A Little Story About a Big Risk

This week my daughter Jennie had a birthday.  Not only is she my only child and mother of my adorable grandchildren, she’s also one of the best and wisest teachers I’ve ever had.

I thought of something that Jennie did when she was in college as I was reading Isabel Losada’s A Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World.

Losada’s story begins this way: “Sometimes you just have to do something, don’t you?  Sometimes an injustice comes along and you think, ‘No, this cannot be,’ and— rather than just sigh, switch off the TV, or throw away the newspaper one more time—you know it’s time to act.”

Jennie’s story began when she was in college where her major enthusiasm was the work she was doing with Amnesty International. Along the way, she volunteered to organize and manage a benefit concert on their behalf.

A fair amount of uncertainty, risk and challenge were involved in this undertaking. Although the bands were playing for free, the space they were using charged $400. They needed 125 paying attendees in order to break even.

Lots of phone calls followed as she lined up bands, found a venue and rallied workers.

One day when I was out of town, I got a panicky phone call. “Mom, I’ve got to know all your shoestring marketing tips!”

She caught me by surprise. “For your concert?” I asked. “Do you have any money at all?”

“Well, we’re going to have $180.” She paused and added, “Some of us are going to sell our blood.” (You may have been that creative when you were 19, too!)

We discussed how they could best spend the money and talked about sending out press releases. Another long distance call was spent writing the press release followed by directions on sending them to appropriate media people.

We both held our breath.

The night before I returned from my trip, I received an excited call. One of the entertainment papers in Minneapolis had written, “This gig is deserving…The show’s a chance to be socially conscious and musically correct, even without Sting and Springsteen. Amnesty International is the hardest working and most effective crusader.”

I relaxed a bit.

The night of the concert, I got another breathless call. The concert was a hit and Jennie was the caretaker of over $1000 in cash which she had to protect until she could bank it on Monday.

That wasn’t the only reward, however.

Thanks to taking on the challenge, Jennie’s self-confidence got a big boost. In fact, she immediately decided to take on another daunting project.

“You can’t test courage cautiously,” warned Annie Dillard.

As Jennie—and Isabel Losada—discovered, courage begins when you are willing to take action on behalf of those things you believe can make a difference in our frequently difficult world.

Remember, you can have your dreams or you can have your fears. You can’t have both.

 

 

Blasé is Not a Power Tool

Shortly after my daughter Jennie graduated from college, I noticed a change in her. News that would have been greeting with an “Oh, wow!” in the past was met with a shrug or a grunt. Nothing seemed to excite her.

When I mentioned my concern to my sister, she said, “I don’t think you need to be worried. I was like that when I was in my twenties trying to send the message, ‘I’ve seen better,’ so people would think I was worldly.”

Happily, the enthusiastic Jennie eventually returned, but not everybody passes through their blasé phase so quickly. Some people make it a lifetime policy to be unimpressed and unexcited about everything that life has to offer.

While they may think that they’re displaying superior intelligence by their perpetually disapproving attitude, they’re really repelling others (including customers and clients) from their life.

Being around the terminally bored is like being in a room lit by 25 watt light bulbs. It’s strangely uncomfortable and there’s a natural impulse to want to move into a brighter space.

Smart entrepreneurs know that apathy is an invitation to doom while enthusiasm is survival gear.

The wise have always known this. “Success is going from failure to failure,” observed Winston Churchill, “without a loss of enthusiasm.”

The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek “entheos” which means “God within”. It appears that those who are in touch with their inner spiritual fire are the most naturally enthusiastic about life itself.

Of course, many people have brief moments of excitement if they make a big sale, buy a winning lottery ticket or get invited to a reception at the White House. These are temporary responses, however, and once the moment has passed, so has their enthusiasm.

Genuine enthusiasm isn’t a temporary response to short-lived good fortune: it’s a way of dealing with whatever life offers up. It is actually an expression of a grateful and awe-filled attitude. Most critically, it’s a cultivated behavior—like good manners.

The chronically cranky don’t understand that they’re doing it to themselves. On the other hand, the perpetually enthusiastic know that their attitude is a powerful weapon against boredom, frustration and intolerance so they take great care to protect it.

Unlike good manners, which are totally learned behavior, enthusiasm arrives with us at birth. Watch any two-year-old exploring the world around them and you’ll see wide-eyed enthusiasm in action.

Unfortunately, many people believe that the role of parenting is about dampening enthusiasm, not fanning it, so too many of us arrive at adulthood with our enthusiasm dimmed and diminished. If we are to approach our lives with enthusiasm and vigor, we need to learn how to light our own fire.

That may be easier than you think. Since enthusiasm is an innate quality residing in each of us, we can decide to release it and allow it to propel us through our lives.

We can also discover for ourselves what nurtures our enthusiasm and make an effort to bring more of that into our lives. Conversely, we also need to identify those people and situations that diminish our zest and either eliminate them or find a workable way to include them with enthusiasm.

If you want to create a business that is rich, full and filled with wonder, start by releasing this magical power.

Do so and you’ll discover first hand what Charles Kingsley was talking about when he said, “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

A Portfolio of Profit Centers

Steven Kalas is a family counselor with a lively practice. He also plays in a band that’s been busy promoting their new CD, but I know Kalas for a different reason: he writes Human Matters, my favorite column in the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Like many people with multiple interests, he’s found ways to incorporate his diverse interests into satisfying ways of making a living.

Of all the ideas in Making a Living Without a Job, none has ever gotten a stronger response than the notion of incorporating eclectic interests into a unique livelihood.

Many people have felt stifled trying to fit themselves into the Single Occupation mold. There’s often a visible sense of relief when I suggest that it’s possible to create a business from diverse passions.

There’s a practical side to the MPC notion, as well: multiple income sources can level out cash flow. No business, no matter how large or small, is immune from the ups and downs of income.

To everything there is a season, including cash flow.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind when planning your potfolio of profit centers.

° They don’t have to all be the same size in order to be valid. Some profit centers will be occasional, some will peak and then decline, some will be major income sources.

° Under one umbrella or separate identities? If your profit centers are completely unrelated (eclectic rather than clustered), you will probably need to have individual identities for them.

You don’t want to confuse your market by clustering things that don’t go together.

 ° If it matters to you, it belongs in your portfolio. If your interests are diverse, you may decide that some ideas aren’t serious enough to turn into a profit center.

More likely, your apprehension comes from the old belief that if it’s fun and pleasurable, it  should remain a hobby.

Nobody tackles this issue better than Steven Pressfield who writes in The War of Art about turning pro. He says, “The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his ‘real’ vocation.”

° Differing  activities can boost creativity. In the name of efficiency, we’ve turned many of the workers of this world into robot-like machines who show up in the same place at the same time to do the same things day in and day out.

The capacity to think creatively is the first casualty of that system.

Creativity thrives on variety and setting up your profit centers to give you a wide range of experiences is ultimately as good for your imagination as it is for your bank account.

° Take inventory on a regular basis. Many profit centers require a lot of time and attention at their launch, but  become somewhat self-sufficient after that.

It makes sense to review the various projects you’re working on and align your attention with what each one needs.

Sometimes a profit center becomes a noisy child and takes you away from the others.

At other times, you’ll find you’ve grown bored with an idea and it’s time to consider a different future for it.

Every 90 days or so, do a review and make changes where necessary.

° Be wary of multitasking. One way to stay focused, is to assign different days of the week to different projects. When you’re throwing pots, you aren’t writing your pottery seminar, for instance.

° It’s evolution, not instant creation. Profit centers evolve over a long period of time. Ideas morph, new ones show up, old ones have served their time.

The important thing is to create a business that engages your talents and imagination, and pays you to do what you love doing most. As Paul Hawken reminds us, “The business you can succeed with is distinctly and utterly you and yours. It is unlike any other business in the world.”

You have your MPCs to thank for that!

Rising to the Challenge

My involvement with the Summer Olympics was confined to watching the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. I thought they both were dazzling, but there was something else that impressed me even more.

While the athletic achievement was getting all the attention (and rightly so), I began wondering about how many people were involved in making this event happen. The athletes weren’t the only ones turning in a stunning performance.

In the midst of watching the closing event, I shared this thought on Facebook: “From the Opening Ceremonies to the Closing, I keep thinking how this event has had thousands of people rising to the challenge and playing their best game.

“How many musicians, designers, engineers, lighting designers, dancers, coaches, organizers, architects, builders, etc., etc., etc., were involved in bringing this amazement to life?”

After I went to bed, I was still thinking about the impact this colossal event had on so many people who had risen to the challenge. I began imagining the tiny sparks of ideas had led to some of these triumphs.

Here are a few of the conversations I pictured.

What if we got all the construction people to form a cheering corridor to welcome the Olympic torch into the stadium?

What if we sent someone around to schools to audition their choirs to sing at the ceremonies?

What if we found a company that could produce millions of pieces of confetti?

What if we got the Spice Girls to reunite?

What if we had them zooming around the stadium standing on the roof of decorated London cabs while they were singing?

What if we did something amazing with lighting on all the seats?

What if we celebrated imagination and had John Lennon remind us?

Then I remembered  Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation, “Our chief want is to have somebody inspire us to be what we know we can be.”

Obviously, a legion of people had inspired the thousands of others it required to bring this spectacular vision to life. So why do so many of us ignore or dismiss the power of inspiration?

Which leads me to another question: What if we challenged ourselves to amaze ourselves on a regular basis?

 

Artists of Everyday Life

The late Jim Rohn spent nearly half a century sharing his insights on successful living, insights gained in his own entrepreneurial career. His seminars, books and tapes are considered classics and his recorded products continue to influence scores of people who are working to build a better life.

Of course, he had plenty to say about being entrepreneurial. Here’s a little sampling:

An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the makings of a wonderful sculpture.

An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development.

An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life. 

To be enterprising is to keep your eyes open and your mind active. It’s to be skilled enough, confident enough, creative enough and disciplined enough to seize opportunites that present themselves…regardless of the economy.

Rohn believed—and taught—that entrepreneurs needed to build character and cultivate creativity. Like so many other business philosophers, he realized that entrepreneurs are truly artists who simply happen to work in a different medium.

What goes hand in hand with the creativity of enterprise is the courage to be creative. You need courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.

Jim Rohn was a quiet philosopher, which was quite a contrast to the army of self-proclaimed success gurus working diligently to sell you formulas, shortcuts, sure-fire steps for building a fortune. Popular as many of these events happen to be, they’re about as nourishing as fast food.

What’s truly needed, however, aren’t auditoriums packed for success rallies and pep talks. Entrepreneurs need to discover how to nurture their own creative spirits—and regularly do the things that inspire them to act.

That’s more easily accomplished in quiet ways, quiet places.

(Can you imagine what might have happened if someone had stood behind Van Gogh shouting, “Paint, damn it, paint!”?)

When we realize that running a business is a creative activity, not just a money machine, it alters everything. Like any art form, it’s an on-going exercise.

As Goethe pointed out, “The art of living rightly is like all arts: it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.”

Catch the Spirit

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time browsing through back issues of Winning Ways newsletter. Even though I’ve been publishing it for twenty-six years, I’m always delightfully surprised when I go back and come across an article or idea or quote that I had forgotten—or forgotten to put to work in my business.

As I reread things I’d written more than a decade ago, I knew that I wanted to share several of the stories on this blog. After all, collecting entrepreneurial stories is a valuable aspect of building an inspired business and I love passing along those that catch my fancy.

For example, I came across reference to a study that found almost anyone can be a boss, but not everyone is cut out to be a subordinate.

So even though I’m a bit late in getting started this month, I’m excited that our theme for August is Catch the Spirit. I decided on that after reading something I wrote in the July/August 2003 issue that seemed a perfect way to set the stage for what’s coming.

I also think it exposes one of the best kept rewards of the Joyfully Jobless Journey. Here it is:

“There’s an unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student,” said Oliver Goldsmith. I know he wasn’t talking about entrepreneurs, but I think that’s the real spirit that drives enterprising people.

What can we learn? What if we traded predictability for exciting experiences? What can we discover within ourselves that we didn’t know was there? How can our business be a blessing for those whom it serves?

Those are the kinds of questions that fire our entrepreneurial spirits—and keep us searching for answers.

If fear is holding you back, it’s a sure sign you’ve haven’t caught the spirit yet. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to change that.

A small success, reclaiming a neglected passion or a glimpse of a bigger vision can do the trick. You can speed up the process by exposing yourself to people who are already infected.

But be warned: while the entrepreneurial spirit is contagious, there’s also no known remedy for it. Once caught, it’s a permanent condition.

The symptoms are easy to spot. You’ll see opportunity everywhere. You’ll have more ideas than you can ever handle. Life will feel like an endless adventure. You may even begin to see symptoms of it spreading to the people around you.

Best of all, you will discover that what once seemed impossible is within reach.

Who’d want to recover from that?