In the Trenches: Episode 3Goins Writer

This is the 3rd episode of “In the Trenches: The Resistance Broadcast Interview Series” and today I had the honor of interviewing Jeff Goins.

[Listen to the Interview by clicking this link]

 

Jeff is a successful bloggerpublished author, and a self declared writer.

Jeff Started his blog in 2010.  In less than 2 years time he grew his readership to an impressive 100,000 people a month.

Jeff has been featured in RELAVANT magazine, Problogger, Copyblogger, Zenhabits.net, and many other publications.

You can find his most recent book Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into your Comfortable Life online and in bookstores around the world.

This interview is a MUST listen.  Jeff gives so much great information and has such an amazing perspective on writing, publishing, business and life in general.

If you're a writer (or anything you do involves writing of any sort) you NEED to listen - I promise you won't be disappointed.


In the Trenches: an Interview with Jeff Goins - How to Build a Crazy Successful Blog in Less Than One Year, Get Published, and Become the Artist You Were Meant to Become


In this interview, we cover:

You can read more about Jeff Goins at GoinsWriter.com.

I highly suggest you subscribe to his newsletter - it's really great content.

If you liked this interview, share it with everyone you know and reach out to Jeff and thank him!

***

Previous episodes:

In the Trenches: Episode 1 With Al Pittampalli

In the Trenches: Episode 2 With Clay Hebert

 


p.s. leave a comment below and let us know what you're struggling with or where you're having success (writing, business, blog or life related - anything goes).

p.p.s. subscribe to The Resistance Broadcast and never miss a broadcast.  Plus, receive exclusive content just for members (100% free).  Never fight alone.  Join The Resistance.

 

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. [Mark Twain]

The thing about writing, building, inventing, designing, or creating (essentially anything that requires leadership) is this: it’s not safe.

Not only do you expose yourself to the dangers of a foreign environment (leadership by its nature takes the unknown path), but you expose yourself to the most dangerous element of all: the tribe.

The tribe is a great thing when you’re in the majority – when you fit in, comply and keep quiet.

For the nonconforming leader – for the outlier in the minority – the tribe is a detriment to success, freedom and happiness.

When you fit in, comply, and keep quiet, the boss rewards you.

Your peers, likewise, accept you as an equal.  And rightly so because you ARE an equal; quiet, compliant and agreeable like everyone else.

The Individual

On the other hand, when you don’t play by the conventional rules, when you challenge the way things work, and when you speak up when there’s something immoral, unethical or just plain illogical, there is no reward from the tribe – in fact, there is only punishment or exile.

If you do any of those things – when you expose the weakness of the status quo - you undermine the authority figure.  When you undermine any authority figure, you necessarily insult their tribe of followers.

Not only will your boss punish you, your peer group will reject and scorn you (they are, after all, the quiet compliers that, for their own safety, didn't speak up to begin with – why would they speak up to support you now?).

In an environment like this – essentially every bureaucracy that has ever existed – it doesn't pay to think creatively; it doesn't pay to be brave enough to speak up when things don’t seem right; It doesn't pay to challenge and lead and move outside the tribal boundaries.

If you do, you will be ostracized.

Because the system perpetuates itself this way, what you’re left with is an org chart of followers, safety seekers, and non-disrupters.  They make very good robots for the robot factory.

The Choice

You can stick with the tribe.

You can find strength in numbers.

You can reassure yourself that quiet, compliant and agreeable is a worthy existence.

Or you can step outside the tribal boundaries.

You can choose another direction.

You can decide your own path, determine your own pace and packing list, and design your own life’s journey.

The tribe won’t like it.

But we don’t need more tribes – we need more individuals.

The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap. [Ayn Rand]

What will you choose?


p.s. what are your thoughts on the tribe and the individual?  Leave your comments below.

 

As soon as you choose to create something worthwhile, you take the first step in a long and very real journey…

Like most journeys, it's not always pretty.

Life will try to beat you down and break you if it can.

There will come a time when things are confusing, uncertain, and perilous.

And you WILL face setbacks, challenges, and failure.

Your peers might scorn you, your "tribe" ignore you, and your effort will seem in vain.

The path will be rarely straightforward, the road rarely clear, and the struggle lonely and sometimes desperate.

At times like these, it will make sense to quit.

The Adventurer

There's nothing pretty about doing something ambitious or unorthodox.

The journey of creating something worthwhile is messy - it can't be any other way.

The journey itself must be scary, dangerous, and unreasonable - otherwise, there would be no need for courage.

The adventurer recognizes the only paths left to explore are those that are scary, dangerous and unreasonable.

The adventurer understands that the guaranteed and safe path is traveled daily by those of little courage.

But the unknown path - the one that sits beyond the threshold of certainty - is ripe for exploration and for what befalls those brave enough to travel along it.

The Spoils of the Unknown Path

Your journey is unique.

At times it will be painful; you will doubt yourself and your project, question your ability, and challenge every virtue you thought you possessed.

But while your journey is unique (and the struggle will, at times, seem unbearably lonely), the pain you experience is universal.

Every adventurer sets his own course and travels his own path, but the pain he experiences - the loneliness, confusion, fear and desperation - those are experienced by every adventurer who chooses the unknown path.

But the path is painful for a reason.

Every great adventure ends with an equally great reward: whether it's discovering buried treasure, winning the championship title, or finding your way back home.

The spoils go to the victor, and the victor is always the one who sticks it out to the end.

The Road Less Traveled

Having the guts to travel the unknown path, to create something worthwhile, takes courage, boldness and (sometimes) madness.

Like everything worth doing, it won't be easy.

But like every difficult thing worth doing, the spoils go to the adventurer and the adventurer alone.

Have you started on your journey?

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Join The Resistance, defeat your inner creative Enemy, and create your life's work.

Building Empires

Things Break

The project you’re working on; the goals you set this year; the strategy you spent months planning – all of it will break.

This goes for everything tangible in this life:

The factory you built: at some point in the future, time and the elements will collapse it - another will come and take its place.

The product you crafted: someday the hardware will degrade and stop working correctly; the software will become buggy and obsolete; your brilliance will be a used trinket in the back of a storage space.

Those relationships you developed when you were in middle school: people change; you and your friends will move apart, or, if you do stay connected, your relationship will alter and morph.

People, places, projects: they all eventually break.

Heroes and Champions

This shouldn't come as a shock – it’s simply restating a simple principle of life, one that we all intrinsically understand: nothing stays the same.

But – and here is the thing that might shock you – this is a good thing.

Life is good because things can break.

What would be the point of setting a goal with 100% certainty of its attainment?  With the steps all laid out?  With a guarantee that there will be no hiccups, setbacks or failures along the path?  That everything you see before you is precisely how it will be when you get there - perfect, safe and everlasting?

If this were the case, if uncertainty (and thus the possibility of things breaking) were taken out of the equation, you would be left with exactly what you see, no more, no less.

There would be no struggle.  There would be no dragons to slay.  There would be no risk.

And if there were no risk there would be no need for courage or boldness.

In a world without dragons, there would be no heroes or champions.

Slaying Dragons

In a world with no breaking, no uncertainty, no possibility of failure, there would be no struggle, no need to try (it would already be a guarantee), and ultimately no need for virtue.

We don't read the story of St. George because we know he wins.

We read the story of St. George because he might lose - things might break - and because of this his actions are courageous and bold.

If there were no chance of breaking, there would be no dragons to slay; just imitations easily ignored.

Building Empires

We don't build empires because we expect them to turn out exactly how we planned.

We don't build empires because they are guaranteed to work.

We don't build empires because we expect them to last forever.

We build empires because deep down in our hearts there is something goading us, something compelling us, something pushing us...

We build empires because deep down we must build...

We build empires because deep down we were made to be heroes and champions.

there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear. [G.K. Chesterton]

This something might just be our ability to struggle for something worthwhile, to fight and  slay our dragons while they try to destroy us, and to build our empires even if they might break.

What empire are you building?


Subscribe to The Resistance Broadcast and get updates like this 3 days a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and receive a free copy of my book The Art of Instigating.

Never fight alone.  Join The Resistance.

 

 

One Habit

When my thoughts beckon my tired body homeward I will resist the temptation to depart. I will try again.  I will make one more attempt to close with victory, and if that fails I will make another.  Never will I allow any day to end with a failure...I will persist until I succeed. [The Greatest Secret in the World]

If you could create one habit this new year, what would it be?

How powerful would it be if you created the habit of ending your day with a victory?

How many pages would you write this year?

How many sales would you close?

How much weight would you lose?

Daily Victory

Whether in business, family, spiritual, or creative life, ending the day in victory has great power.

Forgot to write today?  Finish one sentence before you go to sleep.

Was your day unusually busy and you missed your workout?  Do a 3 minute workout of the day  before you head to bed.

Were you unable to close a sale?  Send off one more email or make one more call before you call it a day.

It's as simple as that:

Don't end the day in failure.  End in victory.

Don't go to sleep until you have succeeded in completing the thing you promised yourself you would finish.

Keep your promises: especially the ones made to yourself.

Persistance

And if you think one sentence, a simple 3 minute workout, or a single call won’t make a difference - it does.

Remember, it’s the small, tiny actions we take every day that create our empires.

Nothing is trivial when it comes to creating your life’s work – the greatest novel is composed of thousands of single words; the greatest athlete is the product of individual repetitions; the greatest salesman is nothing more than the accumulation of thousands of calls.

Never end the day with failure.

End the day in victory.

Persist until you succeed.


Never fight alone:  Join the Resistance.

Sandbox

Every person reading this has an opportunity.

As humans, we’ve each been gifted several extraordinary things:

  1. Life. Obvious, but worth restating.  What are the chances that you are here right now?  What are the chances that you exist with the particular genetic makeup that you have, which is the result of hundreds of generations of your family tree surviving, growing, and expanding?  The point is: you’re not likely.  That’s a pretty extraordinary gift.
  2. A Sandbox.  Look around.  What is this world’s most basic and fundamental characteristic?  In a lot of ways, it’s a (seemingly) more complex Lego set.  Put a block here, or don’t – put another block on top of that, or don’t.  Every day you have the chance to put your blocks where you choose; to build (or not build) what you want.
  3. Talent.  Every person is different and not everyone’s is of equal ability, but every person has a disposition of traits that combine to create their unique ability (aka talent).  No one has the same perspective that you do.  No one thinks of the problem the same way you do (nor of the solution).  No one grew up in the neighborhood you did, with the teachers and friends you did, exposed to the same art that you were.  Most importantly, nobody experienced the same heartaches, pains, and failures that you have.  It is these experiences – beautiful, painful, unique – that develop and define your talent.

Your job is simple: to use these extraordinary gifts. 

Your purpose is to take your life, and using your talents, to build in the sandbox the only way you can.

It’s the uniqueness of your journey that makes it special.

It’s the uniqueness of your journey that means only you can decide how, when and why.

If you’re scared, unsure, or confused, that’s normal.  The point is to do your creative, unique work anyway; to create something worthwhile, to instigate your life’s work, and to build your empire, even when things are scary, uncertain, and confusing.

If you’d like to, but you’re waiting on someone to give you more instruction, direction, or a map to follow, you’ve missed the point entirely.

So go make something.

Every person has a gift, and in their gift, lies their destiny. [Mighty Max]


Join the Resistance

 

 

gritBreaking

Your life will get busy.

If not this week, then next week, or the week after that, or sometime in the future.

It's inevitable that things will eventually unhinge, problems will occur, or something unexpected will happen: life is uncertain.

And at some point in the future, your focus will shift entirely to the few urgent things right in front of you, and the less urgent (but often more important) projects will fall by the wayside.

When things get busy, projects and plans start breaking.

Lasting

There are lots of people starting things every day.

This can seem overwhelming to the person looking to enter the arena.  After all, with all this competition, what are the chances that you can make it - that you will succeed where so many fail?

Simple: there are lots of people starting, but very few finish, and even fewer ship.

The reason?  Most people don't commit.

When things start breaking, they quit.

And because most quit, there's a lot less competition than you might imagine.

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence... [Think and Grow Rich]

Focusing

To build your empire, you don't have to be the most talented, the smartest, or the most creative.

All it requires is that you take one small action every day, no matter what.

All you need is grit - the resolve to finish, even (especially) when things start breaking.

The weakest person with grit will always outlast the strongest person with zero resolve.

So don't focus on creating the perfect schedule or setting up the most efficient and productive routine - life will get in the way.

Instead, focus on the one thing that really matters - the one thing you have complete control over - your work.

Do it every day and see your project through to the end, regardless of what life throws at you.

When things start breaking, have the resolve to finish; have grit.

Your life's work depends on it.

Never give in, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to a force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. [Winston Churchill]

 


Join the Resistance

In the Trenches: Episode 2Spindows

Here is the 2nd episode of “In the Trenches: The Resistance Broadcast Interview Series” and today I had the honor of interviewing Clay Hebert.

[Listen to the Interview by clicking this link]

Clay is an entrepreneur, blogger, multitasking ninja, and all around instigator.

Clay began his career at Accenture.  After ten years at Accenture, Clay left corporate America and got his MBA from Seth Godin.

Currently, Clay is building Spindows.com, a new startup that will change the way organizations collaborate (think of it like speed dating + skype + your organization).

Clay has created a number of startups, including:  Tribes Win, a marketing strategy and innovation agency, where he helped brands lead their tribes.  More recently, Clay began a new project called Work Hacks, where he helps people live a more productive, efficient, and streamlined lifestyle.

You can read Clay’s blog and find out more about him at Daily Sense.

Clay is a sought after speaker, writer, and entrepreneur, and this interview is essential listening for anyone looking to start their own project (book, business, or blog).


In the Trenches: an Interview with Clay Hebert - How to Start Multiple Businesses, Blaze Your Own Path, and Instigate like a Professional


In this interview, we cover:

You can read more about Tribes Win here, Work Hacks here, and read Clay’s blog here.

Be sure to check out Spindows here, and read up on some of the interviews Clay has done regarding the new platform he is developing (very interesting stuff).

If you liked this interview, share it with everyone you know and reach out to Clay and thank him!

***

Some other highlights from our conversation:

Purple Cow: The essential guide on marketing and creating remarkable products.

War: A nonfiction work that follows a group of soldiers in Afghanistan - not for the feint of heart.

Crush It!: If you want to dominate in the online arena, you need to leverage the connection economy.

The Lean Startup: An incredible book on the power of validating an idea before you begin, failing fast and scaling fast (with minimal resources - great for the solopreneur).

Launchrock: Starting a project?  Validate it first.

Skillshare: Have something worth teaching?  Make money sharing your knowledge!

***

If you haven't had a chance, catch In the Trenches: Episode 1 here.

 

Starting down the path to success is simple.

To be successful at anything, you must commit.

But committing to anything means you make a transition.

When you commit, you transition from someone who dabbles to someone who goes all in; from someone who quits when things break to someone who takes it all the way; from someone who lets the claustrophobia of determination keep them from pursuing something worthwhile, to someone willing to face the loneliness of creation without hesitation.

When you commit, you make the transition from Hobbyist to Professional.

This transition changes everything.

From Hobbyist to Professional

Transitioning from Hobbyist to Professional changes your priorities.

When you finally take yourself and your work seriously enough to sell your product, you will find that things in your life start to prioritize themselves organically.

The things you thought were important - like watching the news or knowing pop culture trivia - fade to the background and become superfluous.

The things you had initially avoided as unnecessary discomforts – waking up early, writing every day, or never ending the day without a sale – become your lifeblood.

Transitioning from Hobbyist to Professional not only alters your priorities, it forces you to identify your focus.

In order to instigate (start, finish, and ship) successfully, you will need to focus entirely on one end-state, and this end-state will require all your time, energy and creativity to bring to fruition; it requires everything you've got.

To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence. [Turning Pro]

Becoming a Professional is no joke.

Closing Doors

Nothing great is created by half-hearted commitment, lack of follow through, or someone unwilling to take it all the way.

The Professional understands this and acts accordingly.

Success requires commitment and only the Professional, not the Hobbyist, is ready to take on the pain, heartache and seriousness of commitment.

Committing itself is simple: all you have to do is choose one end-state and make sure you get there (no matter what).

The difficult part of commitment isn’t the focusing on one end-state, nor the grit it takes to bring that end-state into existence (although that requires something special too); the difficult part is what focusing on one end-state means for everything else in your life.

Commitment means purposefully ignoring other end-states, other projects, and other courses of action.

Commitment to anything (a healthier lifestyle, a new project, your life’s work) means you discriminate; that you choose one goal over another.

Commitment means you close doors; that the only door you leave open is the one that leads to your chosen goal.

Wishing never solved the problem. If you wanna get it big time, go ahead and get it, get it big time. [Yeasayer]

Limiting Your Options

When we commit, we inevitably lose out on other paths, other ambitions, and other goals.

Sometimes it even means losing out on the people closest to us.

To do that willingly is tough.  It’s scary.  It's madness.

There’s nothing easy about commitment, which is exactly why most people don’t commit and instead “keep their options open” into eternity…

But here’s the catch: We think keeping our options open gives us safety, or power, or certainty.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The only way to guarantee failure is to never close any doors at all.

All you have to do to make sure you never build your empire, or develop that healthy lifestyle, or create your life’s work, is to keep all your options open, to never close yourself off to anything, and to stay available ad infinitum; to seek and scan for success, but never focus to bring it into existence.

Closing doors is scary; you might choose the wrong one, miss a great opportunity, or regret the choice you make.

Close a door and something bad might happen.

You might fail.

Keeping all your doors open is comforting; you never have to live with the pain of second-guessing your choice, the regret of choosing wrong, or the responsibility of creating your life's work.

Keep all your doors open and nothing will happen.

You're guaranteed to fail.

There is no scarcity of opportunity…only scarcity of resolve to make it happen. [Wayne W. Dyer]

The choice is yours.

Today I thought I’d try something a little different.

Instead of writing a mindblowing and inspiring blog post (at least that’s my intention with every post I write), I decided to interview a successful entrepreneur, published author and good friend of mine, Al Pittampalli.

This is the first in a series of interviews I'm doing with some really incredible people.

I'm calling it "In The Trenches: The Resistance Broadcast Interview Series"

You can probably guess the type of content we talk about, but I will say this: it's all about those people who are doing creative work, fighting the Enemy daily to build their empire, and making big things happen.  The guests will include entrepreneurs, founders, CEO's, authors, bloggers, philosophers, scientists, and psychologists (among others).

You can press play below to listen to the interview immediately (it's hosted via dropbox and anyone should be able to access it - let me know if you have any problems):


UPDATE -- this interview has been republished on my podcast "In The Trenches." Click here to listen to my interview with Al Pittampalli on "In The Trenches" here.


Al knows what it means to instigate and lead, and, if you’re looking to create something from scratch successfully (aspiring writers and entrepreneurs take note), I promise this interview will blow your mind and inspire you.

There are some truly profound pieces of wisdom in here and you really need to hear them from someone who’s in the trenches and knows what it means to fight and strive for something.

So click this link to start listening.

A little more about Al Pittampalli:

Al is the founder of The Modern Meeting Company and a self-proclaimed meeting culture warrior.  He's on a mission to change the way organizations hold meetings, make decisions, and coordinate action (and when you listen to the interview, you’ll see he’s most certainly doing just that).

Al is a published author.  His book Read This Before Our Next Meeting was published by Seth Godin’s Domino Project, and during the week of its release it was the most popular Kindle book in the world.

Al has been featured in Forbes, the Telegraph, Huffington Post, CBS Money Watch, and many others publications.

You can read his blog and find out more about him and his company at his website: www.modernmeetingstandard.com

Al is a sought-after speaker and writer and an all-around awesome guy.

Here are just a few of the subjects we touch on:

I hope you enjoy the interview.

*note: I had originally recorded the interview on a better recording system, but that version ended up crashing on me, so what you’re listening to is the unedited, unabridged, backup version.  There’s nothing sexy about it, but I think the sound quality is good enough to sit through and enjoy.

Definitely give the interview a listen and pick up Al’s book – you won’t regret it.


I’d like to hear your feedback too – let me know in the comments below or shoot me an email and let me know if you want to hear more interviews like this one!

p.s. If you haven't subscribed to The Resistance Broadcast, click the link below and receive a free copy of my book The Art of Instigating, as well as broadcasts (newsletter publications) 3 times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday - to help you build your empire.

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