|
|
By Mark Truman, on February 21st, 2011%
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or fill out the subscription form to the left. Thanks for visiting! It’s pretty tempting to find a project that doesn’t involve risk.
After all, only a fool would start off a project by selling his house, quitting his job, and moving out of state.
But the opposite of taking stupid risks isn’t taking zero risk. It’s taking smart risks, maximizing the value you get from the risks you do take.
No matter what project you want to get done, you have to lay out time, money, effort and emotional investment to kickstart the engine. Even the most basic website will cost you $100 and a few hours of your life. And sometimes, even most of time, it isn’t going to work out. And the time, money, and effort will feel wasted.
And then, if you’re smart, you’ll brush it off and start again.
By Mark Truman, on February 11th, 2011%
People always say “Congratulations!” too early or too late. Rarely are we on time.
We often congratulate people who have taken the first step. They graduated from high school, made the football team, or launched a business. This is too early; they haven’t done anything yet.
On the other hand, we wait around and hesitate to congratulate people until we know for sure that what they did worked. They won an award and we’re first in line to let them know that everyone else is recognizing their accomplishment. This is too late; they don’t need our support now.
We should focus our praise on the moment where the person completes the actual work: the moment when you finish the novel, after you learned how to write, but before we know if it’s a flop or a hit.
The work is the achievement, not the self-improvement required to produce it nor the awards it garners.
By Mark Truman, on February 2nd, 2011%
Waiting around for a group of people to tell you that your idea is great is a waste of time.
Any project worth doing will meet more resistance than support. If you believe in what you are doing, you have to ignore what other people say and go forward with the work.
Most people believe that the challenge in life is getting enough people to agree with them. In fact, the challenge in life is learning that you don’t need any agreement at all to do great things.
You’ll find plenty of people to agree with you after you’ve already succeeded.
By Mark Truman, on January 31st, 2011%
You know that call you’ve been avoiding?
Make it. Right now.
No, don’t tell me you’re going to do it later. Do it right now.
You’ve put it off long enough.
By Mark Truman, on January 21st, 2011%
When the mood strikes, do the work.
Don’t put it off because it’s too late or you have to be somewhere or there’s another “more pressing” project.
Your brain wants to be working on your project right now. Stop fighting it, and get to work.
By Mark Truman, on January 19th, 2011%
The unintentionally rude don’t know what they are doing. They use the wrong fork, yell when they should whisper, and generally embarrass themselves by not knowing the rules of the game.
The intentionally rude, however, know exactly what they are doing. They yell, push, and shove because they know you aren’t expecting it. It’s a strategy, a way of announcing that they are willing to sacrifice whatever social gains they might get by playing nice.
You can educate the first group. The second group needs a different response all together.
By Mark Truman, on January 10th, 2011%
Ask anyone who has completed a project when they started. The answer will surprise you.
It’s likely that it took twice as long as they planned. Things that were supposed to be easy became difficult; things that were supposed to be difficult became impossible.
In addition, it probably wasn’t their first try. I opened three businesses before one finally made enough money to stay open.
Luckily, our past failures inform our future successes. My first three businesses taught me what I needed to make the fourth one work.
It never works out at the start. That’s why you have to start right now.
|
|
Recent Comments