Don't succumb to cynicism: find those passions and live them

"[...] I mean you have to find those passions that are so much more powerful than you, than anything you've been allowed to express in your life, and making those things the things you work on. In other words, not putting off until you’re 40 or 50 the things you feel passionate about at the age of 15 and 16 - but going directly to those things, and trying to implement them when you're 20.

Pass 'Go'. Forget the 200 dollars. Go directly to Park Place. And put your life there, on the line, with all the emotion and power and passion and insight in you."

- Howard Bloom author, The Lucifer Principle

I was listening to internet radio, when a track started with a person giving a speech. What was being said grabbed my attention, so I started digging around with Google to find out who was speaking.

It turns out that the voice was that of Howard Bloom, and the extract sampled from a DVD called "Disinformation: The Complete Series"

Some more digging showed that Howard Bloom wrote two books of note: one somewhat darker, "The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History", which explores why violence doesn't disappear as a civilization evolves, and another, more optimistic, called "Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century", about the interconnection of people, knowledge and awareness.

This quote comes from a talk he gave on the above-mentioned DVD, talking about why teenagers (and I believe people in general) tend to succumb to cynicism in today's society. Read a more complete transcription of this fascinating speech here.

Even though he is speaking to young adults, I believe the message is valuable for all...

Are you retail or sales?

From an e-mail article by Coach Dan Blanchard (www.radical-selling.com)

"Retail" and "sales" are mutually exclusive terms: the retail mentality is to put yourself in the place where people are going to buy things; the sales mentality is that people do want to buy things, but YOU create the conditions where the purchase is a huge WIN for the buyer.

In the retail mentality, the salesperson isn't terribly important (what kind of $ do retail salespeople make?). In the sales mentality, the best salesperson in a company makes more than the CEO.

Solopreneurs think if we are out there, that if we are visible (better website or Google ranking, yellow pages advertising) "Build it and they will come" does not work. As a solopreneur you need to make offers and close the deal (even if it is hot referral).

A habit I've developed is to never leave a conversation without making an offer (no matter how small), and getting a decision on that offer from the prospect.