Thank you Apple, for maintaining your stellar reputation in customer service. I knew you could do it! A couple of weeks ago I shared a rambling tale about how my local laundromat had taken Apple to the cleaners in the customer service department. While my laundromat’s sterling reputation remains intact, I’m happy to say that Apple has reversed their temporary shortfall, at least in my world. And in the process done something I’m always talking about regarding service.

I’ve always argued that simply “doing it right” is not actually the way to build the strongest customer engagement. Most of us EXPECT it to be done right; after all, if someone goes into business to do something, why would they do anything else? I learned this while in restaurant management years ago. Most happy customers say little more than hello and goodbye, and even when you leave comment cards on the table, the most detailed feedback comes from those who had a PROBLEM, not those who had a reliable and positive experience.

The pro-active and positive strategy obviously then is to try to make things EXCEPTIONAL for the customer. Kind of a no-brainer, but also a real challenge to maintain on a day-to-day basis. But if you’ve been in business awhile, you know that the most devoted customers you have are those who actually had a BAD experience, but then had it resolved. It’s a huge trust-builder, and the customer really develops emotional anchors around the experience that make them more like an ally than a customer. This isn’t mere speculation; the idea is backed up by research.

Apple seems to focus very well on that “exceptional” notion from the get-go, by creating remarkable, must-have products that people didn’t even know they needed. And their products are so darn reliable that you really don’t hear much about how they handle problem resolution, you just assume that the one-to-one “genius to customer” ratio you see at any random Apple Store just means it’s all being taken care of. Which is why my little problem was such a shocker, and why – after our little bump – Apple has a new long-term convert.

The short version of the story is that I was slowly becoming an Apple convert thanks to my beloved black MacBook, and just as I was preparing to make some major hardware purchases – which probably all would have been Apple products – I had a major snag with the most basic level of customer service surrounding a known issue with the battery in my MacBook. The service failure was simple in one way, but frankly epic in another. I already outlined it in the previous piece.

But Apple fixed it. How? Well, first I emailed the Apple Store team, Cc-ing Tim Cook, the CEO. I didn’t get a heartfelt response from Mr. Cook or anything, in fact I didn’t get ANYTHING for nearly a week. But then I got an email from the store’s team leader, asking for my phone number so he could call to address the problem. And then we spoke the next day. I joked about not hearing back from the CEO, but he quipped “well I sure did”, and from there he did a fantastic job of addressing my concerns in a genuine, non-patronizing fashion. Which happened to involve replacing the problem battery, and offering to do some quick diagnostics to make sure it hadn’t caused any damage.

Suddenly, this cold and cocky corporation that I loathed was HUMAN again, and I was happy as a clam. How hard was that? Not very, and Apple did it just right. So right that I’m preparing to make nearly ten grand in hardware purchases with them, purchases which could just as easily have gone to the less-expensive, and less prestigious competitor. And almost did. What do I mean by “doing it right”? They addressed the problem thoroughly and directly, with people-driven earnestness, and without making the frustrated customer jump through hoops.

How many times have you had the experience of a waitperson or clerk feeling compelled to make excuses, elaborate explanations, or perhaps even questioning your honesty when you have a simple, legitimate gripe? Probably a lot. What a lot of business owners overlook is the short term cost of making one customer happy vs making that customer unhappy. Maybe you’ve heard of Pete Blackshaw’s book Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. Or maybe not, but those in the know realize that the one giveaway that seems like a losing move is actually the WINNINGEST move you can make. The damage that can be done by that one negative voice has a much more tremendous ripple effect than any positive voice, mostly because that angry person screams and rants, and often STAYS angry,

That’s where Apple came through; they acknowledged the problem, and FIXED it, with no fuss, and no platitudes. In this case giving me a free replacement battery for a device that was well out of warranty. A very generous gesture on one hand, but at the probable cost of about 60 bucks versus the outcome of losing thousands in revenue later, a sensible “investment”.

Apple gets the added benefit that I’m not the kind of person who only rants about negative stuff, I rant even MORE about positive stuff.

Thank you Apple, you rock.

UPDATE: Apple completely turned this experience around, and turned me into a new loyal customer. See the followup HERE

Last week, I happened to be perusing the book 212 Service: The 10 Rules for Creating a Service Culture, when I coincidentally had back-to-back service experiences that highlighted one of the most crucial aspects of service. Which aspect am I referring to? Concern. You can write books, attend seminars, create training programs, and share theories about customer service ’til the cows come home (which they will, if you show them enough concern) but if – at that magic brief moment of contact you don’t have a human or at least a mechanism in place that says “we care, and we’re going to try to help you”, you’re screwed. You may as well ignore customer service altogether. Let me use my recent personal experience to demonstrate what I mean.

My Gran Prix du Laundry

I use this local laundromat to do my laundry. It’s pricier than doing it at home, but way cheaper than sending it out. Being able to do six loads at once saves me about 8 hours every time I do laundry, so it’s well worth it. And I’m lucky, because the local laundromat I use – Mr. Stadium, for the record – is clean, well maintained, and HUGE. They also have wi-fi if I need to squeeze in some work! So this past week I’m jamming on my laundry routine (I have this down to a precise science, like a precision racing team) and about halfway through, I pull a black comforter out of the industrial size wash to move it to the dryer. I notice a slight soap smudge on one corner, but it easily wipes off, so I continue with my assembly-line-like process. As I start shifting all the other loads to the dryer, I go the dryer that the comforter is in to rotate it so that it will dry faster, and am a little flustered to find that it is entirely covered with a subtle soapy film. This could be catastrophic! My entire 75 minute Gran Prix du Laundry may come to a screeching halt as this unexpected problem throws me a yellow flag.

The Pit Stop

I have to point out that about 75% of my laundry is black, so I’m a little concerned. This little soap problem happens often, but is usually minor. But this is an expensive comforter, and it’s BIG. So I take it over to the counter, and the nice but reserved lady gives me a subtle “oh boy, here comes a complainer” kind of look. This worries me slightly, but I politely explain the problem. She looks it over, sighs, and says “lemme go get the manager”. A minute later the guy comes out. He doesn’t look excited; who knows, maybe he was in the back room trading commodities and my timing was bad. But he takes a look and says “Well, we can take care of this. Do you want to leave it and pick it up later? No charge?” He picks up on my “OH MY GOD NO CAN WE DO THIS NOW MY EMPIRE IS CRUMBLING” look and says “Or we can just take care of it right now”. A wave of relief passes over me. This is too easy. I say “that would be GREAT if we could do it now”, and without saying much he heads over to a machine to get to work on it. I go back to my routine, glancing over occasionally to see the guy diligently and methodically DOING MY LAUNDRY. How cool is that? While he’s waiting for the first cycle, he comes over to give me an update, and we strike up a conversation about the importance of customer service, and how it’s probably going to make a comeback in today’s tough economy. It’s easy to stay in business when times are good, even if your customer service is crap. But in tough times, it can make or break a business. He shares a story about how he took over a neglected laundromat in a nearby town that was taking in 200 dollars a day, and turned that into 1800 dollars a day. Without changing anything except the service attitude. I leave the laundromat 10 minutes behind schedule, and ecstatic. I will give this guy more advertising (for free!) in the next few months than he probably got all last year. Not that he seems to need it. But wow, what a great feeling to know there are still business people out there that genuinely care.

Apple Redefines the Word “Genius”

So the next day, I notice that my beloved black MacBook has an unusual problem. A few days earlier, I had noticed that it wasn’t resting evenly as I worked at a cafe, but didn’t think much of it, figuring it was the table. But as I headed out for a meeting now a couple of days later, I noticed that the battery cover on the bottom seemed to have popped slightly out of place. I made a little adjustment, and things were okay. Or so I thought. By the end of the day, the battery was bulging like my MacBook was with MacChild. Personally, I’d be ecstatic to have a Mac Mini, but I know this isn’t how they come into the world. So I do a little looking around on some Mac forums, and it turns out that this was a not entirely uncommon manufacturing flaw. People posting on the forums shared a wide variety of results, but there seems to be a random willingness on the part of “Genius Bar” employees to replace them at no cost. So I head to the local Apple store. They look a little busy when I arrive, but I see a clerk-to-customer ratio of 1:1 or better. There are easily ten “Geniuses” on the clock. So the greeter distractedly greets me as he mutters into his earpiece and taps into his iPad, simultaneously asking me what I need. The guy does a really excellent impression of stock broker engaged in trades while acting like he cares what you’re saying, but I figure they’re busy, so I don’t actually get put off by his detached indifference. Besides, this is THE APPLE STORE. I’ve heard nothing but great things about Apple support. Besides, a minute later, he waves me back into the store.

Genuine Genius Requires An Appointment

So the Genius Guy greets me and asks what the problem is. I pull out my MacBook while explaining the problem, and his eyes widen as he sees how badly the battery is bulging. We agree that it would be surprising if this weren’t doing damage to the internals. He steps away for a moment, and comes back with a boxed battery, without saying much, except that the battery costs $129.00. I point out that I’m not keen on dropping over 100 bucks on what I consider manufacturing flaw that probably warranted a recall that Apple never issued. He says that I have to make an appointment. I think it’s odd that I’m surrounded by Customer Service Geniuses but have to make an appointment, but whatever. I understand that maybe this is now going to be considered more like a repair issue. I ask him if that appointment might be today. He checks his iDevice, and says “I can get you in at 5pm”. That’s 18 minutes from the current time, which was the first ding in the service, from my point of view. He doesn’t suggest anything will actually be accomplished at that point, and I’m being told – while I’m ALREADY being helped – that I have to make an appointment 18 minutes away. I make the appointment, figuring I’ll run a quick errand.

Preliminary Dis-Appointment

I come back for my appointment at exactly 4:58pm. My stockbroker friend that’s doubling as a greeter for Apple doesn’t acknowledge me for three minutes. Yes, I’m timing things at this point. All he was doing was waiting to get a response on a clerk being ready to help the couple ahead of me, a couple to whom he had already spoken. He acknowledges my presence at 5:02. I wait eight minutes, and then attempt to let him know that I can’t wait any longer. He is so inattentive that I finally just walk away. Not fuming or anything, but definitely a bit miffed at the weird 30 minutes of my day that I spent doing pretty much nothing.

Email Novellas and Genuine Disappointment Contempt

So that evening, I decide to follow up in a simple way. A message from the “Apple Store Team” awaits me in my inbox. I elect to reply to it with a 900-word email, politely explaining my experience. In an attempt to reach someone I think might actually care, I Cc the message to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Can you guess what happened next? Nothing. I got an automated reply from “the team” with links to things that are supposed to solve all my problems. No surprise there. And I honestly don’t expect a busy CEO like Tim Cook to reply to my emails, right? WRONG. I find it stunning that a high-salary CEO that has literally thousands of employees in his service doesn’t have a team devoted to exactly this kind of message. I don’t expect Mr. Cook to coddle me, but really. Apple is one of the most profitable and cash-rich corporations in the world.

Apples, Oranges, and Ice Cream Sandwiches

So where does this leave me? It leaves me ready to reconsider close to ten thousand dollars in hardware purchases. As I pointed out in my lengthy email that sailed into the abyss, I’ve been comparing tablets, smartphones, and desktops, since most of my devices are at or near the end of their service cycles. And you know what? That DROID RAZR is looking pretty hot compared to the iPhone, and likewise with the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the ASUS Transformer Prime as alternatives to the iPad. And when I look at the cost and serviceability of non-Apple desktops, I start to remember the reason I’ve always resisted making the switch, no matter HOW much I love the Apple design asthetic and quality engineering.

It’s Not About Money At All

So what’s the lesson here? Customer service really boils down to emotion. The fact that the guy at the laundromat gave me five bucks worth of service and a clean comforter were secondary to the fact that he CARED. And that he showed it. And Apple? If I don’t hear something from somebody in the next few days, there’s a good chance they’ll lose ten grand of business over a hundred bucks and some robotic human interaction. If any one of the dozen fellows in that Apple Store had so much as ACTED like they cared, I might have buckled and ponied up for the battery at full price. But now I just may stop being a “switch” customer, AND demand my replacement battery. And frankly, every time I look at my MacBook now, I feel a subtle contempt. It also feels a lot heavier than it used to for some reason.

Recently I had to face some uncomfortable facts. As someone who is working hard on creating a Personal Transformation System with my pal Nick, part of my goal is to help others be organized, focused, happy, successful, and motivated. But ironically, I suddenly found myself disorganized, unfocused, unhappy, and not feeling especially successful. At least I was still motivated! But what had happened?

Being Organized – The Map is not the Road

One of the little dangers of having a lot of organizational tools is that if you’re not careful, you spend more time working on planning than actually DOING things. I’ve always been alert to this; I’ve seen people spend weeks setting up software like ACT! and then using it for nothing more than storing contacts. Or setting up QuickBooks, and using it primarily as an invoice generator. Or loading up their smartphone with email functionality, and then never being able to find a message or attachment on their phone OR their computer.

Another thing you may run into once you do a lot of elaborate planning is that you probably have lots of deadlines – some of which affect each other, some of which don’t relate to others at all! Your head can quickly become a spaghetti bowl of overlapping timelines and goals, and leave you feeling more disorganized and plan-less than if you had never organized a plan! It’s like driving down the freeway with a bunch of maps on your lap, but not knowing what town you’re in.

Scope Creep and Product vs. Process – The Destination is not the Road Either!

If you have a “one widget business”, I envy you. Sometimes I’m tempted to chuck all my activities, and open a chocolate chip cookie shop. I know there’s a demand, I make a pretty mean chocolate chip cookie, and what could be more fun than baking cookies all day! Plus, you could make employee performance jokes with your staff constantly, like “whaddya want, a COOKIE?” But alas, I am gifted/cursed with a brain that explodes with pretty decent ideas on a regular basis, and my real challenge is filtering things down to the achievable ones and focusing on them.

Most of what I’m about to say would be different if my ventures were well-capitalized, but like many of us, my business is about 80% sweat equity at the moment. So the problem arises when I take one of my product ideas and walk it through the logical steps. I’m going to reference some basic items here that you may have to work through to roll out a product. They may overlap, they may not ALL be necessary as discrete steps, but they all are necessary in ONE way or another. And the list is by no means all-inclusive:

Creating the Product:

Ideation & Conceptualization
Prototyping/Designing/Outlining
Sourcing Services/Materials
Package Design
Setting up production

Taking it to Market:

Identifying place in market
Marketing
Sales
Advertising

Okay, that’s already a lot of stuff. I’m lucky in a way, in that I have the skills and knowledge to execute almost all of those tasks. But that can also quickly devour me. Walking a single product or service through this is not rocket science, it’s just work and persistence. But what if it’s necessary to create two or three products at the same time? Or if – as is often the case these days – the product is sort of a marketing piece in itself, and is interdependent with other products, services, or marketing strategies that have to be rolled out at the same time? Like social media, websites, seminars, and an actual retail product? Where do the product and business end, and the marketing and sales begin?

This is where I personally got derailed recently; as well as trying to wrap up some other projects, I was creating a book with Nick. After completing the writing and distribution arrangements for the book, we got so focused on marketing the thing that we kind of forgot that it wasn’t our magnum opus, or even a “core product”. It was originally meant to be a vehicle for building out our production and sales channels, and creating a standard product development process. In this case for a book. It should be simple – write the book, find a way to publish and distribute it (we did, it’s on Amazon now), and then do some promotion. But several things then came into play. They can be summarized with a just a few concepts:

Robot-Brained Marketing Strategies

Be thorough, but use some common sense or simple analysis before you roll out that multi-platform marketing campaign! Just because we have hundreds of marketing channels at our disposal doesn’t mean we have to utilize them ALL. There’s a strong tendency at present to put a lot of effort into “social”, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. Facebook in particular is a possible paper tiger and time-sink rolled into one. Yes, there are a HALF BILLION USERS. But how can you really connect? Sharing in your own network? Maybe, but that’s likely to come across as spam. Advertising? Sure. So you place an ad. It better have lots of cha though, or you’re wasting your time. And assuming you DO get users to click, where do you take them? To a page to buy a product? Why would they do THAT? Is it remarkably unique? Is it REALLY CHEAP? Is there some other reward? I’m focusing on Facebook here, because it’s still so popular right now, but I could do the same with any channel that one might think is of value as a marketing tool. CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS INTELLIGENTLY.

There are 168 Hours in a Week

I learned that with my very first business, a small 24/7 telecom company. Most people sleep at least 56 of those hours. That leaves 116. Subtract about 21 hours for eating-related activities, and you have 91 left. If all you want to do with your life is eat, sleep, and work (like me, apparently) then you’re all set. But seriously. When do you plan to execute all these crazy marketing ideas? Assuming you already have a product, how long does it take to create a good campaign, with decent images and copy? How long does it take to actually place the ads? If the marketing ideas are meant to generate user-engagement, how much of that can be fully automated? Do you have time for the parts that can’t if you get a good conversion rate? Have you scripted all the nice responses for your registration thank you emails? After you’ve laid out all these plans and executed them, ask yourself – could you have sold more copies of your book by standing on a street corner for the same amount of time? BE REAL ABOUT TIME AND USE IT WELL.

Are You Happy?

Oh yeah. Isn’t that why we started a business in the first place? Of course, there’s that whole “making money” thing, but let’s face it. Unless you’re fueling a business with outside capital (an entirely different game) you’d probably make a lot more money with a high-paying job than by starting your own business. So you might as well be ENJOYING things, right? And that, to me, is the number one priority. It’s just that my passion for keeping things moving, doing things in the smartest way possible, and being as thorough as possible can all work at cross purposes. If you ever find yourself in the same boat, step back and ask yourself some reasonable questions:

Am I doing too many things at once?
If so, thin things out, and extend deadlines if necessary. Give things the attention they deserve.

Who made these deadlines, anyway?
Oh yeah. That was me. And I’m a FREAK. Let’s just revise those a bit when needed!

Is this task even in the right bucket?
Don’t confuse advertising with marketing, or marketing with sales, even though they overlap.
Don’t confuse website development with product development. Unless of course the website IS the product.

Am I thinking like a businessperson?
This gets me a LOT. I love some of the creative work I do so much that I often forget that time equals money.

Can I outsource this?
Just because you have the skills to do something doesn’t mean you’re the best person to do it.
Could someone do it just as well, and a lot faster?
Can you AFFORD to outsource it? If you’re not prepared to pay to have it done, ponder its value in the first place.

Are you enjoying your work?
Because no-one is MAKING you do it.
Take a break and hit a lot of reset buttons if you need to.
Get back to the things that launched you on the journey in the first place.

When you find the right path, you’ll know it, because success, happiness, and wealth will simply be happening.

If you’re the sensitive type, go click on the affiliate link over there and make us some money. If you’re not, stick with me for a bit, but know that there are cuss words coming! Sometimes, you just have to blow shit up.

I don’t actually mean putting dynamite in an old Chevette, tho’ that might be a lot of fun. What I mean is that sometimes you just have to take the set of notions you’ve been working with and chuck ‘em into the blender. Re-examine the assumptions you’ve been making about your work, relationship, hobby, mission, or philosophy. Or sometimes – and that “sometimes” is today for me, bub – you just have to shout at yourself at the top of your lungs. I mean, for Gosh sake, Suino, get your act together.

Here’s comes the yelling part:

DON’T START NEW SHIT!

I have enough cool stuff going on. I mean, really, I run one of the most awesome high test martial arts schools on the planet. I’ve got an online marketing business that’s growing almost faster than we can keep up with it. My co-conspirator on THIS site – the diabolical Ian Gray – and I have recently published a book and we’ve got about a million-dozen other great projects in the works at the same time. My wife is glorious, my daughter is amazing, and my hobbies make me giddy with excitement.

But still this mess of synapses and ooze keeps kicking out all these ideas that seem truly compelling. And the other bunch of junk inside the hollow brain casing keeps answering back with “dude, that’s a great frickin idea.”

I have too much on my plate. I love what I do and what I have, and I got to remember that it needs my attention. So my first rule of personal don’t-screw-this-up-mister is “don’t start anymore new shit.”

DO THE CURRENT STUFF WELL!
So with all that hoohah and Hamtramck going on, I need an accountability partner to whack me over the head on a regular basis and say “focus on the thing you’re doing, fancy-pants.” Pay attention, remember what you know, get your hands dirty, and do it well. The rewards you want will come with the quality of what you do. If you love it, do it, do it, and do it well. If you don’t love it, quit doing it.

ALWAYS PLAN A PRE AND POST MEETING!
I just need this item, folks, tho’ maybe you don’t. I need to spend a little time before all the meetings making sure I know what I’ve done and getting my notes in order. Flying by the seat of these Levi-Strausses is working, but it’s not working well enough to get me where I want to be. Prepare ahead, dammit!

I also need to spend a little time afterwards processing what I did in meetings. Do one or two of the simple tasks you assigned yourself to get the processes moving. Organize your notes into a simple plan for getting things the fuck done. Send a thank you email to the folks at the meeting, except for that one guy who kept talking about useless sheee-ite.

YOU KNOW THE SYSTEM – DON’T INVENT A NEW ONE – USE THE ONE YOU KNOW, DAMMIT!
I have to say I have a fairly complete understanding of things like marketing, client relations, and business operations. So at this point I really don’t need to keep inventing new ones. I mean, enough already! Use the ones you know. Like Ian keeps saying, sometimes you just have to sit down and do the work. It might be quicker than trying to invent yet another new “system” to do it for you.

If you’re still reading, I bet you’ve tried before to create some method for doing a task you don’t necessarily love. But I also bet you’ve once or twice spent a whole lot more time trying to create the system than you might have if you had just done the gosh-darned work!

You haven’t? Then you ain’t human, sister.

But I have, and I’m tired of it. Don’t invent a new system, Suino. Use the one you have, dammit!

ASK: HOW DOES THIS ADD VALUE TO MY LIFE?

And more than anything else, ask how the next thing on your agenda is going to add value to your life. If you have any control over how you spend your time, spend it on the things that really matter. Spend it with the people who help you be most productive. Spend it in the places where you feel most alive.

Luckily, I’m pretty darn good at this last one, and I suppose that’s why I get to be around such terrific people and do such rewarding work. But I could be a lot, lot better about asking the question when I think about starting yet another business or project. Whenever the answer is anything less than a resounding “this adds a LOT of effin value,” I’m gonna turn the thing down.

Listen, folks, now that I’m about done yelling at myself, let me say this to you about that: life is incredible, wonderful, all encompassing, challenging and exciting. But only if you really dig in and do what you were put on this earth to do. And that thing might not be so obvious here amidst the din of commercialism and cynicism that is American life in 2012.

How ya gonna find your mission? I say, start doing things, and doing ‘em big. Try the thing you think you want to do, and once you try it, try to grow it. If it turns into something else when it grows, why fight it? That new thing might be the thing. Or once you know the thing you’re doing ain’t the thing you should be doing, get the hell out. There are lots of folks who won’t ever heed this warning – let them do the book-keeping.

You and me, we got a lot of great shit to do!

Although the polish has dulled over the years, I was raised to be a bit of a stickler when it comes to the use of language. One of my great mentors was Mrs. Lane, my eighth grade English teacher. She was an alternately sweet or stern old black lady who spoke “White English” with vastly more precision than any of her uptighty-whitey peers at the mostly white midwestern middle school I attended. She taught us useful things like the fact that “snuck” isn’t a word, made us articulate our consonants, and vigorously prohibited prepositional endings. She enforced these rules with a policy she announced at the beginning of the year, which was that violating any of her carefully outlined golden rules meant the offending party would be the target of a high-speed projectile in the form of a blackboard eraser or a paperback version of Catcher in the Rye. This would probably get a teacher fired these days, but it was one of the best lessons I ever learned. Communication isn’t only about words, it’s really about engaging people. We loved Mrs. Lane, and she taught us much more by building this relationship than she ever could have with a pile of textbooks and writing assignments. Which she had plenty of too, by the way.

Later, I was influenced by George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” (one of his Collected Essays), in which he skewered the bloated language that is so handy for influencing political thinking, and pointed out that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”. He focused especially on things like “dying metaphors”, “verbal false limbs”, and “pretentious diction”, and pointed out how people who think they have something important to say will spout an ornate phrase like “In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that” rather than simply saying “I think“. I also was influenced by something the Nobel Prize winning Richard Feynman shared in his autobiography Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman. He was talking about how some fields of study were really all bluster, with little if any science to back up their “facts”. He was attending a series of seminars presented by other professors from various fields, and shared his bemused contempt in this passage:

There was a sociologist who had written a paper for us all to read – something he had written ahead of time. I started to read the damn thing, and my eyes were coming out: I couldn’t make head nor tail of it! I figured it was because I hadn’t read any of the books on that list. I have this uneasy feeling of “I’m not adequate,” until finally I said to myself, “I’m gonna stop, and read one sentence slowly, so I can figure out what the hell it means.”

So I stopped – at random – and read the next sentence very carefully. I can’t remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? “People read.”

There are many examples of this in modern life; and in some cases, the results of this language abuse are not only confusing, they might be downright dangerous. Let’s use the DSM-IV as a sort of case study itself. The secret cabal of psychiatrists that engineer this monstrosity of diagnostic recommendations are in a sickening symbiosis with the pharmaceutical industry, and make a business of cleverly crafting disorders out of common human behaviors to market new drugs with decades-long marketing cycles. Take, for instance, the DSM’s parameters for defining AD/HD. For a positive diagnosis of the disorder, the subject must exhibit the following symptoms of inattention for at least 6 months to a degree that is “maladaptive and inconsistent” with their developmental level:

Inattention

a) often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities
b) often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
c) often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
d) often does nor follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace
e) often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
f) often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)
g) often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g., toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools)

Hyperactivity and Impulsivity

a) often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
b) often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
c) often runs about or climbs excessively in situation in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness)
d) often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
e) is often “on the go” or often acts as if “driven by a motor”
f) often talks excessively
g) often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
h) often has difficulty awaiting turn
i) often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversation or games)

Forgive me, but having been influenced by the plain and incisive speech of folks like Orwell, Feynman, and Mark Twain, I’d venture to suggest that not only is that all relatively normal behavior for a kid, you might state it all a little more efficiently by saying “boy, that kid’s fidgety”. I jest a bit, but this is a serious issue. Language is manipulated to label children as social deviants, merely on the basis of their ability to sit still and pay attention, and this is accomplished by plastering polysyllabic pseudo-scientific jargon on top of airy fairy descriptions of behavior. This phenomena is equally dangerous in politics. We live in an era when even a neoconservative thinks that neoconservative means “the new way that conservatives think”. It doesn’t. It means that the person wasn’t always a conservative!

So where where am headed with all of this? Well, to be honest, I sometimes wonder if my own inability to speak the convoluted language known as “corporate speak” has prevented me from being more successful in business. This topic came up for me the other day when my associate Nick used the term “edgecrafting” in a sentence, without missing a beat. The term is of course from marketing guru Seth Godin’s book Free Prize Inside, so I knew what Nick meant. Or did I? It’s a handy phrase; it really makes it sound like you’re doing something innovative and cool, when in fact you’re just doing finish work and driving your idea to completion. But that sounds really dull at a meeting, so suddenly we’re edgecrafting.

But this isn’t some outline for a dataviz-driven preso for extensible, frictionless, and future-proof strategies for reconceptualizing your core competencies to re-invest in and empower your intellectual capital to optimize your quality vectors and leverage existing potentialities for envisioneering economically sound strategic theme areas to architect your new clicks-and-mortar brandgagement. No, I just want to point out that sometimes, language might get in the way of what you’re trying to say, and more importantly, what you’re trying to DO. One of the funniest examples I’ve ever seen of this was when I was presenting a design comp to a client several years ago, a small local bank. One of the executives sitting in on the meeting was a VP with the bank. I had used Dreamweaver – the software commonly used at the time for website development. Dreamweaver had a plugin called “Lorem & More” which would let you replace the classic Lorem Ipsum with other styles of filler text. One of the options was “Corporate Mumbo Jumbo”, and I had used a block of auto-generated gibberish something like:

As knowledge is fragmented into specialties an investment program where cash flows exactly match shareholders’ preferred time patterns of consumption measure the process, not the people. Benchmarking against industry leaders, an essential process, should be a top priority at all times in order to build a shared view of what can be improved, an important ingredient of business process re-engineering. To focus on improvement, not cost, building flexibility through spreading knowledge and self-organization, in a collaborative, forward-thinking venture brought together through the merging of like minds.

After commenting on the color scheme and asking if we could “punch it up a little”, he said “and I think some of that copy needs to be tightened up too”. Yes, this man was so used to seeing meaningless gibberish in his line of work that even knew how it could be refined. To his credit, the guy was making easily five times what I make, and his day seemed to consist largely of saying he didn’t like stuff and wanted it fixed.

So is this bizarre and inflated language really a necessary component of a successful business? Well, if it’s an organization with 500+ employees which adheres to things like the 80/20 workforce rule and believes in daily strategy meetings, probably so. How the hell ELSE would you fill the time? If you’re an up-and-coming cubicle farmer, fear not – there are plenty of resources for meaningless twaddle to pad your PowerPoint deck. The Business Jargon Dictionary is one, or if you’re too lazy too actually cut and paste the phrases, Andrew Davidson’s Corporate Gibberish Generator™ does the heavy lifting FOR you.

But if you actually just want to get crap done, and convey to others how to do it, there are some really simple tricks. Many of these are no-brainers, but that’s exactly the problem. Our brains get so worked up trying to make our ideas sound important that we forget whether or not they actually ARE.

1.) Are you preparing a “deck” merely because you have nothing to say and a PowerPoint or series of infographics will make it seem like you do? If it’s the latter, ditch the PowerPoint.

2.) Do you really mean “Accelerated Emergence of High Maturity Behaviors” or are you trying to say “faster results”? If you’re actually looking for faster results, you’ll get them with the latter.

3.) If you strip your descriptions of a product or service down to the simplest possible form, and it sounds like the product sucks, there’s a good chance it does. Ditch the product AND the language.

4.) Does your deck consist mainly of slides with 3 to 5 bullet points? Try a whiteboard, and write them as you deliver them. It keeps both you and your audience more engaged.

I could go on for hours about PowerPoint, and am sometimes tempted to do so with a PowerPoint. I’m the guy who you can quote for saying:

“PowerPoint. Helping people who don’t know what they’re doing prove it since 1984.”

What it all really boils down to is this: Talk Normal, Stupid.

I was talking with two business clients yesterday, and they were both struggling with the fact that their businesses are stuck on a plateau. Despite all their efforts, they just can’t seem to get their businesses to grow. After reviewing all their marketing efforts (both what they were doing to attract new clients and what they were doing to serve their existing clients), we talked generally about the process of running a business like a personal mission.

The topic of constant improvement came up (as it almost always does). I mentioned the simple-sounding idea that opportunities seem to come to those who are ready to take advantage of them. It sounds kind of dumb stated that way, but here’s where the conversation went – if you don’t at least TRY to get something done, you are unlikely to be in a position to take advantage of opportunities, much less recognize them. Here’s an example:

Pamela Wants to Write a Book

Suppose Pamela has always wanted to write a book, and one day she decides to get started. She begins by writing at least a page every day, and after a month, spends a part of every work session editing the work she’s done so far. A couple of months later, while checking her Facebook, she gets the idea to look up self-publishing, and finds CreateSpace. She opens an account, takes a look at their templates, and on a whim inserts all the pages she’s written into a template she likes. Just like that, she realizes she has essentially completed the first draft of the book she’s always wanted to write.

Compare this to:

Pete Has Always Wanted to Write a Book

Pete has always wanted to write a book. He decides to get started, but only writes when he remembers to do so. After a month, he has 17 pages of text, much of it disorganized notes about the book he wants to write. A couple of months later, while checking his Facebook, he gets the idea to look up self-publishing, and finds CreateSpace. He considers opening an account, but since he hasn’t gotten any real work done on his book, he decides to do it later. He gets busy with other work, and at the end of year hasn’t made any real progress on the first draft of the book he’s always wanted to write.

So Many Reasons, So Few Big Successes

You might think these examples are simplistic, but the fact is I meet dozens of people like Pete every week. There are those who dream about doing something without taking any concrete steps. There are those who have started something but who don’t do it regularly or with any discipline. There are those who have been doing something a long time without really committing to it. There are those who profess not to know what to do next, or how to do it, so they end up stuck in a rut. And lately, there are lots of those who blame the economy for their lack of growth, when the real problem is lack of effort, either because it’s more convenient to blame the economy than to get to work, or because it they fear failure.

If You Don’t DO, You Ain’t Gonna GET

My Amway acquaintances always say, “If you don’t A – S – K, you aren’t going to G – E – T.” But my point here is that if you don’t DO, you ain’t gonna get. You gotta do something in order to be in a position to get results. And even though I am one of the world’s biggest advocates of DOING SOMETHING BIG when you do something, I am willing to accept smaller action any day as long as you do SOMETHING rather than nothing. And even wrong action can give rise to opportunities or be the genesis of right action. Here’s an example of how just doing something can get you into a lot of opportunities:

So You Wanna Play Professional Golf

A friend of mine, let’s call him Birdie just for fun, decided that he wanted to play golf on the Senior Tour. Never mind that he was little more than an average golfer, he resolved to start practicing at least three times a week, and to do whatever he could do get good enough to actually play professional golf, starting at the age of 51. He started going to driving range. While there, he met people who played in local tournaments, and asked them for pointers, both on his swing and on how he could go about getting into tournaments. The owners of the driving range sponsored a local tournament, and so he got an entry form from them as well as a list of other regional tournaments, and soon he was entered to play in several tournaments.

One day, while Birdie was getting his teeth cleaned, he told his dentist about his plans. His dentist was an avid golfer, and invited Birdie to go to his swing coach, and also recommended a great local guy who made custom golf clubs. The swing coach fixed a couple of serious flaws in Birdie’s swing, and when he got a new set of clubs from the custom club maker, Birdie was well on his way. He won one of the three tournaments he entered, and got admitted to a regional feeder tournament that potentially qualified him to play in a Senior Tour Event.

When You’re In It, It’s Around You!

Look, when you’re in it, it’s around you. When you strive to better yourself, your brain thinks of ways to do it. Sometimes your brain will give you lousy ideas, sometimes good ones. But even the lousy ideas can give rise to better ones. And being in the environment of your passion helps you notice opportunities to get better. If you aren’t getting better today, that might just mean you’re on a plateau, and that you have to keep trying. If you’re absolutely sick of being on the plateau, there are a lot of things you can do to try to get off it. Here’s a short list:

Go back to basics. Ask for help. Organize. Read a book. Look for the opportunities that are all around you. Listen, and listen carefully, to those around you. Do a survey. Hire somebody. Remember your initial purpose. Teach others. Start a business doing the thing you’re struggling with. Put on some inspirational music. Spend time in the redwood forest. Drink a lot of caffeine. And most important …. Have fun!

Occasionally over the next few months, Ian and I will be riffing on a theme from our recently published book 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass Into Gear. You can find many elements from this article in its pages, sweetie!

Do you want to understand new ideas more quickly? Do you want to become an expert at new activities with less wasted time? Do you want to help your business succeed faster and with fewer false starts? Here are 7 critical ideas that you should make sure you understand if you want to become one of those “switched on” people who are not just good at what they do, but outstanding, and outstanding at a lot of different things. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail in this article, but you can expect to see more about these ideas in the near future at The Wellness Addict.

Discover the Thematic Core of your activity

The best activities in life have a thematic core. That is, a set of concepts, motions, or power sources that are found in most of the different parts of that activity. In the best heritage martial arts, certain movements are repeated in many different techniques so that balance and physical power are achieved in essentially the same way despite very different applications of force. In the best marketing plans, the core message can be found across various media, and that same core message closely corresponds with the mission statement of the business. Each great work of literature contains just a few thematic elements that hold together the plot and drive the action forward.

Discern the thematic core in what you do and you will put yourself in a position to achieve mastery much more quickly.

Stick to the Basics

It seems like every high level athlete, business owner, and martial arts expert I’ve talked to believes deeply in the idea that “There are no Advanced Techniques, Just Advanced Applications.” What this means is that focusing on the basics and doing them very, very well will almost always get you better results than will trying to find some mystical force or extremely complex system for doing what you do. In business, increase market share and control expenses. In golf, study the geometry of the swing. In skydiving, make sure you know where the ripcord is!

Start With Structure

When you’re confronted with a system that seems complex or overwhelming, start by looking at the structure. Very esoteric martial arts seem mystical and convoluted, but the truth is that the core movements are very efficient ways of maintaining balance while delivering physical power. Study foot placement, hip rotation, posture, the amount of knee bend. In music, a wild plethora of notes can be confusing, but pay attention to the chord progression (or intentional lack thereof) and you’ll immediately have a context for understanding where to go next.

Own It

As soon as you can after starting a new activity, get away from a passive mindset. Learn to own it. Don’t wait for your superiors or your teacher to tell you how things are done; figure it out for yourself. There are two really important reasons for this. One is that your soul delivers more energy to you when you are intensely involved in what you’re doing. The other is that in every worthwhile activity there are more nuances than a teacher could ever point out to you, and the only way to discover and master those nuances is to grapple with them yourself. If you want to become a master, start acting like one as soon as you can.

Simplicity

This is a corollary to the idea above about there being no advanced techniques, and it’s this: even the most complex concept or activity is composed of simple parts. Figure out the parts and do them well, and the whole thing will go well. Moreover, recognize right away that the greatest people in every field make things look simple – the reason is that they are doing just what it takes to succeed. Many of the beginners I work with in business and martial arts find ways to over-complicate things, so that they are not only doing a lot of things that don’t help them, but they are also not doing the things very well that will help them.

Don’t be misled

If you accept the idea that most worthwhile activities have a thematic core, then once you figure out what that core is, don’t let media hype, competition, or your own insecurities mislead you. Stick to making sure you can execute all the fundamentals.

Recently I heard a golf announcer say something along these lines: “Golf is really boring these days, everybody has the same swing.” When I heard that, I about fell on the floor laughing. It shows such a flawed understanding of the game that it’s hard to understand how that guy could have gotten hired to comment on the game. Here’s why: golf is a game that depends on geometry and physics. Every swing has to adhere to the same universal rules; when it departs from those rules, it will be less efficient. In an era where there are billions of dollars being generated in the sport, where technology can measure virtually every aspect of the swing, it would be an absurdity if the top golfers’ swings were getting less similar. Don’t be misled – if you really understand your activity, you’ll notice tremendous similarity between how the best players play the game.

Know What the Purpose Is

Finally, make sure you know the purpose of your fundamentals. If the best people in your line of work all use cash flow accounting, figure out why. Then, if you need to tweak what you do to make it better, you’ll know what you’re aiming for rather than having to simply guess. Why do so many good public speakers use the 3-part system (tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and tell ‘em what you told ‘em)? It’s because most  human memory is imperfect, and being reminded of topics and themes in a speech help the audience organize and remember it. I can’t tell you the number of times folks who have attended my presentations have contacted me later to thank me for using the 3-part system. And guess what, not only do they remember the subject matter better, they also come away with a better opinion of the guy who gave the speech, which gets me referrals! (Pointing out another wonderful benefit of understanding the fundamentals – when you do the simple stuff well, you get a manifold return.)

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I own all or part of roughly seven businesses, and it’s easy to find my to-do list getting a little out of control. So, more than ever, I’ve been trying to find not only a good system for organizing my tasks, but also an over-arching theme or set of themes to help me keep focused on the big picture. The theme is still a work in progress, but I think I’m narrowing down the sorts of task management systems that work for me, and I thought I would share a few in case you find any of them helpful.

What used to work was just to dig in, start working, and do whatever came to mind. When I was running a single business, that actually worked pretty well, as long as I had enough caffeine in my system! But as I get busier, I find that I not only forget about a lot of tasks that, while they may not be five-alarm fires, are still important for the successful running of the businesses, and also that I also run of out time to do the things I actually remember.

When I ran just two businesses, it was enough to keep a simple to-do list. I used the list iCal and combined that with making sure to get all my appointments on the calendar. I’d review the list each day and prioritize each task, and usually that was enough to keep me on track. Even if I skipped a task or overlooked it, I would find it the next day and definitely get it done.

Then, up until recently, I was using a really primitive system that worked well. I’d just write each primary task on a sheet of paper, and make a note of what I got done that day on the sheet. After a task, the sheet would go on the bottom of the stack, and I’d do the task that appeared on the next sheet. What worked well about this was that I could instantly see what I’d done previously, and that helped inspire whatever had to be done next. However, there were two things about this system that didn’t work very well. One was that I didn’t find it very helpful for organizing and prioritizing tasks. And the other was, it just didn’t inspire me to want to dig into the business of getting work done … which I happen to think is a very important part of any task management system.

I’m experimenting with two systems now without having decided which one is going to be best in the long run. The first is a system designed by Ian, and since I don’t want to take away an opportunity for him to discuss his own creation, I’ll just say that it contains a general list of tasks and ideas along with several other lists of higher priority and long term projects. I’ll try to convince him to describe it in a future post unless he tells me it’s a secret that can make him a ton of money!

The other system is simple, but it’s working well. I use it both as a Word document on the computer and also print it out to give me a change of perspective. On the first page I list my businesses along with a check-off box on the left of each one. On page two, I list the primary aspects of the first business in a graphical box, along with a check-off box on the left of each larger box. I limit myself to no more than ten primary aspects, because (1) everything can be categorized within one of those ten aspects, at least in my businesses; and (2) that’s all I can fit on one page and still read! In each box where an aspect of the business is listed, I add bullets with a short description of tasks for that aspect. If an aspect is complex enough, I create another page of subject boxes with check-off boxes next to them, and fill those in with the individual items that make up each subject, again limiting myself to ten subjects.

So I first look at page one and find a business that hasn’t been checked off. I then locate the pages for that business, go to the first aspect that hasn’t been checked off, and do the work. If I complete the work, I check off that box. If not, I add notes in the subject box to clue me in next time I visit that subject.

I then make a judgment about whether it makes more sense to check off that business on page one and go to another business, or do another aspect of the same business. It all depends on the urgency of the tasks, how much stuff is coming at me in the form of meetings, phone calls or “real” work (like teaching martial arts or mastery lessons), and how much my head is spinning from trying to juggle so many different kinds of work.

When the head gets to spinning, there are a few really good ways to get it back where it needs to be. A 20-minute nap works wonders, as does 45 minutes at the driving range or an hour of intense sparring with another high level black belt.

Are there any task management systems that work particularly well for you? Did you find them somewhere, or make them up yourself? What works great for you, and why do you think it works?

When To Say Yes To Saying No

There are lots of situations in which it’s okay to say no, and some in which it’s actually quite beneficial. First we’re going to talk about saying no as positive self-preservation, and then we’ll talk about saying no as a necessity of consumer-driven modern life. If, like me, you’re a person who has a reasonable amount of compassion and even a slightly giving nature, you’ll understand varying degrees of the “self-destructive helper” behavior. What we’re referring to here is of course the “let me drop everything I’m doing and fix your problem for you” phenomena. This is probably the most easily identifiable form of what we’re talking about. It takes a lot of other forms, but we’re going to use one real-world example, and then explore why it’s really a bigger problem than it seems, and talk about some solutions.

The Computer Guy

For me personally, this takes an amusing form that the more computer-savvy amongst you may be familiar with. Or maybe you’re on the other end of things, and are one of the self-proclaimed “Dummies” that all those books are aimed at. In any case, I work a lot at a computer, and have taught myself how to do things I need to do, like using a word processing program, basic image editing, and simpler aspects of web design. I have no programming skills, and limited hardware knowledge, but whom do all my friends call when they have a computer problem? Yup. And why do they do it? It’s partly their misconceptions about what I know, but it’s more because they know I’m patient and helpful. But over time, this free help desk service of mine became time consuming and distracting. I needed a solution.

Humor as a Tool for Positive Change

When I realized how big a problem this might be a few years ago, I at first relied on humor. With repeat offenders, I’d yuck it up saying “It’s funny how if you know a plumber, you’d never call him and say ‘hey, I have some free time this weekend, why don’t you come over and work on my septic field’, but if you know a computer guy, you have no qualms about saying ‘hey, I’ve got some time this evening, can you come over and help me re-install Windows?’ “. This was actually pretty effective, but then there were the friends that committed something more like ongoing misdemeanors, like calling and saying “hey, I can’t open this email attachment” or “Damn, I’ve been trying to fix this Word document for like 15 minutes, can you take a look at it?” With these people, I also used a little humor. An old tech support joke is to say “Did you try the RTFM Protocol?” That of course is an acronym for “Read The Freakin’ Manual”. I’d then patiently and politely instruct them to see if their program had a little bar at the top that featured the word “Help”. I’d walk them through how to use it. It’s AMAZING how many people don’t use the “Help” files provided with all major software products. And how quickly people tend to give up when confronted with problems. And that’s the real issue here.

How Saying Yes Can Do Damage

So we’ve kept things on a slightly amusing note here, but the little anecdotes above should make evident what the problem really is. While being helpful is a great quality, being lazy isn’t. And a motivated, helpful person is likely to attract a lot of under-motivated, needy people. Not BAD people, just people who haven’t figured out some of the more fun parts of the game of life by meeting simple challenges and growing from the experience. So the fact is, there are several basic problems that can arise by not knowing when to say “no”:

• You’re probably adding unnecessary stress to your own experience
• You’re preventing the person you’re helping from building simple self-reliance
• You’re probably doing this out of some sense of guilt that you might want to resolve.

Like we said, being helpful is a great quality, but a simple indicator of whether or not you’re providing “good” help is whether or not you feel stressed out by doing it. If you ARE feeling stressed out by doing it, the first thing is to learn to recognize this feeling, and then learn that it really is okay to say “no” when you need to. And it’s helpful to have language for doing this, because it’s easy to sound hostile, dismissive, or uncaring when someone asks for help and you deny them. We’re not going to get into that “guilt thing” we mentioned above, it’s beyond the scope of what we’re addressing here. But here are a few commonly suggested ideas for how to say no:

Language For Saying No

Be positive, THEN say no. Stay calm, and say something like “Wow, I know how frustrating that can be. I wish I could help, but [INSERT PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE REASON. THERE ARE MANY]. The real problem is often that we’re simply too harried ourselves, and respond with bristliness and frustration. Which doesn’t feel very good on either end.

Be positive, then DEFER. Sometimes, it’s entirely possible that you would LIKE to help, but the timing is bad. Find out if the problem can be addressed later, and plan a time to do it. Often the person with the problem just needed a break so they could reframe things, and in the interim they figure it out anyway! If not, no hard feelings are generated either way.

Be positive, and then PASS THE BUCK. One of the worst kinds of help is when a SECOND person who doesn’t know what they’re doing gets involved with a problem. Know your abilities, and repress your inner know-it-all. Tell them you have NO IDEA how to tackle the problem, and then ask aloud “Hmmm, I wonder if we know anybody who actually knows how to do this?”

Saying No To Salespeople, Charities, and Strangers

Modern consumer-driven life has really become ugly. The most effective salespeople and telemarketers know that shame, guilt, and persistence are their most powerful tools. Shame, with the implication that somehow you can’t afford something; guilt, used as a tool by pushing the limits of your basic courtesy and decency; and persistence, in the form of mindlessly plodding forward as if you never said no. There’s a simple rule I rely on here, and I am unbending in its application. Be courteous and polite until the other party violates the ground rules of courteous interaction. Then detachedly terminate the interaction. Here’s a typical example, with a little flourish for those of you who feel compelled to be more expressive. Recently a Comcast salesman came to my door. The exchange went something like this:

LOUD, AGGRESSIVE KNOCKING AT DOOR (Already a violation of courtesy)
I answer the door, and the sales guy jumps right in:
“Hi, I’m with Comcast, and we’re offering some great specials including free installation!”
I reply calmly:
“Thanks, but I don’t like television, and am already quite pleased with my internet service”
He continues:
“Really? Comcast has the fastest, most affordable internet service around, what service are you with?”
You see, at this point, he’s already blown it. Rude knocking, ignoring what I said and plodding on. And then being JUST PLAIN NOSY.
I said:
“Wow, you’re really rude. Thanks, I’m not interested, but good luck.”
He started another sales pitch so I said:
“I wish your rudeness weren’t forcing me to close the door in your face.”
He actually started another pitch.
DOOR SLOWLY CLOSES AS COMCAST GUY KEEPS TALKING

I pondered asking him how much it sucks to have such a crappy job, annoying people like me all evening, but I don’t know how effective it is to try to expand people’s awareness. For instance, an acquaintance of mine has a lot of patterned responses to panhandlers. One of them is to say “Would I be walking to work right now if I had money to give to YOU?” Clearly, that’s neither kind nor productive. But on occasion I’ll actually turn the tables on a salesman or telemarketer, and ask them if they love what they do, or if circumstance drove them to it. If they clarify that they ENJOY being obnoxious and aggressive, that’s one thing, but occasionally a quick human chat lets the other person apologize while sharing their frustration. Mostly though, I think this strategy is more about our own ego, so I generally just leave it in the “courteous response and closure” framework. So in the end, saying no is really quite simple. Just make sure you’re clear on why you’re saying no, and then do it politely, without excuses, and without hostility. That hostility usually just comes from our OWN sense of being overwhelmed, so just remember to nip it in the bud. And if you need to delay the answer in order to compose yourself, just say “Maybe, but let me get right back to you”. Gather your wits, get back to them, and say NO.

Some of you may still struggle with this. Here’s a permission slip:

I’m involved in a partnership venture called SEO Ann Arbor. My business partner is Don Prior, who owns Network Services Group, LLC, just about the greatest computer services business on the planet. If you want a computer network that actually does what it’s supposed to do (a radical notion!), and experts who actually communicate in English, get hold of Don. He’s also the guy to talk to if you want to learn how to lose 60 pounds in 6 months or if you simply want to meet a bad mutha … shut your mouth! Just talkin’ bout my man Don. And you can dig it.

But the reason I brought Don up is that we were talking about some of the things that go into building a business, and that led us to a conversation about how to get good at martial arts (we’re both fairly highly ranked in Japanese martial arts). Don summed up the core of the conversation by saying, “Let’s face it, everything worth doing takes time and effort. There’s no way around it.”

Does Everything Good Come from Fighting?

The next day, Ian Gray, author the blog DissociatedPress.com, responded to something I wrote in an email by saying that, “it’s an interesting reflection on the human race that one of it’s earliest personal development systems is martial in origin.”

Buncha Lazy Humans

So it occurs to me that, a lot of time, humans don’t do the hard work needed to really excel at something unless they’re forced to. When another clan of Samurai warriors is raiding your village every few months, that kind of forces you to figure out how to protect yourself. If a whole country is composed of groups of warriors who go around fighting with one another for a few hundred years, there’s going to be a pretty high sense of urgency to develop good weapons, good tactics, and good attitudes about how to live in an atmosphere of war.

That’s how the Japanese came to develop such fantastic personal development systems. They probably would have loved to sit around eating sushi and playing Pachinko, but everybody would have been kicking their ass all the time. And if you happened to be a Japanese hippie who wanted to flash everybody peace signs and wear tie-dye, you were definitely going to end up working for a guy who learned how take over villages really well.

Don’t You Wish Somebody Was Trying to Take Over YOUR Village?

Unfortunately, nobody is running around trying to hack up our villages anymore (actually, they are, but most of ‘em are way over in the Middle East, so most of us can conveniently ignore them). So what’s a guy or gal who wants to get really, really good at something supposed to do? With even a moderate amount of sense, most of us lucky enough to be Americans can easily earn enough to own a car and drink Starbucks every day. Kinda takes away the urgent need to become incredibly good at something, doesn’t it?

So sometimes you have to make your own urgency. There’s a really fun way to do it, and you can make a lot of friends at the same time. What you can do is choose a field or a craft and begin to work at it. Which one you choose is up to you, but the fact is, most of us have an activity or two that really gets us excited. Figure out what that is – that’s the one to choose.

What the Heck Does “Internecine” Mean?

Now, here’s how you create your own little internecine conflict that will help keep you motivated and move you toward mastery. Get involved in a group of people who are doing the thing. Get very involved.

But there’s a trick. To get the most out of this, you’ll want to arrange your psychological approach in a way that best suits you. If you work best as part of a group and like lots of support, join a faction of the group, and do your best to develop skills that align with the views and methods of that group. If you’re an instigator, start poking holes in the methodology of all or part of the group, and look for any good sense that comes out of the response. If you’re a lone warrior like the well-known Miyamoto Musashi, study the group’s methods from afar, but steadfastly develop your own methods, and take steps to ensure that yours are better than those of the group. If there are competitions, compete, alone or as part of your faction.

You Ain’t Bored. Go Outside and Play!

And watch out for “boredom.” If you picked an activity that truly moved you at the outset, boredom is rarely an accurate emotion. In my fifty years of working toward mastery of a wide variety of activities, I’ve noticed that what we experience as boredom is almost always the result of a defense mechanism against one of two events: (1) when we run into a problem that we don’t know how to solve or don’t think we have the resources to solve; or (2) when something about the activity scares us, maybe an encounter with somebody who is significantly better than we are or a realization that the path we’re on will take us someplace uncomfortable.

Get Busy Fighting, You Darn Hippies!

Getting through those barriers is a topic for another column. To sum up the point of this one, there’s no question that everything truly worth doing takes time and effort. Because we are inherently energy-preserving creatures, we won’t automatically devote the time an effort needed to become really extraordinary at something. But you can help yourself become extraordinary by putting yourself in the midst of a culture that motivates you to work at your craft. And to get the most out of that culture, tailor your involvement in such a way that it works best with your personality. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.