It's 2:30 am and this is finally complete.
I hope you come back to this post
in the years to come.

I see a lot of people lately using
marketing as a way of presenting crazy things.

Today some doctor was saying
that the Covid-19 deaths
in NY were actually really small.

Oh? Hang on a sec.

Let me check the stats so far.
In the state of New York alone,
there's 16,599 deaths so far out of 282,000 cases.
OK - what's your angle?

He pointed to the whole population of the state of NY.
Then he said "it's like half a percent of the entire population dying."

It made me think of when marketers say
"the cost is less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks."

This is like the credit card game to me.
Is it insanely high interest or affordable low payments?

Cheap marketing is about misdirection.
Instead of looking at the two numbers -
how many are infected and how many died,
he's saying look at the whole population of NY.

Except the entire population isn't infected.
He could have used the entire population of the wold
while he was at it.

Remember when they kept saying
the mortality rate is less than the flu?
Doesn't look that way to me - at least in NY.

If you have 282,000 people confirmed infections
and 16,599 people have already died in less than 90 days
that's a mortality rate of 16.98%.

Imagine Starbucks saying for every 100 customers
that walk into our coffee shops, 16 won't make it out alive.

Too gloomy?
Let's make it shiny and happy.

Let's say someone promises a million dollar check
to 16 out of every 100 people who buys their book?
Not the first 16 people - every 16 out of 100.
You'd like your chances of getting that million dollars, wouldn't you?
You'd be logging into Amazon with your credit card on fire.

So it's just like the flu except there's no cure for it,
no vaccine and no standard treatment.
And depending on how you "play" with the numbers,
it's either a really small amount or tens of thousands of people
are dying with no proven way to stop it.

That's why marketing to me is way more than presentation.

Marketing to me is a way of seeing.
Everywhere you look, every minute of every day.

Marketing is about seeing
the scarcity inside abundance
And the abundance inside scarcity.

Yes- I'll give examples:

Scarcity inside abundance - Fancy coffee beans

(scarcity is imagination before Starbucks level roasters
introduced the idea of a boutique bean.)
vs cheap every day coffee beans that are more affordable.
Bottled spring water vs tap water.
(Selling for premium what everyone has for free in their kitchen sink)

Creating abundance inside scarcity- write a book (abundance)
in just 20 minutes a day, (scarcity)
save a million dollars with just $7 a day(scarcity).


The two examples combine to show possibility
where you might not previously have considered.
Tomorrow's every day hit is today's unknown blind spot.

Need to start a taxi business?
Give everyone an app and tell some people
to use their car to drive people around.
Tell the other people to call when they need a ride.
Collect the money.

Need to start a hotel business?
Give everyone an app and tell some of those people
to surrender their bedrooms to total strangers
and tell strangers to rent them.
Collect the money.

Be sure to take victory lap as the genius billionaire.
Until a pandemic hits and no one wants to risk death
just to ride in a stranger's Honda Civic
or sleep in their spare room anymore.

What?
Doesn't sound as romantic that way? lol

The first step is in seeing the scarcity or abundance.

The second part is the really valuable part.
Especially for right now.

The second part can change your life in a great way.

It's your ability to handle adversity.
Specifically, your ability to handle pain,
how you view it, and how you react to it.
That's how you earn it.
Earning it is being with the challenges
as they are because when you overcome them,
your success is more durable and lasts longer.

You can't fire every client.
There's only so much training you can get before adversity says hello.

In the areas of deepest pain are the longest successes.
You could have been given the marketing plans
for Starbucks before they first started - the blueprint
for a billion dollar coffee company and you might never have made it happen.
You could have been given 100 gallons of spring water
and tried to sell it for crazy amounts and you may have gone broke.

There are two parts to this.
Picking the path
and taking the punches along the way.

Lots of today's marketing
teaches you to avoid as many punches as possible.
To copy what works without always
enduring what it took to create it.

Which as a competitor I love
because I can go down in the trenches
where people are afraid to go and win.
If you're stocking up on how to sell without selling,
you're avoiding valuable conversations.

I know people who were once very successful years ago
because they were hungry for conversations
and situations that challenged them.
They weren't looking for iron clad rebuttals
to silence objections- they welcomed them as a way to connect.

Then they stopped doing some of the things
that made them successful.
Not all of the things- just the ones they didn't like.

And at that point they became like the people starting out.
Both groups afraid of rejection
and seeking any strategy to avoid that feeling.

You can copy what works and slap your name on it.
But you didn't have the battles that happened to make it work.
That puts you at a major disadvantage.

The success is just one part of the reward.
It was overcoming the sweaty palms,
the white knuckles, the absolute fear
of "can I do this again" even when you just did it.

Then you have other people you have to deal with.
They're not all singing to you
and agreeing with everything you say.

That's where a lot of people run into the impostor syndrome.
Because some people are bluffing
and haven't put in the work
they themselves know is needed.

In the parlance of the moment,
they didn’t develop the antibodies
for conflict, stress and rejection.

If you have a lot of days without
the every day occurrences of conflict,
stress and rejection
or days of frantically trying to avoid them
you can quickly lose your feel for navigating through it.

Your fear keeps your eyes open.
Then you have to do something about what you see.

My reputation and past successes
don't protect me from the battles of today.
If anything, they make today's battles harder
because I'll put up with less crap than I did in the past.
That's a potential weakness I have to fight every day.

I try to be aware of things that will be a challenge
even if they aggravate me.
Avoiding unpleasant things is not a winning strategy.
You always need some uneasiness
when you're trusted with other people's lives.
It makes you pay attention.

There's a great quote from an
animator who worked directly with Walt Disney himself.

"There were actually three different Walts:
the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler.
You never knew which one
was coming into your meeting."
Ollie Johnstone

Notice two of the "Walts" were realist and spoiler.
Not Dreamer and Yes person.

Walt could have just walked in and
said to that Disney animator Ollie Johnstone
"Hey Ollie,
I'm sorry, I was in such a rush to get to work
I missed the sign on the building.
Does it say the Ollie Johnstone company
or the Walt Disney company?
Right Right - Walt Disney! Thanks for reminding me.
I INVENTED Mickey Mouse. Maybe you've heard of it?
Here's the Mickey Mouse template.
Someone go get me a coffee
and the rest of you get to work."

And everyone else could have been like
"Sure thing, boss!
We've got the tracing paper ready."

But he was always sweating the details of his own ideas.

Look at the albums that changed music,
and chances are you'll see box sets
with hours of mistakes
and songs thrown away.

The higher up you go,
the more insulated you
become from the trenches.
You'll have systems in place
that can shield you from harsh realities for a long time.

Like a nice car you bought
with money from your past successes
that smooths out all the bumps in the road.
GPS makes you think your sense of direction is better than it is.
Spell check makes you forget how to spell basic things.

It would be understandable
if you forgot how bumpy the road can actually be.
And even more understandable
if you dreaded bumps in the road
the same way some cats
hate getting wet.

To the outside world, you're the smooth driving,
never lost perfect speller.

But your car and computer know otherwiiiiiiise. 


But sometimes life sneaks up from behind.



No matter how much money you make,
you still have to splash around and get messy.

The great artists and marketers who last
stay close to what scares and challenges them.

Look back at any empire in history.
Look at any pizza place still open on Main street.

If you compete, you compete every day.

Chase the challenge.

Robert

I'm 20 minutes outside NYC.
My friends in the area and I are all sharing
maps and estimates of bad things.

Some events of my life
are coming back to me in this time
with something to give you.
I may have told you some of what happened
but everything has a new teaching for me today.

When I was 5, my parents sat me down
to tell my Mom had cancer and the doctors
told her she had six months to live.
That took them a while to explain it to me.
I remember being in a breathless panic at night
wondering if this would be the night she would die.
Lot of nightmares and hard to sleep.
I vividly remember not liking being in school
because I felt my Mom needed me.
 
This is where the cracks
in reassurances started.
You can't tell me
she's going to die
AND
Everything's going to be all right.
I mean, they did tell me both for some reason.
But their credibility wasn’t super high with me.

In second grade, I was hit by a car
and they told me
I might not walk again.
Took a year of my life - hospital, full body cast, learning to walk.
Staring at the tiles in the hospital ceiling.
 
If I'm picking life defining moments,
those are top contenders.
Big theme of moving
forward into chaos.
 
My mom died when I was 15
and I ended up being interested in Hospice.
They had these death workshops
where you drew what death looks like to you.
Some guy drew a stack of cash and dollar signs.
 
We were all unanimous in wtf
and as nicely as we could,
we asked him wtf.
 
He shrugged his shoulders and said:
"My family owns a funeral home."
 
I was there trying to work through agony.
Vincent Van Death was there for sales training.
 
When you're looking after a lot of people,
a lot of problems become your problems.
What hurts you, hurts me.
That expands what I see dramatically.
 
When you're just trying to get by,
all you do is get by.
 
I had doctors sit me down
and explain what a body cast was.
They wrapped me like a mummy.
And then I couldn't sit up for months.
There was no unknowns.
Just if I'd walk again.
 
Doctors watched cancer
kill my Mom in slow motion
across x rays and charts.
They tried things and
she got some extra years.
 
But at some point, we had to hang out with bad news.
Medical expertise can only do so much.
And I had to be OK with a degree of helplessness.
What I learned is that helplessness is always there -with everyone.
Sometimes it's revealed. When bad moments pile on relentlessly.
And all we can do is watch and do what we can to make people more comfortable.

In helplessness you learn the value
of helping someone.
 
Kindness is a luxury.
When someone gives it to you
at a difficult time,
you never forget it.
 
Sometimes you're visiting someone in the hospital
and they're in a coma.
Maybe you're both in a coma
and walking through the fog outside
while they fight for their life inside.
But you offer what you have
because that's all you have to offer.
 
Dogs get it.
They know when you need support
and they just show up.
They don't watch webinars
or take courses but they get it.
So it's not some ethereal wisdom.
 
When I'd look at my Mom,
it was always in the back of my mind.
Is tonight the last night?
 
Everything I do has roots in that question.
Not from a place of scarcity but appreciation.
It's also rooted in core directness.
Ask the real question.
The one you're afraid to ask yourself.
 
You don't need a formula or recipe for that.
You need
"take a deep breath"
level courage.
 
That's the difference between selling and helping.
The two have nothing to do with each other.
Sometimes the most helpful thing
I can do is not say anything
and leave the room.
Ahh...but you don't make a sale that way, do you?
There's your conflict of interest.
 
So some people want to help - as long as there's
a sale in their ratio of content and "help."
And then they wonder
what's happening to their life.
 
Ask the real question.
And take a deep breath for the answer.

Whatever happens,
I don't need promises
or reassurances.
I'm moving forward
because I still can.
 
 Robert
 

Time for some tough love
with a full disclaimer in advance - this is for entertainment purposes and does not constitute medical, psychological or legal advice.

Are you not entertained? lol

Here's your reminder.
The whole point of a plan is you stick to it.
It's not a plan until you lose your motivation.
It's not a plan as long as you have no distractions.
It's not a plan as long as everyone is nice to you,.
It's not a plan as long as you're in a good mood.

It's a plan.
If you commit to something important, 
then you stick to it through thick and thin.
Ask for help.
Call every favor you can in if that's what's needed.
But stick to the #$@& plan!

There has to be some things
you commit to that are non negotiable.
This isn't just about diets or deadlines.
This is about you honoring yourself.

Don't be a professional explainer -
why you can't do something. 
You may end up making miracles happen for other people
and the most you'll get back is "thx."

If you're working on big things
you're going to always be behind.
If not, make your projects big enough until you are.
That feeling of overwhelm - you're alive.
Don't try to lull yourself to sleep.

Don't make your dreams
live off your dirtiest scraps of time
because you're scared.
It's always a bad time.
It's always inconvenient.

That's what a plan is for.
A plan is not a crystal ball.
It's just where you're headed.
Problems will come up.
That's when you stick to the plan.

Don't stop doing outreach for new clients
because you have stuff coming up.
Work it in.

If you have something that's crucial to your well being
like making sales or creating something,
take it seriously enough to keep going with it.

How many blog posts
on being productive
do you need ?

Seriously.

Practice making things happen
when everything is broken.
When the web site is down.
When your computer is acting weird.
When you have no sleep.


But if you know in your heart of hearts
you're stalling for no good reason,
cut it out and stick to the plan.

I love you dearly.
Now get to work. :)

Robert

If you want to succeed in business,
dedicate your life to being a great friend.

In Get Vs. Give, I talked about people who
look at what they can get from others.
They want money, encouragement, support
and space to do what they want.
The direction of those wants go inward.

Giving goes in a different direction.
"The ones who want" tap their phones
and point to their shiny new planners for 2020
and list out all the things they want for themselves.
They want things for other people too. 

I thanked a programmer
I hired today and he said
"Robert, you don't have to thank me.
You're helping me pay for bread."
I told him that money is just one part of the payment.
Respect and appreciation are equally important.

Money is the lowest part of payment
because ANYONE can pay someone.
Giving more than money?
The room gets smaller.

You are your own boss
you always were and always will be.
If you want to get paid to do what you love,
it's the doing what you love that's the payment.
Never hold your dreams for ransom.

Ready to talk business?
I always start with the pieces you truly value.
Not what I think is valuable.
Let me walk you through a sad thought exercise.

You get a call and it's sad news.
Someone you love with all your heart has died.
Not died like "they're finally at peace",
died like you're hysterical crying.
This person was everything to you and they're gone.

Forget the circumstances.
They're gone.

Here's the rule:
You need to talk to someone
but they can't be anyone
you're related or married to.
And it's 3am.

Who's your lifeline?
Who do you call?
Who can you count on
no matter what to be there for you?

Do you have someone in mind?
What kind of friend are they?
Which one of you is the better friend?

Your best friend isn't worried about what you're paying.
They're pulling in your driveway at 4am because
it's gonna be a long night.

You know who they are to you
without thinking about it.
No hesitation at all.

That's branding right there.

Your reliable friends
give you rides to airports.

Your best friends
are in emergency rooms with you.

Ever have a friend you couldn't count on?
Are they still your friend?
That's how you have to treat your career
and anything you truly love.

I can be paid but I can't be bought.
No one owns my dreams
or happiness except me
and they never will.
There's not enough money in the world.

This isn't about me being above money.
This is me saying what I love is forever.
No contract needed.

When I just started doing voice overs
and had no money,
I bought a Jay Abraham book for $367.

It wasn't a rare copy, it was brand new.
That's what Jay charged and it was great.
I wouldn't tell anyone about what I spent
because they would think I was crazy.

My family had a piano which I loved.
In college I got a dinky little Casio keyboard to play.
Music has been a part of who I am my whole life since.

What I love makes me stronger.
You think I'm going to sell that out
because I'm late on a bill?

One has nothing to do with the other.
Find a way to put out fires
without burning something
or someone you love in the process.

I never did anything I loved for free.
I always got paid whether money was involved or not
because it was something I loved.

As a result I spent more time
doing what I loved
and I got better.

Now put that mindset into the business arena.
I'm competing against people who
are checking their bank balance to decide how much
they're going to care.

We may both love what we do
but I'm determined to give my heart
and soul to what I love every day.
I've done it for nothing and gotten everything.

You've watched enough
YouTube videos about startup founders
who went without paying themselves
and got millions when they're company went public.

It's easy to love the part where you get the loot.
The late nights coding drinking Red Bulls
and slurping down lava hot ramen noodles
with no guarantees - don't forget that part.

Your greatest friends were up late with you like that.
Didn't matter whether it was
something they happened to like.

I was helping people when I was a kid
and I'm still helping people.
No about page needed.

What you love
is not whatever you happen
to be interested in right now.
It's who you are.
You’re in it for life.

I made a super fast 8 minute audio
that will help you make this week special
even if you have nothing good planned.

Listen now while you can.

Everyone has a
personal relationship with technology.
Some want their distance.
They like buttons that do a lot
or people that just take care of things.
Some people get so deep in the details of technology
it's hard for them to have regular conversations.

I adore technology.
I love my phone, my audio gear
and everything that goes into marketing tech.

Everything always
seems to get better
with new updates.

In fact, when you get
something that needs a software update,
there's a thing called a change log.
That's where they
tell you what's new in the software.
And they usually have a list of fixes.

Which means most things are broken somewhere.
That's why they're fixing it with the update.
Sometimes they fix one thing and break 10 more things with a new update.

The two sides of technology can either teach you about patience
or insulate you from chaos.

When I'm dealing with website problems
or big platform policy changes,
it's the same thing to me.
They keep my eyes open.
They force me to ask for help quickly.

The more people count on you,
the more you're surrounded
with everything breaking
and fixing in a round robin way.

Everything is in the state of flux
and always will be.
Your relaxing days are just when you decide
not to dive in and start tinkering.
That's not a bad thing by the way.

You appreciate the
wholeness of the broken parts.
If you don't appreciate it broken,
why try to make things better?

Sometimes I didn't read the manual.
So I treated things like they were broken.
Because I didn't have the patience.
And if things didn't work quickly,
then something was wrong.
Oh something was wrong, all right - me! lol

We're swimming in the short term.
What are we happy with this second?
How fast did I bring that sale in?

Can you remember ever seeing
a famous magician do some magic tricks?
Can you ever remember yourself saying
DAMN this show is slow!
No you can't.

Because part of what people
consider as magic
is how fast it happens.
The overnight miracle!
Magicians know this so they move fast.
Action movies do super
fast edits to make time fly by.

So much speed to keep us entertained
makes patience irritating.
Isn't there an app for patience?
Damn right there is!
Super fast download too!

Your phone is a great wingman.
It's a high tech alibi.
You can blame it when you can't pay attention.
You can use it to keep you busy and
guard your attention from
escaping your clutches.

This isn't to make you feel guilty.
This is to point out your strength is
mixed up in all this.

It's trendy attention
and trendy patience
for the perfect image.

Trendy patience is an Instagram filter.
Real patience is facing the daily mess
and rolling up your sleeves and getting to work.

Sometimes when you pass the buck
you don't make the buck.

Even if things are broken.
Even if nothing gets fixed right away.

Remember when you were a kid -
was there ever someone
who was there for you
even though it was really hard for them?
Or they didn't have to be there but they chose to?
Or you made life miserable for them (I know it could never be you of course buy maybe you could have been better to them?)
and they still stayed?

You remember the people
who stayed, don't you?
Who didn't breeze past you
when you needed them.

How much stronger
did their support make you?

You have that immense power.
Someone you know very well
may have all kinds of awkwardness
because they need your help.
Maybe just to be listened to.
They can't bring themselves to ask you.
And you may not be offering,
because you know - calendar.

You remember the ones who stayed and helped you.
And you may be haunted for life
by the ones who left you to fight for yourself.
But they did so for all the best reasons.
At least that's what they kept saying.

Think of how a movie director
sees a moment for a movie.
The lighting is a factor.
Do we film in the morning or the night?
Are there birds singing in the background?
Or people screaming in the streets?

So the movie director
doesn't flop out on the set
turn the camera on
and hope for the best.

The script is the frame.
The director is making an attempt to combine
the words of the script with the actors
and the environment
and adapt and adjust to make it click.

Some elements won't listen to reason.
The movie director can't yell
at the sun for not shining on cue
and still stay employed or off meds.
Yelling at the actors isn't sustainable.
There has to be a constructive
response to what she sees.
Bad lighting might mean to change the cameras, change the film times or film a different scene that takes advantage of the lighting as it is.

That's a very powerful example
for how you can look at
your next steps on a project.
Or how you want a lunch meeting to go.

Your ability to perceive decides a lot.
There are some people
who are impressed with what they say.
There's a very real danger to this.

Have you ever walked somewhere
or driven somewhere
that's so familiar to you,
you barely noticed the walk or drive?

When you first drove there,
you might have been unsure.
Leaning heavily on your GPS or directions.
But then it became familiar.

At that point, you may
have surrendered your ability
to design anything new into that moment.
Could your unconscious
grab a ukulele and sing an insight
into your awareness? Sure. Maybe. I guess.
May as well buy a lottery ticket at that point.

If you're too comfortable, too "I know this already",
the chances that something new will present itself
are diminished.

Creatively, that's terrible news.

Two approaches for you to play with:
1. Choose your tone before you choose anything else. Example, decide you want to get along great at the meeting and you want everyone to feel good.

2. Look at the stuff you think you know. Review some key findings over again but look somewhere different. There are people who study certain rocks their whole life. These rocks are not changing that much in 20 years. Rocks are not getting divorced or drinking all night. They're. Just. Rocks.

But experts know how to
make the strange familiar
and the familiar strange.

The rocks stay the same
so their eyes have to change.

My job in life is to keep myself off balance.
It helps me to stop looking for life to match
some script in my head.

That's not comfortable for most people.
Which is kind of the point.

This is the crossroads of creativity and expertise.
Experts can point to patterns.
If the patterns are too predictable,
turn off the video game.
You want to also see
what is hidden by habits and boredom.

Toughest truth here?
The need to feel confident
can make you stop looking closely.
You don't want bad news jumping out at you.
I see that with so many people, it's scary.
Except with you, of course. :)

To really be advanced
is to let go
of thinking you're advanced.

The day you think you're ahead,
you're behind.

Aaaah! Being behind!
NOOOOOO!

That feeling of not wanting to be behind?
That's my point right there.

That feeling will do funny things
to what you see and do.

It's when you stop
seeing it altogether
that it can get really bad.

It's reversible - just not always fun.

Value is considered
the cornerstone of business.
You give something,
you get something back, right?

Art galleries weave stories
about paintings and add a price tag to it.
Stocks can soar wildly up
and down based on
speculation and gossip.

The value of something
frequently lives inside time.
Things you cared about as a kid
are shoved in boxes
in a basement or attic.
Or thrown in the garbage years ago.

Marie Kondo gives you a bag
and tells you to throw out
things that don't spark joy.

What you love today
might be clutter tomorrow.

Have you ever been wrong
about someone?
You didn't realize how much
they meant to you
until they were gone
from your life?

Was it just one time?

Have you ever been wrong
about someone?
You didn't realize how
toxic they were
until they were gone
from your life?

Have you ever
taken people for granted
and wish you could apologize for it?

If someone offered to buy back
every purchase you ever regretted buying,
how much money would you be getting?

If you could get back every day
you know you took for granted,
how many days would be added
back to your life?

If you had more time in the day,
what passions would you be
pursuing right now?

If you could speak honestly
to the closest people in your life
and tell them something
you've been keeping to yourself,
what would you be saying?

Oh by the way,
any new plans
for the weekend? :)

The toughest leap for marketers to make
is to move past marketing as their sole identity.
One big LinkedIn/AboutMe page
of achievements and laurels.
The candy wrapper becomes the candy itself.

As you become successful with the facade,
the incentive is to bury
who you are deeper and deeper.
So only the shiniest part shows.

This is a partial reason
why the impostor syndrome feels so painful.
It's presented as feeling like a fraud when you
should be taken seriously.

Lots of mixed messages:
"Fake it til you make it"
That translates to, uh, being fake. lol

So when marketers put a tense
and carefully curated version of themselves
out there, the worst thing that can happen
in some cases is that version does well.

Now you're carrying around your best image
and always trying to live up to it.
You can get what I call "image fatigue."

That's when you get
cranky and impatient
because you traded
important parts of who you are
and you're not seeing
whatever it is you were expecting
or someone promised you.

It can feel like a big betrayal
if you were promised
big things for the trade
or cause you to doubt yourself
if you made the promise to yourself.

Your whole online persona
could be about being real
while you're scared to death
of showing your "true self."

This is not where I tell you "just do it."
Maybe you have great
reasons to hide your real thoughts.
Saying how you really feel
in certain circumstances
could cause all kinds of problems.

This is just to show you
the inverse cost of your dreams.
When dreams denied
make you pay
for abandoning them.
There's a cost to burying
what's most important to you.

We're not just talking
about what pays your bills,
by the way.

We're talking about respecting
what moves you and not pretending
any part of who you are is trivial
if you are doing so out of fear.

Sometimes people play small
to protect their aces on their shelf.


Example: you work a low paying job
while you write your novel.

I'm writing to remind you
of your most valuable dreams.
Especially the ones you don't talk about a lot.
Are you checking up on those dreams?
Taking them out of the garage for a spin?

The biggest mistake is to assume your magic
will be there any time you want
whenever you're ready.
Whenever you can squeeze it in.

Giving up on that part of you
can hollow you out.
You'll be smiling for things
that don't make you smile.
Just to keep people
from worrying about you.

It will cost you so much more
to pretend your dreams don't matter
than to find a way to work them in.

When I compete,
I'm bringing all the things
I love with me.
It changes how I listen,
what I write and how far
I'm willing to go
to see a project succeed.

Let's say one of your loves is painting.
Look at the time you put
into learning how
great art is created.

Look at how many times
you're willing to paint terribly
regardless of what others think.
You'll fight through boredom,
doubt, bad times and more.

Measure what you love most
and who you are in the loving of it
against how you present yourself to the world.

The gap between the two points
can become a pain no one knows about.

What happens now?

A couple of weeks ago I turn on my computer
and the screen is all black.
Just a cursor.

It's only my entire livelihood that's on the computer
so the panic was kind of high.

Good news - I back up my stuff to an external drive
and I have an iPhone for times like these.
I also have a back up computer.
Bad news, I have to fix this computer and I'm not an expert.
But I've fixed it before and it's time for a skills upgrade.

So it took me two weeks of digging into the registry,
surfing Google and flailing my arms for help,
changing Microsoft service configurations
and all kinds of technical adventures
to get things back to normal.

All while this is happening, people still need help.
I still have promises to keep.
There can't be any let up.
And I can't be a cranky grouch while this is going on.

Sometimes you're going to wake up and find yourself kicked back to zero with something.
It's going to happen way more than you like.

10 Steps To Dealing With A Setback

1. Take a deep breath. Don't panic. Get your eyes clear to see what's going on.

2. Remember how great your situation
is compared to worse problems you've overcome.
If you've ever been through worse stuff
than the problem at hand, remind yourself if needed.
You do that for comparison and contrast
to give you a clinical perspective.
You do that to not let your emotions
start hyping up the problem.

3. Get a handle on what kind of timeline is involved in fixing things up. Things like death for example, can't be fixed.
But when people have died in my life, I had a timeline for asking for extra help and support so I could maintain a certain level of getting stuff done as I promised or rescheduling as needed.

In this case, I didn't know if I could fix the computer
or how long it would take.
So my answer was undetermined
but it could be a while - weeks.

4. What's the plan in the meantime?
Study up on the problem, start trying different solutions if you can handle it yourself (I believed I could). And I had top people I could ask for help before I gave up completely.
And if absolutely needed, I'd let them work on it.
This is not one of those "delegate to others" items to me.
I have one for example later on.

5. Put some stopgap measures in place
(use alternate computer and iPhone)

6. Have emergency decisions
already made if it comes to it in stages
Stage 1 - installing a new operating system over it
Stage 2 getting a new computer and which one, etc.

Never come to a dead end
without your pivot ready to go.*
My pivot would be leaving the computer
for dead and starting over.
*Sometimes that may not apply - you may want to stop everything and examine why something happened before you go make a big replacement purchase or make a big correction of any kind. What if I'm a big idiot and I'll just break the next one? What if a program I put on it is the problem and after I get a new computer, the bad program does its magic and breaks that one too? I need to determine that it's not user error or a bad program. I need to make sure that I'm not behind creating the conditions for the computer going catatonic on me. There's too much at stake - I can't make a lot of repeat mistakes here.

You want to know what you'll do next before you get into fixing a problem.

If I find out a marketing service provider is messing something up, for example, I need options ready to go.

7. Prepare myself that the fixing process is going to take time and adjust my mood with others accordingly. That means realizing I have to be extra nice when I may not be as attentive to how I'm coming across. Think of how you feel when you can't find your phone. Think of how you feel when you're pretty sure your phone is lost. You know that sinking feeling? That's how I feel about my computer. So I need to listen to my tone of voice when I say hello.

8. Push through the process to start fixing things.
That meant rebooting to safe mode, going through the registry line by line, etc. Now that I know what my next steps are, I can show off my ignorance in epic scale trying everything I can and learning new things along the way. It's a contained exercise. There's a ceiling on how bad I'll let things get.

Two weeks of looking:
A program that got updated was the culprit.
I deleted it along with thousands of orphan files in the registry. Problem solved.

My tech friends who do this for a living were very impressed and proud of me.

I wanted to do an action film about it,
that's how epic it felt to me.
Jason Statham is my first pick.

9. Be grateful my fix worked and treat people accordingly.
That means don't be a crank because this took a lot out of me. I'm grateful I learned how to fix it at least for now.

10. Be ready for the next problem and be cool about it.

And right on cue...
When pulling into my driveway tonight,
my wheels started making all kinds of noise.
I drove around a bit - I'm not fixing this one.
Scheduling a checkup.
Probably brake pads.

And just like that,
Another setback to schedule in.

But my setbacks don't mean I can't help people.
And setbacks are not a license to be a grouch.

The week ahead will bring what it brings.
I'm going in to help with some setbacks for other people.
The mechanic can do the rest for me.

Think of a marketing course
you bought that:

you never went through
or
went through but not really
or
went through once
all the way through
but never again.

Was it just that one course?
Or does your credit card
have stories to tell?

Someone sold you
that marketing course.
There's probably
a YouTube video
where they break down
exactly how they sold you.
Maybe they show
what they bought with
the money you gave them.

You're meaning
to get around
to some of the courses, I know!
But your bookshelf
and your hard drive
are getting more use
than some of those courses.

Meanwhile, for the
untaken courses
the person who sold it
changed nothing in you.
They got your money.
That's it.

All the endless diagrams of your brain
and how you bought
might help them sell to someone else
and keep their shelf warm too.

But that course
is still collecting dust.

They have your money.
Nothing's changed for you.
But here's the funny part.
They believe they've got you hooked.

So did they sell you
or did you sell them?

Money is a funny metric to go by.
You might remember jobs
where money was coming in
but things were going badly.

Factor in the unhappy customers
and ones you can't engage
when you do your profit and loss sheets.
Not just as money lost,
but of "magic spells" rejected.

So when you celebrate your wins,
don't just lean on money for your
proof of success.
It will help you stay alert
for what's next.

Unless it's all just for money.
That's when the magic spells
get broken fast.

Robert