People feel life is meaningless when they don’t have goals, rules, and feedback. (These are the 3 attributes of games, according to Dr Jason Fox, that I describe in-depth in my short ebook Gamify Your Work.) Playing the game of life, and doing work that supports your lifestyle, is only made meaningful if we have goals to [...]
I want to share with you a theory I have about tall poppies. What happens to tall poppies? Tall poppies get … cut down. Tall Poppy Syndrome is a cultural belief in New Zealand, where I now live. There’s a lot of resistance when people see others daring to raise themselves up above the crowd. [...]
The singer Beyoncé Knowles has an alter-ego she calls Sasha Fierce. When she was young in her career, and nervous about a big show, she would internally decide it was not Beyoncé going onstage, it was Sasha Fierce. This character was brave, and strong, and confident. Assuming this persona allowed her to handle difficult challenges, because [...]
One of my coaching clients surpassed her revenue goal last month. She started August believing that her $30k goal was impossible, and wanted to avoid thinking about it. But every week, we reviewed that goal, and renewed her commitment to (attempting to) achieve it. A few times, she said, "There's no way I can do [...]
Internet advice goes stale, but that doesn't mean it goes away. You could be following advice that worked great 5 years ago, but it's no longer working. This is something I find frequently in my work as a marketer. Because I'm in the trenches, testing tactics, I can see what's failing during a hype cycle. [...]
This week, my friend Charlie Gilkey is launching a new book, Team Habits: How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results. I was a big fan of his first book, Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done. (See my video review here.) Charlie has once again proven his ability to navigate the complex world of productivity, but [...]
In the game of life, how well you play determines your success. Every day is another round, every year is another level, and at the end of the game, it doesn’t matter if you won the high score - all that matters is that you played the game well. There are lots of ways [...]
This week marks the 1-year anniversary of the publication of my first book, Marketing Yourself. Here's the replay of the Launch Party. During this 45-minute video, recorded last year, you can see: the book covers I (almost) used the 4 levels of a Personal Platform the 4 Cornerstones that elevate your platform to the next level [...]
I was in the middle of mighty-tasking when I had a brilliant idea. This idea had nothing to do with the project I was working on. If I had stopped to tend to this idea properly, it would derail the state of flow I had achieved. I did not want to sacrifice my current project for a [...]
The world's richest man wrecked one of the world's most beloved brands. How it started / How it's going by Midjourney “My first reaction was, ‘Is this a joke?’…Honestly, I think it’s idiotic,” said Matt Egan, managing director of strategy at brand experience firm Siegel+Gale. “From a branding point of view and a marketing [...]