Myths of the Modern Age

September 26, 2010 · View Comments

Sleep Is Important

Some myths for the modern age:

  • Sleep isn’t important. Working is more important.
  • 80 hours a week or you’re not going to succeed.
  • Read everything. Stay up on everything.
  • Follow this person. They’ll help you figure it out.
  • Do what that person does. It’ll get you the same results.
  • Quit your job and just do it.
  • Working for yourself is the only way.
  • Everyone’s an entrepreneur.
  • Email is dead.
  • Everything worth doing has already been done.
  • You can do this, if you have the right formula.
  • This system will get you the results you want.

There are thousands more myths, aren’t there? You could add some. Or you could set about deciding what is going to matter. And then, you could do. Something.

Doing Is More Fun Than Planning

September 25, 2010 · View Comments

Jedi Master Yoda I just signed up for a 5K trail run, the first time I’ve signed up for a race since the end of 2004. (Of course, moments after I signed up, I realized that I was actually not able to run that race, because I’ll be in Disney at the time it’s going on, but that’s not important.) Here’s what makes this cool: I’ve been sitting around NOT running for a while. I’ve dabbled at it.

But signing up is saying that I’m going to do it. It says, “You’d better go out and practice. You’d better get into even vague shape.” This is doing. It is pushing the button. It’s making something leave the theoretical and pushing it into the actual.

Once you start doing, things become a lot more real. You make mistakes. You learn. You practice. Once you start doing, you can interact with others who have done. You suddenly join a fraternity of those who’ve done something similar. Once you start doing, you can measure your own abilities, and you can try to improve against yourself (not necessarily against others).

Before you start doing, you’re just talking. You’re planning. Sure it’s great to have a plan. But if you do a LOT of planning and not a lot of doing, you’re not doing.

So, what are you going to do? What haven’t you done that you need a push to start doing? What’s step one?

Support Your Communities

September 25, 2010 · View Comments

Today, I’m at PodCamp Boston, the 5th iteration of an event I co-founded with Christopher S. Penn in September of 2006. It was my first jump into the world of events. We knew nothing when we started. We knew that we wanted a bunch of people to come, and we knew we had to raise [...]

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Tangible Goals

September 24, 2010 · View Comments

By writing goals onto paper, magic happens. They go from being abstract to being real. They go from being nice-to-have to being things-to-do. At the beginning of 2010, I put down several goals, including some financial ones. They were a stretch, and not SMART goals, but close enough. As I started hitting them, I saw [...]

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Silence as a Business Edge

September 24, 2010 · View Comments

I worked with silence yesterday. I didn’t look at my email until after 11. I didn’t check into Twitter until much later. I didn’t play the radio in the car. I didn’t turn on my amazing Sonos S5 player at my office when I got there in the afternoon. I just stayed silent. Noise is [...]

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Visual Interfaces in the Real World

September 23, 2010 · View Comments

I was looking around my office at what I’ve put on my walls. I use color and alignment and shape and other visual cues to show me information at a glance. I use sticky notes and big visual posters and all kinds of other visual interfaces made from paper that give me a lot more [...]

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Improve Your Pitch’s Chance of Survival

September 23, 2010 · View Comments

We’re all in a rush. Sometimes, this translates into our attempts at human communication. At the same time, we’re all overwhelmed and have way too many things vying for our attention. This is the perfect storm of ways not to be seen. So, how can you improve your PR pitch’s chance of survival and how [...]

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Design Fast with Premium Child Themes

September 22, 2010 · View Comments

I’m an affiliate for the Genesis premium WordPress theme (affiliate link) among others. One feature that I’ve been using a lot lately is the fact that I can buy child themes which get me faster towards a new design style than if I pay for a design-from-scratch. For instance, as I’m reworking Human Business Works, [...]

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Time and Your Family

September 22, 2010 · View Comments

The number one question I receive with regards to my own work structure is how I manage to do all that I’m doing and still show up as a member of my own family. It’s not easy, and it requires a lot of “ifs,” but I can share my methods, and maybe you can see [...]

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To Schedule Tweets or No

September 21, 2010 · View Comments

I asked people on Facebook whether or not they do or don’t, should or shouldn’t schedule tweets here and there using a service like Hootsuite. Instead of telling you what I think, I wanted to share their learned opinions. For the seeing impaired, the consensus was heavily weighted towards it being okay and recommended to [...]

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