The benefits of professionalism are well known – increased perception of respectability, authority, trust, and dependability. But is there a downside to professionalism? Is it possible to be too professional? Yes. Ahem, I mean yes sir, it is possible. Professionalism is scripted behavior which at extreme levels replaces personality; it makes businesses orderly… and boring. […]
“If you build it they will come”. The oft-quoted line from Field of Dreams seems to fit the Kickstarter narrative to a tee. Kickstarter is filled with overnight success stories–from Pebble to Ouya–who turned brilliant ideas into millions of dollars and national exposure. It’s easy to attribute their success to amazing products, the rise of
On today’s episode of the podcast, Danny interviews his cousin Alan Iny, co-author of the new book Thinking in New Boxes. The book is all about how people think. It’s about how thoughts are constrained in our minds and, what that means for challenging our perceptions. We all think in boxes. They’re a symbol for
Picture this: I hit publish on a video that told the entire internet at large that I am working on doubling an email subscriber list in 30 days, from 15,000 to 30,000 subscribers. My hands are a little sweaty, my heart is racing, and I hope I didn’t make a huge faux pas in front
On today’s episode of the podcast, Danny talks to author and blogger Nir Eyal about unconscious behaviors we engage in without even thinking! When you use something all the time, you never think about what really goes into using it. Your actions become habits, and it all becomes automatic. Nir’s research is based around what he
Do you ever get up in the morning dreading the day? It’s tough to roll out of bed in the morning when you know you’re not doing as well as you could be. Like if you’re dreading the day because you haven’t reached your revenue goal this month, and you have five days left until
I know how to be ridiculous. I worked on five arias every day for six months to get ready for an audition with an opera company I didn’t want to sing for, only to stand backstage and tell myself, “Just get through this audition and you never have to do it again.” That’s ridiculous. I
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Or months. Or years. You’re doing your time, responding to your emails and blog comments, reaching out and building new relationships, and always creating content, thinking about the future and planning what you’ll need to get there. It can be exhausting, and no matter how much you love
Has your website traffic been diminishing recently? Are you struggling to gain visitors, subscribers and sales? It’s natural that in a tough economic climate customers will be looking to buy less ‘stuff” overall, and time-starved consumers are torn in all directions, so more businesses are competing for less customers. Of course it is not the
As entrepreneurs we get in the game because we feel we can offer something (a service, a product, something!) of value. We feel we can serve in a better fashion running our own show than in a corporate environment. We feel we are fulfilling a need in the world. While the motivations above are a
