are entitled to our labor not the fruits of our labor
• We work for its sake not fortune/attention/applause
• There’s another way. Do the work and dedicate it to God
• It came down from heaven, give it back to heaven

Portrait of the Artist

• This is the final model for our artist
• There are higher planes of reality from which our lives, work and art are derived. This plane tries to communicate w/ ours through the muses.
• The artist is a servant of that plane and the muses
• His enemy is the ego which begets Resistance
• The artist is a warrior against this enemy
• They aren’t the source of creation but rather a mediator

The Artists’ Life

• “Are you a born writer? Were you put on this Earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. ¶ do it or don’t do it.”
• “Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

 

 

2 More Marketing Principles

 

Last week I outlined two marketing principles that can be adapted to the job search. Today I am writing about two more principles that you can incorporate into a job hunting plan.

Free

This principle is controversial among marketers, and for good reason. The idea is to give something of value away as a means of attracting attention to your product or service. Potential customers will have a hard time turning down a free offer which grants you access to them in the process. If well executed this strategy can allow you to convert customers once they’ve experienced the product. This is how Netflix works. They offer a free month of subscription so that in testing their product a customer is enticed to buy it.

The controversy is that while it’s true that free giveaways attract attention it’s also clear that free won’t keep the lights on. Some marketers give away too much or fail to convert the potential customers.

As a job seeking technique this principle can be very powerful but is often overlooked. We think of the job hunt as a way to get more money, the idea of giving something away never crosses our mind. But just like Netflix we can use freebies to attract the attention of potential employers. In some cases we can even circumnavigate the usual hiring process and gain access to the coveted back door.

The first way to use “free” is in open source type projects. Open source projects are free and most importantly transparent. Any involvement in them is a chance to show off your skills. Essentially you create a public portfolio that outperforms a resume by showing employers exactly how skilled you are. As an added bonus these projects help you hone your skills and meet new people in your field.

Volunteering is another good way to use a giveaway. One way is to volunteer to help run an event for a company you’d like to work for. Most volunteers are actually not good at their job. Stand out by taking initiative and providing value that you weren’t asked to provide. If you get attention from employees this can help be an “in” with the hiring managers. A second way is to use your business skills in a volunteer capacity. I know accountants who seek volunteer positions as board treasurers for charities. They can use this to network or simply as boosts to their resumes.

Probable Purchaser

Marketing can get very expensive. In a noisy world it’s hard to get someone’s attention. As a result a skilled marketer will not broadcast too widely. They know the costs of this method and narrow their message to a group they call probable purchasers. As the name states these are people who are likely to buy your product or service. These focused efforts are more profitable as they have a higher conversion rate for a smaller total audience.

During the job search sometimes the urgency makes us feel desperate, we don’t want to be unemployed forever. The temptation is to apply for every open position. It seems like an easy way to boost your chances, increase the number of resumes floating around and you increase the likelihood of a call back. But reality bites and we end up spending more effort for few results.

Instead focus your efforts on those employers who are most likely to hire you. Find potential employers and positions that are aligned with your skill set and personality. Move beyond the Monsters and Workopolis’ of the world. Focus your effort on more direct means of speaking to a hiring manager. Get out of the habit of blindly firing off resumes to feel busy and instead focus on finding and contacting employers who need YOU.

 

 

The theme with all of these principles is that the typical way people look for jobs is not the best way. You have to operate outside the norm if you want to separate from the crowd. Success is something that you have ownership over, change your methods and you will change your results.

2 Principles for Marketing Yourself into a Job

People don’t buy quarter-inch drills; they buy quarter-inch holes.

Theodore Levitt

 

Last week I was laid off from my job. It’s strange, I knew the company was struggling but I didn’t realize that I’d be in the first wave of layoffs. All the projects I was working on are long term efforts and the management team had to get results fast.

I’m back on the market and I realized that a lot of job seeking advice focuses on tactics without illuminating the underlying principles. By digging deeper it’s possible to understand the job search in a new way which helps you be more effective.

Marketing is an element of business that deals with communications between companies and potential customers. Marketing is how products and services get noticed, desired, and hopefully sold. Job seeking means that you have to adapt the elements of marketing to yourself. In a sense you can think of yourself as a product or service that needs to be sold (to an employer).

Attention is the commodity of marketing. People only have so much attention and it’s already being used up on other things. A marketer wants to command some of that attention from the right people, at the right times, to position their product or service as an option for the right buyer. When searching for a job you want to command attention from the right employer, at the right time, to prove that you are the right person to fulfil their needs. If marketing and job seeking overlap like this then we can adapt some of the rules of the game and use it to further our careers.

 

Here are two marketing principles that can be easily adapted to the job search:

Remarkability: A made-up word that refers to how remarkable a product or service is. With so many options for our time and money marketers need to find ways to tap into our emotions to have some of our attention for themselves. Remarkable products and services pique curiosity and get noticed. They leave consumers asking questions and as a result spending some of their valuable attention.

If you apply for a job how many people are you competing with? Tens? Hundreds? According to an article in Forbes 118 people will apply for the average job. That’s a lot of competition. So think this through; if every person takes some basic advice on resume and cover letter writing what happens? Everyone will produce similar resumes. In this situation it pays to stand out. Be remarkable, and you will command some of the attention of a potential employer. Do something a little bit different, connect with the employer in a unique way.

There is a line that can be crossed. It’s important to understand that not all attention is good attention. Printing a polka dotted resume to apply for a job as a lawyer will definitely be remarkable but not likely be helpful. But if your resume is actually a website that proves that you’re capable of working for a company that sells cloud based software? That’s remarkable.

End Result: Does that opening quote make sense to you? That’s the reality for marketers. Marketers need  to be able to effectively communicate the end result of purchasing their product or service. This can be a physical item or it could be more esoteric like an emotion. Marketers that forget this get caught up in selling their features. This technical, product first approach, is often ineffective as it doesn’t illicit an emotional response but rather overwhelms the customers in garbage they don’t care about.

In the job search it pays dividends to focus on what the employers are hoping to achieve. The most basic example of this is that most employees are needed for either making money or saving money. When you connect with a potential employer they don’t care about how many words you can type in a minute, they care about how you will save money, or make money.

When I was new at my last job I had to negotiate a better salary than the company typically paid. Question number one was why I thought I wasn’t being paid enough. I got the raise by explaining that I was not the average employee and that I had a history of results, results that I was able to demonstrate. Simply put I connected my employer with the solution to his problem, how to make more money.

 

When we are out of work it’s easy to get caught up in the belief that the job search is its own field with its own rules. This is not the case. Looking for a job is an exercise in marketing yourself. Simple underlying principles such as being remarkable and connecting with the end result are often left out of the work of finding work. But forgetting to implement these in our strategy is a mistake that leads to longer unemployment and frustrating results.

 

If you liked this and would benefit from more marketing principles, let me know. I’ll happily turn this post into a series.

 

 

 

The Trouble with Astrology

Astrology is a lame mindset.

Astrology is a simple way to take responsibility for your self off of your shoulders and onto the shoulders of the stars.

The opposite approach is to take responsibility for everything. Nothing is the fault of chance. Any failure was my fault, any illness, any circumstance, any relationship. All my responsibility. To hell with the stars, I’ve got this.

Celebrate your success. It’s yours. Focus on what you make happen, not what happens to you. Study your failures. Find out which actions need to change and change them. Get better every day.

Astrology is the mindset of weakness. Don’t be weak.

Ways to be More Mentally Tough

1. Do one more. Do something difficult, like push ups. Do as many as you can. Now do one more. Your mind probably gave up before your body did. Make a practice of going beyond your inner voice’s point of stopping.
2. Scare yourself with something safe. Think of something that makes you nervous but won’t kill you. Needles, public speaking, and talking to someone new are all candidates. Now participate in that. Maybe give blood, join toastmasters, and try speed dating. These are safe ways to practice mental toughness.
3. Wake up early. Not everyday or anything, but once in a while get up really early, see the morning stars, and accomplish something before you’re normally awake. The toughest people I know get a lot done before I even wake up.
4. Compete. Do something competitive and try to win. Competition forces us to be on top of our mental game. You have to be focussed like a laser for long periods of time.
5. Simulate Danger. Just like scaring yourself with something safe sometimes we have to train the brain to act, even under extreme pressure. Paintball, martial arts, and skydiving are good examples. Try to maintain composure in these mock life and death activities.

I ate the turkey

I laughed

I played some games

I cheered for the calendar

I spent time with those I love

I slept in

 

And now, I’m back.

Happy New Year. Let’s make it count

How to Make Your New Years Resolution Suck

It’s that time of year, gym membership sales will soar, self help books will fly off the shelves, and diets will be started. It’s time for the season of the New Years Resolution.

Soon we will be into the season of the failed resolution. It usually starts about 2 weeks into January. The problem is that most resolutions suck. Here are my top ways to make a terrible resolution.

Be vague. Simple right? Try “get fit,” or “read more.” This common error makes for a sucky resolution because it doesn’t give you a target to aim at. Imagine if you told a hunter to “just shoot and hope you hit something.” That what “get fit” is. It’s a hunt without a target. Get specific, know what you’re aiming for.

Don’t plan. Set a target and then just wing it. The trick with this path to suckiness is that you don’t think through any of the common pitfalls and fail to build a path. Trying to lose ten pounds? That requires a plan. Avoid this trap by starting with the end in mind and working backwards. Be especially careful to think about what to do when things get hard (for example, what happens if you’re fitness goal gets derailed by the flu).

Pick what you should do, not what you want. Learn a language because someone said so, try the paleo diet because it sounds cool, or read more because your mom thinks you should. The road to suck is paved with good intentions. The real motivation to accomplish a goal comes from a strong desire and motivation. If you pick a resolution that you aren’t emotionally attached to then you should expect to fail. Instead try either picking a really motivating goal or find ways to get motivated.

Rush it. Get the resolution done by New Year’s Eve; do it on time regardless of quality. Don’t worry about details, desires, anything. Just get it done. With any goal lasting an entire year you should expect rushing to sabotage your efforts before you even begin.

Set it and forget it. Don’t worry about reminders, visualizations, or any of that nonsense. Just say it once on December 31st and go from there. This is especially useful if you want to avoid ever making any progress. By the second week of January you won’t even remember what you resolved. A lack of a clear and helpful process leads to suck. You can avoid this by using the right tools and strategies to keep your goals on the top of your mind.

Unfortunately sucking is easy, and rocking the best, most useful, funnest, and life changing goals is hard. It’s worth the effort. Put in the work before the new year and it will pay you back in a year of crushing your goals.

The Enemy’s Name is Comfort

Comfort is the most crafty and effective enemy of progress.

If you want to do your best work, be your best self, and get more out of what you do then it stands to reason that you must embrace certain painful situations. You have to stretch the limits of your comfort zone and practice self disciplines.

Comfort is a soft bed, a warm fire, an easy path. Comfort is a sly bastard who seduces us with the promise of happiness and then subtly abuses us into misery. Comfort feels nice to the touch but infects the mind with thoughts of inadequacy. It slowly binds us to itself until we struggle to leave its embrace. Comfort is pleasure masquerading as happiness.

Happiness is born in the fires of discipline. We know that doing things, accomplishing goals, and contributing to the world make us feel better than any amount of comfort and yet its scary to embrace this. We are so used to the lack of pain that callouses seem like mortal wounds and bruises feel like broken bones. We know we want more but believe we are incapable of enduring the misery and pain that comfort has assured us is waiting outside our front doors.

The first step is to change your mind. Comfort has convinced us of many things, but we need to see through the lies.

Last winter Brandy and I traveled to Whistler BC to ski. The weather and comfort had conspired together to convince us that our goals were unimportant. You see we came to Whistler to see how fast we could ski, to test ourselves against a real mountain and real speed.

On the last day of skiing we still had not met our goal, that morning was the moment of truth. We needed to hit the hill early, avoid the crowds, and rush headlong down a mountain that wanted to see us fail. It was a terrifying prospect as we knew that today we would be pushing the fastest speeds we’d ever achieved and one inch of miscalculation would mean injury at best and at worst the unspeakable.

The weather was cold. The air was below minus twenty five Celsius and windy. The hotel room was warm, the fire was glowing, the hot tub was calling. Comfort had laid out his trap.

I don’t know what got me out the door but halfway up the hill I realized why it was all worth it. At extreme temperatures there is a phenomena that causes light to refract through the ice crystals in the air. The morning sun, directly behind the peak of the mountain, greeted us with a blaze of fiery brilliance. Comfort didn’t get to see this, he was still in the hotel lazily deciding between hot tub and sleeping in.

Meanwhile we got to stand on top of the world, bathed in a halo of fire, on the precipice of the greatest struggle I could imagine. We had the world to ourselves.

The only way to truly defeat the wiles of comfort is to realize the false illusion. Pleasure isn’t the be all end all. Happiness is found in moments of struggle. It’s lining up on the precipice, feeling the terror rise up to your chest, and experiencing for yourself the limits of your capability. It’s the exhilaration of stepping off the edge without the assurance of safety.

If you want to accomplish progress start by identifying the enemy. Look to comfort not as a warm friend but as a stepping stone. See the small allure of pleasure and replace it with a siren call for happiness.