integrity

An Alternative to Pooled Ignorance

August 22, 2017August 14, 2017 by Daren

There’s an old(er) guy at the coffee shop with whom I often indulge in solve-the-world’s-problems bull sessions.

He knows a lot about a lot of things, but as with any far-ranging morning chat with the boys, topics always come up that some or all of us know nothing about.

Most of us just bluff and offer our comments based on something we think we mighta heard somewhere.

The old guy often says “I really don’t know” and sits silently while we keep spouting off and pooling our ignorance.

But when he speaks, we all listen.

I consider him one of the wisest people I know.

Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash

Worst. Gig. Ever.

July 24, 2017July 24, 2017 by Daren

The Setup:

They wanted a team talk, and my teambuilding keynote was solid and proven. I wanted to do a talk that related to my new book which was more about personal development. But the talk was not as polished as the team talk. But they agreed.
The evening before, I had resigned as pastor from a church I’d served for over five years and was stepping out of a career I’d been in for almost twenty.
As soon as the talk was finished, I would need to get in the car and drive for several hours to get ready to give a talk the next day to a very demanding audience. I was more concerned about the second talk than the first.
The day before the event the organizer informed me they wanted 90 minutes instead of the contracted 60 minutes. I foolishly agreed to deliver.

Neil Patel vs Seth Godin

July 10, 2017 by Daren

Two of the many people I follow in the marketing world are Seth Godin and Neil Patel.

Both are immensely successful and at the same time perfectly unique.

Neil’s blog is a vast catalogue of massive articles which delve deep into various aspects of marketing. They are full of infographics, statistics, examples, and sprinkled with ads, even fairly aggressive pop-ups, designed to get you into his orbit via an email subscription.

If you are interested in an marketing topic and Neil has a related article, you will get the 101, 201, 301 and sometimes 401 level all in one shot.

Here’s an example of one of his posts: http://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-write-data-driven-content/

I don’t know how often he posts, but it seems to be weekly, give or take. He also has a stack of videos and a podcast. His approach is to generate massive volumes of focused, in depth content.

Who Are You Online?

September 19, 2016September 13, 2016 by Daren

I just completed a small contract in which I hired a man from Pakistan via UpWork to do some work on my website.

He was fantastic, and did the initial job, which would have taken me two days and it still would’ve been wrong, in 90 minutes.

I then decided to do some work on a different website, and there were suddenly glitches. I know enough about such things to know the problem was with the webhost, not my freelancer, and we worked through it together. He spent 3 hours on the task (until after 2 am in his time zone) and then refused to bill me for it because we didn’t achieve the objective!

I gave him a substantial bonus when it was all over to thank him for his hard work and the great advice he gave me about the site.

Then he said a couple things which both encouraged me and made me wonder.