Escape from Cubicle Nation

Are creative people doomed to scraping out a miserable existance?

I love creative, complex, funny people. 

When I see a photo or video or clever ditty or hear great music or read a deep, insightful essay it makes my heart expand. 

This is the case with supremely talented fine artists or wacky creative geniuses like Hugh McLeod, who did the above gapingvoid cartoon.

Or ZeFrank, whose mind I love so much I would marry it if I could.

If you have 18 minutes, watch his TED talk:

(link here if you can't see video - it has a teeny bit of profanity so if you are at work, take note)

A client, whom I won't name to maintain his privacy, told me that he was a musician.  He wanted to explore making a living by his art, but was unsure if he could do it. By the way he described it, I assumed he was a decent player, most likely entertaining family and friends in the living room, or playing at a local small coffee shop.  Then I viewed him playing on YouTube.

My jaw hit the floor.

He was sublime, exquisite, hyper-talented. Carnegie Hall material.

And I wondered -- if he, Ze Frank, Hugh McLeod worry about making a living from their art, what about the rest of the average creative Joe or Jane?

We went to the Tempe Art Fair a few months ago and a talented street performer named Dana Smith did a show in the middle of a huge crowd of people.

My 3-year old son watched with rapt attention.  At the end of the show, Dana asked for volunteers. My son waved his hand and stood up . After Josh's "performance," he told me that he had to go speak with the artist.  "I want to work with you," he said to Dana.  Dana replied:

"If you want a life of driving around in a beat-up pick-up truck, come join me," he said.  "Otherwise, become an accountant!"

This half-joke/half truth stuck with me.

Is there really a correlation between pure creative joy and poverty or selling out and prosperity?

A coaching client from India told me something I never forgot: 

"My father told me from a young age that I had three choices for my career.  I could be a doctor, an engineer, or a failure."

Unfortunately for him, he was a software engineer for a very successful high tech company.  Who deeply longed to chuck it all and be a creative writer. He drank.  A lot.

My friend and fellow coach Brooke Castillo said this in a recent post:

Today I learned something that blew my mind: Michelangelo hated painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Hated it.

If I had been his coach, I would have asked him why.

He would have told me that his boss was a tyrant and that he didn't see himself as a painter-he believed he was a sculptor.  He would have told me he missed his family in Florence and that the pay was inconsistent.

Then, as his coach, I might have asked him why he didn't quit.

I know.

I am so glad I wasn't his coach.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is one of the most inspired and beautiful things I have ever seen.  How could he have hated doing it?  How could he have spent four years making something so amazing and not enjoyed it?

It makes me wonder. . .

What if he had followed his "North Star" and not done the thing he hated?

I cringe at the thought. 

And then I wonder...

What might he have created (and loved creating) in those four years instead?  

Or was the Sistine Chapel his North Star and he just didn't realize it at the time?

I don't have the answers.

I don't have the answers either.  Every once in awhile, I come across someone like Hugh who seems to blend genuine joy at creativity with a healthy attitude towards commerce.  But he worked terribly long and hard at it, giving away his drawings on the back of business cards for years before successfully selling them as prints.

But mostly, when talking with extremely creative people, there seems to be an inherent friction between pure creative freedom and making a living. 

Maybe we need more creative genius grants to let the truly creative do what they are meant to do without twisting themselves into "packages" of e-books, sound bites or workshops.

If I had it my way, Rhett and Link would not have to worry about paying rent.

 

I wish I had a neat process to ensure you could maintain the feeling of total creative freedom while making a living doing it.  I just don't know if one exists.  I am sure that part of it has to do with changing the "starving artist" mentality, and maybe part of it has to do with relaxing the expectation that you should always make tons of money from what you love.

Your thoughts on this one?

$2,500 scholarship opportunity for enterprising 20-something - spread the word

I hate to sound old and gushy, but what the heck.

I am so PROUD of my young mentor Ramit Sethi, co-founder of PB Wiki and blogger at www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com.  Note I said menTOR, not menTEE.  Ramit has taught me a lot of things in the couple of years I have known him, but his latest post about a $2,500 scholarship for an enterprising 20-something is really motivating.  Here is how he describes the impetus behind the scholarship:

"Earlier this week, I was reading an online discussion about what people would do if they were rich. People talked about traveling, starting a charity, and teaching…all GREAT causes. But why don’t we do it today? We don’t have to quit our jobs to travel — we can do it 4 Hour Workweek style. We can teach little kids by doing one-off seminars or tutoring or help inner-city women manage their finances or find local volunteering opportunities in our neighborhood.

You don’t have to quit your job and become a monk to give back. You don’t have to stop going out every weekend. We can be successful by going 85% of the way there.

My point is, we don’t need to wait for tomorrow.

If you want to give back, you can do it in a thousand ways.

It doesn’t have to be a scholarship. Never before in history have we been able to help so many people with so little. We have tools like Kiva and DonorsChoose and Youtube that allow us to scale our social entrepreneurship to millions of people. And with so many talented people reading this blog, I’m SURE I can find someone who’s the right fit to give back."

Scholarship details

"The I Will Teach You To Be Rich Scholarship for Social Innovation is a $2,500 one-time award for someone with an entrepreneurial background who has a specific plan for a socially innovative project. I’ll fund your idea for $2,500 and provide mentorship and introductions.

The key is that it must scale. Instead of helping one child (which is great by itself), I’m looking for someone who can take that interaction and apply it to 100, 1,000, or 10,000 people. For example, if you were really ambitious, you could fly to another country and donate your time. But if you wanted to make it scale, you could use your video skills videos like this or this. Or your teaching skills. Or your programming skills. How many more people would that affect? How could you measure it?"

The details and application are here.

In my opinion, mentoring from Ramit is worth twelve times the amount of the financial award.  He is truly a gifted teacher, manager, innovator and leader. Not to mention a very positive human being.

If you fit the target demographic and have a great idea, apply!  And if you know a young person anywhere in your life that might be eligible, please pass on the word.

As for the rest of us, let's take Ramit's example as a healthy kick in the pants to not wait for the mythical moment to make our goals come true. 

Who says following your dreams shouldn't be hard?

I was on a coaching call with a client.  We were reviewing his target market, business model and strategy.  At about halfway through the call, his voice got choked with emotion.

"I have just put so much effort and energy into this and am not seeing the results I expected.  I know I am meant to do this work.  I love it.  Why does it have to be so hard?"

My first reaction was to comfort him, and to search for a quick solution that would start the flow of clients his way in just the manner he desired.

 

Then I thought, who said anything is wrong with things being hard?

 

I have come to the realization that we cause ourselves a lot of stress by believing that if we just choose the right business, or quit our loathsome job, or find the perfect internet marketing system, or get that book deal that things will become easy.

 

Why is easy desirable?

 

Anything I have done that I consider worthwhile in my life: building a martial arts organization, finding the man I truly love, mentoring youth, writing a book, creating a remote coaching business and having children have all been extremely difficult at times.

 

I think it is the difficulty that makes the success juicy sweet.

 

In technology-fueled modern business, we are addicted to immediate results.  We jump at anything that will take something complex and make it appear simple.  We believe the hype when internet marketers promise instant six figures a year when you sign up for their limited-time 4-figure program (at least you know they will hit six figures this year!).

 

There are some tricks to setting up an efficient business with minimal effort.  And there are some really great people out there who have good information to share that will be worth the investment.

 

But you will only get the return on your investment when you really work the process.   In my own experience, I have invested in classes that had a very poor return not because the information wasn't valuable, but because I didn't take the time to do the homework.  And I have absolutely killed results when I applied myself and took the content in other classes seriously.

 

The process of hard work vs. quick tricks makes me think of my initial reaction to a few stories in Four Hour Workweek.  I really like and admire Tim Ferriss, and think he has fantastic advice in his book.  But as a former serious martial artist, what bothered me about his story of technically winning a martial art championship by interpreting rules instead of studying for years is that I felt he missed the discipline, stamina and growth that comes from doing thousands of push ups and sit ups, training when you would rather stay home on the couch, and getting your face smashed on the floor hundreds of times.  This, in my own experience,  is what deepened my understanding of and love for the art.   

 

I don't think that Tim meant to say that scrapping together a victory on the dance floor or martial art ring was his end game.  He has demonstrated with his incredibly detailed blog posts and rigorous speaking schedule that he believes at working hard at the right things.

 

And the right things are different for each of us.

 

Here is my take on "bad hard" vs. "good hard":

 

Bad hard

• Trying as hard as you can to appear smart, professional and accomplished in a field you secretly loathe
• Trying to force someone to love you, who doesn't
• Spending twelve hours on an administrative task that is complex, boring and not your strength when someone smart could do it in 30 minutes for fifty bucks
• Doing lots of standard processes manually (like sending 6 emails back and forth to set up a meeting instead of using an online scheduling tool)
• Working with people over an extended period of time who are not your ideal clients
• Scattering your efforts over multiple projects so that you don't have the proper time and attention any one of them deserves

Good hard

• Trying as hard as you can to get a business you love off the ground, running into unforeseen snags and getting different results than you expected
• Spending days, weeks and months and sometimes years figuring out your ideal customer and working like a dog to serve them great stuff
  
• Taking on big challenges that push against emotional, mental and physical boundaries
• Sharing your project, or idea or product with people you admire when you don't feel it is quite ready for prime time in order to get feedback that will make it useful and effective
• Meeting unexpected life challenges with both pragmatism and optimism.  As Jim Collins shared so eloquently in Good to Great, illustrating what he calls the Stockdale Paradox: "You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulty, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be."

What I am going to tell my client next time if he says "This is hard!" is "EXCELLENT!  When you are doing the right things, leading your tribe, tackling tough problems and creating truly useful products and services, it shouldn't be easy."

 

But it sure will be good.

 

How many Lehman employees do you think have backup plans?

My heart broke as I watched dejected Lehman Brothers employees carry their personal effects out of their offices on Sunday.  As much as they were aware of strain in their company, if they are like typical corporate employees, most did not expect the bankruptcy outcome.

I was so fascinated to see this right as I am polishing the chapter of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book on why corporate employees are afraid to leave their jobs to start a business.  A very common concern is that their "cushy" situation is as good as it gets, and they would be foolish to leave the "stability" of a corporate job for the "uncertainty" of entrepreneurial life.

I would bet that those Lehman employees who had small gigs going on the side:  consulting projects, eBay stores, blogs w/ad revenue, niche products, are feeling a little less panicked this morning.

The New York Times said yesterday (my paraphrase) that now might be a crappy time to leave your job to start a business. (must register to read). (hat tip to Carlos for referring this article)

Yes, things feel quite bleak in the market today.

But, I would argue, if you are sitting back with your head between your knees gripping your corporate job like a favorite teddy bear, you are putting yourself at risk.

I learned from my martial art days that the safest thing to do when under attack is to keep your eyes wide open, ground yourself, leverage your strengths and let curiosity, not fear, be the emotion your opponent sees in your eyes.

Like in any crisis or economic downturn, some people are going to thrive and grow despite the chaos. These are the people who are not afraid to try new things, work on side projects, network like crazy outside of their day jobs, and maintain a balanced and positive outlook on life.

What position are you in, feet firmly planted on the ground with your eyes wide open, or crouched in your chair waiting to see what will happen to you?

photo credit:  Reuters

Heads up on two interesting opportunities

Two of my favorite mentors have some interesting programs going on:

Rich Sloan of StartupNation alerted me to the 2nd annual Home-Based 100 competition which highlights entrepreneurs like me who do work in the midst of laundry/toddler/toy/crumb-laden environments (wait, maybe that is only me -- the rest of you may have much cleaner home office environments).  If you work from home, check out the categories and enter your business to win!

Dr. Srikumar Rao is offering a new segment of his renowned Creativity and Personal Mastery Course in Los Angeles, California.  Pardon my late reporting since the application deadline is September 5th, but if you have a moment, I really suggest you check it out.  One of my life goals is to participate in this life-changing program.

Details:
Creativity and Personal Mastery(CPM) will be offered beginning October 5, 2008 in Los Angeles. The deadline for application is September 5, 2008.

This is a very innovative course and many have found it life-changing. This article from the Financial Times tells you more about the course and the instructor Professor Srikumar Rao:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df5176e6-5430-11dc-9a6e-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

The syllabus, application procedure, calendar, fees and other details are at:
www.areyoureadytosucceed.com

CPM is the only business school course anywhere that has its own alumni association - a testament to the overwhelming value that those who have taken it feel they received.

This program is not for everyone and there is a deliberately cumbersome application process. Do read the syllabus carefully and see if you think you qualify. It is best to do this early and not wait for the deadline. The application requires thought and takes time to complete.

Good luck if you choose to participate in either of these events! 

How to avoid being "fan boy" or "fan girl" when building relationships with people you admire

Over the years, I have developed deep respect for authors  like Jim Collins, Martha Beck, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Kathy Sierra, Steven Pressfield and Isabelle Allende.  I adore the wit and creativity of people like Ze Frank and Hugh McLeod. I appreciate the down-to-earth business wisdom of John Jantsch, Rich and Jeff Sloan and Andrea Lee.

Maybe your list includes Joel Spolsky or Malcolm Gladwell or Anne Lamott.  Or someone with much less public exposure, like the Vice President of your company, or your neighbor down the street with a fantastic marriage or the woman at your gym who has six kids and abs of steel.

Whomever you note on your "cool smart I wanna be like them when I grow up" list, you can and should look for ways to build relationships with them.

But, as creatures still stinging from the social dynamics of junior high, we can fall into "fan boy or fan girl traps" which not only make us feel insecure, but turn off the very people we are trying to impress.

So here are my tips, learned from the school of hard knocks:

Fan Boy and Fan Girl Traps to Avoid

1. You are the best and I worship you!  Lather, rinse, repeat.
   I often start correspondence with people I admire by telling them how great they are.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that, as long as you say it sincerely and with no ulterior motive.  The problem is when you continually gush in each subsequent conversation.  It gets uncomfortable and tiresome for them and gets in the way of good conversation for you.
   
   Alternative:  You are the best and I worship you.  Now that that's out of the way, let's get to know each other.  Have you read this book?
2. I am a nobody.
   In an attempt to be humble, you may write "I don't mean to bother you with my message, since I know you are doing great things and I am a nobody." This is rubbish.  We are all equal.  Some people have accomplished a lot in their lives, written great works, sculpted strong glutes, or whatever you consider noteworthy.  But this does not make them a superior human being.  You can have admiration for someone while still being proud of who you are.  It goes to my theory of relationships formed in Jr. High:  no one wants the person who needs them too much.  Don't be the girl (or boy) desperate for a date.
   
   Alternative:  You are very cool, and so am I in my own right. (Don't use those words of course, but convey it in your attitude, conversation and body language, if meeting in person)
3. I will convince you that I am worthy by spouting off my entire CV.
   I just said that you are somebody worth talking to.  This is true!  But you don't need to reinforce this by sharing your every accomplishment since getting a gold star for "most cooperative" in preschool.  Let the relationship develop naturally.  As you share information and converse, each of you will develop natural interest in the other.  Or not! 
   
   Alternative:  Save the marketing pitch for your evening telemarketing job.  Be yourself, and trust that if you make a real connection with someone you admire, they will be interested in you.  If they aren't, you can continue to admire their work from afar and pursue other mutually beneficial relationships.
4. Nice to meet you!  Please, oh please, will you be my mentor?
   Think about the current mentors in your life.  Did you like and trust them immediately?  Or did your relationship grow with time and work and mutual support?  Sometimes in your desire to learn as much as you can from people you admire, you ask them for specific support and guidance without having any consideration for their time.  A favorite is "you are an expert in my field, would you mind reviewing my 20-page business plan?"
   
   Alternative: Respect your own time and that of busy people.  Mentors grow naturally, they are not manufactured.  More tips on finding a mentor here.
5. You know everyone.  Please link to my stuff.
   We are all familiar with the context in which the word "foreplay" is normally used.  The same applies to building business relationships. Just as you wouldn't grope a potential mate the first time you meet him or her at a party, you shouldn't immediately demand an intimate business action upon meeting someone new.  I think linking to someone is an intimate act.  It means I like what I read, and trust the source.
   
   Alterative:  It is absolutely fine to say "This is what I'm working on.  I thought you might be interested.  Enjoy!"  Just leave off  "would you link to it?"  Or even worse, "I'll link to you if you link to me."  If you wrote a true gem that fits with their audience's needs, they will link to it.  If not, move on.
6. You can do no wrong.
   Everyone screws up. Sometimes we overlook glaring faults because of our cult-like devotion to the image of a person we admire.  This is not helpful to you or to them. 
   
   Alternative:  When someone you admire does something you don't agree with, let them know in a kind and straightforward way.  "I really admire your business sense.  But your latest advertising partnership with "Stomp bunnies and puppies LLC" seems really out of sync with who you are.  What is your rationale for this decision?" Or "You are the most brilliant person I know in x subject.  But telling a female reader of your blog to stop pulling "that woman stuff" on you was demeaning to your character, not to mention highly damaging to your brand given the amount of female clients who purchase your services.  I suggest apologizing for the comment, since it could have some long-lasting negative consequences to your business."

I still get giddy when in the presence of people I admire.  When I got to meet and interview childhood feminist icon Gloria Steinem, I even took on the look of a possessed madwoman.  So if you heed my advice, know that I need it as much as you do.

Please share your anti-fan boy or fan girl tips here!

Sneak peek at Guy Kawasaki's new project

I don't think Guy sleeps very much, given his advising, mentoring, managing, writing, speaking and blogging schedule.  Apparently all this is not enough activity: he is at it again with a new project from the Truemors team. It is called Alltop, and basically it is a web-based dashboard or table of contents for your favorite topics.

Apparently, the idea was born from observing the work of Thomas Marban who added Truemors to his single-page aggregation of news and tech sites called popurls. The traffic to the Truemors site was bigger from that page than from Google, which led the team to think there was something to this page aggregation stuff.

After testing and brainstorming, the team came up with a prototype of Alltop, with site topics such as gaming, Macintosh, sports, politics, automobiles and celebrity gossip. Each topic has the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page. My favorite so far is oddities, which is a nice way to see the quirky side of the world in one place.

This project appeals to me for a few reasons: 

• I was never any good at the whole "surfing the web" thing. I would stare listlessly at the Google search bar and wonder what in the world I should look for.  Then came del.icio.us and Digg and a lot of other ways to see interesting topics, but all seemed a bit overwhelming.  I really like StumbleUpon for its addictive randomness.  There is something clean and simple about the layout of Alltop which is appealing to me.
• It demonstrates the model of "prototype quickly, launch, get blasted and revise" that I have heard both Guy and my friend Ramit Sethi talk about at length.  The concept is that you do not spend months and months with focus groups and surveys to launch a product, you just "lean into" the market (to use Seth's term), create something quickly and watch instant feedback come in.  The key is to immediately and continuously revise based on this feedback, so within a short period of time the product takes consumer-friendly shape.  This is how Ramit and his buddies launched a prototype of PBWiki, Super Happy Dev House style, in 24 hours with a room filled with smart software engineers, Red Bull and a good idea.  48 hours after launching, they had 1,000 users signed up. I think this model is the wave of the future for all of us, even with non-technical products.
• I like to watch how Guy  handles the product feedback.  Those who follow his blog know that he was reamed, crucified and ridiculed by some for his Truemors project.  He responded with humor, occasional sass and straight talk.  I get the sense that he views business and the internet as a vast petri dish where he can play and experiment.  The ability to take really brutal feedback and keep moving is a highly evolved characteristic of an entrepreneur.  As Guy mentions in his books The Art of the Start and Rules for Revolutionaries, you want to polarize people into lovers or haters of your product.  And as he told me once, "controversy is good."  As a recovering criticism wimp, I stand by that mantra.

I will leave it to Techcrunch and a million smart, critical engineers to pull apart, break down, analyze and improve the technical side of the product.

For me, it is fun to have a place to find a whole bunch of undiscovered wisdom in an easy-to-access format.

For the rest of you, go ahead, look at it, tear it apart and give your feedback.  You know where to find Guy.

Alltop

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Test your knowledge of entrepreneurship

Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western University and author of Illusions of Entrepreneurship:  The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors and Policy Makers Live By, alerted me to his quiz, which I promptly took.

I scored 50%, while my buddy Guy Kawasaki scored 40%.  At least I don't feel so bad!

It is a good example of promoting a book while educating about its core content in an interesting way.  I look forward to reading it for my own book research, as  I think illusions abound for the want-to-start-a- business-crowd.  Based on my results, I have a few illusions myself!

Check it out here and let me know how you score.

---

Update later in the day:

VERY interesting follow up guest post by Scott on Guy's blog which may clear up some questions you had about the quiz:  Top Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship. 

A very intriguing, slightly deflating point from the interview (the first point in bold is the "myth"):

"Starting a business is easy. Actually it isn’t, and most people who begin the process of starting a company fail to get one up and running. Seven years after beginning the process of starting a business, only one-third of people have a new company with positive cash flow greater than the salary and expenses of the owner for more than three consecutive months."

Probably true.  Still worth it, I say!

Happy New Year from my family to yours!

Happy New Year Everyone!

I really appreciate all of your comments and emails this year.  I am really looking forward to 2008, not just for the projects that I have on the burner, but also to see the great creativity you unleash through your new businesses.  I feel very blessed to be part of your community, and by extension, part of your family.

This homegrown video was taken from my iMac with software that choked up in the middle ... but hopefully you can capture the sentiment from my family to yours.

Excellent reading for those paralyzed by fear of leaving their job

One of the best ways that I learn about my readers is by regularly checking incoming links to my blog.  It was this way that I found an excellent article by Mike Ambrose, a communications guy who writes Krooz:  Comments on Communication and Culture.

In Mike's words,

"The past two weeks have been rough! I developed "Total Fear Paralysis At Going Out On My Own" and turned to the drugs I know will best numb the panic for me: McDonald's, television, and getting lost in the Wikipedia. Still, I kept thinking "Who am I kidding? My consulting will never get off the ground and fly!" That is, when I wasn't thinking about the bills coming in, especially the money I owe over the next year for my building's brick repointing project. Yikes!

Instead of moving on to stronger drugs (like jumping out my fourth-floor window), I scanned the Web for blog postings from people in the same dire straights. I tried to find personal stories, along with examples of errors I'm afraid of making and advice stronger than "Buck up, you'll be fine." And these are the people who spoke to me:"

He compiled a list of 10 posts which are remedies for the fear of starting your own business.  Thanks for including my post Mike!  I really enjoyed reading the others.

All I can say is you are not alone!  Everyone has big fears of starting new things, even those you may consider the "pros."  So check your perfectionism at the door and just get moving with little things ... as the last article Stop Reading Lifehacks recommends:

"Here’s a novel concept for our hack-happy society: stop reading all of these hacks, step away from the keyboard and actually do something!"

I know everyone here is cheering you on.  When one person makes progress busting through fear, it inspires us all.

Thanks for sharing this list, and good luck with your business!