Happy Thursday from the road!
I’m kicking back in cowboy boots with margarita(s) in-hand down in Austin, Texas since late last night.
I’m excited to be here spending quality time in Texas with friends and new faces at South by South West (SXSW), a huge music/film/interactive festival that invades the heart of Texas every year.
I’ve never been to SXSW before, or to the great city of Austin, but I’m really excited to check out the town, have some fun with great people and let the experience unfold as it will. Ohm, Texas style :)
You’ll often hear me encouraging other blogger/solopreneur/digital nomads — hell, everyone and anyone, regardless of what they do for a living — to break free from behind the computer screen, to get out and travel, and to come together with new people.
Any of the great conferences, festivals, meet-ups or “unconventions” across the nation that bring people together are wonderful experiences, every time. You just need to get out there and go for it.
The human element is everything. And, over the course of just a few days (or a week) at any sort of gathering, I promise that you will gain more from face to face networking, making friends, sharing experiences, laughing, forging relationships, discussing ideas, brainstorming, offering help and sharing contact information than you would in months or maybe even a whole year from doing the same things online.
With this in mind, here’s a handful of thoughts that have been on my mind lately on business, accomplishment, leadership and more!
There are a lot of great things coming down the pike. I’m working hard, and very excited to start rolling out an entirely new, exciting, honed and refined phase in my journey. We’re taking things to the next level. This is just a taste of what you can expect to see coming…! Speak soon!!
On Doing
• Feeling accomplished at the end of the day is incredible. Feeling like you’ve deeply experienced life, love and people at the end of the day… that is it’s OWN accomplishment. Can you bridge the gap of either one or the other, and achieve both?
• You’ll never be 100 percent prepared and fully ready. But because there’s never any moment but this present moment… there’s never a better time than “never ready.”
• The secret to doing work you love is the feeling of “home.” It’s like life itself cradling you. And in those wonderfully rewarding moments, you feel a total peace. Find the feeling of “home” in what you give, work, live, love and do. The feeling of home is its own indicator that you should do more of it.
On the Ways We Live
I caught a moment of “Who Do You Think You Are” on NBC this past week, a show that chronicles (and, of course, dramatizes) celebrities embarking upon an ancestral search for their family’s roots.
Today, you and I depend upon stories to get a clue of how we got to where we are: and we rely upon old official bookkeeping, tax and land records, immigration documents, birth and death certificates to find shreds of truth that piece together a picture of what once was.
Now, just imagine how vividly your ancestors might get to know you.
Imagine how they could see your face in hundreds of digital photos and videos, read and listen to your thoughts and opinions, get to experience every facet and detail of how you lived on any ordinary day — like today.
Imagine, through blogging and social media — any array of possible archives and snapshots of the Internet — how your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren could witness fleeting moments both good and bad: Tweets of despair or impatience and anger; every joke told, or flash of vivid excitement from cherished life events.
That is a crazy thought!
Now, consider the physical and emotional legacy that you will leave behind for others to witness: live, breathe and act in accordance with how you wish your future generations to see you. Because in a lot of ways, today, the live you live and the example you set is already leading others — whether or not either you, or they, realize it.
On Creation + Biz
I’ve been playing with a newer concept on how to explicitly measure success in our ventures as leaders without followers: some constructive middle ground between either praise (“Everyone seems to love this, look at how good I’m doing!”) or criticism (“I must be failing because of what they said about it!”).
I’m calling this idea of a metric “Constructive Engagement” or “Constructive Input,” the degree to which others actively and constructively participate.
Constructive engagement is when fans, networks and customers act upon feeling invited into the fold the mission/process/idea/project/business: contributing by offering their own perspectives, critiques and suggestions to almost become like active players. They feel compelled to help and contribute.
Or, they take the idea themselves and begin to build upon it elsewhere (a business model, a system, an idea that can be tweaked and made uniquely their own, etc).
Constructive engagement is also an important mindset and personal method of accountability for the creator, entrepreneur, blogger or idea-owner.
The creator still considers the role of praise and criticism, but doesn’t rely upon either as a measure of success or failure: it finds the heart, the center, the inclusiveness of middle ground:
- it means impersonally chopping away the fat of hatred + venom to find the meat of what a critic is saying (because usually, criticism is reflective of the critic’s wants, needs and mindset)
- it means not being seduced by praise, but wondering what more (or less) can be done and what can be altered to create active participants rather than just passive supporters.
If you can’t already tell, business side of life and leadership is going to become more of a focus here on my blog and in my writing. The reason is because business is becoming so much stronger of a focus and force in my own life.
(Remember: you naturally become a teacher of what you most wish to learn!)
On a pragmatic level, I’m ready and definitely need to take my business (my writing, blog, entrepreneurship, working partnerships, etc.) to a new and exciting level in 2012. It’s coming along as we speak.
I’m also really excited to learn, explore and develop insight on conscious capital, sustainable business, the role of leadership in small biz/entrepreneurship — so that I’m better able to teach you what I learn, and also to create loads of wealth for you as a customer and reader. :)
On Leading
• Can you create beauty from what repulses you? For me, it’s politics: redefining leadership to be based in love is how I strive to create beauty from what repulses me. Why? Because to create beauty from what repulses you is victory. It’s nonviolence in spite of oppression; creating love instead of anger, criticism, complaint.
• People have asked me, “Why leadership?” Simply, because you never know what effect you might have on other peoples’ lives. I’m a half-glass full optimist, and I believe that even the smallest, most ordinary of interactions with a complete stranger that you might never see again can have a profound, positive, irreversible impact on his/her life:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVCBrkrFrBE[/youtube]
• A leader without followers isn’t “just a guy going for a walk” — a common quip, but so short-sighted! In response I ask, who and what do you encounter when when you go for your walks? A leader without followers makes his life — the walk itself — a statement of love, giving, positivity, peace. A leader without followers goes for a walk
- knowing that anyone and everyone she encounters may reap the example she sets;
- knowing that what she does when no one is looking is what defines her;
- knowing that what she does or doesn’t do leaves a lasting imprint upon our Earth and, thus, always has an impact upon others.
Makes you think a bit differently about going for a walk, doesn’t it? :)
• Gandhi said, “My life is my message.” Me, I want my life to be my leadership. And I want to show you how your life already is your leadership — and how the simplicity, the purity and the humanity of looking at leadership in this way can change a lot in your life and better so many lives in our world.
* PS: The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), of which I am a member, just launched a great campaign called #FixYoungAmerica that is making waves. I’m psyched to be a part of it. Check it out here.
* * PPS: I’m gonna be rolling out a fresh redesign of DaveUrsillo.com soon that I’ve been working on personally. It’s hot stuff. Functional, simple, fresh color scheme, total hotness. This will be Version 3.0 of DaveUrsillo.com, entering year #3 of its blogging life! :) And thank YOU for being a part of this journey! You rock.