12 minutes that can turn your economic outlook upside down
Now the question is, how can each of us enact something of a gift economy in our business? Is it possible? Or just a marketing gimmick?
I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments box.
Download the Interview with Mark Silver of Heart of Business (MP3, 14 MB)
“If I raise my prices, I’ll feel greedy. Or no one will hire me. And what if I’m not that good?”
“If I lower my prices, I’ll feel defeated. I’ll attract the wrong sort of client. But what if that’s the only way to get business?”
I’ve struggled with pricing for much of my business career. For some reason, money has always been a fraught subject for me. (Not sure why – I grew up comfortably middle class, had some nice stuff, and went to an expensive college.)
And when it comes to pricing, all my issues bubble to a rolling boil.
So I was delighted to explore the topic of pricing – and other business issues – from a spiritual perspective with my new friend and teacher, Mark Silver. Mark runs a training company called “Heart of Business,” and he’s a master at putting the nuts and bolts of business into a truly inspiring context.
We talked for an hour last month. And today I got around to editing and uploading the audio.
If you’re squeamish about concepts like “heart” and “The Divine,” this interview might be a bit of a challenge. Even so, I urge to you keep an open mind and give a listen.
Here’s that download link again.
If you want more from Mark, visit HeartofBusiness.com.
Turned on or turned off? Inspired or confused? Got a different philosophy? Let me know what you think in the comments box below.
Having gone through a few hundred AdWords For Dummies survey results in the past two days, I’m reminded how difficult it is to get going online.
In this 8 minute video, I share your top challenges (see if they sound familiar to you) and humbly offer a path from overwhelm to peace and productivity.
Here’s the 90-minute audio download I mentioned in the video:
Right-click to download the mp3 here
And please join the conversation by leaving a comment below!
Howie
I just interviewed Alex Baisley, creator of the Big Dream Program. Originally, this was to be a Ring of Fire exclusive, but I was so moved by Alex’s words that I decided to make a gift of this interview to the entire universe.
It’s all about living big, expressing our dreams, and losing the distinction between work and life so that we can turn our entire existence into a giant symphony of our true nature.
Not a keyword or ad group in sight… ;)
Right-click to download the mp3 here. It’s 88 minutes long, so probably best to download to an mp3 player and go for a long walk in a beautiful place.
You can visit Alex’s site at http://BigDreamProgram.com. Look at the top navigation for the Calling Workshop. For the price of your name and email, you can watch it online.
And please posts your comments when you’ve finished listening. Let’s keep this conversation going.
Search marketers are well aware of the psychology of the searcher: impatient, unforgiving, narrowly focused, and extremely goal-directed.
That's why we focus on hyper-relevance of ads and landing pages, because we know that the searcher has no tolerance for anything that doesn't advance the cause of their search.
But is it good to live life from the position of searcher? What are the costs of being in "Search Mode" so much of the time?
As entrepreneurs, we're always being encouraged to "go for what we want," to be singularly focused on our goals, and to always strive for success.
Awesome.
But unless we're careful, that puts us in never-ending "search mode." And living from that place has costs.
Here are my heart-felt thoughts on the subject. Agree or disagree, please post a comment below.
Perry Marshall's July newsletter was a brilliant meditation on fear, and how it can paralyze us and keep us small.
I've had some experience with this.
I once spent 5 hours hugging a tree outside girl's bunk B21 at camp because I was so terrified to ask Cindy to the square dance (and her friends had already told me that she wanted to go with me).
I always played in the orchestra in school musicals, despite my burning desire to appear on stage, because of the fear that I might not get the lead role.
And that's just the stuff so old that I don't mind sharing it here.
But you see how that kind of fear can infect every aspect of a person's life. Keep their career small. Keep their social life timid. Keep the potentiality of their life force caged and cramped.
Most of the self-help advice I come across in the entrepreneurial space urges us to become bold and powerful. To claim our power. To throw off the shackles of fear.
To focus on the positive. To set motivating goals. To visualize success. To model successful people. To repeat affirmations. To "fake it 'til you make it."
The trouble with these approaches, at least for me, is that they don't get at the root of the fear.
Cliffhanger? Keep reading…
Ball #1: Jabulani
A bunch of the world’s soccer goalkeepers are having fits about the new Adidas Jabulani ball. As the World Cup approaches, the goalies are near-unanimous in their complaints: Too light, too curvy, too sleek, too slippery, too unpredictable.
Here are some quotes about the Jabulani from the goalkeepers of several teams playing in the Cup this summer:
Hugo Lloris of France: “A disaster.”
Iker Casillas of Spain: “Like a beach ball.”
Gianluigi Buffon of Italy: “Shameful.”
David James of England: “Dreadful.”
Fernando Muslera of Uruguay: “The worst I’ve ever played with.”
Ball #2: The Worst Call in Baseball History
And on Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game (only 20 of these games have been pitched in the history of Major League Baseball) when first base umpire Jim Joyce completely blew it and incorrectly called a runner safe with two outs in the ninth.
Galarraga’s response at being cheated out of a history-making achievement? “[Joyce] probably felt more bad than me. Nobody’s perfect.”
Wow.
While the goalkeepers are already making excuses for the goals they haven’t yet allowed, Galarraga responded with more grace and integrity than I can imagine.
Arguing with Reality
Here’s my confession: While I would love to say I would have reacted like Galarraga, I act like a whiny goalkeeper much more often.
It’s so easy, after all, to blame the world for what it’s withholding from me.
Even when it’s a patent absurdity, such as a soccer ball that will challenge all teams equally.
But as Mick Jagger and Buddha so wisely remind us, You can’t always get what you want.
And as one of my teachers, Byron Katie puts it, “arguing with reality” is a sure cause of misery.
After all, the Jabulani ball is equally bad for everyone. Kind of like the other excuses I like to trot out when the world doesn’t deliver exactly what I want: the market, the economy, the labor market, the demands on my time.
Unless I pay attention, I can become a veritable font of excuses that can keep me victimized, aggrieved, and helpless.
Accepting Reality
Contrast that attitude with Galarraga’s, whose near-instant acceptance of the irreversible bad call has made him synonymous with hugeness of spirit.
He showed us all how to make friends with reality.
And by “reality” I don’t mean anything more than what is actually going on right now. As opposed to the constant comparison with the story of how things should go.
Suppose Galarraga had done the “normal” thing and yelled and protested and complained and told the world he had been robbed.
Would that have changed anything?
Clearly not, as it didn’t work when the Tigers’ manager.
Here’s what it would have changed: Galarraga’s experience of the event. As it unfolded, he ended the game with a big smile, a huge ovation, and what looks suspiciously to me like inner peace. A tantrum would have erased all that good stuff.
Plus, as my friend Brian pointed out, his story has become a resonant social fable far beyond baseball. Millions of people with no interest in baseball admire and will remember him.
How many of you can name the men who pitched the first two perfect games this season? If you’re not a baseball fan, I bet you can’t. (FYI: I can’t. Despite being a baseball nerd in my teams, I quit cold turkey after the 1978 season, reasoning that for a Yankee fan, life could simply not get any better.)
The Power of the Invisible Sun
Just to add a bit of irony to the goalkeepers’ moaning, the World Cup is being played for the first time in South Africa, a land with great energy and great challenges. I spent two months in South Africa this past year, and I’ve seen enough of childhood poverty to last me a lifetime.
While the high-tech Jabulani balls are slipping through fingers in goalkeepers’ recurring nightmares, many South African kids dream of owning a soccer ball that consists of something more rugged and aerodynamic than rubbish and garbage bags held together with string.
Photographer and philanthropist Bobby Sager, who took the above photo, teamed up with former Police frontman Sting and inventor Tim Jahnigen to create an indestructible soccer ball.
Instead of a bladder that can be punctured, the new ball can be stabbed with a knife, run over with a car, and rolled over broken glass without any problem.
The bright yellow balls, inscribed with the words “Hope is a Game Changer,” are being handed out by the thousands all over the world.
Why? Sting answers, “This is instant joy. Kids need fun, too. Imagine living in a refugee camp. I mean, what is there to look forward to? Very little. This is concrete. Very, very substantial.”
(To support this effort, go to The Power of the Invisible Sun.)
My fantasy is that one day a child who grew up in a South African informal settlement will grow up to be goalkeeper for the South African national team. I bet you he – or she – will be very happy with whatever ball is used.
And that, like Armando Galarraga, he or she will realize that the greatest victory is not the final score, but the way we conduct ourselves no matter what life throws at us.
So from my own humble place of learning, my gratitude goes out to my teachers: Armando, Bobby, Sting, Tim, and Byron.
May I be inspired to accept reality with grace and confront it with courage.
And so may we all.
Every marketer needs to study this video:
Start with Why, not What.
What you do simply serves as proof of what you believe.
Enjoy.
In The Talent Code, author Daniel Coyle wonders at the sudden and inexplicable success of the Russian women's tennis program over the past decade.
The real reason was not something new in the water, or a brand new training facility, or anything you might expect. Instead, it was the international success of 17-year-old Anna Kournikova, whose prowess in tournaments was matched only by her supermodel looks. She quickly became the most-downloaded athlete in history.
All of a sudden, Coyle writes, thousands of young Russian girls had a role model. More than that, they had a desirable future to which they could aspire. I want to be like her, they all thought. She's like me. I'm like her. I can be that too. If I practice hard, for years. I'd better get busy.
Coyle refers to this effect as ignition. Just as a tank of gas won't move a Ferrari – or a Vespa – without a spark to set the engine running, a well of potential skill and practice-energy will never manifest in talent without a spark.
Cliffhanger? Keep reading…
Beekeeper Sue Hubbell writes in A Book of Bees:
" For 15 years now I have worked on such familiar terms with the bees that when I see them down the river, or listen to them at night, I know exactly what they are doing. I now can understand a little bit, though not nearly as much as I thought I did the first year I worked with them. They have forced me to realize that my senses and powers of observation are very limited.
"My city friends know well enough what I do here during the season; it may seem strange work to them, but it is undisputedly work; what I do during the slack times is harder for them to figure out: "organizing my ignorance" is perhaps as good a description as any."
Marketers have a lot in common with beekeepers; when we first start working with our market we think we know a lot more about them than we really do. The longer we engage with prospects, the better we get at figuring out how to speak to them and how to serve them, but we also realize how much we still don't know.
It's ironic, perhaps, that our increasing wisdom highlights our ignorance. But it's by exploring those places of ignorance, those little nooks and crannies where we don't know what we need to know, that we develop true deep market insight.
Cliffhanger? Keep reading…
Howie Jacobson, PhD., is the author of Google AdWords For Dummies, available on every continent (except Antarctica) wherever fine books, overpriced brownies and cheesy calendars are sold.