Reading Time: < 1 minIt can be hard to understand the difference between a million and a billion, but I’ve heard it said this way: A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. In terms of how much time you have left on earth, even if you’re 50 years old there is a good chance […]
Encouragement
It’s about execution
Reading Time: < 1 minLast month I shared the very short story of the rabbit and the beaver at the Hoover Dam, and a video I recently watched from Gary Vaynerchuk brought up a similar idea. If you’ve follow Gary much over the past decade, he has a pretty simple philosophy — give it all away. He shares every […]
Spam makes it harder for the good stuff to shine
Reading Time: 2 minSpam is just a bad thing. We all hate it. The problem I’m finding lately is that it’s also making good things appear to be more questionable. “Why did you write about that?” A while back, I shared on my Facebook about some great new charging cables we bought for our devices around the house. […]
How I plan out my future posts
Reading Time: 2 minBlogging daily is tough. I just passed six months and I’m going strong, but it’ll end at some point. For now, though, here is how I make it happen. Lots of ideas The biggest challenge for me is coming up with ideas. Following the idea of “long periods of thinking, short periods of writing“, actually […]
Obscurity is still your biggest threat
Reading Time: 2 minThere’s an old quote from Tim O’Reilly that I really love, and it seems to be getting better with age. Tim simply said: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy. While you can worry about people copying your content or stealing your ideas, your far bigger concern is having […]
It’s based on an idea of mine
Reading Time: < 1 minI was recently listening to an episode of “Smart Talks”, where Malcolm Gladwell was interviewing IBM’s Rob Thomas. Rob shared a very short but noteworthy story: There’s a rabbit and a beaver and they’re staring at the Hoover Dam. And the beaver says “I didn’t build it, but it’s based on an idea of mine”. […]
You don’t have to follow all of the rules
Reading Time: < 1 minI tend to be a rule-follower, for better or worse. It’s a common trait often attributed to first-born children, and it fits me pretty well. However, in the past few years I’ve found that avoiding some rules can be very helpful. EOS At GreenMellen, we largely follow the EOS (“Entrepreneurial Operating System”) method of running […]
Thoughts on taking the altMBA
Reading Time: 3 minI recently finished taking the altMBA, described as “an intensive, 4-week online workshop designed by Seth Godin for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead.“ Intensive is a great word to use. Throughout the four weeks, you work through 13 separate writing prompts. They ask us not to reveal the nature of the […]
Don’t start tomorrow
Reading Time: < 1 minIf you’re thinking of starting a blog, or writing a book, or exercising, or anything else, a good time to start would be tomorrow. A better time to start would be today. In his book The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield says: We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead […]
Your job is not to do the easy thing
Reading Time: < 1 minIf your job is doing something trivially easy, you’re in trouble. There is always someone willing to do that job for less money than you, and that job may just be replaced by a robot eventually. There’s a time in our life when flipping burgers for a summer might make sense, but that shouldn’t be […]