By Michael Port

We live in challenging times. Often, the world seems a dark and dangerous place, with little hope: We are at war; there is an environmental crisis looming on the horizon; too many people live in poverty; our health care system is failing; intolerance and hatred toward others with different points of view continue to plague us; and the insidious effects of racism have yet to be eliminated.

Sure, we always want to improve our personal lives, but we want more than that. We are looking, too, for a way to understand our place in the larger world and to tap the power we possess to change not only ourselves, but also the community we live in. We are hungry to belong. We want to feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that what we do individually matters and has an effect in a larger sense. The television show Heroes was a huge hit. Its tagline? “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”

The idea of one person at a time, of one person making a difference, is what we are looking for right now. You don’t need to wait until you’ve made your millions at Google to change the world. (Actually, the folks at Google did change the world.) You can do it now (just as there’s no sense in waiting until you’ve lost the weight to start your exercise regimen).

We, each of us, can make a difference. If we don’t change the world, who is going to? And if we want to change the world, we need to start with ourselves. And if we change ourselves, changing the world will start to come naturally.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

To succeed, you need to be ambitious, to cultivate ongoing ambition.

To succeed, you also need people around you who support your ambition, who nurture your inner strength, and who cultivate and maintain curiosity as well.

Staff, partners, family, friends, and others need to share in some sense your attitude and ambition. After all, that’s the foundation of what it is to be supportive as a friend, family member, or coworker, isn’t it?

I’m going to offer this suggestion: don’t use the Golden Rule (that we should treat others the way we want to be treated) when you are asking others to share your attitude and ambition. I’m going to suggest using what author Dr. Tony Alessandra has coined as the Platinum Rule: “Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

Quite a concept, yes? Reflect on it.

Your success requires that people around you feel similarly disposed toward the future. This is not to say that they must want the exact same thing you do. Rather it means that they, too, have ambitions of their own, which coincide with or complement your own.

Furthermore, they must be able to maintain their disposition toward the future. If you want to build a bigger, better business, your team must also want the opportunity to be part of a growing enterprise, to pursue their ambitions within your organization.

You’ve heard JFK suggest that, “A rising tide raises all boats.” True story. You want to be surrounded by people who are in the same boat with you and want to head in the same direction.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

At the end of the month, I’m speaking at an event called SOBcon founded by Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker. The focus of this year’s conference is leadership. Scores of leadership experts, including Steve Farber and Lisa Petrilli, will be in attendance.

Since I’m actually going to stay and enjoy this event, as opposed to doing the usual speaker dance of “fly-in, fly-out,” I’ve been thinking a good deal about leadership in anticipation of the conference. Moreover, I want to improve my leadership skills. Here’s (some) of what I’ve been thinking…

Leadership comes in many forms.

There is no one style of leader; no one way to lead, or single strategy that will rally others to embrace your vision and follow you into the unknown.

For now, let’s just consider one form of leadership: inspiring others to take the lead. If you want leverage, if you want to do big things, this is critical.

A leader’s job.

To go beyond booked solid, you need to be a leader. A leader’s job is, in part, to make appropriate, decisive decisions. It sounds simple, but making a decision and sticking to it is something that many, many people have great difficulty doing.

It’s hard not to want to rethink a decision, and at times it is absolutely appropriate. But commitment (because after all what else is a decision?) can be intimidating. So to be a leader, you will most certainly also need to be able to manage high levels of stress (not just yours but other people’s—employees, partners, family, etc.).

A leader nurtures others.

Not only do you need to provide leadership in your business, but you also need to nurture other leaders within your budding enterprise. This is how you’ll leverage yourself. It’s a critical step and many small business owners don’t do it. They justify not hiring other leadership-quality people into their business because it’s not “big enough” or because they fear that if they nurture another leader, then that person will threaten their position and status, or leave and compete.

I suppose those things are real dangers, but when they are weighed against the benefits, the choice is obvious.

A leader hires the best.

Why would you want to hire someone who wasn’t the best? When you hire someone as smart as or smarter than you who can grow into a leadership role, you are the ultimate beneficiary. You can earn more (because that person is helping the business grow) and work less (because they can take over some of your workload).

As for the fear of potential competition or being usurped, if you hire people with the right attitude and treat them well (as they would like to be treated not just how you would like to be treated), they won’t want to leave; and if they do, it will be with the best of goodwill, not because they are trying to undermine your future.

Enough said (for now).

Permalink:

By Michael Port

If I am your coach or advisor, you may resist some of the suggestions or options I offer you. If I encourage you to change your plan, change your tactics, or more importantly, change your thinking, you may rebel.

You have preconceived notions and expectations that are limiting your growth. We all do. I gots lots. If you’ve believed something for a long time, it’s understandable that you may reject an alternative belief or option without reflecting on it fully or experiencing the alternative.

If it were easy to build a bigger, better business that makes your name in the world, then everyone would do it at the earliest possible moment. When you feel yourself resisting, consider why you feel constrained. Is the constraint real or self-imposed (self-inflicted)?

Permalink:

By Michael Port

Yesterday, while working with clients in one of my programs, I got on my soapbox about dealing with life on life’s terms. They were grumbling about a deadline being a week earlier than they expected. So, instead of 12 weeks to finish a product they were developing, they only had a measly 11 weeks.

Of course, this would not have been a problem if they had done the work accordingly to plan from the beginning. Waiting until the last minute is rarely a good idea. Things change. Challenges abound. The life of a human being, and especially that of one who is an entrepreneur, is fraught with change.

But complaining about it, bemoaning the terrible conditions, lamenting the situation, commiserating with anyone who will listen, is just wasted time. Time that could be spent on finishing whatever it is you’re working on.

The solution is easy: close your mouth. Stop talking and start doing.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

Collaborating with others creates scale in your business by increasing your leverage. To collaborate effectively you need to:

• Isolate activities that generate more income than they cost to have others do.
• Identify where to place your energy and focus according to what you are pursuing and what you love.
• Stay tightly focused on the core activities.

Collaborating with others also creates range by bringing together different talents and perspectives. This is particularly important if you are adding services or serving new clients. Your talents alone are probably not sufficient for that new business.

Here are some key questions to keep in mind when searching for outsourcing solutions:

1. How will they integrate into the big picture?
2. Do their values and philosophy match yours?
3. What sort of staff is on hand to provide workable outsourcing solutions?
4. What are you buying (set and manage expectations)?
5. Do they have back up and does their back up have back up?
6. Does the company have a solid financial track record, and are its growth plans realistic?
7. Does the company have the commitment, stability, and strength of the management team to provide you with successful out-sourcing solutions?
8. What sort of image and reputation does the company carry?
9. Are they on the cutting edge of technology?
10. What is the company’s track record for innovation and improvements—can they, with your involvement, build the processes you need?

Finding Help Is Easy

It’s easy to find firms that can serve your needs. But, don’t necessarily hire the first one you find. Remember, the best way to evaluate people is to watch them work. No matter how excited you are by the prospect of removing some of your current constraints by hiring others, take time to see how you fit together. You’re hoping to build long-term relationships.

Note that I’ve been using the word firm rather than person or individual to describe your outsourcing options. I think you should avoid hiring individuals who do not have any backup of their own. Without it, they can become a “single point of failure” in your business.

Your Back Up Needs Back Up

I apologize to my friends who fly solo but it they go down, you go down. I got burnt over and over by this outsourcing danger in the early days, until I got tired of the pain and insecurity of too many single points of failure. I’m not an unsympathetic person, but after a while, it’s an inordinate burden to be crippled in your business by one person’s extended flu or time off for a personal crisis. If your support works alone make sure they have back up and their back up has back up.

Beyond Borders

Think outside your borders when you’re thinking about outsourcing. Of course, there’s all the politics of so-called off-shoring. People worry that by sending jobs overseas, there’s a net loss in U.S. jobs because people aren’t hiring locally. But, in many cases, there would be no company at all if they didn’t outsource some functions overseas. Local hiring may only be possible because companies are able to find lower-cost outsourcing solutions for some of their projects or administrative needs.

Those Who Are Better Get Better

The people you work with must be willing to continuously improve on the processes you create with them to eliminate waste. Just because you’ve outsourced doesn’t mean you stop managing. You will still need to establish metrics to measure the conditions of satisfaction, just as you do in every other area of your business. Without metrics, how could you improve workflow and working relationships?

You are only as good and productive as the people around you.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

I believe you can change the future, regardless of our history, if you’re not a prisoner of the past.

In a way, it’s how people think about the classic American Dream—a person who comes from an unlikely background making it big. That would be considered ahistorical. People who are ahistorical are not prisoners of their past

The alternative is to be constantly and utterly shaped by your past without relief—to be, in a sense, a victim of your past. My father did such and such; therefore, I’ll do such and such because it’s all I know. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with following in your family’s footsteps, but do it intentionally, not by default.

You are in control of your past.

You can’t escape your past, and you will inevitably be shaped by your past, but you are in control of whether your past is forcing you down a certain path or whether you have chosen it.

To be ahistorical is a way of approaching the world. It describes how you are in the world, your way of being.

A whole new way of being.

Apolo Anton Ohno is a two-time Olympic Gold medal winner for short-track speed skating. Apolo reached the pinnacle of a sport based on tucking yourself into the smallest, most aerodynamic ball and skating as fast as possible around an oval. Now that takes a certain kind of focus inside a very specific “world.” So, it was all the more amazing when Apolo competed in an entirely different field on the TV show Dancing with the Stars and won.

When he was asked after the competition what he’d learned, other than how to do the paso doble, jive, and samba, he said, “I’ve seen a whole new way of being.” Wow! Now that’s someone who is open to new things.

Acting out against the past.

The rebellious son, for example, is not ahistorical. Rebellion is essentially acting out in the present against the past. The rebellious son doesn’t appreciate himself or his future. Rather his future is an expression of the loathing he has for his past. He is not ahistorical.

Imagine, by contrast, a story my friend, Hal, told me about a farmer’s daughter who goes off to study advertising at a big university in the city. She meets a city doctor, falls in love, and convinces him to come back and live on the farm with her. Back on the farm, the daughter reconfigures the operations of the farm, cross-appropriating practices and concepts she learned while she was away. She is ahistorical, shaped by her past, but not imprisoned by her past. She chooses to come back to the farm, but she brings with her new ideas from other “worlds.” She is ahistorical. She might just as well have stayed in the city with her doctor husband, so long as her decision was a choice for a different future and not a choice against her past. We can all be ahistorical. It’s a matter of creating new history that is not governed by our past.

Escape the confines of history.

To make history, to live our American Dream, we need to escape the confines of history and be history makers.

So what exactly is it that history makers do that is ahistorical?

• They articulate. They give language to something that hasn’t been said before. Naming something is an innovation in itself. Luke Howard, a British Quaker in the nineteenth century, was the first person to name the cloud types—cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. Articulation is innovation, and it is the necessary precursor to further innovation. Our farmer’s daughter articulated her desire to return to the farm on her own terms. Because she did, the doctor followed her there. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, articulated the idea of an online bookstore. Venture capitalists offered him money to create it.
• They reconfigure. They take what they already have and do something different and new with it. The farmer’s daughter was a master reconfigurer. Bezos reconfigured the concept of a bricks-and-mortar bookstore into a virtual bookstore to serve his, and his new customer’s, needs and desires.
• They cross-appropriate. They take ideas, concepts, mechanisms, models, and so on from one industry/society/community/ or other source outside their “world” and use the new ideas to create a “new world” for themselves and the people around them. It wasn’t the same old farm when the daughter got done with it. And it certainly wasn’t the same old bookstore (or Internet, for that matter) when Bezos got done. Actually, Bezos isn’t done yet. Amazon.com keeps creating new “worlds.”

Being a conscious history maker and understanding its implications will help you to act more intentionally—to open up bigger and bigger worlds. Intentionality is one of the hallmarks of success.

You’re American Dream is waiting for you to create it. Be a history maker.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

I once heard it said that the only person who likes change is a baby with a dirty diaper. Change is such an extraordinary, sometimes uncomfortable thing, isn’t it? So many of us crave it but fiercely resist it, fueling an ever-escalating inner civil war.

In our society, we may have taken the privilege of comfort too far. It’s so easy to stay comfortable. Too warm? Adjust the air-conditioning another degree cooler. Too cold now? Turn the heat up a few degrees. We insulate ourselves against anything that is the least bit uncomfortable.

I’m not talking about the extreme discomfort of not having a roof over your head or of being the victim of abuse or some other horrible circumstances. I’m talking about the everyday entitlement that leads us to believe that everything we want should be handed to us, that mastery can be attained through a bit of dabbling or by short bursts of obsessive attention.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

When we think small, we bury our true nature under fat layers of persona— professional, personal, web-related, and other temporary disguises.

We become a doctor because our mother or father was one, and though it is a worthy career, maybe it is not the one we would have chosen. Maybe I want to be a professional rock climber or a cellist. Maybe you want to be a sculptor or a translator. But no one supports us in this calling. Instead of following what our instinct, our spirit tells us, we follow what others tell us to do. By resisting ourselves, we create our own condition of scarcity.

What do you resist in yourself?

When we resist ourselves we create false scarcity: I’m not enough. I’m not as good as… [pick a name]. It’s too hard. There’s no time. I can’t start because I don’t know how it will end. When we focus on what we are not, what we do not have, and what we do not (and often cannot) know, we focus on a self-induced scarcity.

Each of us is naturally abundant. To exist is abundant. Look inside and see the glory of who you are—more than good enough. Instead, we look outside ourselves for the externally generated justification and gratification we think we need in order to matter, to be important, but that we can never fully get from someone else.

We cannot (must not) wait for other people to tell us that we’re worthwhile.

I exist. You exist. We are. We are already important. We don’t need someone else to tell us so. We have something to offer the world. We are the person we’ve been waiting for.

Permalink:

By Michael Port

This is a transcript of a Q&A session with Seth Godin. Seth is probably the only business author/blogger that I read every day without fail. Enjoy.

MICHAEL:

Hi everybody, this is Michael Port. Welcome to our Q & A with Seth.  I’m going to give you a brief introduction on Seth.  Of course most of you know him but, for the few of you that don’t know what he’s up to these days, I’m going to just give you a little introduction.

So, Seth has written 13 books that have been translated into more than 35 languages. Everyone has been a best seller. He writes about the Post Industrial Revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.

American Way magazine calls him “America’s Greatest Marketer” and his blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual.  His latest book, which I love, is called PokeThe Box and it’s a call to action about the initiative you’re taking in your job or in your life.  And Seth once again breaks the traditional publishing model by releasing it through the Domino Project which we will talk about today.

And, as an entrepreneur, he has founded dozens of companies, most of which have failed. Yoyodyne, his first internet company, was funded by Flatiron and Softbank and acquired by Yahoo! in 1999.

It pioneered the use of ethical direct mail online, something Seth calls permission marketing.  And he was the VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo! for one year.

But for me personally, he is a shining beacon in a sea of charlatans and false idols. Welcome Seth.

SETH:

Wow. You should follow me around and you could do that introduction every day.

MICHAEL:

I do pretty much. You just don’t know I’m there.

SETH:

(laughter)

MICHAEL:

So, what I’ve done (I received over 300 questions) is I’ve chosen questions that represent a number of different questions. So I’ll tell you who asked the question and where they are from and, hopefully the questions ask will cover the broad range of questions that came in.

So, the first question Seth is from Marjorie in Sacramento.  She said we’ve all heard the traditional book publishing industry is dying if it isn’t already dead; but, most writers are not publishers and don’t want to be.

What will the new publishing model look like?  Will every writer be forced to become her own publisher? So, for those of us interested in becoming a publisher for the new age, where should we look for ideas and inspiration in addition to your work, of course, she says?

SETH:

Well, I want to start by pointing out the tyranny of being picked.  That once you buy into this model that says you need to be picked to succeed; picked by Oprah or picked by Random House or picked by someone to get into Harvard.  The good news is that if you do get picked, it looks like clear sailing. The bad news is that almost no one gets picked and I think we change our work to get picked, I think we change our lives to get picked, and it’s probably a lousy deal.

We are giving up something which is the magic of being J.D. Salinger and living in your little cabin in New Hampshire and someone else doing all that stuff you don’t want to do.  But, we are trading it for the incredible open road and freedom of picking yourself, and I believe the future, as we are seeing in the music industry already, is in people who believe enough in their work to pick themselves.

So I know you don’t want to be a publisher but I want to beg you to reconsider. And, if you care enough about your work, you will care enough to give it away.  You will care enough to help it spread and then you will care enough to figure out how to make a living doing that.

Now I do believe that market niche is developing for a new kind of publisher, someone who will take someone and help their work spread.  I’m trying to do that with the Domino Project but, I don’t believe that we are doing anything magical and I believe that in many cases people are better off picking themselves.

MICHAEL:

So, let me ask you a follow up question which will cover a number of different questions. What is the general process that you suggest people go through if they want to ship this new model of publishing?

SETH:

Well, the old model of publishing is built around scarcity and risk. That’s what traditional book publishers are; they are venture capitalists for ideas. They put up cash. They cause the thing to be created.

They take a risk printing a whole bunch that can be returned and if it works they get to keep most of the money. It’s not about being able to print. Anyone can print. It’s about being able to take that kind of risk.

The new model, the model for example the Kindle is, you don’t have to print anything.  You don’t have to take any risk whatsoever that is financial.  You just have to take intellectual risk.  So what is scarce?  What is scarce is permission; the privilege to talk to people who want to hear from you.

If you have a thousand people who are lining up to but your next book, you can make a little bit of a living if you can write enough books. If you have a hundred thousand people like Amanda Hocking does, you can make millions of dollars in one year writing on the Kindle.

So her asset is people who want to know where her next book is and who are willing to pay for it when it’s ready.

Click to continue…

Permalink: