Bombtune

He did it.  He set out to accomplish many goals in life and he either succeeded in achieving each one or in the attempt to achieve was led to something better. 

Why did he achieve? 

He achieved because he set out clear and attainable yet difficult goals.  There is no such thing as a guaranteed goal.  

Sure, we can be positive about accomplishing what we want.  But we also have to be realistic.  

The point of a goal is to propel us into action.  When the goal is above our heads, we don’t get anywhere.

They say take goals step by step and build up momentum.  That’s certainly true.  You don’t go the gym dry and think you’re going to bench press 200 and run half an hour and do it every other day.  

First, you’ll be in the pain.  Second, you will have no ambition to go the next time.  

Someone once said the road is better than the end.  If you can get yourself to realize that the fun in achieving is the actual process and not the end-goal, you’ll be much happier with progress.

But don’t be patient.  Go.  Keep moving.  The best strategy is to move fast, fail, learn, and then reshape your attempt on the next one.  

Failure can be anything you want.  It can be a hurdle or a breakthrough.  If you’re an Aries, you hit your horns against the door and do it again.  Forget about anyone else.  

But when is it ok to stop? 

It’s ok to stop when the goal becomes stupid.  Stupid means the goal is a waste of time.  You’re lucky if you see this before it starts.  Some get so obsessed with the goal they overrun it.  

Yes, you tried.  But no, you will never achieve; the person or thing on the other end has already made the decision to reject you.  

When you realize this, move on.  You’ll find something better. 

Better is something that you still work for yet realistically achieve because the other end is waiting for you.  It’s still the dream. 

At the end of the day, he was always ready.  Ready to move, ready to put in the work, ready to do what it takes to his life in the right direction.  

That person was me.  

#Trust30

Digital retail is about abundance.

Anyone can make a product and put it into the store for download.

Abundance makes it more difficult for you to spread your word.

To stand out, you either need to have the marketing prowess of a major publisher or label or you need to have had an initial hit or major buzz.

Physical retail used to sell itself.  If you made it to the shelf, chances are you are ‘professional’ enough to be there.

But all that’s going away.  Digital marketing is a different animal.

If I had to give a piece of advice, I’d say start building up your social network followers now.  Sharing content is the new king.

(Originally published May 24, 2011) 

The last months I’ve been lost, goalless, like a ship without a sail.  

I had goals, I always do, they just needed tweaking and elaboration.  

So I sat myself down tonight, read through this free kindle book and set out my goals for the remaining 6 months of the year.

To get warmed up, I wrote down my answers to the book’s questions, which essentially asked: 

• What do you want to be doing in 5 years? 
• What would you do if you won the lottery for 1 million dollars? 
• What does your perfect life look like? 
• What would you have changed about your life if you could go back in time? 
• What would you do without the lizard brain, aka the resistance?  
• What did you enjoy most as a child? 

Here are my answers, in brief: 

• Live/work in Istanbul for digital media company doing marketing
• Pretty much status quo except a few purchases here and there
• Grow up with my wife and build a quality family
• Learn coding HTML, CSS so I could build my own widgets and websites
• Start my own small company and work remotely
• Playing sports and collecting music

I then developed six goals that were specific, measurable, positive, and deadline driven.  Some of them were straightforward, like hitting the weights twice a week before my wedding and buying a brand new Apple laptop before year end.  If you want to know all of six, email me.  

The trick is to pick goals that are feasible and that nag you and take small steps to achieve them.  Scratch the itch.  

To help shape your goals keep in mind the following: 

-The requirements for each goal, obstacles, action steps, positive affirmations (meditate on these), taking real ACTION, and reviewing your goals often if not daily each morning

The purpose of goal setting is to give you direction.  Expect to fail along the way, but know that you may be lead into something better.

Write it down.  Believe it.  Go for it!  

The minimalist approach is just another way of saying ‘keep it simple.’

You need to be crafty to deal with overabundance.  

You need to be able to summarize a lot into a little, absorbing the most important. 

Myspace jammed packed itself with features and bells and whistles.  It failed.  No one wanted an ugly page. 

Facebook forced structure.  Blue on white background.  It’s thriving. 

Less is more.  Shave until you have the essence.    

Shouldn’t we apply that to everything in life or is it necessary to do everything?

The shift to professional content online is becoming more obvious.

Good content makes a website attractive which increases traffic which makes it easier to monetize, whether you’re an ad platform, a subscription service, or a paywall.

Yes, there will always be room online for YOU, the bedroom musician, the Instagram photographer etc.  But don’t count on making money.

YOU use the web for expression.  Your content may bring you other riches like Twitter or Facebook followers.  You can put out a good product and sell back to that fan base when you’re ready.

The lines between professional and amateur online content are becoming thicker.

When one brick and mortar dies, someone else is eating up the purchase.

This is the case with Amazon which replaced Borders and iTunes which replaced the record store.

What will be interesting to see is how much the book business copies the music business with Dropcards, QR codes, and variable pricing on digital products.

Undoubtedly, the price of digital music will eventually be zero.  You will pay a monthly or yearly fee for all access.  Downloads will still exist, especially in the direct to fan world, but they will be .50 or lower.

There are certain trends we can predict of the book business from the simple trial and error of the music business.

I don’t think the book is dead.

Which means the Bookstore is still alive.

The CD died because it was overpriced and only good for its liner notes.

The record store faded as a corollary.

The book has been around for ages and will be more cherished than vinyl.

Libraries will just become digital rental hubs and remain a nice place for people to focus.

So, in short, CDs and record stores are dead, books, bookstores, and libraries are still alive and will be for some time.

The book has more endurance.

Facebook and Twitter encourage people to speak up.

Why?  Because text conversation is a safer way to get across what most people really think or have questions about.

Some people aren’t great speakers, or at least they think so, and fear vocal criticism.  Other people just don’t care to speak up at all.

Integrating Facebook and Twitter into the classroom  is sure to lead to a more insightful conversation.  No one really likes it when one brainiac or teacher’s pet dominates the conversation anyway.

Social networks, if used properly and teacher-controlled, can give the quieter students a voice, quiet down the voice hogs, and boost overall enthusiasm for participating in classroom discussion.

Photo:  by Mark Smith

I’ve been waiting for something like this for years, a simple way for me to upload all my music into the music cloud and access it from anywhere.

No one wants to keep buying external hard drives and external drives to back up other external hard drives.

I want all my future music purchases to go right into my cloud as well.  I don’t want to upload after purchase.  I want the album or track(s) to go straight to my locker.

Cloud music is the future, if not the present.  Thank you Google.

What’s great about Twitter is that you can subscribe to someone without having the email bombardment.

For me, Twitter is becoming my new RSS feed.

I just started to follow @SoundcloudLabs on Twitter.  Why?  Because I want to know when the latest and greatest widgets are created so I can test them out.

Is email dead?  Certainly not, it’s still the best way to capture your best fans privately and convert to sales.

But the habits of news publication change with technology, and that’s a good thing.

All these musicians and writers wait until the perfect moment to put their stuff out there.

Here’s a word of advice.  Don’t wait.

You don’t need a label and you don’t need a publisher to start building your tribe.

Digital distribution if easy.

If you’re a musician, throw your stuff up online and get some feedback, collect some emails as well.

If you’re an author, distribute your rants in a PDF through Amazon Kindle.  Build up your voice.

Don’t wait.  There’s no guarantee that even if the content is great that people will buy it.

My Marketing 101.