Cartoon of a boy saying, “A big store like this and they don’t sell pet fire ants?”
The customer isn’t always right. I can’t imagine anyone wanting fire ants for pets. But stranger things have been claimed as pets, haven’t they?
I got this idea when my family drove by the Fire Ant Festival in Ashburn, Georgia. We were on our way to Florida, when we accidentally stumbled into this festival. I was relieved to find out pet fire ants weren’t for sale.
Over at Michael Hyatt’s blog, he gave a quote from a book entitled Do the Work. Within the quote, this statement stuck out to me:
Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.
I have to admit, I’m not ignorant, or arrogant enough. And I’m willing to bet you aren’t either. If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time gathering information, reading blogs, and pondering what is the best way to tackle a challenge. If you’re like me, you can get bogged down in the minutia of information.
That’s one reason I love working with children. They can help me find my giddy, stupid self. When you’re around kids, do these things to get your daring, stupid self back:
Working with kids is a great way to keep your innocent, creative self from thinking small. Encourage their dreams and you may find you can get “stupid” and work on your own.
Carey Nieuwhof had a great post entitled, The Truth About How Consensus Kills Courage. He had some great points on how committees can knock the wind out of good ideas. In his post, he said,
When it comes to courageous change, here are four things that are true:
Committees kill vision
Individuals are almost always more courageous than teams
The more people you seek to please up front, the less inspiring your idea will become
Leaders don’t always walk alone, but sometimes they have to start alone.
As someone who has worked in a creative environment, I have seen this happen wherever I worked. I have seen this happen to my ideas. And I’ll have to admit, I’ve been on the other side of the table and have killed or watered down other’s ideas. After all, that’s what critique groups are for, right?
Actually, no! Committees and critique groups are gatekeepers to ideas. If you have a great idea, it is your job to sell it to the group.
That doesn’t mean every idea you have is worth fighting for. You’ll have to do your homework and be prepared to make that decision. Once you decide that it is an idea worthy of selling, then have the courage to sell it.
That’s how great ideas are born.
Change happens! It happens whether we want it or not, doesn’t it? If you don’t believe me, work with children for a few years. Sooner or later, they grow out of your class. Take a look at a photo of you several years ago. Yes, we change! Some of us lose hair, some of us gain it, Children grow and get stronger while adults age and wonder why things aren’t the way they used to be.
Change happens whether we want it or not. The question isn’t if it will happen. The question is how will you deal with it? Will you refuse to admit change is happening and live in denial? Will you refuse to accept it and become bitter? Or will you acknowledge change it always happening and learn how to deal with the new normal?
A few months back, I revisited the book, “Who Moved My Cheese?” I got a lot out of it ten years ago. Of course, now, I could get it on the Kindle, iBooks, or any other e-reader. What a testament to change!
Whether you’re in publishing, the classroom or another business, change is happening. How are you going to deal with it?
Cartoon of an executive and a younger guy. The exec says, “I’d like to mentor you. We can start by you getting me some coffee.”
Mentoring is a little more than finding a gopher to go get you some coffee and doughnuts. Mentoring is the attempt to teach someone the lessons you wish someone taught you when you started out in business.
Here is my mentoring tip for you today: do what you love, and don’t be afraid to charge for it. By the way, I’ll take a cup of coffee too.
