I just wanted to share a presentation that I created for Commpose, a Arizona based copywriting group, which unfortunately I was too sick to present. However, enjoy!
About 8 years ago I had the wonderful opportunity to carry the Olympic Torch in Colorado Springs. To this date, it is one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. Not because I felt I had achieved something, but because it was a moment of clarity for me. At that point when I carried the torch, I knew I wasn’t just carrying the torch for me, instead I carried the torch for everyone who had helped me, be me. Its not that I had blinders on thinking that I had went through life without being influenced. It was just at that point when I carried the torch, that things became so much more clearer to me.
If you are a gamer (a person who play video games), you know what cheat codes are. One of my clients I am currently working with is developing a video game property. The fact I am working with this client and my reminiscence of my video game days brought this short post to fruition.
I remember when I used to play Golden Eye (James Bond) in college, their were cheat codes that gave you extra guns and let you bypass certain test and boards on the game. The reason you would do something like that is basically it was either too hard to obtain those guns and extra goodies or it was too much work to get there.
I read the blog and watch the videos of a guy named Gary Vaynerchuck (here is one of his videos that really inspired me), who is a successful business man and social media evangelist, and he really pumps me up when he talks about good old-fashioned hard work. His best saying is that you have to go out there and “work your face off.” Which is a really great statement. With all this information at our finger tips and this world evolution of making things faster, smarter, easier,etc., I think we forget that success boils down to - bone crushing hard work. I have always felt that having that hard general labor type work ethic (lifting, pushing, busting butt type work) combined with being on cusp of how to be a knowledge worker in the this new age, has helped me tremendously. I don’t think you can have the experience of knowledge working, without having that bone crushing hard work ethic, and be successful. There are no cheat codes to life, you gotta work through each level, complete each board with strategy, and be apart of the cream that rises to the top. Thats if you want to get to the next level.
Photo Credit: The Magical Green Lucky One by Oskaline
Thomas Edison once said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” To quote from a book I am currently reading, “If you wanted to be a professional golfer, it wouldn’t be unusual to dedicate yourself to hitting 10,000 or more golf balls until the precise combination of movements in your swing were so ingrained in your muscle memory that you no longer had to think about it consciously.” This number, 10,000, is significant and has been made more popular as the basis of OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS By Malcolm Gladwell. The premise of Gladwell’s book is a study by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. In this study Mr. Ericsson estimates 10,000 as the number of hours Read the rest of this entry »
