Five Ways to Poke the Box

I just read Seth Godin’s “Poke the Box” and learned a valuable lesson. It’s okay to fail, actually it’s a good thing. I have to admit, I have been embraced by a “trying to be perfect” mentality from time to time in my life. Maybe even a little bit everyday. As usual Seth helps me open up my mind and see new ways to do things and recognize opportunities.

If you’re not failing often and repeatedly you are being remarkable in a way that is going to make a difference. Making incremental changes and doing what everyone else is doing, aka being ‘safe’, is not going to make the difference needed today to stand out from the crowd. Seth says, “the enemy is not piracy, it’s obscurity.” Did you know that 99% of the musicians on You Tube have not been heard? How do you suppose that converts to visibility for authors? I’d bet about the same or even lower.

Here’s a couple more thought-provoking ideas.

1. Everyday, see things that scare you and notice things that are interesting. Write at least one of them down.
2. List your daily failures and what you’ve learned from them. Put that into practice.
3. Watch people. Who’s curious versus uninterested in the great things occurring everyday? What can you learn about them?
4. Try BIG, new ideas –it’s okay to fail. Great actually. His viewpoint, “The cost of learning is so much less than that of not learning.”
5. Create moments and movements that people want to talk about. Don’t sink into the blah, blah blah world of ordinary.

So get out and ‘poke the box’ a bit.  Buy the book, it’s a great quick read. Then experiment freely. See what works and what doesn’t. Use the power of the Internet to test various approaches and ideas. You really have so little to lose.