Who do you admire?
For me one of the great joys in life is to watch great athletes perform. Sure, it could be sports, like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. But there’s a lot of other sports.
Maybe it’s watching Eddie Van Halen sit on the edge of the stage with his guitar and spin off those magical riffs. Maybe it’s Newton or Einstein. An artist like Banksy. Or Whitney Houston belting out a note that seems to last forever. Maybe it’s Coltrane – not merely playing his sax, but possessing it.
In business it could be Richard Branson or Seth Godin or Jay Abraham, or someone else whose video you watched just yesterday. You sit there and shake your head as they perform and you wonder, “How does he DO that???”
Admiring great performers is a double edged sword. They inspire you at the concert, but when you’re home alone in your basement practicing your guitar, Eddie Van Halen only seems like he was created to mock you. “Listen to me and my pathetic chords, how am I ever going to amount to anything?”
Listen up:
Star performers are never to be the mold you shove yourself into. They’re the anvil you use to pound the slag off your own performance, so that you can eventually be the best YOU, not the best THEM.
Star performers aren’t a standard you have to live up to, they’re a GIFT. They’re lights dotting the landscape, but they can’t illuminate the patch of real estate that you stand on. Only you can.
You are seeing them at their best, exercising the gift they’ve perfected. You don’t see how ordinary they are at everything else they do in their life.
They’re not there to see how extraordinary you are at what you do.
Later this morning I have a group of people arriving for a 4-Man Intensive. Each one of them is in the process of becoming great at *something*. I gave them all questionnaires to fill out and I greatly enjoyed reading them last night.
As I’ve matured as a business coach I’ve become more and more focused on the individual that I’m coaching, and less focused on the specific snapshot of their business. Their business could change at any moment, but the essential greatness of the individual is always there, waiting to be discovered.
If 2 years from now you’ve added a few zeros to your net worth and slammed the ball out of the park, you will still be basically the same person you are today. The difference will be, you found a way to harness the greatness you already had, a way that was suddenly new to you.
When you do that, you’ll find that even other superstars suddenly look at you and wonder “how you do it.”
Want proof?
Planet Perry member Finn Peacock sent in this true story:
One of the biggest Rock Gods in Australia is a singer called Peter Garrett. An amazing performer whom I and millions of other Australians have admired for years.
A couple of weeks ago Peter Garrett sent me an email, saying he had just used my website – and he ‘really admired what I was doing’ (and personally invited me to his stadium show in my hometown later this year).
Thanks Perry! I’ve been with Planet Perry since 2006, and you’re is responsible for me starting the business that Peter Garrett admires.
Finn Peacock
See? It’s doesn’t seem extraordinary to you. But it is to them.
What “ordinary” thing do you possess that’s really extraordinary?
Answer that question and adding zeros to your income might not be as impossible as it seems.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
80 Comments on “Torture vs. Inspiration”
Who are your mentors Perry? Who do you admire in your field of work?
Trev
Richard Koch, Dan Kennedy, Ken McCarthy, John Carlton, Gary Bencivenga, Vilfredo Pareto, James A. Shapiro, Sam Carpenter, Paul Zane Pilzer, Dan Sullivan, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Andy Mason.
Hey Perry. I get Great encouragement from you in my email box. I ordered soo many free newsletters from you I’ll need to take a year break to read em all.
God bless you.
My ordinary thing: I play harmonica.
Make sure you take time to play that thing at least once a week.
Hi Perry,
I think the skill that has to be mastered with identifying what it is that WE do uniquely well is NOT comparing ourselves to anybody.
Sure, aspiring to a level of skill or success or whatever can help drive you as long as you’re not using any one person as your yardstick.
Jeff
Great article! As a guitar player myself, I totally got the Eddie VH reference. For me, it was another Dutchman, Jan Ackerman, the guitar player for Focus. Seeing him live, I almost quit playing. I have had a lot of self-created delays in the launch of my new business unit and I realized over the course of December that it was because I was trying to be other people instead of who I am at the core. Very apropos article. Thank you.
I just want to take this opportunity to thank you and tell you two things:
First, Brian Kurtz says “Hello”.
Second, what imresses me about you most is the fact that you combine brilliance with ambition, industry, and constancy – the four requirements of success.
But much more important than that, you seem to understand that after everything is said and done, goodness is the only thing that counts.
When goodness is the parameter, size loses its meaning. Being small or big – having a lot or having nothing – being smart or as dumb as a box full of rocks – all lose relevance. They are the descriptions of who you are, the canvass upin which you paint your journey.
In fact, doing good is fusing the temporary physical extsitance with spiritual value, turning the anecdotal into a parable and making it etenal.
It’s WAY cool.
Be good.
Right on with those comments. Thank you.
it is rare for a marketing email to stop and make me think.
>What “ordinary” thing do you possess that’s really extraordinary?
I’m going to noodlefist this question today. I have harnessed some greatness already- the question is what is next….
Perry,
I very much enjoy and value your work. Your words ring out to me through the mass noise of the marketplace. I’m able to follow what you are talking about. Currently I”m drilling the 80/20 Sales and Marketing stuff into my heart and mind and it has made a difference in the way I approach my daily tasks.
As to my strengths I’ve always thought I was a decent writer and wanted to pursue it further someday. Working in network marketing (I’m new to it) seems to be a good way to get to write. Now I can see that there’s a discipline to writing that I have to have to get better.
I’m also a very good teacher and so that’s a strength of mine.
So, my ordinary ability to connect with people at a level where I work with them may be my extraordinary capability.
SMH at how you can write these emails so well so often.
Kelly
Really true and an inspiring article. Always admire Perry’s wisdom.
I have always wanted to thank you via your blogs but been putting it off for a long time. I knew about you firstly through your coffeehouse theology mailings (which I notice you have stopped :'(…) and then I followed your name up and discovered that you are this “adwords guru”! Wow!
I am a marketer myself (MLM) and am very committed to my work. I also try to learn how to write better, becoming a great wordsmith in the process – like you!
Let me say that you have inspired and built me in more ways than you will ever know and when – and i repeat – when i am a six figure dollar income earner, you bet you are one of the few I am going to personally register to attend one of your super meetings!
Meantime, God bless and keep us all inspired through your amazing writing!
Reverend,
Thank you for your comments. The Coffeehouse project has been on the back burner but will get reactivated soon. Great to hear from you.
Perry
Hello.
although I have difficulty with the language quite understand what you say and my opinion is that the habit makes perfect.
I really like your blog, Greetings from Spain.
Greetings!
Perry,
You’re email’s are da-bomb. Logic, emotion and just plain down to earth good common sense. This last one is one of the best pieces I’ve ever read – teaching people to look for, find and nurture the greatness within themselves is something that is pure gold.
Muchas gracias
Thank you sir. Great to have you along for the ride.
Cleaning out old emails – just came across this post that I missed. Man, Perry, YOU are good at what you do! You have inspired me and encouraged me so many times. It really helps to keep on going.
You know I never wanted to read biographies because “they” were always so great and “I” was so far short of them. Now I will read them and see it all differently.
You are an excellent coach and a great inspiration to people in general.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you are quoted by teachers, coaches, mental health professionals, authors and many others -both now and long after you have left the planet.
Thank you one more time for great insight into the business of living and becoming more. :-)
Nancy Nottingham
Thanks for your kind words, glad this touched you.
That was a great article Perry!
I lurk mostly, and just read your articles w/o posting very much.
Great video Michael Arnold.
Gerald
I would have liked to get this final answer into the thread above, but there was no reply link any more – smart strategy :-). But I have to thank you for your last answer. If I ever get people to pay me 10X for anything, it’s because you drove those 2 issues home for me finally: From now on I talk about “peers” when it’s about business and about “friends” when I “hang out”. And I am sure I can come up with a way to make my “ordinary coffee beans” extraordinary :-). Big Thank you from (almost) the other end of the world.
Hey Perry,
Thank you for another inspirational post! You are the Bruce Springsteen of the marketing world. Not only do you rock, you do it with great humility and humanity.
i just saw this video of Cesar Milan the dog whisperer. He talks about how he was bullied and called “the dirty dog boy” when he was a kid. Great example of a unique ability that everyone else saw as a weakness. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31L_SKxgs5U
Michael Arnold
Thanks for your kind words. Glad to have you on board. Great video!
Hi Perry, I’ve read your newsletters for more than 5 years. I like what you say, the way you say it and I agree with your viewpoints. I really admire you.
There’s been some remarkable posts since I’ve been following you, but this one has made me feel that writing you back is the very least thing I can do to let you know you hit the nail in the head for me (and many more, according to all the comments people have sent) and you just touched that sweet spot in my soul. The concept isn’t new to me, since I’ve seen it on others, yet I still have no clear idea of what is what I do that is extraordinary to others.
I’d like to add to your post that whatever that is which is extraordinary to others but completely invisible to you, is that when you mention it to someone, they totally underestimate it, since it’s for them so common and requires no effort for them to produce it, they don’t value it. So, for me this is the approach I’ve been taking my self to find my own gold mine, sadly with not much success.
Anyway, I like the suggestion you gave to someone about asking 10 friends who know you well, what is that they find unique in me? I guess that’s a really good starting point.
I think you’re one of the few people who are actually serving your own generation in this world and I’m sure many more still in your lifetime and in generations to come, will benefit from your work.
Thanks Perry!
Thanks for your kind words. Be well.
Such wisdom here! Being copied is a great form of flattery. But inspiring someone to be their own best entrepreneur/coach/marketer is far more fulfilling. Thanks, Perry.
Dang, Eleanor beat me to it. This whole post was great, but this part is true mastery so I’m going to acknowledge it again real quick:
———-
“Star performers aren’t a standard you have to live up to, they’re a GIFT. They’re lights dotting the landscape, but they can’t illuminate the patch of real estate that you stand on. Only you can.”
———-
You write beautifully. Consistently coming up with words and stories and analogies like this one above, that have such a deep impact and take understanding to the next level…is just amazing.
Thank you for all you do.
Scott
I think looking for our “gift” can for most of us be futile. I’m not sure there is such a thing… unless it’s persistence. In the book Outliars, Gladwell points out the the greatness, success, etc. comes simply from practice. If you want to play like Van Halen, practice 5-7 hours a day for 5-6 years. Remember, it’s not a crime to take a job or open a business that isn’t your passion. Just focus on it, and be persistent… don’t give up. What if the local dairy announced a job opening to shovel out the stables for $100,000 a year, the line of job applicants would be a mile long… wouldn’t it?
Not sure where I got this, it could have been from Perry. Regardless, it rings so true:
“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need. — Jerry Gillies”
Take a look at your recent days. Where did all of your effort go? What made you stay up late at night, because you just couldn’t put it down? Did you do something during working hours that you should have saved for after hours? Whatever consumes you is most likely your own path.
Bart
Hi Perry
Though you write so well always, this could be one of your best post I’ve read.
You make me feel like I am writing my first memo when I attempt my own marketing.
Enjoy
Excellent post! From pink lemonade to the guitar play of Eddie Van Halen, you have a gift for capturing the essence of an idea and communicating it as few can.
Great stuff Perry!
The thing you’re best at is the thing you work hardest at. The things you work hardest at are the things you love doing. Van Halen loves music, so he put the hours in.
Very well done, Perry, as usual. I especially liked:
“They’re lights dotting the landscape, but they can’t illuminate the patch of real estate that you stand on. Only you can.”
Thanks very much.
Keep em comin Perry, great stuff.
Hey Perry;
I have been wantinyou for sometime & thank you for your uplifting insight. I aspire to be an online marketer. I am 56 yrs. I have worked for someone all my life & I have been passive the kind who gets everything told to him. I believe in my Savior Jesus the Christ & I will be a netpernuer. I am working thru “Psycho-Cybernetics” working out some kinks through prayer & the scriptures. I want to be not just in business but a blessing. Please pray for me.
Writing seems to be the field with the most discouragement and denial of inspiration. Yet the best pieces of writing generally come with reviews that say “it was inspired.” Thanks for being one of the few who insist upon inspiration. Because torture never makes one feel inspired.
Thanks for this wonderful post Perry.
You’ve put into words what I have on my mind & try to keep on my mind constantly. Yes personality and creative qualities, one is born with but one has to identify it, introduce themself to it or them, make them your eternal buddies, and grow with them as a team to multiply the business venture(s)
I just made that up, but I agree with you 150%
Thank you man.
I have discovered I like white paper and have about 10 to 12 of them done over the past 7 months & realize they could have been more. I just have to send them out and be a finisher & not just a starter. I follow your style in the writing , even though my industry is design & construction. But you’re an electrical engineer (a brother industry) and turned to marketing & made it a success.
I dream of zeros added to income all of the time, and I see the vision here.
Thanks Perry
Gerald
The old saw about the journey being it’s own reward is true. Someone can become “rich” by winning the lottery, but that doesn’t contribute to their evolution – in many cases it seems to have the opposite effect. It’s not what someone has achieved, it’s the story of how they got there – that’s where the inspiration is for me.
I really liked your article Perry it made me think I am motivated by people that have over come a traumatic injury. Or there is this one young man that Invented a helmet to prevent brain injuries in sports, I can relate to the folks that faced traumatic injury because. I have too. Even though we may have not found the calling, the people that make us admire them help by proving you can do it, no matter what.
Hi Perry,
Is there any course/book you can refer which can help discover my “essential greatness”?
Has it got anything to do with tests like Kolbe or stregthfinder?
Would appreciate if you can shed more light,
thanks,
-Chicken Coop Guru
Kolbe and SF are great places to start. And send the email to your friends, like I said in some other comments. Make this a major focus. Oh, and do the self evaluation at http://www.perrymarshall.com/1404/pink-koolaid/
Really great words to live by Perry. I do think it’s torture sometimes when I look at someone I admire and see how easy their gift comes. It’s also easy to not see the years and hours of practice, failure and torture they went through.
Wow Perry,
This was a truly good read. Thanks so much for this I thoroughly enjoyed it!
You are a very giving person, Perry. Thank you for articulating this. I know you don’t know me, but I needed to hear these very words.
Great post what I take from it is to try and do the ordinary well,…..now that’s achievable and something to work towards, many thanks.
Thanks Perry! I have been so caught up trying to be like the “Gurus” out there instead of focusing on creating my greatness!
Hello Perry,
Great post. It’s hard to accept but sometimes we are great doing something… and we do the opposite. Finding out (and facing) that extraordinary thing we have should be the first step
Hello, that was a really interesting read and a new way of looking at things. It has left me, however, with questions, because: how do I know what is extraordinary to others in me? Wouldn’t I need feedback from others to know that? Because stuff that feels ordinary to me is not really at the forefront of my attention. And then, I still have to find a way how to be paid for this ordinary side of me. It needs to be something that is marketable and I need to find a form how to market it and people who actually are prepared to pay me for it, right? At least now I know what to look for, thanks a lot.
You need to ask your friends what they see as your unique ability. Pick 10 people who know you well and send them an email. Ask them to go into some detail. The response may surprise and inspire you.
:-), I have heard that before and I hate to have this “but” all the time, but, I might have to get new friends first then. Did you really do that for finding your greatness? My friends would probably think I have gone crazy when I ask them about what they think is extraordinary in me, this is a very American way of dealing with this stuff? But :-), I “try” it, thanks for the advice. Just curious: isn’t there a way to make money by being ordinary? ;-)
I gained a lot of insight by doing this. You should too.
Some people do need to upgrade their friends. Your average income in 5 years will be very similar to your 5 closest friends.
There is no way to make extraordinary money by doing ordinary things in an ordinary way.
Thanks heaps for the encouragement :-). It feels scary to think about “upgrading friends”. Doesn’t that mean that I won’t have any friends for a while or did some of your friends upgrade with you in the process as well?
About this: “There is no way to make extraordinary money by doing ordinary things in an ordinary way.”
It was meant to be a joke, after all I thought I am looking for something that is ordinary for me but extraordinary for others. So there is “ordinary” and “extraordinary ordinary”, how do I tell those apart?
:-) Thanks for frying my brains…
Certainly some of my friends upgraded. I first met Yanik Silver (to name just one person) in 2000, back when we were both just very obscure guys going to seminars. You don’t have to give up your friends but you need to change who you consider to be your peers. I have all kinds of very “ordinary” friends and I love ’em to death but they’re just not part of my business world. They’re not in that category in my mind. I hang with them when I don’t want it to be about business.
Ordinary vs. Extraordinary: You can take anything, and think of a way to make it so people would spend 10X more for it. How? location, delivery, customization, service, personalization. Starbucks builds something extraordinary out of ordinary coffee beans.
you know you can craft your own unique ability right?
For me right now, one of them is dancing. I used to be horrible at dancing, but after half a year of consistently putting effort into it and just loving doing it as hard as I can, plus networking with promoters etc, i’m going to have a paid gig soon.
If you told me that a year ago, I would have laughed at you.
since years I read your newsletters. I have not enough time, but your newsletters had to be read always. And this latest one was a piece of diamant, a medicament for my soul! I couldn’t ad many zeros to my income but I can hope it anyway. I have to try it with more self confidence!
Thanks for giving me hope that I’ll achieve more!
Gabriella
Hey Perry – great article.
I’m very grateful for all the goodness you share with the world … i’m at infusioncon for the first time … using infusionsoft because of your recommendation. Learning so much directly and directly from you… thanks!
Hi Perry,
That’s a great message you have there. It’s not often I hear experts say things like this so thanks.
I look forward to more of these inspirational messages.
Best
ah yes! I’ve worked with people at that level for years and I call it the “quirkiness” thing. I’m writing a book with the working title: “Slay the Dragon and get the treasure”.
In it, I write that for most people who haven’t really got to the level they want to get at, they’re noticing what they DON’T have.
But the key to their success is the little thing they do that turns them into a real dragon slayer.
The thing is that what ever that little thing is, it’s invisible to them!! Get this:
* They do it effortlessly!
* It makes total sense to them (what ever it is) why they think EVERYONE knows what they know
* In the rough, you can’t cash it in.
They can’t see it so you can’t ask them to tell you. They literally don’t know and they’re actually a bit afraid of it. They want the success but it’s like a treasure they want but there is this dragon on top of it. How do you get rid of the dragon and all that’s left is the treasure?
I’ve found you gotta trick people slightly. Tell them that you’re going to put them to work for 9 months for about 12-16 hours every day. But they get choose what the work is. And what comes out of it. And “who they are” while they do it, they interaction with others etc etc. That pretty much nails it.
Finally, it’s always worth asking “at the end of the 9 months, you get paid. How much would you expect to get paid (NOT want to get paid) + how will you be paid? That tell you how much they think they’re worth and how they get business.
Totally cool stuff ;-)
@Erik Micheelsen: thanks a lot for the comment. That was exactly what I was wondering about, how do I find out what is extraordinary in me if it is completely ordinary = invisible to me? And also this is an issue: * In the rough, you can’t cash it in.
How do you solve that last part then? I mean, if you can’t cash it in, why bother finding out what it is?
The 4 Man Intensive I attended in October of 2011 was instrumental to the launch of MarketingAccelerator.com on May 1st this year (just a few weeks away). What Perry talks about in this blog post is EXACTLY what he did at the 4 MI and just what was needed. I’m looking forward to adding more zero’s to my income. Thanks Perry!
Oh Perry, Perry, Perry.
I do love your words.
Thanks
Dan
Funnily enough, I’ve had this question on my mind for quite some time.
I’m not sure I can answer it by thinking about it though.
There’re a lot of things I love doing, and discovering The Thing that I can be extraordinary at has so eluded me.
I’ve resolved that this discovery can only be made by DOING.
So whenever this question comes up in my head, I’ve decided to turn my focus back to whatever I’m doing Right Now – and just do that the best I can.
Like Perry (or someone) said – it’s easier to move a car in motion – and inspiration comes to those who get A into G and keep working.
Thanks Perry, as always…good stuff. When he was a teenager, Eddie van Halen would sit in his bedroom for many hours every night – even weekend nights – and play his guitar. He did this for years before the first Van Halen album. Everybody who has achieved that level of greatness has put in their 10,000 hours!
Awesome stuff! Great blog to wake up to!
Great Post Perry.
I needed that.