From time to time, as we've shared ideas and plans with friends and family, many of us have heard, "That's crazy!" Personally, I've heard it so many times I began to wonder if it were true.
In my quest to find other people who understood this, I began interviewing what I affectionately refer to as "crazy" people. These are not insane people by any stretch of the imagination, and in fact, they may be the sanest people I've ever met. I gathered wisdom from more than thirty people including Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil and Peter Diamandis of the X-Prize Foundation. These are all big visionaries who many would categorize as crazy.
One thing I learned for certain is that the game has changed in the last 10 years. If an idea isn't crazy, it may not be worth pursuing. What worked just 10 years ago doesn't work today. Adaptability and innovation have become the key to survival and growth.
According to a recent interview with America's Marketing Guru, Seth Godin, author of the new bestseller, Linchpin,
The world has changed and the stakes are higher than ever. Now we're facing a full-fledged revolution -- a hyper-competitive world involving art and gifts and fear and the ability for you or anyone to make an indispensable contribution to something you care about. If you're not indispensable yet, it's because you haven't made that choice.
In order to fully understand the changing rules of today, sometimes it's necessary to look at our past.
50,000 years ago if you didn't want to get killed by a Saber-toothed tiger, it was best to be in a village with other people. It turns out we've built a culture for ourselves in the last five to 10 years where the opposite is true. If you sound just like James Taylor no one's going to listen to your music because they can listen to James Taylor. If you make a film just like Spike Jones, nobody's going to watch it because they can just watch Spike Jones. Go down the list. If you fit in, we can ignore you. Being ignored means you don't get any traction, you don't get any job offers, you don't get any revenue.
if you go to the edges, if you do something that feels risky, that's remarkable -- that's worth talking about. Richard Branson, Cirque du Soleil -- those things were risky -- that's why we know of them. If they had been boring, if they'd been clones, they would have had to be the cheapest or be gone, and cheapest is already owned by Walmart, so you have no choice left but to be risky.
Our world is changing fast.
There's a fundamental shift in our culture, bigger than anything since Henry Ford, bigger than anyone imagined. Being productive in the name of the factory, increasing the efficiency of the system, becoming an interchangeable part -- it's over. So what's left? What's left is to race to the bottom, which is no fun, or to climb to the top, which involves being artistic and original and surprising and thriving without a map and doing work that matters and makes a difference.
Being artistic and original can be a new concept for many. Seth believes,
We've brainwashed generation after generation to fit in instead of stand out. The lizard brain -- the part of our brain that's been around for a million years, rules our life when it shouldn't. It causes us to make bad decisions. The fear of being laughed at is a real problem.
Seth shared some tips to remember when breaking out of the mold and thriving without a map:
1) Don't worry about what other people think. "If you're willing to be laughed at you're way more likely to succeed."
2) Living outside your comfort zone isn't a bad thing. "When I feel the fear, I know that I'm doing something right. And if I don't, then I'm probably doing something boring. For me, the fear is a signal that I'm on the right track."
3) Marketing matters. "Everything is marketing. Marketing is not advertising. Everything you do, the stories you tell, the way you live your life -it's all marketing."
4) Do things that are scarce. "Things that are scarce are valuable. And what is scarce is respect, keeping your word and being transparent. What is scarce is originality, creativity and making a difference. What's not scarce is fitting in, doing what you're told and blaming someone else. If you want to create things of value, you should do things that are scarce."
5) You don't need anyone's permission. "You probably should stop waiting for permission. If your excuse is, 'My boss won't let me', well of course she won't. Because what you're saying to your boss is, 'I want to do this cool thing and if it fails it's your fault and if it succeeds I get the credit'. Who would give you that deal?" Don't wait for permission- just do it.
Today is a turning point where we get to make the decision to embrace those crazy, out-of-the-box ideas and choose to go down a less well-defined path. It may be scary, it may be crazy- but it will also be where we can make a bigger difference. It's a choice that we get to make individually. For me, I'm going to go embrace crazy and as Seth says, "Go make something Happen!"
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What Seth Godin seems to be saying is this:
1) Exercising one's creativity and agency are necessary for everyone.
2) There are plenty of people in need and there are plenty of problems to solve.
3) Dedicate yourself toward something useful and inspiring. The tools and vehicles at our disposal to effect meaningful change are more accessible than they have ever been.
4) Act toward those ends with curiosity and passion. Inspire and be inspired.
There is nothing parochial or elitist in what he is saying. This is not to say that acting in the world is easy. It is not.
But give the man credit. At least he is trying. Some would say he is succeeding. At least the people who actually read his books and put his suggestions into action.
A man once said to Ralph Waldo Emerson after one of his philosophical lectures:
"What you are doing is not so hard."
Emerson faced the man and said "You do it."
We cannot solve the education and health-care problems by spending more money. If those working in the field do not come up with solutions to achieve better results, and spend less, they should be left by the way-side; however progressive their writings and articulate their speeches. Similarly we should stop the blame-game on third-world countries (economy and trade) and immigrants.
We can learn from our own successful work and social patterns of the past that has made us great. We live way beyond our means; making us individually and the nation a debtor country. This saps at our character, avoids the urgency to make painful yet common-sense choices, and reduces our ability to withstand challenges. In short, most of us "want to have our cake and eat it too."
White collar crime needs to be severely punished with mandatory jail sentencing guidelines.
Anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen for years, or on a construction site or on a factory floor knows that all of "be successful" baloney means nothing at most businesses. To our corporate masters today, being "successful" is finding the person who will do all of that "creative" work for free.
Can you say "outsource" in a new and exciting way......I knew you could....It's a beautiful feeling!
Organizations are like ecosystems; they need a variety of different types and different approaches all working in concert to operate effectively.
Every organization, oh, lets say Virgin Airways needs a creative free thinking visionary.
Got one, check.
But it also needs hundreds, maybe thousands of rigorous disciplined logic thinkers, people like mechanics and accountants and legal advisors who are not spontaneuous intuitive thinkers, but checklist makers, organizers, planners, who use methodical logic to arrive at a conclusion.
The complex technical world we live in has not diminished the need for these people, it has only increased it.
Positing that everyone should go out and market and brainstorm and pursue crazy ideas is not sweet idealism; it is an insult to the other 99% of the people in the organization.
Having respect for the thinking of the other parts of the organization is one idea that is just crazy enough to pursue.
Ha...ha...ha. I love it when people who have obviously never worked in a real cubicle in their lives write things about the workplace. Yeah, I'm glad Richard Branson and the Google dudes are doing cool things. That's great. Now, go and do some research in a REAL office, and talk to the average workers (and the average middle managers) there about the new "linchpin" model.
But doing that would likely require revising the book, and revising an already-published book is a lot more difficult than promoting an appealing though untrue concept. I'm sure sales will be great--people are suckers for false optimism.
Money should serve us, not become our master.