I really like this blog.   It’s got the best readers and comments on the web.  So when Chris told me I should go ahead and submit a new post, I was totally game.  In the interest of full disclosure, I’m out and about a little more than usual today because my new book, Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success, has just been released.

But back to the task at hand: goals. Well-defined goals can be the difference between success and mediocrity. But goal setting does have a dark side. The large-scale financial disasters of 2008 were in large part due to executives who blindly set and followed goals without paying attention to developments around them that should have prompted them to stop and think.

Sometimes, setting a goal works so well that we become irrational and unethical in our attempts to achieve it.

A classic example is the top-notch student who cheats on tests and plagiarizes term papers in order to maintain her straight-A average. In 1999, psychology researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons set out to investigate the phenomenon that goals can have a negative effect on performance.

They told subjects to watch a video and count how many times the people in the clip passed a basketball among themselves. The subjects concentrated so intently on the goal that they failed to notice anything else taking place in the testing room – including when a woman in a gorilla suit took her place among the group!

The bottom line? You’ll get an edge by setting goals for sure, just be aware of the potential pitfalls.

Success won’t happen overnight, so you need a series of long-term goals in order to get to where you’re meant to be. I generally advise on gaining an edge in the workplace, but your aspirations might include artistic, family, financial, physical, and public service goals.

Spend some time thinking about the areas that are most important to you, and keep working until you have just a handful of goals to concentrate on.

Please make sure these significant goals are truly your own, and not your partner’s, family’s, or employer’s. The motivation to achieve won’t be very strong or last very long if it’s driven by someone else. Once you have your short list, use your goals to gain an edge by answering these questions:

• What exactly are you going to do, when, and how? For instance, it is better to say that you will attend three sales meetings this month than simply to remark that you plan to increase your knowledge of sales. Make sure you phrase the goal positively (i.e. not “Sacrifice my weekends to attend sales meetings,” but “Make good use of my Saturdays this winter to master the mechanics of the sales process by March.”)

• How should you determine if you have achieved your goal? How will you tell if you’ve made progress along the way? For example, you might say: “I will know that I am making progress toward my goal when I am able to complete the meeting exercises the other sales reps are responsible for.”

• Is your goal something that you can realistically achieve in steps? While there should be a challenge inherent to the goal, you don’t want the task to be so large or difficult that it destroys your motivation. Also, you don’t want your success to be based on factors that are out of your control (i.e. the economy, the weather, fate).

• Why is this goal important to your long-term success in this area? Will completion of the goal actually bring you closer to getting what you consider to be truly important in life?

• When are you going to start working on achieving your goal, and what is the deadline for completion? At what point should you stop and revisit your goal to make sure it’s still a worthy exercise?

Did you write down your answers? Don’t be lazy, because writing is half the battle. For even more of an impact, turn the page and jot down some notes on your own strengths and weaknesses, obstacles you’re likely to encounter, sacrifices you may have to make, knowledge you may need to acquire, and the people who can support you as you work to achieve your goals.

Make your action plans for each goal short-term so that goals don’t fall off the radar while you’re coping with your boss’ latest meltdown.

Immediate to do lists are a great idea, but don’t let your Sharpie get too excited. Too many tasks on a checklist will either spread your attention too thin or cause you to feel so overwhelmed that you won’t do anything.

Remember that no one experiences overnight success, so you’ll need to be patient and focused. Periodically review your goals to ensure that you’re on the right track and to determine if they need adjusting. And when you achieve a goal, don’t just nod and smile and move on to the next big thing. It’s important for your self-confidence and motivation that you celebrate the accomplishment and reward yourself for your hard work and dedication. Analyze what the experience taught you and what that means for future goal setting.

Overnight success is a myth, and so are many other things that sabotage your career even as you accept them as conventional wisdom.  Stop the cycle.  Grab your copy of Blind Spots, available everywhere books are sold.

When you are working with others as a partner, service provider, co-worker or otherwise, it’s important to be able to compromise.  You will need to make concessions, and sometimes painful ones, in the sake of progress.

But while you may encounter situations where you need to compromise, you should never compromise your standards.

I have had many situations lately where this exact situation came up.  But as I am about 4 weeks away from the official release of my first book, The Entrepreneur Equation, it makes me reflect to almost exactly a year ago when I had to “break up” with my first publisher.

My draft manuscript- all 80,000 words worth- was finished in July 2009.  I had a major publisher secured just a few months later (yes, I know that’s the backwards route, but that’s another story) and we had set a September 2010 release date.

I knew going in that this type of partnership would require a lot of compromising.  However, it was a bit more painful than had been expected.

My brand is bold and provocative and I wanted the book title to be consistent with the brand and message, while also having other key features.  Then came January 2010, when I submitted my list of a dozen potential titles, each with a lengthy reason on why it made sense, to the publisher.

The feedback was that they were not acceptable.  But they had a better idea: “The Rules for Entrepreneurs”.

Not only was this the most boring title I could think of, there was another problem.  My book didn’t have any rules for entrepreneurs.  I could just imagine being interviewed on television:

Host: “So Carol, tell us your top 3 rules for entrepreneurs.”

Me:  “Well Bob, I would love to, but I have no rules for entrepreneurs in my book.”

I saw this as a huge problem- the publisher, not so much.

I wanted to compromise, so I asked them to give me guidance.  What was it that they didn’t like about my title selections?  What was it that they liked about The Rules for Entrepreneurs?  Was it the use of the word “entrepreneurs” for SEO purposes?  Was it a certain number of words?  What worked and didn’t?

There response: “There’s no special alchemy to coming up with a title.  Either it works or doesn’t.”

Fantastic.

They gave me 24 hours to come up with new titles.  My team and I scrambled to come up with another half-dozen acceptable titles, each with its own deep reasoning explained in painstaking detail.

Again, the committee didn’t like any of them.  They came back with the super-amazing, “The No-Nonsense Guide to Entrepreneurship”.

Clearly, they did not understand my brand, my message or my purpose.  Plus, “nonsense” is a word only used by Ned Flanders on the Simpsons.  I would at least say “bullshit”.  I couldn’t do it; the message was too important.

So I asked the publisher, in the spirit of partnership, what the options were.  The options were to take one of the two titles or to be released from my contract.

This was one of the toughest decisions I have ever had to make.  I desperately wanted to get my message out into the market.  I knew that breaking up with the publisher would have severe implications.  It would delay publication for at least 6 months.  Plus, I may be blackballed in the publishing industry, because who wants to sign someone who just broke up with another publisher because they couldn’t agree on titles (especially a first time author)?

I decided that I was willing to compromise, but not compromise my standards.

I set the intention that, come hell or high waters, the book would get published one way or another.  We broke up.  And within several weeks, I was fortunate to have three options present themselves and ended up with a fantastic new publisher, who better understood collaboration (and my brand).  And this time, the book became The Entrepreneur Equation.

So, how can you decide when to compromise or when doing so would be compromising your standards?  Ask yourself the following questions:

-Are you making the decision personally or emotionally?  If you remove yourself and your emotions from the equation, does making the compromise make sense?

-Does making the compromise get you closer to the intended outcome?

-How will you feel about the end product after you make the compromise?

-Is the product important enough to pick the battle, or is there another more important battle to pick?

Hopefully these questions will help guide you to decide when to compromise and when doing so would be crossing that line for you.

And now for the shameless plug: if you want to check out what I was fighting for, you can download a free chapter of The Entrepreneur Equation (and pre-order it) at www.TheEntrepreneurEquation.com.

The old proverb professes that you may win the battles along the way but still lose the war.

If so, I have failed miserably.  I lost the war.  My white flag is up.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, I met a really dynamic individual.  This person was funny, smart and someone that you could tell was just special.  An immediate friendship formed and soon this person trusted me with all sorts of information about some very serious stuff that was going on in their life.

It wasn’t a total surprise that a near stranger trusted me or wanted my input.  I get approached by friends and strangers alike constantly for advice- in my office, in the supermarket, even in airport bathrooms (as can be attested to by Liz Strauss on a recent trip to Detroit).  But this person really needed me in a pretty urgent way.

The good news is that I won many battles.  I can’t discuss specifics because I don’t want to breach any trust, but many positive changes were made that anyone in their right mind would acknowledge were major.  However, my sights were grander.  I saw huge, amazing goals- so much that this person could become- but they were unwilling to put towards the effort to go all of the way and decided to stay mired in excuses, circumstances, blame and more.  I lost the war.  And I had to surrender.

So, do the small victories count?  In my writings, I usually provide the advice, but in this case, I don’t feel like I have the answer.  Do we all fail because we lost the war, or can we celebrate the small victories along the way?

It’s not the first time the war has been lost alongside small victories that seem worthy of recognition.  I have had people that I have had to let go from my organization write to tell me that something that I taught them they have now passed on to someone else.  Or others who fell short of their big plans but still moved ahead in the right direction.   Do these count even if the intended outcome isn’t reached?

And why even invest the time, effort and emotion?  Part of it is admittedly selfish.  In the case of the people working for me, I want them to do a good job to make my clients happy and to make my life easier.  And part of me just gets frustrated when I see people not living up to their full potential and I jump in to ease my own annoyance with mediocrity.  But part of me does it because I truly want to help people- for their own benefit alone- to succeed and be everything they can be and want to be.

So, I will probably prepare to do battle one day again soon.  And I may in fact lose, but hope that my efforts and smaller victories count for something.  And who knows, one day I might even emerge victorious.

A few people have told me recently that I have “seemed to come out of nowhere”, meaning that they had not heard of me maybe a year or so ago, and now my name is popping up frequently on their radar.  Part of me was totally confused, because I have been working my ass off for almost 16 calendar years (which, given the number of hours I work each week has to be at least 20 business-equivalent years).  But, I realized that I used to play in a different “sandbox” and to those in the new sandbox that I am hanging out in, it seems like I showed up overnight.

The same thing was said about my friend Jason Wu, who was called an “overnight sensation” after Michelle Obama chose to wear his stunning white chiffon gown to the inaugural balls.  And while her choosing that gown was certainly a fortuitous boon in the then 26-year old’s career, he had been working his butt off too, since age 16 as well, including as Creative Designer for another company for about a decade.

There are some folks who are just plain lucky, but the reality is that most of us create a great part of our own luck.  I hear a lot of spiteful comments about certain entrepreneurs being lucky or blessed, but the truth is folks, they have created their own luck.  They work hard and smart.

So, if you are working hard, make sure to give yourself some credit.  If you can’t take the time to acknowledge what you have accomplished and reap the benefits of your long, grueling and draining hours, then why are you doing it?  And hey, if you put a few naysayers in their place in the meantime, that’s just gravy.

I remember last year having lunch with a fantastic woman I knew who reached out to me as she evaluated her current career opportunities.  At the end of our meal, she thanked me for being willing to help her and told me she was “blessed” to have contacts like me and other colleagues that were willing to help her.

I looked at her with my head cocked sideways and said, “Blessed?  Being blessed didn’t establish this relationship. You and your hard work did!  If your last name was Rockefeller and I was here because of that, then you would be blessed.  I am here because of what you have achieved and your willingness to nurture a professional relationship over many years.”

She looked at me with wide eyes and then said softly, “Thank you for acknowledging that.”

Don’t wait for someone else to acknowledge it for you- take the reins and acknowledge your hard work.  If you win the lottery (financial, genetic or otherwise), then I will buy that you are blessed.  However, if you have worked your ass off, you have worked your ass off.  Don’t discount that.

I just closed my forum and, to be honest, I closed it a year too late.

They say finish on a high note, but all too often we delay the inevitable, making it all way more painful than it should be.

“But But!”

I hear you yell

“Aren’t you the one who tells us we should persist, that people give up too soon, usually just before they have a breakthrough?”.

Yes, yes I am.

And that is where the real trick lies.

As the popular poet Kenny Rogers taught us “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away, know when to run”.

With your projects, just like poker, there are some signs or “tells” so you know when to fold:

1. The project is painful rather than fruitful – If it is draining your energy rather than boosting it then it is not worth wrecking your other projects for.
2. Opportunity cost is greater than the return on investment - Distracting you from more successful or profitable endevours is not a good use of your time.
3. Target audience is skewed away from your core – When you are attracting the wrong people and it is only getting worse, call it quits.
4. Partners are feeling the pain – Sometimes you can step back and let staff/partners/outsourcers take over, but when you can’t keep these folks motivated you definitely have an issue.
5. Your gut tells you to quit – It’s funny how sometimes your concious mind takes a while to catch up to what your subconcious already knows.

Can we recover bad projects? Yes, of course, but it is not always prudent to do so.

Much of the time we KNOW we should quit, but the concept of “sunk costs” kicks in. That is when a gambler says “I need to win my money back, loan me $1,000″ (and proceeds to lose that too). Stepping away from the table is not failure, it is often a sign of maturity and wisdom.

What should you quit today?

The first rule of a marketable idea is that it will solve a pervasive customer problem.  Although it’s important to pursue a concept that you can dedicate your career to, it’s equally essential that you think about what the market needs.  You will not be able to earn a good living if there are just a handful of people who feel as strongly about your product or service as you do.  Starting a new business is time-consuming and expensive, so your idea should be one that makes a lot of people care because it cures their pain right now.

Be Clear and Credible

To learn more about the science of developing good ideas, I turned to Chip Heath, the co-author of Make to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Heath, who is also a business professor at Stanford University and has done a lot of research on this subject, says that sustainable ideas are credible and easy to understand.  For example, if you were an engineer pitching a foreign concept like a new energy grid, you could make it more relatable by saying that it’s “like an interstate highway system for energy particles.”

Beware the Curse of Knowledge

Heath also advises us to be careful of falling into the curse of knowledge trap. “Experts can’t imagine what it’s like not to have their level of knowledge, so their messages go over people’s heads,” he says.  Instead, develop two concrete examples of what you’re talking about, and then “test them out on a friend or family member who’s not in your field.”

Think Inside the Box

What if you have trouble coming up with the big ideas?  Heath has an interesting suggestion.  You can make it easier by narrowing your focus, or thinking inside the box – it’s much more manageable to brainstorm a list of white things in your fridge than it is to brainstorm in general.  Another idea is to piggyback your idea on a concept that’s already successful and attracts the demographic you want to target.  Let’s say you want to hold a fundraiser for a nonprofit you care about but aren’t sure where to start.  Why not look at the organization’s history to determine – and then mimic – the type of event that has attracted the greatest interest in the past?

 
Life is like a roller coaster, with peaks and valleys and even some corkscrews in between.  This is especially true for entrepreneurs. You will be going up, up and up and then all of a sudden- when you are on top of the world- bam, you fall off that cliff and go free-falling.  When one bad thing happens, it is unfortunate. But when you rack up a few bad situations in a row, it seems as if the entire world is out to get you.

So, how do you deal with the tough times?  Here’s what I do- I call it the Hissy Fit Cleanse.

I have been doing it for so long that I have forgotten exactly who inspired me, but I believe it was Barbara Sher.  At any rate, when the going gets tough, I have a full-blown fit.  We’re talking about jumping up and down, screaming, cursing- the whole kit and caboodle.  The only thing I try not to do is cry, and that’s only because my face gets puffy when I cry and I look like a blowfish for days (yes, I lean towards vanity over sanity).

What this hissy fit does is release all of the stress, tension and frustration from the situation.  It truly is cleansing for my mind and body.

But, then there is another very important part to this ritual.  After I have my fit, I compose myself and get directly back to work, focusing on the problem at hand.

A series of circumstances happened recently that changed some important factors relating to the launch of my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur Equation, including having to move its publication date to March 22^nd.  Everything had been going well and at the 11^th hour, a number of very important factors changed, and included throwing up some new roadblocks.  I had a total meltdown, complete with swearing and foot stomping.  Then, I regained my composure and said to myself, “How do I solve these issues?” That led me to reach out to some key people and get their input.

The funny part is that when I talked to my publisher, he said, “Carol you are always a pleasure to work with because you are so composed and calm and don’t let anything throw you-even in the face of adversity.” I was laughing when I heard that because I knew that that wasn’t the case at all.  But what was the case was that he didn’t get to see me losing it.  I did my hissy fit cleansing directed at the issue, not at other people, and by the time I spoke with him, we were on to problem solving. 

So here’s the breakdown:

1-Have the fit

2-Get it all out of your system

3-Refocus and attack the problem head on

I hope that “cleansing” can help keep you sane and get you through any rough patches

Have You Got Killer Tough Love in Your Head?

I had a boss once on who thought you spared the rod and spoiled the idea.. He was the first and the quickest to beat up any new concept presented so that it would be “stronger.” He called it “tough love.” The problem was that no idea got a fair chance if he was anywhere near it. Every idea was knocked around from word one. And as you might expect, we learned from those experiences that having ideas wasn’t worth the work and wasn’t ever any fun.

Have you ever run into someone like that? Folks who deal in that sort of killer tough love put too much emphasis on the tough and not enough on the love.

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Tough love is listening, questioning with a truthful and authentic intent to build something that survives and thrives. The love tenders the tough by keeping a care to what builds things up rather than tears them down.

Ideas that grow businesses need thinking time, working time, and room to grow. We do need to be tough on them or they won’t survive in the competitive world of business, but we need to love them or they won’t get the time they need to bloom into something that will attract customers who love them.

Some of us have that killer tough love boss in our heads. And he’s just waiting to undo every good idea we have. That killer tough love voice can get us stuck, keep us stuck, and undo our best ideas in a flash, because it steals our confidence by overdoing the tough and ignoring the love that makes every idea grow, thrive and expand.

Here’s some tough love secrets to strengthen and grow great business ideas.

• Tell your ideas to an optimist, a pessimist, and a realist. Explain it with all of the passion you have. Ask them for what you’re not seeing. Ask them why they would or wouldn’t pursue what you’re thinking?
• Think through your idea like the CEO of a Fortune 100 company. Give your idea a concrete plan. Use questions to stop yourself from throwing out your seed of an idea too soon.
  • What form would it take?
  • Can it be made for a profit?
  • Is there a smaller test version you can make to see how your customers might respond to it?
  • How much time will take to complete that trial?
  • What might you be doing to grow your business with that time if you choose not to pursue the idea?
  • Which of the two offers the larger risk? Which offers the larger reward?
• Be personal in your commitment. Be tough and disciplined in not taking response to your idea personally.

Turn off all of the voices in your head that say being tough minded means that you can’t love what do and do it for the people who love that you do it. Turn on the voice that says you have a huge potential that you’re determined to live up to.

Tough love is positive when it’s filled with discipline that gets us to reach higher for our fans.
Tough love is a killer when it’s a negative voice in our heads that discounts every idea we have.

What’s your definition of tough love that grows business?

Liz

Come to SOBCon and plan your business!

Our entire lives are spent seeking out comforts.  The familiar plays on a misguided notion of safety.  The devil you know is better than the devil that you don’t know, right?

Not necessarily.  When you are too comfortable, it means you are probably not trying hard enough.  You have gotten to the point where you are “good enough”.  But good enough is not great, outstanding or groundbreaking.  Good enough walks on a treadmill, instead of blazing a new path.  Good enough doesn’t encourage progress. Good enough doesn’t change the world.

When you are uncomfortable, you are pushing boundaries.  You are trying new things.  You are willing to fail and fail big.  This is where amazing personal and professional shifts come from.

• In your workouts, being physically uncomfortable is where you gain increased strength, speed and agility;
• In your relationships, being vulnerable and uncomfortable is where you create true bonds with others;
• In your career or business, taking uncomfortable risks or doing work outside of your “comfort zone” is where you can advance yourself to the next level.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Comfort equals accepting the status quo.  If you don’t aspire to anything more, then go ahead and be comfortable. Uncomfortable leads to growth.  It’s scary and may be painful, but pain is temporary.  Your achievements are forever.

This is my first post here at Escape Velocity, so I thought a brief introduction might be in order.

My name is AJ,  I’m a nomad. I travel around the world and work on projects like this, this, this and this.  I used to be a financial executive in Midtown.  I made six figures, had an outrageous bonus and a corner office.  I despised my job.  I was passionless about my work.  And of course, I hated myself for trading the hours of my life away for more money at every turn.  On January 2, 2008, I left my six figure, crazy bonus, Manhattan corner office job.  Not for a raise.  Not in a vertical move to another company. Not to get a change of scene.  But to stop, once and for all, living some other dude’s life.  That day I realized two things.  There was more to life than working a job you hate, and more importantly, there was more to me than could ever be expressed in a place with so many rules.  Happy anniversary to me.  Oh, and if you feel like I did, read on.

The Game We’re Taught to Play

The day I graduated from school, the world handed me a pair of dice and pointed me towards a familiar board game.  Except this time instead of a Rolls Royce, I was sporting a busted ass Camry.  The parameters of this game were simple.  Just follow the board, round and round, and the longer I stay on the board, the more times I could pass Go, the more stupid little green houses I’d get to buy, the more railroads I’d procure, the more wealth I’d accumulate.  All of which would culminate into me turning into a happy rich guy with a white mustache and a top hat.

Of course, soon enough I realized that I was essentially spending the vast majority of my existence rolling the same stupid dice over and over again, following the same board to a completely prescribed life plan, taking no risks, tucking away every dream I ever had, living for the weekend, and peering off the board from time to time, dreaming of a life that could have been.

Why Monopoly Sucks as a Boardgame and as a Life Plan

It’s fun for about 10 minutes.
It’s entirely about the accumulation of stupid things you neither need nor want.
The best you can do is win.

A Life You Were Meant to Live

If you are still reading this post, you either have no idea what the hell I am talking about or you’ve already bookmarked it.  If you’re in the latter camp, let me tell you something.  If you feel like you don’t belong where you are right now,  maybe you weren’t meant to just win.  Maybe you were meant to change the world.

A Necessary Revolution

The time has come for you to plan your very own conspiracy.  Not against your boss or your company, but against yourself.  Against your inner critic who keeps telling you that you can’t make it outside the game of Monopoly that the world handed you. Who keeps telling you that you’re crazy to think you can.  You’re selfish to think you deserve more.  And you’re silly to think you’re important enough.  The greatest obstacle any of us have to living a remarkable life is not outside pressure or finances, it’s not economics or market conditions, it’s the lack of courage to question the devils in our own mind that tell us we’re not special enough.  I know, I spent the first part of my twenties believing them and the second part inciting a revolution against them.

Three Ingredients

Here are the first three ingredients you need to start cooking up your very own revolution.

#1 Stop Wasting Time

You get home from work, you’re drained and all you want to do is grab some Chinese left overs and watch reruns of Seinfeld until you fall asleep.  I know.  I’ve been there.  But you know what?  The French Revolution was fueled by old coffee and stale baguettes at midnight in Parisian bistros.  The time you have in between work and sleep is sacred, it’s where you plan your insurrection.

#2 Start Taking Yourself Seriously

The greatest opportunity cost you have as a human is not taking your own ideas seriously.  Write a 500 word description of what you want your life to be like in 2 years.  This will act as your signpost.  Then (and here’s the kicker) post it on your blog or email it to someone who will “get it”.  It’s hard to go back on a revolution that you’ve already announced. Don’t have anyone to send it to?  Email it to me aj@thelacproject.com.  Think this is a stupid exercise? It’s exactly what I did two years ago.  I am now doing every single thing on that list, including traveling to 35 countries.

#3 Create an Evacuation Plan

There is no sense dreaming about something you don’t actively plan towards.  Check out Pam Slim , a fellow writer here.  I have given Pam’s book to dozens of people and sent hundreds to her blog.  If you are serious about leaving your current situation, you need to order it right now.

If you’ve gotten this far, then maybe you were meant to read this today.  And maybe, just maybe this is your time.  Viva la revolucion.