worlddominationsummit2013I mentioned in my last blog post I've been traveling across the country to the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon.

Well, the event is over and it was pretty wild.

I met a lot of great people in person and had the opportunity to listen to some great speakers.

Don't worry if you missed it though - I took a lot of notes and plan on compiling them into an eBook.  Keep your eyes open for the finished product in a few weeks.

Because of the limited time I've had to sit down and write, I wanted to change things up today:

I decided to record a video.

The Topic: Starting

Over the last couple weeks I've gotten dozens of emails (and even a couple phone calls) asking me for advice on starting.

Some people are in the brainstorming phase and aren't sure what to do next now that they have an idea...while others have formed the idea into words on paper, but don't know how to move forward.

While I've answered most everyone's questions individually, I wanted to take this time to elaborate on a specific framework anyone can use to get themselves from starting (the first stage of instigating) to finishing (the second stage of instigating) and, eventually, to shipping (the third and final stage of instigating).

How to Break Through Inertia to Start Your Book, Business or Blog:

[leadplayer_vid id="51E074F0C8001"]

In the Video:

Here's what I'll share with you in this 5 minute video:

1. What is starting and how does it work

2. The three elements of starting

3. A framework for identifying what it is you want to accomplish and how to scientifically approach the problem to figure out a solution

4. A quote from "Boondock Saints" because why not 🙂

5. Why the lean startup methodology is so powerful for solopreneurs and bootstrappers

Enjoy the Video?

If you liked the video, please do 2 things:

1) Share it with someone you know

2) Leave a comment and let me know what you think

If people like what they see here, I'll plan on doing more videos in the future. If you're not so keen on the video, well, I suppose I'll stick to writing and podcasting so you can avoid my ugly mug in the future 😉

If you're new to the website, join the Resistance and get a free copy of my book 'The Art of Instigating' where I explain the philosophy of starting, finishing, and shipping projects.

Join by subscribing below:

The Gunslingers Guide to Starting and the Gunslingers Workbook 1100

 

And if you haven't had a chance yet, pick up my eGuide and workbook: The Gunslinger's Guide to Starting and The Gunslinger's Workbook, where I'll walk you through the stages of instigating and help you start, finish and ship your project in 30 days or less.

<-- Pay What You Want

Starting a Project is Thrilling Starting

There’s something about that moment – the moment we finally write our ideas on paper – that’s both invigorating and scary.

We move from day-dreaming to actualizing and everything seems at once entirely possible and wholly reachable.

The goals we set not only excite us by their grandeur, but by the thought of actually reaching them.

The moment you write your ideas on paper and form coherent objectives (clear, precise goals), a shift occurs.  This shift brings about two important realizations:

  1. You’ve been ready to start this entire time
  2. Your future circumstances are entirely in your hands

And knowing these two things makes everything in this life possible.

The question is: what will you create?

 

 

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.

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.

We deal with uncertainty, randomness, and luck every day.

Every project we undertake is, by its nature, an uncertain endeavor (because it hasn't been done before – if it had, it would be certain, and there’d be nothing to start).

Uncertainty means we can fail.

But it also means we can succeed – that there is the potential for success infused in every endeavor, right from the start.

If you’re looking to instigate anything, you’re dealing with uncertainty, and therefore with the possibility of failure or success.

If this is the case, what favors one course of action over another?  Why do some projects fail and others succeed?

Well, first, they may just be lucky.

There is a very real possibility that good luck or favorable, random chance resulted in the success of an initiative that should have failed, and that bad luck or unfavorable, random chance destroyed a project that deserved success.

And if this is the case, it might follow that everything is random, so better to either never start anything, or start random things often (more dice rolls, better chance of random success).

But this isn't the full story, and this is precisely the type of attitude that leads to failed attempts at instigating.

When we deal with the uncertainty of a new project, yes, we do deal with luck and random chance.

But we can also, through the structure and direction of our work, open ourselves up to favorable, random chance, and avoid unfavorable, random chance.

In a matter of speaking, we can make ourselves lucky.

More importantly, we can instigate projects in a scientific manner that allows for sustainable, long term gains.

We do this through an asymmetry of gains – where the success of a project has large or infinite upside, and the failure of a project has minimal downside.

“By definition chance cannot lead to long term gains (it would no longer be chance); trial and error cannot be unconditionally effective: errors cause planes to crash, buildings to collapse, and knowledge to regress. The beneficial properties need to reside in the type of exposure, that is, the payoff function and not in the "luck" part: there needs to be a significant asymmetry between the gains (as they need to be large) and the errors (small or harmless), and it is from such asymmetry that luck and trial and error can produce results.” [Nassim Taleb]

Before we start our project, we want to set the stage for success by creating asymmetrically beneficial goals.

These are the types of goals we can start, finish, and ship, with little negative downside (i.e. publishing a kindle book; if it doesn’t take off, it only costs us our time), but with very large or infinite upside (i.e. once that kindle book is out there, it could take off and result in thousands of sales).

This allows us to test the waters without drowning if our first attempt isn't a complete success.

As long as we can test safely (and when I say test, I mean shipping a product or project and receiving feedback from the client or consumer), we can continue to test and tweak as necessary.

In essence, we live to fight another day, which allows us to eventually realize our goals.

Too often, people start with grandiose, unstructured plans that require a home run on the first try.  And then, if it doesn’t work (and it often doesn't), they go back to the grind that life gives them.

Don’t sabotage your success by relying on random chance to get you through.

Instead, start small, set audacious (but asymmetrically beneficial) goals, work every day to bring them to life (even when it’s scary), and, whatever you do, keep fighting.

Eventually, you’ll break through.

Eventually, you'll get the payoff.

Eventually, you’ll create your life’s work.

But only if you instigate the right way (and instigate continually).

 


If you're new here, subscribe to the Resistance Broadcast (for exclusive content and updates three days a week) and receive a free copy of my new book: The Art of Instigating.  Click the image below:

Join the Resistance

 

 

Into No Man's LandOn July 1st, 1916, in the early morning dusk, the whistle blew.

Thousands of men emerged from the trench line and charged into No Man’s Land.

The largest army the British had ever fielded began advancing across a poppy field in the hope of pushing the Germans out of their entrenched position and routing the German lines.

That was the plan at least.

As the British advanced, German machine gun fire tore down wave after wave of British soldiers.  At the end of the first day, the British had advanced only dozens of yards, and their casualties reached close to 60,000 men.

"there came a whistling and a crying. The men of the first wave climbed up the parapets, in tumult, darkness, and the presence of death, and having done with all pleasant things, advanced across No Man’s Land to begin the Battle of the Somme." [The Old Front Line]

So began the Battle of the Somme, a four and a half month battle of attrition, where each day, the whistle blew, and men went over the top.

Every day, when we tap into the creative part of our brain, we enter No Man’s Land.

The Enemy (that ruthless group of bad habits and negative self-talk propaganda) doesn't want us to make it across.  The Enemy wants to cut us down before we reach our objective.

We fight for every inch of progress; every filled page, every shipped product, every filmed scene.

It’s not pretty moving through No Man’s Land.  There will be casualties.  Sometimes your work won’t make it.  Sometimes the thing you poured your heart and soul into gets turned down by publishers, rejected by producers, or shot down by critics.

Sometimes, the end user – the person you made it for – hates it, or worse, dismisses it.

At times like these, it’s easy to give up.  To forget why you started and simply quit.  To say enough is enough and walk away.

It’s much harder, when that whistle blows, to go over the top one more time.

 


Fighting your own creative battle?  Let us know in the comments below.

p.s. if you're fighting alone, don't.  Join the Resistance instead:

 Join the Resistance

 

The War in Your Brainbrainwar - Going to War

Right now, as you read this, the nerves in your brain are battling one another for territorial command of brain space.

In fact, if you continue to read this (and all the other blog posts I write), you’re helping one side dominate the other (the nerves associated with reading, learning and instigating).

The Enemy

Who are these nerves fighting?

They’re fighting the multitude of bad habits you've accumulated over the years.  Things like smoking, comfort eating, spending money you don’t have, staying home instead of going for a run, watching tv instead of writing…the list goes on (and on, and on).

Every single one of these actions represents a series of nervous system input (reaching for a cigarette, lighting up, inhaling deeply, etc.).  The more consistent time you spend on an activity, the larger its brain territory becomes.

“If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead.”

Norman Droidge [The Brain That Changes Itself]

Over the course of 20 years of bad eating habits, you have terrain completely dominated by the enemy.

Control the Territory

Every time we repeat a bad habit, it gains more control over the map.  The territory expands and the territorial lines strengthen.

On the flip side, you may have good habits you'd like to cultivate or new habits you'd like to start (workout more, eat healthier, learn a new language, write a book, start a business), but they control so little territory it’s like trying to take over China as the commander of Monaco.

The reason it’s so hard is because we’ve had the habit of starting ground out of us.

If you’re like most people, the habit of hiding replaced your natural instinct to start.  Instead of being encouraged to instigate, we became masters at hiding.  We’ve had lots of practice too: hiding in the back of class; hiding from advanced placement; hiding by taking 7 years to graduate college with a bachelor’s degree; hiding by going with the crowd, never trying to stand out, and never testing the limits of our own abilities.

This habit of hiding (of avoiding starting at all costs) is costing us our sanity, our happiness, and our self-respect.

The Brain Map Insurgent

We want desperately to begin, to build good habits, but we’re fighting decades of bad habit.  By now, our maps are almost entirely controlled by our bad habits.  Trying to reconquer the territory is a serious undertaking, something that takes more than a day and more than good intentions.

If you want to take back control of your brain territory, you have to understand you don’t have the upper hand, all momentum is in the opposite direction, and you will be fighting an uphill battle. 

To take back territory, you need to play by the rules of the brain map insurgent:

1. Start small

Don’t try to regain control over every territory at once.  It won’t happen.  You’ll lose focus and your bad habits will crush you.  Focus on one specific area.  Use the power of concentrated effort to break through enemy lines in order to gain a foothold before you move on to something else.

If you want to eat healthier, manipulate your environment to make it easier.  Get rid of junk food.  Never go shopping for food hungry.  Only keep food in the house that you consider healthy (sorry, no hiding snacks).

For the first few weeks, focus all your effort on getting control of this territory before moving on to something else.

2.  Be consistent

The only way to break through enemy lines and expand friendly territory is through consistent, daily action over the course of 4 weeks.  That’s right, 28 days.  This is the amount of time it takes for the neural pathways to strengthen and for the action to go from an activity to muscle memory.

After 4 weeks, it doesn’t mean that you stop doing the activity – and it doesn’t mean the new muscle memory has become effortless habit.  It simply means you’ve developed strong synapse connections, allowing you to more easily repeat the activity.  So keep going even after 4 weeks!

3.  Expand topographically

Brain maps are topographical, meaning the portions of the body’s surface that are close together are mapped close together in the brain.

Similarly, when we perform an action that requires multiple motor movements (or multiple sensory inputs), the brain maps these neural pathways close together.  Running, for example, requires multiple inputs from various body parts, but the composite action is mapped locally on the brain.

You can apply this knowledge by building good habits on top of other good habits.  Have you already created a habit out of waking up early?  Expand on this good habit by sitting down for 10 minutes to write before work.   Your brain will begin associating early rising with writing.

After 28 days, expand topographically again: spend 30 minutes writing, or focus on making a healthy meal before you sit down to write, or after writing, go for a quick 15 minute run.

The Art of Instigating 

Understanding the brain, how neural pathways strengthen and weaken, and how focus and repetition expand brain map territory, is the science behind what I talk about on this blog and the cornerstone to my concept of the art of instigating.

The habit of starting is a real thing.  There are very real neural pathways that develop your brain map territory, and the habit of starting (like the habit of working out or eating healthy) requires that we practice every day to maintain and expand that territory.

If you don’t develop the habit of starting, you won’t be successful – period.

Every single successful person in the world (whether you measure success in terms of money, fame, happiness, or by some other criterion) has developed the habit of starting – they’ve made instigating a way of life.

Empires aren’t built in a day.

We build empires one day at a time, one habit at a time, one successful action at a time.

Create the habit of starting, learn the art of instigating, and build the empire you’ve always wanted to build.

Don’t wait.  Start now.

It takes guts to create something from scratch.

It takes guts because you’re in uncharted territory. 

If you’re inventing, designing and building something from the ground up – from idea to physical, tangible product – there is no template to follow.

It takes guts because your project might fail. 

Your product (or service, or initiative, or speech) might not live up to your expectations, or receive the type of praise you hoped for.  The marketing campaign might not drive sales like you planned.  Your startup - regardless of the time spent planning and preparing - may lose money from day one and never turn around.

businessfailure - draw your own map

(*This is a graph of the statistics from Small Business Trends.  The graph includes self-employed persons, so actual startup company failure, as most entrepreneurs understand the concept, may be more severe)

It takes guts because you’re exposed. 

As soon as you put pen to paper, you’re opening yourself to others.  When you finally push the publish button – on your first self-published novel, or that terrifying first blog post – anyone in the entire world can see it.  When you push the publish button, you can't hide behind anything anymore; that's scary.

But most of all, it takes guts because making something and taking ownership of it opens you up to criticism. 

It is fear of criticism – from peers, or family, or “others” – that we fear the most; that keeps us from doing our meaningful work.

Sadly, since birth, we’ve been programmed to avoid criticism at all costs (is it any wonder the most common fear is speaking in front of an audience?).  To avoid criticism, all you have to do is make nothing and take ownership of nothing.  To avoid criticism: hide.

And that is exactly what most people do.

Instead of starting something new, they stay with the pack and uphold the status quo.

Instead of trying something bold, they ignore the impulse and quietly go back to work.

Instead of speaking up, they stay quiet.

And months and years later, these same people will complain about the same inequalities, and hardships, and daily tribulations that they’ve always complained about (but more bitter).

They had the chance to instigate.

They chose not to.

And then there are the few who do start something new, or try something bold, or speak up when the rest are silent.  These people are the movers and shakers – the people we remember and the companies, products, and services we talk about.

Drew Houston, CEO and founder of Dropbox, designed the digital storage platform because he wanted to solve a problem that others hadn’t yet been able to solve.  He built Dropbox into one of the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley and turned down a multi-million dollar acquisition offer from Apple.

Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, spent years building the company to the (ridiculously enormous) size it is today, all without an exit plan.  He has no plans to sell out to another company.  Or, as he puts it, there is no exit plan for your life’s work.  Incredible.

Jonathan Fields (author of Uncertainty) created a whole new platform to bring entrepreneurs, instigators, artists, and change makers to the rest of the world.  The content is brilliant.

Scott Dinsmore created Live Your Legend (referencing the transformative book The Alchemist) to inspire others to live a life of purpose ON purpose.  His writing inspired me – it might just inspire you.

These people all have one thing in common – they all draw their own map. 

They didn’t wait for permission from someone else – they developed their own ideas into successful, tangible products and services.  They each created their own reality around the things they care about.  Whether it’s solving the problem of digital storage or figuring out a way to inspire people to find and live their passion, each person here has done something important, bold, and unique.

So the question is this: how do you plan to draw your own map?  What is holding you back?  In what ways can you instigate change in your own life (or work or play)? Share your thoughts below.

cross