Category: Personal Growth

Gumption Needs To Be Taught In School

Are you stuck somewhere? A job. A relationship. A funk in your life that feels like you are askew – living for obligation, not for who you really are, or dreamed of being. Most people feel that way sometimes.

There is a skill for getting out of those ruts. It goes by lots of names, but I like to call it gumption. Here is the definition:

Gumption

 

I think a lot about what we learn – as a culture, as individuals – from the recession. I know, we are supposed to wait for companies to create jobs, and Wall Street to solve the mess they created. But somehow, that feels unsatisfactory to me.

That seems, to me, like we are a culture waiting for others to set things straight. To make it right. That our own role in this mess is entirely dependent on others getting us out. I suppose what I am getting at is this: we need more gumption. We need for each of us to turn that gumption knob on the faucet on ALL THE WAY, until it is pouring out. And we need turn off our TVs long enough to encourage our neighbors to turn their gumption knobs on all the way too.

But that’s not enough.

Gumption needs to be taught in school. It needs to start early. Okay, we can use a more formal name: entrepreneurship needs to be taught in school.

So what would this look like? What are the skills inherent in gumption -er- entrepreneurship?

We need to teach how to take action, even when there are risks. Why? Because too many people are trapped in lives they are unhappy with, but frozen with inaction due to their fear of the “risk.”

We need to teach personal responsibility, not as a negative, but a positive. To push the red shiny button that says “IGNITION,” and take full responsibility for what happens next.

We need to teach how to find new paths, not just how the existing system already works.

We need to teach how to turn an idea into a reality.

We need to teach debate and public speaking.

We need to teach how to communicate with others, even when we disagree. Especially when we disagree.

We need to teach negotiation.

We need to teach how to listen, how to care, what empathy is and how it can lead to action.

We need to teach how to have strong beliefs, and respect others who have strong – but opposite – beliefs as yours.

We need to teach skills that will form the backbone of a fruitful personal and professional life. One where we contribute to a community, not just have a job.

We need to teach beyond theory. Beyond spending 21 years planning for a life, emerging with a wonderful body of knowledge, but few real accomplishments beyond grades.

We assume many of the things listed above are taught in school as a byproduct of other activities. That gumption is taught by having kids cram for a test. I think something is lost there. Too much is assumed. Key issues are not addressed.

Then we measure by grades – oftentimes arbitrary measures of short-term memory. We teach to the test and kids spend all night cramming for it. We teach: win/lose – pass/fail – right/wrong – in a world where everything is a mixture of both.

Where is the only place that gumption is ever really focused on directly in school? Sports. That is where they teach you teamwork, how to deal with interpersonal issues, assessing competitors, moving past goals, the value of practice but the need for execution, ability vs passion, and so much else.

But you know what? I was never all that into sports. I appreciate them for the reasons I mentioned above, and I like how they can be used as a metaphor. But I know a lot of people who could care less about sports. And for those who I know who DO care about sports, some of the positive attributes listed above are lost on them. It’s all about the adrenaline rush of the win. Sports are a wonderful petri dish of the “thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.” But I wish the wonderful lessons of sports were taught more directly elsewhere.

I will leave you today with one of my all-time favorite TED talks, this one by Nigel Marsh on the topic of work/life balance. The story at the very end is simple, yet profound. His message:

“With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships, the quality of your life, and the quality of society.”

Here’s the video:

Thanks!
-Dan

The Risk and Reward of Putting Yourself Out There

I am inspired by those who put themselves out there. Those who take a risk in order to create something of meaning.

Most of us feel that way, but we tend to focus more on those who put themselves out there and succeed, than those who did so, and failed.

This week has seen several large web companies putting themselves out there in order to find continued growth:

  • Google+ opened its doors to everyone. The jury is still out with article after article describing it as either a wasteland or burgeoning community filled with engagement. Will it work? Who knows. But they are making bold choices.
  • Netflix split itself in two, keeping the Netflix brand focused on the future: streaming video, while a new company takes over the slowly dying DVD portion of their business. Will it work? Who knows. But they are making bold choices.
  • Facebook made massive changes to their platform this week. Will it work? Who knows. But they are making bold choices.

If we only reward bold choices that find success, then we effectively diminish our approval for taking a chance on what you believe in. If taking risks is only allowed when we are assured success, then it really isn’t a risk at all.

Inherently, an action of choice means that you will likely be making someone happy, and pissing someone else off.

Putting yourself out there is only bold if there is a chance you will fail.

You know, embarrassing, ego-reducing, shameful, the-seed-that-launches-a-thousand-therapy-sessions, FAILURE.

Or…

Your idea will work and you could be seen as a brilliant visionary.

Even when we reduce the ACTUAL risk of failure, oftentimes we can’t reduce our perceived risk of failure. This is why your best friend in 8th grade would swear to you they were going to fail a quiz, only to have them get a 98%, while you were happy with an 84%.

Or we stay in the jobs we HATE because we can’t imagine who else will hire us for the salary we want. It’s easy to justify inaction with sweeping vague excuses: “If only the economy were better.”

Or we stay in unhealthy relationships for similar reasons.

This is why we write books, and leave them in drawers.

Why we are boastful of how WE would run Facebook (or do someone else’s job), when we may be stuck in a role we don’t like, and unable to take a risk to get out of it. It’s easy to be a backseat driver, a sideline quarterback. All reward. No risk.

I have been obsessing about the value of online video recently – about putting yourself out there on a site such as YouTube, and speaking to authors I work with about the pros and cons of leveraging it. I recently interviewed author Jackson Pearce, whose use of video is astounding to me. Simple. Yet astounding.

People will give you a thousand reasons that they won’t do video:

  • “There’s no ROI in it.”
  • “I don’t have a webcam.”
  • “I have no time.”

And while these things may be very true, there are often other answers that go unspoken:

  • “I have a zit on my forehead.”
  • “I am in denial about my receding hairline.”
  • “I have a lisp.”
  • “I would, after I lose 20 pounds.”
  • “I’m scared that I will sound like an idiot.”
  • “I’m scared no one will care.”

All of this applies to the things I mentioned above: why we stay in broken relationships, careers, and leave those big ideas in the to-do list. Undone. If we aren’t honest about what keeps us from taking risks, then how will we ever overcome them to reap the rewards that we dream about?

That, inherent in this, is accepting what we don’t know, and taking action anyway. Accepting what we look like, and taking action anyway. Of accepting that we don’t have a perfect plan, but take action anyway. How can we each put ourselves out there? Every day we are confronted with opportunities to do so.

We can speak up at work. Not with complaints, but ideas. That you can’t kill someone else’s idea without presenting your own alternative. In many work environments, there is the perception that when you speak up, you put your head on the chopping block. That you are taking a risk, and even though you could be rewarded, you could also be punished. That speaking up only leads to more work.

We can put ourselves out there in deciding where we put our resources. I remembers some quote like this: “What you do is who you are“. Meaning that if you write every day, then you are a writer. If you just keep planning to write, but never do, then maybe you AREN’T a writer. So where you put your time, where you put your money, this is a critical way that you put yourself out there. We each have limited amounts of both. And we sometimes use that as an excuse for inaction.

“I can’t afford it.”

“I have no time.”

So we stay with what we have. We don’t take the risks, because we don’t feel we have the luxury of doing so. Action is not a luxury. It’s simply a choice. How you leverage your resources is part of this. It is not easy. Success often looks easy and obvious after the fact. That’s because we didn’t see the hard choices that a person made at the beginning, when nothing was promised, when they took a real risk.

One of my favorite quotes: “Caring is a powerful business advantage.” (thanks Scott Johnson!)

Your motivation and level of caring is another big way we can put ourselves out there. Caring. Some people find it embarrassing. In many circles, it is cool to act jaded and say snippy ironic things. I don’t get that. Or if I once did, I am over it.

I’m bored of irony. I am bored of jaded. You know what I admire? A Richard Simmons-esque level of excitement over something. A level of excitement that leads to action. That we are not embarrassed to care, to take action, to put ourselves out there.

None of this is physical: what you wear, how you do your hair, what car you drive, what size latte to buy, and whether or not you want “drizzle” on it. (Yes, I am writing this at Starbucks.)

This is one of the lessons of the recession. A Tom Robbins quote I’ve used in the past: “Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked.”

That yes, we are a society, a culture, a community. Yes, we have obligations to family, jobs, schools, friends, and other affiliations.

But…

That as individuals, we are the only ones who can choose to take a risk that builds a life we want. No one will take the risk for you.

That was the lesson of the last (much smaller) recession. When the dot com bubble burst, many folks sat back and laughed at those trying to make millions selling dog food over the internet. When it all crashed and burned, they said: “Ha! I was right. You were crazy. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

But some individuals didn’t say that. They worked quietly – building. Separating the BS from the value of what the web could provide. They created YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and others and reshaped culture and business in ways that we are still only comprehending. People call it the “tech” space. But it was not the technology that did it. It was people. People who took a risk.

Some people won.

Some lost.

Many who lost tried again and won… eventually.

But they didn’t sit on the sidelines thinking up witty commentary. They got in the game of their OWN life.

These are the people who inspire me. Those who are – in small ways – making choices and taking risks. These are the people I interview every week. Some recent examples:

  • Jackson Pearce – who I mentioned above, with how much she connects with her fans via video.
  • Heather McCormack – curses like a pirate and has strong views on the role of libraries.
  • Bob Mayer – sharing financial numbers that few others do about ebook sales, promoting it as an empowering option for writers.
  • Richard Nash – He spent more than a year taking a risk to build a new type of publisher. Did it all work? Nope. Are we better off for him trying? YES!
  • Joe Pulizzi – A colleague who has been an entrepreneur for several years now, and just held his first HUGE conference in Cleveland. Hundreds of people attended and loved it.
  • Jenny Blake – Is helping people “Make Sh*t Happen” (literally, that is the name of her program) and being painfully honest of her process, her ups, her downs.

And there are so many others. These are just regular people, taking risks to build something they believe in.

This is the challenge we each wake up to every day, whether we know it or not. To take action or just be a cog in someone else’s machine. There are no easy answers here. It’s a challenge I try to live up to. My wife and I made some HUGE decisions in the past year. I started a business (leaving a cushy corporate life), we had a kid, and my wife quit her awesome job as a tenured art teacher. (you can read about it all here)

If I can help you take a risk that brings you closer to your dreams, just let me know.

Thanks!
-Dan

How to Build Your Brand? From the Core.

A big focus for my business is brand building – how does one establish and grow a brand online, and create the processes and systems to turn an idea into a business. Today I would like to talk about the idea of building your brand from your core – how to create something that is uniquely you, and that provides not just a career and revenue, but fulfillment and creative control.

Charlie is a Brand
I’d like to introduce you to Charlie. He’s 20 years old, he’s from England, and there’s really nothing special about him, per se. Except… that he records and uploads videos to YouTube, mostly of him talking to the camera on some topic.

The thing is, each of his videos get well over 1 million views, oftentimes closer to 2 million views. And this usually happens in the first couple days of him uploading them. He now has 1 million subscribers too. So the question is: why, and what can we learn from Charlie? Well, here is Charlie introducing himself, and explaining what he does:

Charlie McDonnell

A recap:

  • He’s never had a proper job, he just makes videos on YouTube.
  • Google pays him to do it via advertising revenue.
  • He also plays in a band that makes music about Dr. Who.

Why does this work? He won’t pretend to know, he basically fell into all this accidentally. But he does share this:

I don’t like to think of [my audience] as a sea of eyeballs that I need to trick into ‘liking’ my video or subscribing to my channel, or leave me a comment. I try and make good stuff. If I do that, the rest of the good stuff will come with it.

He doesn’t speak to a “community,” he speaks to individual people. You are just a person, one normal actual person. That makes it personal.

Since his success, he says he has been contacted by people “wanting a slice of the Charlie pie” – people making offers of collaboration, capitalizing on his popularity and turning it into a business venture.

He went down that road a bit, hiring a manager and trying some TV presentation. But it was weird for him, he had to work off a script, written by someone else, pretending to be him.

So he’s back out on his own. This is why:

“It has to be fun. If its not fun, I’m not going to want to put in the extra effort to make it as good as it needs to be. Fun is a necessity.”

Personal Brands as Business Strategy

Understandably, there are many folks online who want to build their career by becoming something more of a brand. Some have blogs or video blogs or websites or actual businesses, with products and services. Unlike our friend Charlie above, other folks may actively seek out affiliation with a well-established brand. For instance: if one can build an affiliation with Tide or Ford or Smart Water, then that credibility may land them other affiliations that will lead to a audience growth, a book deal, and of course, your own TV show.

And this works well for some people.

It’s interesting to consider what Charlie is doing compared to those who collect badges from major brands to display on their blogs. Charlie’s possibilities are in his own hands, and that has its own challenges and rewards.

But a primary one is that everything Charlie builds is coming from his core. He isn’t slowly changing what he does in order to fit with a sponsorship, a career path, or doing what he can to please a partner or client.

Drifting
How did you end up in the job you work right now? A lot of folks I know slowly drifted into their chosen career path, often based on convenience and building on where they were at the start. For instance, a friend of mine was a salesperson at a store in the mall during college, and then he became assistant manager, then changed jobs to another retail job, and little by little, carved out a career as a manager of major retail stores.

Was this his goal? When you were 24, was your goal to have the job title you have right now?

There is nothing wrong with this, I am simply reflecting on the fact that sometimes we end up in places far away from our center because of the choices others make for us. We pursue opportunities one step at a time, but 367 steps later, we find we went off-course somewhere.

The Right to Choose Your Path

This week JK Rowling announced an online “experience” by which she would finally release the Harry Potter books in digital formats. She was able to wait so long, and follow her own path because she retained the digital rights to the books.

Likewise, on May 13, 1971, Stevie Wonder turned 21, and his Motown contract to expire. From Wikipedia:

“Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a bargaining tool while negotiating with Motown. Eventually the label agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to his own songs. The 120-page contract shattered precedent at Motown and additionally gave Wonder a much higher royalty rate.”

What followed were a series of seminal albums – an outpouring of creative mastery.

The thing is, we all inherently have the legal rights to choose our own path. We don’t need to negotiate them away from some larger corporate entity.

Justine Musk recently shared a wonderful post on building your brand, and had this advice:

“You don’t invent your personal ‘brand’ out of thin air, any more than you invent your life or your self. You search your soul, you explore your past, you excavate your fascinations and beliefs, and drill down and drill down for the meaning of it all.”

It’s not something that comes to you from others, it comes from inside of you. It’s not a business card, an office, a product, a newsletter list, or logo, or a contract with a major brand. It is an intangible that comes from within, and is baked into everything you do.

On the Cusp
We are always on the cusp of greatness. Sometimes it takes an extraordinary risk to move past boundaries.

In all of this, I have been considering, “Well Dan, what is YOUR brand?” I honestly have no idea. I was looking back through my blogs the other night, and surprised at what I found. I was reminded of who I was, what I dream about. This post from 2007 seemed relevant to this discussion: What Rockstars Can Teach Us About Innovation. It shares a single moment where Bono risked the entire career of U2 with one ten foot jump. But doing so launched them to worldwide success. The video:

Playing at Live Aid in 1985, U2 had a cult following, but by no means had any kind of mainstream fan-base. Their albums had fallen out of the charts, and they had a 3-song slot at the concert. The plan was to end with their strongest song, and hopefully attracting new fans with it. But during their second song, Bad, Bono went way off script.

Midway through the song, he wanders to the front of the stage. Looking down at the crowd 10+ feet below, he begins to focus on faces. With tens of thousands of people in the arena, and millions watching on TV worldwide, he was looking at the face of a single woman. He suddenly starts waving for security to allow the fan to go over the barrier and come up onto the stage. They don’t understand his intention, and as Bono becomes frustrated, he makes a split second decision to leap down 10 feet to the floor of the arena.

The band keeps playing in the background, unsure of where Bono went or why. The precious few minutes are getting eaten up, and the moment he jumps off the stage, they lose all chances of having time for their third song – their big shot at stardom.

Meanwhile, back on the arena floor, Bono pulls a fan from the crowd and slowly dances with her amid security guards. He finally makes his way back on stage, where the band continues the music from Bad. Bono grabs the microphone, and instead of singing any U2 song, he looks out at the crowd and begins to sing lyrics from the Rolling Stones’ Ruby Tuesday. Then he goes into Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side.

As their time runs out, Bono rushes past his bandmates and off stage. They hated him for what he had done, and Bono assumed he had just inadvertently broken up the band.

But as the days passed something strange happened. U2’s albums began re-entering the charts. Bono’s effort to reach out to the audience became the highlight of the entire concert – the one person who broke from the script to create a moment of meaning from a massive spectacle.

What Bono did was stop talking, and start listening. The audience was not a thing, it was made up of unique individuals. Bono knew U2’s songs didn’t matter in that moment, bur rather, the songs that brought people together.

This came from his core, not the “plan” of promoting their songs.

This is Our Time

Each of us are on the cusp of greatness. But we have to stop the train that is our lives to take the action to realize that greatness. This is our time to share something worth being remembered for. To create the space in this world to give, and to help empower others.

So when we use imperfect words such as referring to people as “brands,” this is what I think we are referring to. A word that encapsulates everything we are and everything we can be.

Thanks!
-Dan

Embracing Change

If you are in publishing, media or are a writer, you are well aware of the incredible transitions going on in your industry. Digital media is changing every aspect of the business models of these fields, and we find ourselves swept up by the wave in one way or another.

Transitions are often things that folks avoid. They wait them out. They linger, they stall. But these transitions don’t have to happen TO you. In fact, YOU can happen to them.

It’s almost absurd how the music industry, and now parts of the publishing industry have waited for Apple and Amazon and Google and others to TAKE control of the transition. To embrace it as an opportunity, instead of a threat. But a company like Apple realized something critical:

You can CHOOSE transition, not have it thrust upon you.

When you choose transition, you can build from the core. You are not reacting, you are shaping. The way you approach it comes from your own DNA – not by plugging a thousand holes in a leaking dam.

Transitions Are Opportunities to Live Up To Your Potential

When we talk about building our careers, we are talking about creating our lives. Creating our success. We all inherently have potential. Every single day, we have potential to do something remarkable, something that positively affects the lives of others, that shapes the world we live in. But most of us are too busy doing other things, attending to obligations, so the potential waits.

There is a phrase that has become popular in the startup and business worlds:

“Fail often, and fail fast.”

I appreciate the sentiment that people are trying to express here, but feel that this phrase takes a lot for granted. Namely, that the “failure” that is referenced here never seems to be debilitating failure. You know, failure where you lose all of your money, have to fire your entire staff, where you lose your job, tarnish your reputation, waste millions of dollars of your employers resources. “Failure” that can’t be recovered from very quickly or easily, which honestly, is how I always defined the word.

What I think the people who use this expression are trying to convey is this:

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Fear failure. That’s natural and smart. But don’t be afraid to consistently try experiments that you will learn from. Sure, many of your experiments won’t work, but none will be debilitating to you, your family, your colleagues, partners or employers.

When we fail, there are often consequences. But when we experiment, we learn. We don’t just sit in a chair and assume – we FIND OUT. We push ourselves beyond what is known – maybe a bit beyond our comfort zone, and we LEARN. This is where growth comes from; where new knowledge comes from; where we learn how to navigate transitions and find success, instead of just battening down the hatches on rough waters and hope to merely survive.

Setting Expectations – Taking Control of the Wheel

I am a huge fan of Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com, who interviews entrepreneurs. Recently, he shared what he has learned when interviewing entrepreneurs who have written and published books:

“Authors don’t want to talk about their books after they’re published, for the most part. One of the reasons I heard is that they have this big vision for how big their lives are going to be, how much their lives are going to change after they publish their book. And they imagine their publisher is going to get them publicity, that they are going to get themselves publicity, they are going to be on Oprah, and then…”

“…nothing happens.”

“They have to hustle to sell their books, just like they have to hustle to sell anything. People aren’t paying attention to them. Once they realize that, and they push as much as they can, they don’t want to talk about the book anymore, because some of them are just a little embarrassed by how poorly it did compared to their vision. So they move on with their lives.”

When I work with writers to help them build their careers, it is often about building their platform – enabling them to build the connections they need, the skills they need, and to find new processes and ideas to provide a sustainable writing career.

That, just trudging along is not going to get them to their goals. Just Tweeting, just blogging, just doing any one thing is not enough. That your career needs to have a strategy, not just an unending list of to-do’s.

To create this strategy, to develop this platform, you often need to expend resources, usually time or money or a combination of the two. It’s an investment.

Investments are often full of hope and fear. I hear a lot of people share their personal mantra as some variation of “no fear.” But I think fear is natural, it is okay. Stagnation is not. It’s okay to have fear, it’s not okay to let it stop you. This sentiment is best embodied in this quote:

“The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fears subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.”
– Joanna Baillie

You Must Make the Time to Grow
Years ago, my brother was a manager at a major retail chain – a store so big, it required 10 managers to run the entire operation. His day was a rush of managing a lot of employees, a ton of merchandise, and assisting hundreds of customers.

One day, his boss came up to him and asked: “Andy, do you want to go grab lunch?” – meaning a sit down lunch across the street at Bennigans. The first time this happened, my brother replied: “I have a lot to get done,” hinting that taking an hour for lunch would throw off his whole day.

His manager looked him in the eye and said: “If taking a single hour off will disrupt how you are running your department, then you aren’t managing correctly.”

My brother went to lunch that day, and every other day he was asked. He built a stronger relationship with his boss, which lead to more career opportunities (and an actual friendship) down the road.

The point is this: it easy to feel overwhelmed in your job, or pursuing your writing career. Don’t let it stop you from growing. Take the time to learn new skills, to experiment, to have lunch with someone you want to know better, to serve your community without any clear indication that anyone will return the favor.

Thanks!
-Dan

Investing in Time Instead of Money

Today, I want to talk about two things:

  1. A big decision my wife and I made.
  2. Why I feel that people should invest more in themselves – their skills and abilities – instead of just financial investments.

So my wife and I are taking a leap. This week, she handed in her letter of resignation at the wonderful teaching job she has had for the past six years. Why? To spend all of her time and attention on raising our son, and working on her art. (Here is her art in case you are interested: SarahBlankStudios.com)

Time Vs Money

There are very real implications here, notably, the financial stuff. She gives up a wonderful job at a decent salary, with incredible benefits and lots of time off. We recently heard about a job position like hers opening up elsewhere in the state, and they received 1,000 applicants for the position. So yes, it feels weird to choose to give that up.

And there is the not-so-small fact that buying private health insurance is going to cost us in the neighborhood of $1,500 per month, and that does not include the deductibles we have to pay or higher co-pays. Less income, higher expenses.

But I am thinking of all of this as an investment in three things:

  1. My own time. With my wife home, we can stop juggling the dozens of things each day of two working parents with a young son and a young business. I can fully focus on building We Grow Media, on becoming better at what I do, and on serving clients and students. I love what I do for a living; I LOVE working with writers; I LOVE working with publishers; I have an unending stream of energy for this.
  2. My wife’s time. She has always been an artist, and has built a small following via her blog and Etsy store. Now, she can truly focus on her art, and on growing the business related to it. Will she make-up her old salary anytime soon? Nope. Will she potentially have a thriving art career in 5 or 10 years? Yes. And that is a life worth living – a risk worth taking.
  3. Time with our son. With my wife at home, and me working from home, that means that we are both around to raise our son, and to find countless family moments each day, each week, each month, each year. I know that is a luxury that is very rare in our culture. We have saved and saved and saved for the past 10 years, in order to take this leap.

Even with the financial risk, this decision feels empowering. To choose the life we want to live, instead of basing our decisions on the seemingly “safe” route – and money alone.

We have all heard the story of the wealthy man on his deathbed, whose dying regret is that he wished he spent more time with his children, instead of at the office. That is what I am keeping in mind. That money comes and goes, time is all we have.

Investing in People Instead of Things

There is something I don’t understand about investment as it is discussed in the media, especially in light of the recession. Our culture often has an unhealthy relationship with the idea of “investing.” We view it mostly with regards to money – that we invest $10 and hope to get back $15. But what about value beyond dollars and cents? What about investing in ourselves?

I am not investing in the stock market, or real estate or anything else that is a “thing.” I am investing in having the time to grow my skills and abilities. I am investing in people – in growing my relationships with others. I am focusing on the value of TIME, not just the value of MONEY. To use that time to grow my skills, to serve clients, to become better at what I do. Things that can exponentially repay themselves over the course of a lifetime, instead of a stock that may rise 12% next quarter.

This is also why training and education are such a big part of We Grow Media – I believe so strongly in the idea of investing in our own possibilities.

The Nature of Freedom

I am giving up all of the security that seems standardized in our culture. We rent an apartment instead of owning a home. I started a business after leaving my corporate job of 10 years. My wife is leaving her very stable and wonderful job. We had our first child less than a year ago. As my brother said: this all defies logic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right decision.

The truth is, I have never felt more free. I have never felt more confident. I have never felt less scared.

Freedom is not about what you own, but how you live and the options you have. And, the more you own, typically, the fewer options you have. The financial cost of purchasing and upkeeping our possessions often provides less freedom. You spend time not just paying off the stuff, but dusting it, maintaining it, upgrading it.

Getting Better at Serving Others

EVERYTHING I am describing here is about how I can have the time to become better at serving the needs of others. How I can devote more time to my clients and students; how I can spend more time studying and researching new tools that will empower them; how I can devote more time to personal and professional relationships; how I can be more mindful of those around me.

The first year of my business has been incredible, and it has been ENTIRELY due to the generosity of those around me. I have been unbelievably lucky, and want to do everything possible to help others – to return the favor – and to be kind-hearted at every possible step of the process. This isn’t about “fighting to grow my business,” this is about giving as much as I can, because others have already given me so much.

There are many reasons that went into the decisions my wife and I have made recently, but it is all best encapsulated in a Tom Robbins quote a friend recently shared:

“Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked.”

So thank you to the many people who have shared in this journey so far, and made it all possible. I am looking forward to going down the next path through the wilderness together.

Thanks!
-Dan