Changing Your Life
June 12, 2010
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in this issue
The Decision is yours
What is Your Purple Cow?
Well, today June 12, 2010, I reached the age of 70. I sit back and ask myself two things, How? and Why? One thing for sure, I don't think I'll ever understand either, but I am thankful to be here. Like many others there are times when I step back and rudely and crudely say "Life:e Sucks", not true. Yes, there are times that are rougher than others, but in general, Life is great!
Last week someone called me about the steps to become an entrepreneur and I gave the the following advice:
If you were to offer advice to a beginning entrepreneur, what would it be?
First, don't obsess on finding the "great idea." In fact, our research shows a somewhat negative correlation between pioneering a great idea and building a great company. Many of the greatest started with either no great idea or even failed ideas. Sony started with a failed rice cooker. Marriott started as a single root beer stand. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard's great idea was simply to work together - two best friends who trusted each other - while their first four products failed to get the company out of the garage. They followed the "first who" approach to entrepreneurship: First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop, or the financing, but the founding team. Starting a company is like scaling an unclimbed face - you don't know what the mountain will throw at you, so you must pick the right partners, who share your values, on whom you can depend, and who can adapt.
Changing Your Life -
It's Up to You
by: Edward V Ellis, Sr.June 12, 2010
A long-standing friend recently recommended one of his best-loved self-help books to me - it was the latest in a long list of his recommended reading. In chatting with him, I inquired as to how he was getting on putting into practice what he was learning from all his reading. It emerged from our conversation that, in fact, he was a life-long student of living life to the full but was unlikely to ever actually try it. As the conversation unfolded, he told me that a mutual friend had suggested to him that he "stop reading the bloody books and starting doing it!"
Bookshop shelves groan with personal development, self improvement and self help books. It's big business - apparently the fastest growing sector of the publishing market. In addition, personal development websites abound - offering all manner of inducements to purchase their package which will change your life in five minutes.
None of these websites, packages or books will change your life. They may well point you in the right direction, provide you with an insight or understanding that had been missing from your range of knowledge or experience or, perhaps, offer you concrete tips on how to get more out of life, change your life, transform yourself or whatever. Undoubtedly, there is some very good stuff out there - and some innovative and practical personal development online help - but none of it is going to be of any use to you until you put it into practice for yourself and keep putting it into practice.
You are the only one who can change your life. You are the only one who can take control of the awesome inner power that is simply waiting for you to muster up the courage or energy to unleash it. But neither courage nor bravery is required - in fact very little effort is required at all. The interesting thing is that much of the advice provided by books and websites requires very little effort on your part, really only a tiny amount of work is required of you. The fact is, to change your life immeasurably, you really only need to very minor alteration to the manner in which you use your mind, in order to start the change. And, indeed, I have seen many people make these tiny adjustments and experience major benefits. Sadly, however, having been in this business for over fourteen years, I have seen far too many people unwilling to take five minutes each and every day, on an ongoing basis, to make the other twenty three hours and fifty five minutes so much better. I know that it doesn't make sense - but it's just so easy to revert to type, to fall back into our default state of "not too bad" and rejoin the herd of normal crazy people who simply do not take control of their mind.
All this leads me to the key point that I want to make - one that I've already alluded to - you have to keep putting what you learn into practice. No book, program or package will change your life in five minutes. You won't change your life in five minutes. But five minutes each day is an entirely different matter. Life is lived one day at a time - so, if you take or make the time to ensure that your mind is up and running each every morning, then your life is going to change beyond all recognition. Decades of research in the field of psychology has come to the conclusion, in no uncertain terms, that normal people perceive only what they expect to perceive and experience only what they expect to experience - that the normal life is dictated by the sadly closed normal mind that prefers, as its default state, to dwell on the experiences that impressed us during our formative years. This is how your mind works and how your mind will always work unless you take five minutes each morning to make sure that it's open, clear, focused on now so that it isn't focused on the past.
You need to make sure that your mind is open for business each and every morning - open to the business of living not just any old not to bad life, but ready to live life to the full where it's meant to be lived - in the here and now. If you pull your mind's attention into the here and now, you will alter your perception - no longer will it be colored by the formative events that made you who you think you are. If you pull your mind's attention into the here and now you will open up a whole range of experience that is completely foreign to the normal mind - it's the experience of real life, real opportunity, real happiness, and real success - and it's all on your terms. In pulling your attention into the here and now you will change your expectations and your expectations once changed will lead to a totally different life. But your changing your mind is not a once off event - it's something that you have to do one day at a time - because real life is lived one day at a time.
What Is Your Purple Cow?
By: Edward V Ellis, Sr. June 12, 2010
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Purple Cow
I am a ferocious reader. On average I read 2-3 books a week. They tend to spur my mind and I cross pollinate the ideas and learning's from one book to another until I gain new insights.
Over the years I took a speed reading course. It was one of my best investments. I found that my comprehension went up the faster I read (that is because your brain reads at 600 wpm-the average person reads at 150-250 wpm and the space in between is where your brain wonders and your comprehension goes down-and I was able to accomplish much more in much less time. In college this meant I studied less and could meet every one at the bar. A bonus at that time.
In Seth Godin's book, The Purple Cow, he emphasizes that in today's world our brains are overloaded with information. We are constantly bombarded by it so hence we become desensitized to it. We no longer even hear it. He even shares how he went up to people reading the New York Times and asked them to name one of the companies in the ads they had just read. They couldn't name one.
This got me to thinking about how people's brains function at work. If we are programmed to tune out advertisement, how do you think we feel about corporate meetings where the manager just talks at us? Do we view it as a commercial that we can or cannot listen to? Do we see it STUCK in our day (like a commercial is stuck in our TV program) rather than see it as a REASON for our day?
Seth's point is that as you drive and see fields of cows they lose their novelty. But if you come across a purple cow, that would get your attention.
What do you do to turn your meetings from being a field of cows to being a PURPLE COW? What do you do with your sales presentation that makes your prospect stop and say, WOW? What do you do with your corporate communication that makes employees WANT to read it?
TAKE ACTION: Look today at your communication with fresh eyes. If anything bores you, you can bet it bores your audience. Stop, make it eye catching, unique and something that gets them to see you, not as the commercial, but as the program they want to listen to.
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