Yesterday at TED in California, I spoke with a Radiation Oncologist – a cancer doc. (Fun job, huh?) She told the story of her patient.
An older woman found out her cancer had spread to her brain. She was terminal. Not a question of whether, just a question of when.
She and her 62 year old husband hoped that she could make it long enough to celebrate their upcoming 38th anniversary.
The doctor found out she loved a certain violinist…
People ask me for all kinds of advice, and for the most part that advice consists of business models, Unique Selling Propositions, clicks, traffic, offers, opt-ins and shopping carts. You know the drill.
But I would not be doing my job if I didn’t add that beneath all the strategies and techniques is a foundation of common sense and wisdom that can only be classified as spiritual.
For example…
You’re in a steel mill. You’ve donned your hard hat, your goggles, your fireproof denim jacket and steel-toed shoes.
200 feet away is a blast furnace. The noise is deafening. Molten steel pours out of a ladle into a giant vat. Every time it does so, a horn sounds warning that lethal 2200 degree liquid pours overhead. Above the raucous din you hear the sound of men shouting and giant otherworldly vehicles rumbling by.
Just then, a woman approaches you.
What you’re about to hear makes me blush. But it’s worth sharing anyway.
Makes me blush for two reasons:
Gotta get some things off my chest about the state of the Internet Marketing biz, education, truth-telling and the massive paradigm shift we’re experiencing right now. And what it’s going to take for you to stay on top the next 1-5-10 years:
A long time ago, Tom Hoobyar and I were at a hotel and there was this motivational business rally going on. We peeked in the door of the hotel ballroom and people were standing on their chairs waving cigarette lighters in the air and cheering.
The music was pounding and everyone was having a great time.
I have a friend, Bob Muzikowski. He started the world’s first inner city little league in New York City.
You’ve probably never thought about it, but kids in the inner city don’t “do” little league. Their non-soccer-mom moms don’t have soccer mom vans and they have no money for baseball uniforms.
And since all the “men” are selling drugs on the street corner, there ain’t no coaches either. Nobody’s got a baseball mitt and baseball bats are used for gang banging, not baseballs. Sad state of affairs.
Bob, who was a reasonably well-to-do financial planner in the Big Apple, decided to do something about this.
Illinois threatened gov’t regulation of home school (BAD) and this is how home schoolers responded: They headed down to the capital in DROVES. This pic is the overflow. Affiliates must defend our turf the same way:
Google offered $6 billion and Groupon turned the offer down.
I know Brad Keywell, the founder of Groupon and I have good wishes for him. (Kudos to Brad for helping sponsor TEDx Chicago in September, by the way.) Furthermore if he desires to build his own multi-billion dollar empire instead of folding his store into Google’s tent, more power to him.
But you can be sure Google’s gonna give Brad a run for his money.
When I was 21 I had a decent warehouse job working for a very large wholesale company, W.W. Grainger. I played a practical joke and sent a rogue fax to another branch.
It was a funny joke until my boss, who was actually a good friend, was forced by his superiors to dismiss me.
I went home thoroughly dejected. I felt like a massive failure. I endured a phone call to Laura’s parents, telling my father-in-law of 10 months the story of how I’d just gotten ousted from my perfectly respectable job.
Firing #1.
