When you encounter a vacuum it seeks out something to fill it. The vacuum doesn’t care what that is as long as the void is filled.
I think that fact is true for us as well. If we have a void we will seek to fill it and if we’re not careful we can damage the work that we have done.
I state all of this because I think it’s important to recognize that we need to constantly fill ourselves with what will benefit us and surround ourselves with people that share the same beliefs.
How do we do that? For me personally, I work in sales, but tend to be by myself most of the day. I have an office and it can be a little bit isolating at times.
To combat that I make it a point to read some good sales blogs like Jeb Blount, Anthony Iannarino and Jen Gluckow. These folks all have slightly different approaches to things and it’s like you’re talking with a friend and bouncing ideas.
I also make it a point to go to outside events. Startup mixers, AA-ISP and other networking events. Some of these can be a mixed bag, since there are those that are just there to seek out a job.
However you can find gold as well. I have found that AA-ISP makes it a point to have value in their meetings while also having a good time.
I also make it a point to reach out to my boss to make sure I am on the right path. It clears my head to ensure we are on the same page and helps guide my priorities.
Finally I speak to my wife about everything. She is my rock and my support in all things. Whenever I have doubts or successes I share them so we can work it together and celebrate.
It was the last living thing rescued from the ruins of 9/11. A dozen years later, one mythical pear tree is finally home, and branching out from Ground Zero in mystical ways.
Perhaps it’s because I have a Japanese maple that everybody told me was dead; get rid of it; put in something new to enjoy — but I didn’t.
I left the tree alone for a couple of years, pruned the parts that didn’t grow in that time and since then it has flourished.
Amazing what time and patience can do for the severely damaged.
Sadly, both are in short supply these days — although the damaged are not.
Earlier this year I cited a study that demonstrates the value of experience for entrepreneurs, something in short supply if you are a twentysomething starting a company in your dorm room.
Best of all, there’s no upper end to creativity or sources of inspiration.
Mary Hunter says her ideas com from God, as do her recipes, but it was diabetes that drove her to find a better way to add flavor to the large roasts she cooks for her church.
And it was moxie that kept her moving forward for twenty years, because, whether your idea is the result of heavenly inspiration or drowning frustration in a few beers, execution is never smooth.
Now it’s finally happening.
Later this month, Mary’s Marinating Sticks are scheduled to go on sale in Target stores.
It took enormous risk, Hunter mortgaged her home at age 63; great support from family and friends; a sales force recruited from her church (a la Sarah Breedlove, AKA Madame C. J. Walker), the kind of hard work that generates good luck and a belief strong enough to overcome everything that went wrong—and plenty did.
There are dozens of entrepreneurs who are held up as examples of perseverance in the face of adversity, but few fought it through for 20 years.
Those that fight and win all have one thing in common; an edge of some kind.
Hunter would tell you her edge was God, others would say it was a spouse or friend or just plain stubbornness.
But I think they are more like the Energizer bunny and just keep going and going and going.
From the day you are promoted your professional life is measured not by your own efforts and successes, but by your team’s, whether “your” team is made up of five people or five thousand.
The best bosses are aware of what they say and put time and effort into phrasing things in ways that inspire and motivate.
Bosses frequently use words and phrases they’ve read or heard because they do a better job expressing their thoughts than they can themselves and that’s OK.
In fact, it’s better than OK, because some people have a knack for capturing a thought or meaning in unforgettable ways.
The following is one of the most powerful building blocks for life I’ve come across, so I thought I’d share it with you.
The words of Benjamin E. Mayes (it may be ‘Mays’, I found one spelling where the quote was and the other in Wikipedia, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same person) provide an unforgettable piece of inspiration/motivation that you should share with your team.
“It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture…”
Not a bad thought to share with your kids, either.
The holiday season brings out a wide variety of emotions, from elation at the years accomplishments to excitement that a new year, a blank slate full of opportunity, is almost here, to the holiday blues and, for some, depression.
It’s also the time of year I like re-reading stories about real people that lift my spirits and I thought I would share a few with you.
First up is Filippo Callipo, who became the most successful businessman in southern Italy in spite of not playing ball with the mob.
Callipo’s refusal to play ball with the mob in an area where organised crime forces many businesses to pay extortion money and even dictates which suppliers companies must use has made him somewhat of a local legend.
I know many people with schizophrenia or manic-depressive disorder who, with the help of therapy and medication live their lives with relative degrees of success. The one complaint I hear from them all regards the medical arrogance that dismisses any ideas or insights they offer as worthless. It doesn’t surprise me; medical thinking still believes that there is no way a lay person with no training could offer any kind of intelligent commentary. Milt Greek and a few others are publicly proving them wrong.
Yet people who have had such experiences often disagree, arguing that delusions have their origin not solely in the illness, but also in fears, longings and psychological wounds that, once understood, can help people sustain recovery after they receive treatment.
Have you ever thought about who you were during a great life experience and wanted to repeat it now, as the person you’ve become? Bruce Weber, a reporter for the NT Times, did exactly that—18 years ago at age 39 he rode his bicycle across the country and he just did it again. His reflections on both himself and the country he rode through are well worth reading.
If there’s one thing the ride this time has impressed on me, it’s that the present is where I want to live. Never wish away distance. Never wish away time.
85 year old Boyd Lee Dunlop isn’t wishing away time. A nursing home, an old, broken-down piano and a chance meeting proves that the world can change at any time.
Instead, Boyd Lee Dunlop, 85, is the featured performer at a concert on Saturday night at the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Buffalo. Admission is $10. And if you want to buy his debut CD, that will cost you another $15.
There are many inspiring stories about people who went above and beyond or whose actions changed the world—or just their own little piece of it.
Here are four people you’ve probably never heard of, but we can all learn from.
Why would 16 year old Holland Reynolds force herself to crawl across a finish line in a championship race? Winning? Yes, but not for herself, for her coach.
“It’s because of his honesty that when you receive a compliment from him, you know you’ve done really well, and it makes all the runners want to strive to please him.”
Much is made of people who go from poverty to success, but some are more unique than others. Meet Bimola Devi worked decades before starting her company a few years ago. As a result she has enabled 500 other poor women to support their families. She trained and employs more than 70 artisans and revenues of more than one million Rs. in 2010. But she doesn’t seem impressed with what she has done.
“It is not a kind of work that I can do alone. I have to take the support of my friends, family and students. I can now make many products from my embroidery work.”
Did you know that the man most feared by despots around the world is 83 year old Gene Sharp? He can’t use the Internet, but a long time ago he wrote a book…
But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably From Dictatorship to Democracy (link to PDF), a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.
There is much talk about technology that changed the world, the printing press, locomotive, automobile, Internet/World Wide Web, but today Wally Bock introduced me to Malcolm McLean. It took 20 years, but McLean changed our world as much as any of the things I mentioned; his innovation directly affects sixty percent of world trade by value.
To the end of his life, Malcolm McLean would remember the specific day that he got his big idea. The year was 1937. The place was Hoboken, New Jersey.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
We all need things that inspire us when we are so tired or depressed that we don’t want to get out of bed, let alone put on a happy face.
Earlier this year I cited a study that demonstrates 
From the day you are promoted your professional life is measured not by your own efforts and successes, but by your team’s, whether “your” team is made up of five people or five thousand.
The holiday season brings out a wide variety of emotions, from elation at the years accomplishments to excitement that a new year, a blank slate full of opportunity, is almost here, to the holiday blues and, for some, depression.
