A morning sunrise letter..

Grandpa,

 

It hasn’t been very long since you left, and I’m still upset about it. I’m upset that you left me when you did because there were so many things I wanted you to still see. Maksim playing basketball. My wedding. My first big promotion. A sunrise from my balcony above the city. A night out with Kathryn and grandma Gail where we would just eat and have a great time together. The list is truly endless, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to make those things happen while I still could.

 

Regardless of how much time I spent with you, I always felt like I didn’t get enough time, and that upsets me too. You always made me leave the lakes with you earlier than I wanted. You would make me go back and mow over the spots of your yard that I missed, after you came out and inspected my work after I was finished before you’d pay me for it. You would always pause for as long as I talked, after I stopped talking and interrupting you, before you’d continue speaking to me. I never liked that much, but now I understand why you did it, and I thank you for that.

 

It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t be there the morning of the procedure. I was exhausted from putting so much of myself into my work for our big presentation. I know that you would have told me that it was ok that I couldn’t be there, and that it was important for me to be there for my job, but I didn’t know that would be my final opportunity to hear your voice. To share one last joke with you. To tell you something, anything, that would have made things make sense later. To hear one last bit of your incredibly wise advice for me. I promise I always heard your words, even if I didn’t always follow them.

 

I can’t see your face anymore, but I see you all the time. I see you in my son when he tells me that the pepper on his eggs will put lead in his pencil. I see you in myself, when I make sure my ears are really clean, in order to let the bullshit people spew out go in one ear and right out the other. I see you in the early morning sunrise, and imagine you telling me that it’s almost lunch time when the sun is just coming up. I see you in the way I don’t drink coffee, because you said it would stunt my growth, and also in the way that I’m not 7 feet tall, even though I used to tell you I wanted to be. I see you in the man I am today.

 

You weren’t supposed to go so soon. You weren’t supposed to be called home like you were. But, I’m grateful and thankful for the things you have left behind. And, thank you for the sunrise today.

 

I needed it more than anyone will ever know.

 

I miss you Grandpa, but I hope you’re working hard up there.

 

Love,

 

 

T-boo

 

 

Untitled

My mom said to me, “You haven’t written in a while.”

“I know.”

I don’t know if there’s a specific reason for it either. I just know that I haven’t really known what to write about lately. Or maybe it’s the opposite of that. There’s just too much to write about. Too much on my mind to properly craft a single blog post out of it all. It’s been weird since my last post. Lots of good. A bit of bad. The bad was sometimes worse than it’d ever been in a really long time…

And just like that while I’m writing, music comes in with it’s usual poignancy in my life.

“I’m not ok. I promise.”

That’s the truth people. Like it or not. Expect it or not. Accept it or not.

I’m really not ok. Things aren’t ok. Then again, things haven’t been ok for a long time now. By a long time, I mean probably somewhere around 8 years. Probably even longer than that really, but I think that there was a pretty good stretch there between 2003-07 where things were pretty good, or at least more good than bad.

Is my life hard now? Not really, it’s actually improving a lot. It’s getting to a point where my bills don’t hold me 3 inches under the proverbial water. It’s getting to a point where I can look people in the fucking eye and not feel like a complete and total failure and a fraud and a joke.

But, no man, I’m not fucking ok. Not at all.

My job is awesome now. I’m only responsible for one thing. Doing what I’m good at and being creative. No sales. No appointment scheduling. No long term follow up. No cold calling. No getting threatened by my boss. No bullshit I never wanted to do anyway. I go to work and am not disappointed with my choice in any way, shape, or form.

But no man, I’m not ok. I promise.

It’s just taken as a generally accepted truth that I’m doing great. That I have things under control. That I’m optimistic and driven and a good father and a great listener and a better friend. The general consensus is that I’m a 33 year old man with a definite goal in mind. A purpose and a drive that’s all but mundane. A mind that has no limitations and the mental strength to accept and thrive in the responsibility placed upon someone with those abilities. A personality that captures people’s attention, or as a friend of mine once put it “You’re a force.”

But, I’m not ok. I promise. I swear to God I’m not.

There are all these good things going on in my life recently. New job, new outlook on life, newly single, more opportunities to spend time with my son, etc., etc., etc. Even most days, I am good enough at hiding my emotions (I’ll always be grateful for that ability though, regardless of what you may think about doing so) that I don’t think about the fact that it was only about 2 months ago when I had to start all over. Literally all over. Like, buy new furniture, silverware, soap, laundry detergent, fucking tin foil, everything.

-Sorry grandma and mom for my language, but I’m not ok. I promise.

The starting over process was something that I won’t ever want to take back though, I don’t think. It reminded me how I got whatever it was that I still had in my apartment after the move-out. By trusting my instincts, come hell or high water. By trusting in my ability to grind and endure and persevere. It helped to re-galvanize my resolve, because I was going to be damned if I let what happened bring me back down into that place I was in before. Not knowing how I was going to pay my bills. Sitting in my apartment watching a tow truck take my car away with my then 4 year old son asking me why they were taking away daddy’s car. Don’t ever go through that, folks. You’ll never find the right words to say because you’ll be too busy falling to pieces in front of your kid. It’s pretty ugly.

Times like these; when I look around and I start to see that all my hard work and perseverance and stubbornness to stick to my plan finally starting to work out, these are the times when I remember the things that were said to me. When the ex girlfriend, years ago, said she couldn’t wait to run into me later on in life, when I was actually successful. When the company I so desperately tried to get into denied me time and time again. When the coach told me that I should just quit and go work at the gas station in Berne. Hey, it may not have come on your time, but damn it, it came. And I don’t regret anything I did or will do to continue this path. It’s just hard, and makes me weary at times.

I had to ask for help when I shouldn’t have had to. I’ve been helped out by some very unlikely heroes when others couldn’t/wouldn’t help me. And no matter what anyone can ever tell you, I have been grateful for every single bit of good done to me along the way. I appreciate every single opportunity given to me. Still though, that doesn’t always make things better.

So, no, I’m not ok. I’ve been through enough to make a lesser man breakdown and never recover. I’ve seen and experienced some things that will be more stressful than anything you’ll likely ever have to go through. And if, by some horrible form of luck, you share or can beat my stories; I will extend to you my hand, tell you I get it, and offer to buy you a drink. Because that’s what people do. Or at least, it’s what they should do.

Sorry if I ruined your cheery outlook on my life. But, here’s the good news. I’m happy. I’m happy with not being ok. To me, it just means that I’m not quite where I want to be yet. The good news is that I’m optimistic and upbeat about my opportunities. I’m graciously accepting the good that’s coming my way instead of trying to find the bad things 10 miles down the road that won’t even come up in the end. I’m happy not being ok. Ok sucks. Ok is complacent. Ok is satisfied. Ok is settling. Ok is answering the 1am phone calls from the person you know you need to stay away from. Ok is allowing people to take advantage of your kind heart. Ok is answering “I’m surviving” to the question about your current condition. Ok is working that job you think you should just take because it’ll pay the bills and allow you to scrape by.

Fuck ok.

“If you do not claim your humanity, you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”

Stop being ok. Abhor ok. It’s not worth the time that is so precious and limited in this life anyway.

 

The Matrix has you…

As I was standing on my balcony this morning, brushing my teeth in my towel (yes, when it gets warmer, I undertake this task in the nude many times), a strange notion came to mind. Cell phones are becoming the electronic replacement for our brains.

 

Think about it, when’s the last time you were out and did NOT take a picture? I remember when I was younger, I was in very few pictures with people. I just didn’t do it. When people would ask me why I didn’t want to be in the picture, I would tell them it’s because I want my mind to remember the moment I was in and not have to rely on a photograph in order to do so. Nowadays, that’s all people ever do. They snap a picture, upload their memory to the mysterious cloud, and that’s it. No brain power required. You just stumble across that photo later on and, if you’re lucky, you’ll actually be taken back to that moment in your mind.

 

There’s more to it of course. When someone asks you a question, what do you do? I would be willing to wager that the majority (at least more than 50% of the time anyway), most people turn to their phones to Google the answer. If you ask my friend a question that he doesn’t know, he just speaks to his phone and awaits the answer. That’s not just for questions that are difficult either. That’s for just about anything. That’s not to say he’s unintelligent, either. He just relies on the technology to do the brainwork for him. 

When people are interested to know how much to tip your waiter or waitress at a restaurant, I constantly see people pulling their phones out to calculate the percentage of their bill that they deem an appropriate tip. By the way, shame on you if you a) don’t know how to do simple division and/or b) tip less than 20% unless the waiter/waitress is absolutely awful. You want to know how to spell a word? Just type it in and the little red squiggly lines will show up if you’re wrong. Shame on you also if you are still unsure about your/you’re and there/their/they’re, take some responsibility already.

The makers of these devices know this, or at least that’s what I theorized this morning as I was getting my morning started. Continuing down that rabbit hole, it came to me that these cell phone/device companies and ultimately the service providers they produce their devices for, are locked in a struggle for the minds of their customers. It’s like a new-age energy race. Who can lay claim to the most collective brain power. And we’re all just sitting back and allowing ourselves to snap, tweet, post and like our consciousnesses into their banks.

This was quite a thought to have this morning. Maybe I ate too much spicy food the night before? But maybe I was thinking about my son. Maybe it scares me to see him on his Kindle playing games, at 5. Maybe it makes me nervous for him that he’s shy around other children and I find myself blaming myself for not encouraging him to interact with the physical world around him more while we’re out. Maybe him interacting with the world around him scares me too because I remember when I was his age and a stranger asked me to go home with him to “play his video games”. I just know that, when I’m 85 and all wrinkly (but a dignified, Harrison Ford kind of wrinkly), I hope that I won’t have to rely on a machine to do my remembering for me. I hope that the moments between the photos are what I remember most, not the photo moment itself. I hope that I won’t have to pay for my thoughts.

Vanity. My favorite sin.

I’ve been kicking around this post for a few days now. It came to me really quickly one night as I was watching a movie that I’ve been a fan of for quite a while, but I wasn’t sure about if I should post it. Typically, when a bit of inspiration comes to me to write, I go through a kind of checklist before I make a post. I question whether or not I should write it, what I hope to accomplish by it, and other related questions that need real answers before I can go forward with it. Lately, those questions haven’t netted any satisfactory results. Ok, I think it’s more like, for the past 6 months there haven’t been any satisfactory answers or results.

Lately though, things have really been looking up for me, which helps me in all sorts of ways, and that feels so good. New doors have opened for me because of my willingness to allow good things to happen to me. I have gained a lot of the confidence back that I had lost long long ago. I am no longer so worried about how I’m going to make ends meet. Instead, I’m worried about how I’m going to handle having a life with less financial stress. I’m excited to go to work and work hard because I know that there’s a definite plan in place to help me succeed. I’ve been offered more jobs than I can take, and I have been able to turn down interviews with good companies. There was a time when I’d jump through any hoop possible, just to get an interview scheduled. It’s a feeling that I guess you could call “surreal”, but it’s a confusing kind of surreal. Confusing, because I am just getting to this point now.

I kept thinking about that too. And asking why, as I so often do. I tried to figure out where things went awry and why I struggled so much. It wasn’t easy to do either. It took me quite a while to really get down to the brass tacks.

The movie “The Devil’s Advocate” is a little more than 2 hours long. That’s about how long it took me to realize why things were so weird for me for so long. In reality, it was one scene that really made the lightbulb go on though.

Al Pacino plays the Devil in such an impressive way, doesn’t he? However, it’s his point that he makes about vanity that brought everything all together. “Vanity is definitely my favorite sin.” A simple enough sentence, right? If you’ve seen the movie, you understand why vanity was the motivation behind this scene. I’m not a lawyer, so that wasn’t what captured my interest. It was the underlying issue. I took a long hard look at that concept. It made too much sense to me to not be scary. Self-love, the all-natural opiate. And I am an addict.

Hello, my name is Chris, and I’m a vanit-aholic. I care what you think too much, and it almost wrecked my life. I cared about what my image looked like to everyone for years, decades even. I cared that people looked at me differently when I was younger for various reasons. I cared so much about my image that I quit things that I love and closed off parts of my personality in order to be liked more, because it made me like me more when I knew that others liked me more. I cared about my image so much that I was too arrogant to notice that I was living way beyond my means. I tried to portray myself as someone that I really wasn’t because I believed that it made me a more interesting person. I thought about what people would think or say about everything I did, because I am addicted to self-love. It’s a scary thing. Knowing that your current station in life is due to the unreasonable priority you place on public opinion. I was so ashamed of my self-love that I would blame anyone else but myself for the struggles I have in my life. I did so, because I didn’t want to look at myself and not like what I saw. I had a problem with my conscience, and it needed to change.

This is not reality. The cliche is not real. There’s never have the angel on your shoulder. The angel is locked in a basement with duct tape on its mouth and tied up to a chair. The angel is the guy who you know you should hang out with more, but he doesn’t like to go out and do things. He doesn’t want to make friends with everyone for no other reason than the need to seek further approval. He wants to stay in and work on projects that will help your career goals, not go sing karaoke and see how cheesy you can get on the mic.

This is what reality is.

He is the guy you want to be. It’s the guy who has the cool new car every couple of years, while I’m struggling to pay off mine. The guy who doesn’t have to worry about explaining himself to anyone, for any reason, regardless of the consequences. Who wants me to get to that project…just…later, because the deadline is still days/weeks away and what’s another night out anyway, right? You have the cash now, you can afford it. It’s just money, you can make more, right? Who is cool with me crashing on his couch when I know I should just go home, because hey man, he understands what it’s like to have a nagging girlfriend. He even had one too, once. Who has all the cool stuff. Has the great view. The connections. The cool job that seems unrealistically high paying with respect to the amount of work he seems to do. When work needs done, the devil on my shoulder will remind me that I’m so intelligent that I don’t have to worry about working on it until just before it’s due. He’ll remind me that I can still get to (insert personal goal here) in time, but I don’t have to start working on it now because there’s something more fun to do now. And it all makes so much sense. It’s really only about one thing though. It’s not about the times, or the drinks, or the late nights. It’s because I would get to get high again. Not from drugs in the traditional sense. It’s my drug of choice, approval.

The rush of a new face, a new opinion, a new connection, is the most powerful drug I’ve ever been in contact with. It was so powerful that it made me resent my talents. It made it so easy to forget who I was because I was so busy looking for the next fix. Vanity. It was my addiction. It IS my addiction. The need for connections. It completely shrouded the underlying issues going on in my life. Obligations piling up because I set them aside for the next opportunity to meet, network, bullshit, whatever. I was oblivious to the real problem because I couldn’t identify the root cause, or maybe I was just in denial of it. One scene from one movie made it obvious to me what was going on. How crazy is that?

So, problem identified. Now what, right? I took a long look at the way I was doing things. I was chasing too much. I was trying to force the cards in my hand to change by showing my hand to the dealer and asking why he made me pick them up. For some reason, after having watched this movie so many times, this time in particular made everything click. I picked up those cards. If it were a game of 5 card draw, I threw away four-of-a-kind because I was hoping to draw a Royal Flush. I threw it away because of “advice” I received from someone that wasn’t even in the game. And like Lomax, the ultimate moment of truth came in realizing that what I had would have done just fine. I didn’t need to chase anymore. I don’t need to chase anymore.

I think this vanity thing is about never being able to be comfortable in your own skin. To never accept who you are, because you’re always trying to reinvent yourself to meet the approval of people. That’s hard work. It’s exhausting work to be in a constant state of want. But, it’s kind of like a sack of bricks. All you gotta do, is let it go. Have I done that completely? Probably not. At least I know what the cause is though. That makes it easier to handle.

No clever saying at the end today. It’s the beginning.

Hi, my name is Chris. I’m addicted to your opinion of me. And I am 11 hours sober.

 

 

Never forget what it’s like to be hungry. Keeping the edge while searching.

While on this job search of mine, I have come across myriad positions offered for salesmen. They sometimes position the job as an “account executive”, but when you read through the description and the requirements for the position, it becomes obvious what the employer is searching for. My knee-jerk reaction to these postings has gone from “why not just tell the truth about what you’re looking for, guys?”, to simply “why?” Why is it that people, so desperately looking for qualified salespeople, choose to be so indirect about their need?

If I had to guess, I’d wager that the reason for this is because of a very simple truth in business. No one, I don’t care who it is, likes salespeople. I suppose that the over-arching truth to that is that no one likes the sleazy sales guy. I know most of us have dealt with this guy at least once in our lives, but I’ll give a few of the sleazy sales guy’s greatest hits.

He won’t listen to your needs.

If he does listen, it’s because he has a set of sales lyrics that he’s recited 1000 times before and he’s just waiting for his turn to talk.

He most likely won’t be concerned about making the right recommendation, because that means he may have to adjust his expected commissions to propose the right program for the client.

The list goes on, and I’m sure I forgot some of the most frequent complaints of the “sales guy”. Unfortunately, consultants get thrown into the same category as salespeople, and no matter their plans, recommendations, or proposals; they are treated the same way, if not worse, than the salespeople. So, it’s not surprising, when you stack it all up, that companies must position their sales opportunities as something more palatable. This could also explain why there are so few truly good salespeople out there.

One thing that I think everyone who is in sales has got to have, regardless if you’re selling screwdrivers or SEO, is hunger. They have to be hungry. They have to stay hungry. They have to have the right kind of hunger though. That right kind of hunger, in my opinion, is what will perpetuate an employee from being on the team for a short time and being with the team indefinitely.

So what is “the right kind of hunger”? Of course, this is only my opinion on the matter, and could be completely different from your definition, but I would like to think that mine is a reasonably good definition.

In my opinion it is the hunger that you feel when you are faced with a situation, personally or professionally, that forces you to adapt. It’s the hunger that keeps you pushing forward, despite the chagrin and dissuading of others. It’s the hunger that makes you uncomfortable. All of these things make up that kind of hunger that keeps a sales professional moving. Keeps them getting up before everyone else. Keeps them upbeat and energetic, even after 100 straight “no’s”.

It’s the hunger that kept a young single dad fighting to get out of his current station in life. Living in a leaky basement with a 6 month old little boy. Hearing gunshots at night. Driving over an hour to work every day to a job that he hated just so that little boy would have everything he needed. Continuing to push himself to learn the best practices of marketing, stay on top of current trends, continue to refine his process, and never give up.

Fast forward 4 years, and I’m back in a similar situation, minus the living conditions. And now, more than ever, that hunger is back. Positions and opportunities that I would have normally turned down are now back on the table. Not because I have no other options, but because out of a necessity to provide for my son and I. My processes continue to refine, my knowledge  base continues to grow, and I continue to fight for what I want, despite the words of others who continue to tell me no.

I also maintain what is written in the book “Good to Great” as the Stockdale Paradox. To paraphrase, the Stockdale Paradox is the ability to look at and accept the most dire of situations, and maintain an unwavering belief that you CAN and WILL prevail. Every sales professional needs that as well. Let’s be honest, it’s not easy to look at the market day in and day out, know that there will be many many more people saying no than yes, and yet still remain unabashedly optimistic. However, that is what I believe to be the most important for a sales professional to have. It’s that attitude that wakes the individual up earlier, with conviction, and excited for the opportunity to turn those no’s into yes’s.

Do you have a hungry sales staff? Are you losing your hunger yourself? If you are losing it, just keep in mind that there is someone like me who is still looking for the position you now enjoy. And, while I appreciate your situation and we probably have a lot in common with each other, and maybe our lives have even been somewhat comparable, I don’t have any problem taking an open opportunity for me to make my life and the life of my son better.

Because I’m not hungry anymore. I was hungry in October when I first lost my job. I was hungry in December when Christmas came around and I wasn’t able to get my son the presents that I was planning to get him. I was hungry when I was paying my bills ahead, in anticipation of a slow job market. I was hungry then. Now, I’m starving.

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.

Life moves pretty fast…

Anyone who has grown up remembering the 80’s, at least the latter part of it, will remember this quote. “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” One of most people’s favorite 80’s movies was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (unless it was the Breakfast Club, or 16 Candles, or…), and in that movie I think a lot of people saw a person they wish they would have been. Even now, at 32, I look at this high school kid and I think to myself “wow, this would have been one helluva life.” Of course, that isn’t really the way life goes. First of all, who would have believed that Sloan’s dad would come to pick her up in a 1961 250GT California? Seriously, let’s be honest, he would have come to pick her up in a Ford LTD. I mean, the man was a fireman. What would he possibly want with a Ferrari that rare? And while we’re on that subject, what was Rooney thinking when he was watching Mr. Peterson give a 5-7second frenchy to his daughter in full view of anyone within eye-shot? But I digress, this isn’t what this post is about.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know what follows after they pick up the car, and the girl. Which, brings me to my point; you’ve gotta live a little in order to truly enjoy what small amount of time you have on this earth, and to do that, you have to take some risks.

Does that mean that you need to ditch your responsibilities by any means necessary, take over a parade, crash a power lunch and generally do everything that a normal person could never do? Of course not. But, what’s the point of life anyway if you can’t have a little fun? Tyler Durden told us that he didn’t want “to die without any scars.” There’s the classic quote about sliding into the grave with a drink in one hand and having a body that’s been used to it’s limit, or something to that effect. Go on Pinterest and there are myriad different quotes on people’s quote boards about risk-taking and coloring outside the lines and so on. Why then, if we always put these messages and images and movie scenes in front of us, is it so hard for us to actually DO those things?

Because we get older.

Because we get wiser.

Because we believe it when people say “You’re too old to do this, or that, or whatever, anymore.”

Is it advisable for a 32 year old man to stay out until 4am on a Tuesday, partying and drinking the night away? Not at all, unless your job happens to be to live like this guy. If that’s the case, then by all means, like my buddy Randy says “You got it? Ball out!” Sure, our risks take different forms as we get older and more mature, but that doesn’t mean that they should be avoided by any stretch of the imagination.

Don’t work jobs you hate.

Don’t accept bad treatment from toxic people.

Avoid doing something just because someone tries to guilt-trip you into it.

Follow your heart, no matter what anyone else says, thinks, feels, or opines.

Give into the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your choices made today will work out better for you than what anyone’s wildest dreams for you are.

There are plenty of other words of advice I could give you, but the important thing is that you find your own. You have to find your own path. And, as I said in my last post; right or wrong, you have to be willing to live with the consequences. This is true in love, life, and business. Don’t get so caught up in making plans that you miss your life. You’ll miss one helluva show if you do.

Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop to look around once in while, you could miss it.

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.

When all the world’s telling you you’re wrong, you’ve gotta be right.

There are times in everyone’s lives where we feel like the decisions we make aren’t exactly the best ones, but they FEEL right. They just make sense inside of us, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else. And we have all heard the familiar criticisms about our perceived bad choices, haven’t we?

“I just don’t think this is the right thing to do.”

“I like (insert person’s name), I just don’t like him/her for you.”

“I don’t think you’ll be as satisfied if you settle for (job opportunity X).”

“There’s just not a lot of room to grow at (company Y).”

And so on, and so on, and so on.

In my personal journey though life, those closest to me have always been frustrated with me. They’ve always said, “If we had only told you the exact opposite of what we wanted or thought you should do, you’d have done it, because all you ever did was the exact opposite of what we said.” All joking aside, it used to really bother me that people thought that way about me. Did they really think I was that disrespectful? Did they really not understand that I listened? Did they really not know how much their counsel meant to me?

Turns out that they didn’t, or at least I did a bad job of showing or communicating how much it meant to me. I would listen, but I always made my own decision based off of all the information I had received. I felt like I had a wealth of knowledge and experience behind me, and that helped me to accept the consequences of my decisions, good or bad.

I promise there’s a point here. There are going to be a lot of times when it seems like everyone in the free world is telling you that you’re making the wrong decision. That you’re not taking your time to decide. That you’re just clouded by emotions or desperation, or false motivations. It’s going to seem like you’re all alone in your convictions. Like you’ve drawn a line in the sand between you and everyone you care about. When this happens, fight harder.

It’s in these moments where you will find your true strength. You’ll find out just how hard you can fight. Just how hungry you really are. Just how far you’re willing to go in order to stand up for what you personally believe in. And, when the smoke has cleared and everyone has seen you stand up and fight, they will respect you. Or they will wither away, either way, you’ll find yourself in a better place because of your dedication.

If the entire world tells you that you’re wrong, then you have to be right. And if you’re not, so what? So you took a shot and missed; hey, at least you took the shot and didn’t cower away from the moment. You take the shot, you roll the dice, sometimes you come up big, and sometimes you crap out. You don’t take it, you don’t roll the dice; then you just get to live with the curiosity of what would have happened if you had just stepped out of that comfortable bubble for a moment. Sometimes, that feeling just lasts for a few days, and then you see that you ultimately made the right choice anyway because a better option comes along. But other times, you have to live with that decision for much longer, sometimes for the rest of your life. Is it really worth that kind of insecurity and regret, just to say that you didn’t rock the boat? That you colored inside the lines. That you didn’t have to worry about being hurt. Maybe you can say that, and you can be happy because of it. But, if you’re like me, that just doesn’t work. Right or wrong, you have to take that shot. You have to roll those dice. You have to rock the boat, color outside the lines, take the risk of being hurt. If that’s you, then keep it up. Don’t give up that demeanor. It may not always work out, but it will save you from being able to say you always played it safe.

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.

For love of the game, or love of the paycheck. Which side are you on?

I was lucky enough to meet with two of my former bosses in the last month. My first meeting was with Shannon from Catalyst Marketing Design, an advertising agency downtown here in Fort Wayne. Shannon is an amazing woman and a terrific leader. It was such a pleasure working for the Catalyst Team, and Shannon was an especially cool manager to work for. She told me from the beginning that she was a “velvet hammer”, which pretty aptly sums up her leadership style. Allow your freedom, but knows how to come down when things get out of focus. She gave me some great advice (as usual), and suggested a few things that I try to stay involved and stay busy. It was a real treat to be able to meet with her, and although it didn’t lead to a job possibility, I was able to communicate to her my interest in rejoining the team, should that opportunity ever arise.

Richard was my most recent meeting. Like Shannon, I had the pleasure of working under his leadership at Catalyst Marketing Design. Also, like Shannon, I considered him a great leader in his particular area of expertise, branding. As one of a select few of certified Brand Strategists, he was able to talk to me about things which other businesspeople may not have quite the same amount of expertise on. Since he and Catalyst went their separate ways a few years back, Richard has since began his own brand consulting agency. If you are a business owner looking for an incredible brand strategist who uses a great brand assessment, discovery, activation, and monitoring process, then they could potentially be a great fit for you! However, it wasn’t his current agency that was the most impactful portion of our conversation. It was one question.

“When were you faced with a situation where you had to decide between a love for your job and the process, and a love for your paycheck?”

That hit me like a ton of bricks really. I have been very adamant in my stance against serving your back pocket more than your clients, but there’s rarely a good time to really look back at those instances. Richard urged me to really look at those situations, and think about how important that decision can be. So, I’d like to share a case study with you, in hopes that, if any of you out there have ever been in a similar situation; you can have some reassurance that you are not alone in the struggle.

Client X had a problem. They were losing client share due to a number of factors. Proximity of their offices in relation to where the demand was. A poorly put together SEO/SEM strategy (I suppose you could really call it “no strategy”, really) had been hurting their organic and paid results, and in the area which they were targeting, it was especially damaging due to traffic. Their brand message was outdated, in other words, what they were saying to their customers about what they did was not aligned with their improved capabilities. Finally, there was a budget issue they were faced with. They had invested a great deal of money in some new equipment that was going to really help streamline their processes.

I suppose there are many people out there who would look at the situation and immediately go into “marketing is an investment, and you get out what you put in” style of sales pitch. You know the one, where you promise to build a robust program that will deliver the desired clients to create the ROI somewhere around 205%, or something like that. Of course, what we aren’t telling our client is that we’re asking them to increase their marketing budget by almost 60%, which will draw other areas of the budget into a lean state. But, I get it, the idea here is that because of their improved organic, paid, and branding positions, their increased presence will get a bigger slice of the 7,500 buying-decision making crowd for their specific vertical. Demographic stat “N”, ROI increase percentage “T”, buzzword, jargon, tech-speak. Before you know it, the client has too much information to really know what to with, but they are seeing a massive return potential, and they buy.

The unfortunate truth in this, is that the organic improvements wouldn’t be fully realized for 6-9 months, the branding message required dropping information that the company has been keeping in their motto since they opened in 19-whatever, and the budget for the paid search was inflated due to a national competitor dumping money into the best broad match terms, making the allocation of the budget nearly obsolete if you didn’t try to compete with the big boys. I knew this, and I had a very pragmatic decision to make.

Do I go for the big sale? Or do I build the client’s trust? Go for the big sale, and you risk losing that most precious commodity of a salesman, trust. When the organic results have gone on into month 3 without any real improvement, when the broad matches still put the company on the lower half of the paid results, when the branding message goes against what the owner had in mind (because you removed the words he carved into the first stones of the building he built), that client will roll over on you in a heartbeat. “What am I paying for?” “What kind of refund are you going to give me?” and the most dreaded four words in a salesman’s existence, “I WANT TO CANCEL.” can be counted on if the big sale is your gain and you can’t deliver. In larger markets, that’s not as much of a risk to those willing to take it. In smaller markets, like the one I live in, it’s a big gamble.

Build the client’s trust, and you may not survive long enough in the company to see their ultimate potential realized. When you’re job is less like a consultant, and more like a peddler, there isn’t much time to build relationships with your clients. You’re not able to take them through a full discovery process. You’re not able to dedicate the kind of time required to make a business owner feel comfortable enough with you to hand over a 5-figure budget increase. They don’t know you, unless you’re lucky enough to have a prior relationship to the business owner before you arrive at his door as the marketing consultant. They have heard all of your lingo, jargon, and tech-speak before; most often times by someone within your own company. Their guard is already high enough as it is. Why add to that by coming at them with an unreasonable increase because of corporate expectation?

I can hear a lot of my friends now, looking at that question, and answering plainly and quickly “Because you want to keep your job.”, and that’s understandable to a degree. One should definitely strive for job security, but, at what cost? It’s not a popular stance to take, and frankly one that makes me look less desirable to sales-dependent positions. However, I firmly believe that, given 15 clients with high buy-in to the plan and process, high trust in your recommendations, and high desire to truly stick with the plan; over the long haul, the marketing consultant who controls that client roster will be more successful than his salesman counterpart who controls 35 clients and only dedicates 1-2 days per year to servicing the clients.

Coming back to my case study, I decided against going for the love of the paycheck, and informed them that their best strategy was to build from the ground up. I scaled back the proposed budgets in congruency to the market size. I chose to focus the paid search terms away from the broad match and put more emphasis on exact match, because of the longevity of the brand. I also recommended less aggressive brand message changes, also in light of the longevity of the brand. Instead, I focused the copy of the website to the improved equipment and how it positioned them as the efficient choice among the competition.

The client agreed to my proposed budget. The company did not. However, I gained something that the company couldn’t put on a compensation report. I gained the client’s trust. They saw that I was dedicated to the client’s goals and overall success. They understood that I was more concerned with the success of their plans, than the thickness of my wallet. They believed in my approach and process, and time and time again would thank me for not being “one of those other guys”. That is a very satisfying feeling, to know that what you’ve done not only accomplishes all that the client has requested, but that they will ultimately come back for more when they have seen the results I could provide.

For a bit more on this subject, I have posted this video which will help you understand why it’s preferred to be a consultant, not a salesman.

Has this scenario come up for you? Have you been forced with this decision? What did you do? More importantly, do you agree with, or disagree with my decision? We as consultants are called to be there for our clients in order to provide the best plan, but we are often faced with a tough decision: for the love of the game, or love of the paycheck. Which side are you on?

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.

Finding your ambition again.

I finally caved. I finally gave in to temptation. I finally started to write another blog post.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to blog while unemployed?” I recently asked a friend of mine via text message, while laying on my bed, in my sweatpants, with my completely neglected weight bench just sitting there mocking me.

“Why? Not lack of time…or lack of a functional brain?” I’m not 100% sure what the message meant, but I got the gist of it.

“Ambition..” was my reply.

She was not impressed. And I got scolded. It’s that kind of refreshingly brutal honesty that I appreciate my friendship with this person so much. Even though she referred to my hand as a “banana hand” (I have large hands, but that doesn’t mean we all get to celebrate it, ok?). But, there’s a point here. If that’s really the case, if I really have given up on my ambition, then there are some serious issues that need addressed.

What is it that I’m really doing? Why do I even have a blog that is centered around my self improvement? My drive. My desire to help others who are in need of a motivational boost. Most importantly, what do I need to go to get back to that point where I didn’t have to worry about lack of drive?

“You need to revisit your list.”

So I did. I looked at the things I wrote about such a short time ago, and I had a very real assessment with myself. Sure, I was fulfilling some of the items. I am proud of that, and I think it’s great that I’m doing some things according to plan. However, I am not fulfilling other parts, and that’s what concerns me. It was easy to slack off though. To relax. To rationalize. But all that ain’t gonna pay the bills. It isn’t going to continue to push me. It’s not going to keep me focused and motivated.

There are countless motivational speeches, movie clips, rah-rah speeches, and other forms of motivational blah blah that’s out there that I could start rattling off. The Rocky speech. The Knute Rockne. Speech X, Y, Z, and all the rest. Instead, I think I’m going to take a page out of another friend of mine’s book.

I think that it was something that I unconsciously avoided since I first saw it. Self-assessing exercises have always been a problem for me, since I often have a hard time finding the pros amidst all the self-imposed cons in my life. I didn’t do this right. I said that wrong. I didn’t take opportunity X. I passed up on connection Y. I could have. I should have. I would have. And so the cycle continues. Resolutions are much like the previously mentioned exercises. They force us to look at ourselves critically. To change things that we don’t like about ourselves after we have shined a big bright light on those things. Ultimately, most of them get broken, and if you’re a consistent gym-goer, you see that happen fairly quickly after the New Year. But, what if we condensed all of those resolutions down? What if we made it all as simple as, say, a single word? Now that takes some doing.

How do you put everything you want to accomplish, improve upon, and change over the course of an entire year, into a single word? How would you? I will admit that it took me quite a while to break it down from a set of resolutions, to a sentence, then finally to a word that sums up what I want 2015 to be like. But, I have found it.

Courage.

Of all the things that I want to accomplish this year. Of all the ways in which I want to change. Of all the things about me that I want to improve, courage is involved with all of it. Courage to accomplish what I have set out to accomplish. Courage to help me change the things about me that I need to change and want to change. Courage to improve myself in ways that may not be popular, or at least seem that way. Courage to speak up when I have something to say. Courage to do the things that I know I must do, but may not like doing. Courage.

What will your word be? Will you be able to condense it all down? How difficult will it be to keep your word in mind, 2 weeks, 2 months, 10 months from now? I encourage you, dear reader, to not give up on your word. To not forget that there are real promises at stake when you consider going back on your word. That to whom you promise these changes and improvements and accomplishments is just as important as what it is that you promise. Keep on pushing, and keep on reaching.

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.

Not out of the woods just yet…

I think Jay-Z said it best in his song “A Week Ago”, it’s funny what 7 days can change. The amount of time, I think, is irrelevant; but, the over-arching message is not. Sometimes in life, it’s funny what a little time will do to you. To someone else. To everyone. It’s funny sometimes to look back on some of the failed relationships, friendships, and whatever-ships I’ve have over the years and look back at just what exactly it was that lead to each of their demises. I feel like “demises” shouldn’t be a word, but if the all-knowing spellcheck doesn’t pick it up as an error, I guess it’s best to not question it and move ahead. That being said, it’s time to take a little look and see how things are stacking up with my list lately. I decided to give it a few weeks. One of the things I learned in my schooling adventures is that it takes 21 days to establish a habit, so updating things after a week just didn’t seem to make sense.

So far I have kept pretty well to my list. I’ve started eating better, working out, and taking better care of myself. I’ve lost weight (which is read as body fat), I have more energy, and I feel better throughout the day. I have taken more responsibility for my job search, and although I am still not in a new position, I feel like I have been doing the right things to get myself ready for when the opportunities do start to present themselves.

I have done a pretty good job at removing toxic relationships, rapacious friends, and otherwise negative vibes from my life, instead filling it with positive people and experiences.

This dinner was great, and my friends were awesome, but first…

I have started looking into better educating myself. I plan to get a meeting set up with an advisor to see what my options are for continuing my education. And, so long as it won’t cost me me first born son, I still plan to going back to school.

The only issue I have is…I don’t want to do one thing. I want to do EVERYTHING.

I want to study Chemistry (my true first love), Physics (because I still believe that I can shoot a water balloon from my old apartment roof to the rooftop at Asher Agency here in Fort Wayne), Anatomy/Physiology (because it’s easy), Math/Business (because it’s hard), Marketing (because I’m passionate about it), Entrepreneurship (because I still think Flow is an incredible idea that could make me set up for life), and a whole slew of other things.

A terrible realization came over me the other day while I was sort of lamenting over my situation: I am now 32 years old and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a Chemist, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Creative Director, a Club Owner, and the real bitch of it is; I could do it, any of it, all of it.

The little boy here with me is about the only thing I can definitely say is a constant for me. Above all else, I know that I want to be a good father.

He demanded to help with the eggs. Who am I not to oblige?

But, what else? There has got to be something more out there that will be the thing that defines me for the years to come. As one of my old bosses told me once, “Ya know, when you are growing up, and you have all of your years ahead of you; you tend to look around and just say “Oh, I’ll get to that when I feel like it.” But, I’m here to tell ya, once you get to about 30-35, when you start to see that you have more years behind you than what you have left, you start to really think about those things you put off. Because you may not be able to get around to those things later. You start to take better care of yourself because you start seeing that the odds are not in your favor,  and that time is not really on your side.”

For the longest time, I always looked at that and thought, “Nah, that guy’s just full of shit.” It never really dawned on me that those days come up on your a lot quicker than you know, until I became a father. Because no matter what you do, no matter who you meet or where you go; that little boy of mine is going to keep getting older, and more mature, and wiser, and most importantly more independent.

So, back to the point, now what? I still am passionate about my possible move into the marketing world in a more formal sense than being a glorified door-to-door salesman. I am still looking forward to the first quarter having tremendous possibilities for me that are along with my long-standing career goals. The only difference is that now, I feel like it’d be ok to have a few extra hobbies on the side. Yes, I called learning Chemistry and Physics and A&P, etc. “hobbies”. But, those things interest me. And besides, wouldn’t you like to know how to make napalm, or launch water balloons from a city block away and hit the target, and be able to diagnose your son or daughter’s ailments better than your doctor can? Yeah, I kind of thought you might. In the end, all it takes is the will to do what the other guy won’t. It’s funny what 7 days can change. What will it change in you?

Here’s one more picture of my baby boy, for good measure, because he began his love affair with basketball officially last night.

GO MAD ANTS!!

He got to high five all of the players last night as they were leaving the court. I like to think of that as the quickening in the Highlander world. The game has been transferred to Maksim, and he was livid when we had to leave the court. Looks like I may have a gym rat on my hands after all. I’d be ok with that, as long as he doesn’t give up what he wants for what he thinks someone else needs. Time will tell. I hope to tell of his time.

Until next time; keep ambition in your heart, logic in your mind, and allow yourself to continue the pursuit.