Have you ever heard the remark that age is only relevant if you are a cheese? All of my career it seemed I was one of the youngest guys in the room. Then, overnight, I looked around and was shocked to discover I was the oldest guy in the room.
The oldest guy in the room
Working on my third career, I don’t
know why that should have been a surprise to me.
It was though … a reality check. But why? Who knows, especially since I have no fear about the value I bring and my ability to keep delivering relevance in a young person’s world going through rapid change. Luckily the feeling did not last long.
Let me share a story about Dr.Seuss with you.
In 1960 two men made a bet. There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager.
The first man, Bennett Cerf, was the founder of the publishing firm, Random House. The second man was named Theo Geisel, but you probably know him as Dr. Seuss.
Cerf proposed the bet and challenged that Dr. Seuss would not be able to write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss took the bet and won.
The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham. Since publication, Green Eggs and Ham has sold more than 200 million copies, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history.
At first glance, you might think this was a lucky fluke. A talented author plays a fun game with 50 words and ends up producing a hit. But there is actually more to this story and the lessons in it can help us become more creative and stick to better habits over the long-run.
Here’s what we can learn from Dr. Seuss…
The top 5 tips on how to focus on keeping ‘one step ahead’ of the cheese:
Do not rest on past successes
Past successes.
There is nothing more dangerous to life success than a great last result, is
there? We are ‘only as good as our next result’. Stay paranoid.
Make
yourself a project
Hairdressing
icon Vidal Sassoon was famous for having said: “The
only place you’ll find success coming before work is in a dictionary.”
We
have to work on ourselves. Put pressure on ourselves. Critique our days. Give back
to society. Be our own very best coaches and cheering squads. All of this
applies as much for our personal lives as for our business lives.
Continue
to add to your connections and be a continuous learner
Woody Allen said: “85% of the secret of success is just turning up.” Turn up to events.
Make that phone call. Read that book. Do that training. Have the courage to ask that question. Make the effort. Stay connected to what’s happening around you.
Is
a priority ‘ninja’
Always get more of the important things done every day. Be obsessed with getting
priorities rights, on what’s really important, every day, and make sure you
spend the majority of your day on these priorities.
Darwin said it was not the strongest of the species that survived, but the ablest to adapt to change. There will be more change in the next five years than we’ve seen in the past 50. Get excited by change. Be part of the most movements that you can. Help shake things up.
The bottom line
We’ve got one shot in our lives.
Work hard on yourself to stay relevant if you want the chance to avoid being the cheese.
Please share one of your
self-motivation experiences with this community.
Digital
Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.
We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
Want
to learn more about
Digital Spark Marketing?
Reading from Digital Spark Marketing’s library:
Six Business Lessons Learned From the Bamboo
Build an Effective Team by Being a Talent Hound
Giving Gratitude … the Story of the Entangled Whale
Have you ever heard the remark that age is relevant onlyif you are a cheese? All of my career it seemed I was one of the youngest guys in the room. Then, overnight, I looked around and was shocked to discover I was the oldest guy in the room. Working on my third career, I don’t know why that should have been a surprise to me.
It was though … a reality check. But why? Who knows, especially since I have no fear about the value I bring and my ability to keep delivering relevance in a young person’s world going through rapid change. Luckily the feeling did not last long.
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Here are my top 5 tips on how I focus on keeping ‘one step ahead’ of the cheese:
Look around mentoring minds.
Do not rest on past successes …
There is nothing more dangerous to life success than a great last result, is there? We are ‘only as good as our next result’. Stay paranoid.
Age is relevant … make yourself a project
Hairdressing icon Vidal Sassoon was famous for having said: “The only place you’ll find success coming before work is in a dictionary.” We have to work on ourselves. Put pressure on ourselves. Critique our days. Give back to society. Be our own very best coaches and cheering squads. All of this applies as much for our personal lives as for our business lives.
Related post: Lessons Learned in LIfe … Class Contiues Daily
Are you a mentoring minds reader?
Continue to add to your connections and be a continuous learner …
Woody Allen said: “85% of the secret of success is just turning up.” Turn up to events. Make that phone call. Read that book. Do that training. Have the courage to ask that question. Make the effort. Stay connected to what’s happening around you.
Age is relevant … is a priority ‘ninja’
Getting more of the important things done every day. Be obsessed with getting priorities rights, on what’s really important, every day, and make sure you spend the majority of your day on these priorities.
Creative minds online … embrace change
Darwin said it was not the strongest of the species that survived, but the ablest to adapt to change. There will be more change in the next five years than we’ve seen in the past 50. Get excited by change. Be part of the most movements that you can. Help shake things up.
The bottom line
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
For some reason, many of us have been conditioned to be more afraid of failure than we are of inaction. However, failure, in addition to being inherently valuable as a learning process, contains within it the chance of success. And no matter how small that chance is, it’s better than the chances of success when we choose not to even try.
We’ve got one shot at our lives.
Work hard on yourself to stay relevant if you want the chance to avoid being the cheese.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on mentoring from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
