The lizard brain adores a deadline that slips, an item that doesn't ship and most of all, busywork.
These represent safety, because if you don't challenge the status quo, you can't be made fun of, can't fail, can't be laughed at. And so the resistance looks for ways to appear busy while not actually doing anything.
I'd like to posit that for idea workers, misusing Twitter, Facebook and various forms of digital networking are the ultimate expression of procrastination. You can be busy, very busy, forever. The more you do, the longer the queue gets. The bigger your circle, the more connections are available.
Laziness in a white collar job has nothing to do with avoiding hard
physical labor. “Who wants to help me move this box!” Instead, it has
to do with avoiding difficult (and apparently risky) intellectual
labor.
"Honey, how was your day?"
"Oh, I was busy, incredibly busy."
"I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?"
Busy does not equal important. Measured doesn't mean mattered.
When the resistance pushes you to do the quick reaction, the instant message, the 'ping-are-you-still-there', perhaps it pays to push in precisely the opposite direction. Perhaps it's time for the blank sheet of paper, the cancellation of a long-time money loser, the difficult conversation, the creative breakthrough…
Or you could check your email.
February 1, 2010
If you've got an idea worth spreading, I hope you'll consider this random assortment of rules. Like all rules, some are made to be broken, but still…
- You can name your idea anything you like, but a google-friendly name is always better than one that isn't.
- Don't plan on appearing on a reality show as the best way to launch your idea.
- Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you're stalling. You don't wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
- Don't poll your friends. It's your art, not an election.
- Never pay a non-lawyer who promises to get you a patent.
- Avoid powerful people. Great ideas aren't anointed, they spread through a groundswell of support.
- Spamming strangers doesn't work. Spamming friends doesn't work so well either, but it's certainly better than spamming strangers.
- The hard part is finishing, so enjoy the starting part.
- Powerful organizations adore the status quo, so expect no help from them if your idea challenges the very thing they adore.
- Figure out how long your idea will take to spread, and multiply by 4.
- Be prepared for the Dip.
- Seek out apostles, not partners. People who benefit from spreading your idea, not people who need to own it.
- Keep your overhead low and don't quit your day job until your idea can absorb your time.
- Think big. Bigger than that.
- Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.
- Try not to confuse confidence with delusion.
- Prefer dry, useful but dull ideas to consumer-friendly 'I would buy that' sort of things. A lot less competition and a lot more upside in the long run.
- Pick a budget. Pick a ship date. Honor both. Don't ignore either. No slippage, no overruns.
- Surround yourself with encouraging voices and incisive critics. It's okay if they're not the same people. Ignore both camps on occasion.
- Be grateful.
- Rise up to the opportunity, and do the idea justice.
January 31, 2010
I'm thrilled to invite you to a killer evening with the brilliant Steven Pressfield
(and me, it's a tag team) at Borders Columbus Circle in New York on Monday, February 8th at 7 pm.
It's free but space is pretty limited. First come, first served.
I'll be in Orange County on February 11th.
Utah on February 12th. No head shaving this trip, I promise.
I'll also be in Toronto on March 2nd. Say hi if you can.
Chicago, March 24th.
I'll be in Belgium on April 1st. I don't get to Belgium ever, so here's your big chance.
January 30, 2010
But the iPad is a pad. Consistency matters.
The success of the
iPhone confused the naming guys at Apple. iPhone means phone + iPod. At
launch, the part with obvious value was the phone (we knew that) and
the iPod apps were a bonus that ended up being really terrific. Success.
The formula doesn't work in naming the iPad. We already have the "i" part, and we don't value the Pad part.
And,
just as Apple blew it with the word 'book' (Powerbook led to Macbook
because they didn't own the word power–IBM made them change it when the processor was changed–which led others using netbook, which
they don't own at all), they can't own the word Pad either. Thinkpad is
made by Lenovo, not Apple.
It's a mess. It's sloppy. It communicates nothing.
When in doubt, design like Apple but name like Procter and Gamble. Pringles anyone?
PSFK writes about a cafe in Japan with a simple rule: you get what the person before you ordered (and paid for), and the next person gets what you ordered.
Take a few moments to think about that.
Would you go?
What would you order?
Is this an opportunity to give or an opportunity to take…
I think we have Ogori opportunities daily.
The work you do when you spread the word or run an ad or invent a policy is likely aimed at one of these four groups.
- Strangers are customers to be, but not yet
- Critics are those that would speak ill of you, or need to be converted
- Friends are those that might have given permission, or even buy now and then
- Fans are members of your tribe, supporters and insiders
You already know the truth: can't please all these groups at once. And you also probably realize that each of us with an idea to spread has a knee jerk default, the one we lean to without thinking. Many marketers are evangelical, focused on strangers at all costs… they'd rather convert a new customer than revisit an old one. A cubicle worker, on the other hand, might focus on no one but the boss, at the expense of broadening her platform.
Before you launch anything, run down the list. How can you optimize for the group you truly care about? How much is that optimization worth? (Hint: a new true fan is worth a thousand times as much as a slightly mollified critic).
January 29, 2010
Many months ago, I asked my readers to send me pictures of people who mattered, who made a difference–people they couldn't live without. The result of that shout out is now published on the inside cover of my new book.
If you didn't get your picture in on time, you can post it, along with a description, links, guest books and more at whoisthelinchpin.com. Even better, post someone else. It's a nice thing to do for someone who matters to you.
Celebrate the linchpins. We need more of them.
January 28, 2010
How can I explain the never-ending irrationality of human behavior?
We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.
The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we’re amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we’re going to do?
The lizard brain.
Or as Steven Pressfield describes it, the resistance. The resistance is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer’s block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn’t stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door.
The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That’s because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.
The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.
Want to know why so many companies can’t keep up with Apple? It’s because they compromise, have meetings, work to fit in, fear the critics and generally work to appease the lizard. Meetings are just one symptom of an organization run by the lizard brain. Late launches, middle of the road products and the rationalization that goes with them are others.
The amygdala isn’t going away. Your lizard brain is here to stay, and your job is to figure out how to quiet it and ignore it. This is so important, I wanted to put it on the cover of my new book. We realized, though, that the lizard brain is freaked out by a picture of itself, and if you want to sell books to someone struggling with the resistance (that would be all of us) best to keep it a little more on the down low.
Now you’ve seen the icon and you know its name. What are you going to do about it?
Free is something you get, no matter what.
A bonus is something you get as an add-on when you purchase something, or trade your attention.
The purpose of free is to spread the word, alert the universe and generate interest.
The purpose of a bonus is to reward immediate action and to sway the undecided.
Here are some free things we built for Linchpin:
- Download an eight-page manifesto from Changethis. (My favorite one)
- Find posters and riffs on Scribd.
- See a brainstorming video on Vimeo.
- Watch a video on shipping at Behance.
In each case, you don't have to do a thing to get started but you might decide you like it enough to spread the word. In the old days, gifts like these would cost money to create and be hard to share. Today, the opposite is true. The goal of something that's free is to spread the idea.
On the other hand, some bonus things we built for Linchpin:
Oh, wait, I can't show them to you because you have to buy something first.
Anyway, what we did was collect:
- Zen Unicorn, an ebook of the last few years of this blog (it sells on the Kindle for $9)
- Membership to the invite-only online Triiibe community that I started a while ago (limited supply of these)
- Ten minutes of excerpts from the audio version of my book
- Some other bonuses, below
To get them, you need to answer a simple question to demonstrate that you've ordered the new book. That's because they are bonuses, not free. And yes, you qualify even if you got the book as a gift or received it a month ago. The bonus material will only be available for a few weeks.
We also did two special deals with 800 CEO READ (that's their phone number). If you hurry, you can get a bonus hardcover copy of The Blue Sweater with your purchase of two copies of LInchpin. Jacqueline's breakthrough is a brilliant book that will change the way you see the world.
Or, if you'd like one of the no-longer-sold boxed sets, there are a few left, available to anyone who buys a bulk box of 50 Linchpin copies from them.
KINDLE USERS! Also, if you have a Kindle, you'll automatically get a thirty-page original essay when you buy the Kindle edition at Amazon. It magically shows up on your Kindle, you don't even have to click. This is the only place you can get it. The free bonus will only be available for the next five weeks.
The best bonuses are valuable and scarce, worthy of your attention. I hope we succeeded.
Whatever you sell, whatever idea you want to spread, it's now possible to create both freebies and bonuses. One spreads, the other induces.
PS for audio listeners, Linchpin is now available on iTunes.
January 27, 2010
There's going to be a lot of hoopla this week, some of it on this very blog (three posts already today!).
I want to be the very first author to announce a new project for Apple's tablet.
Apple is announcing the device tomorrow (I wish they had waited a week), but I thought I'd let you know early that I've licensed Vook the rights to Unleashing the Ideavirus so they can convert it into a multimedia app. It should be finished before the tablet ships, so we intend to be ready when they are.
Steve Jobs will probably never speak to me again for announcing before his launch. That's okay, he never speaks to me anyway.
January 26, 2010
