Make It Happen
When I was younger, I thought love just kinda happened. You met a girl/boy, you liked him/her, he/she liked you, then suddenly BAM!!!! Fireworks and happy ever after.
Luckily (as it turns out), it doesn’t work that way. It takes effort and deliberation. You gotta be proactive. “Random” might get you laid on occasion, but that’s about it.
That being said, it’s still a very happy cartoon… #YayHappy.
Think about this on all aspects of life. The brands you choose, the places we choose to live and the friends and relationships we choose to be in.
Pick your sliver well … my friends. Or better yet – with business, we have the ability to create our sliver.
Lets party guys!
“Usually, the deal here is, I draw a cartoon and then write something to go along with it. Some little philosophical add-on to balance it out, etc.
But I got stuck with this one.
The meaning of this cartoon is just so self-evident to me that I really don’t think adding anything will do it justice.
So I’ll just shut up now…
No. Really.”
“As Russell Davies, the UK ad executive says, “A brand’s first job is to be interesting.”
Once you are interesting, every contact with every customer, supplier, and stakeholder becomes easier. When you look at how commodity products and services are differentiated from their competition, it always comes back to the successful ones being more interesting – usually in an unexpected way.
Yes, quality matters. Yes, price matters. Yes, all the stuff you learned in “B” school matters. But what matters most to your customers is that you are smarter, quirkier, cooler, and more determined than the next guy. Once you are able to project these human traits to the world, customers and prospects are drawn to you.
This is for the guys who still think that the only way to market is through explaining product benefits and price advantages. Because being more human and showing that you are different, with personality and purpose, is even more important.”
This is simple Hugh – Thanks for reading my heart this week.
“Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Not Steve, the other Jobs. The kind that pays you. The kind the politicians promise you. The kind that have been disappearing or becoming more elusive with every passing year. While it might seem scary to think that jobs are melting away like the polar ice caps, there is indeed a silver lining. Instead of expecting our next job to be handed to us on a silver platter, we need to think about creating it.
We need to look in the mirror and see the opportunities that are in us. While the job market may be challenged, we have more opportunities than ever before to find our own freedom. It is time to look in the mirror and be the entrepreneur of yourself. It is time. Your time.
Say hello to your new CEO! Yay!”
I love Hugh MacLeod’s words and cartoons… he is spot on.
Go be yourself-eo.
The linked article bugs me though. Even though it is completely awesome and worth the read… the writer who generalizes Apple’s success to simply just creating great products doesn’t get it. I have nothing against Sassholes, but it is a theme I continue to see more often. Just because you own an iPhone and MacBook Pro doesn’t make you an Apple expert – and that includes most Apple employees.
“What determines who we are? Is it that we settle? What is good enough? Do we find happiness? How do all of these things shape who we are?
Our “potential” is infinite. As endless as the cosmos. We are endowed with the power, ability and opportunity.
What gets in the way of our potential? Lack of drive? Lack of interest? Distractions? More likely: Not knowing what you really want.
More than ever, we live in a world where on a personal level, nearly anything is possible. We ARE the sum total of our choices, and these choices should lead us to happiness. I’ve always thought that a key to happiness is aligning what you want with what you are willing to do to get it.
We’re not talking morality, we are talking your appetite for 16 hour work days, travel, ass-kissing, office politics, screaming kids, etc. If you can live in that sweet spot of doing and getting what you want, you are living your potential.
And, your potential is all about being happy.
God Bless.”
Are you happy?
“Spontaneity is one of life’s great joys. It is a way of breaking out of a daily routine that can seem like drudgery.
It is a way of being playful, bringing joy and embracing possibility. It is one of the gifts that free will offers.
Try it today. Turn right on the way home, instead of left. Do something, anything, that you haven’t tried before.
See how a little thing can make a big difference to your quality of life.
Some people have turned complaining into a science. We see that some cultures have a greater propensity to complain. Coffee’s too hot, food’s too cold, boss is a jerk, Starbucks double half caf mocha frapaccino wasn’t quite frappy enough?We all know people who do it. It validates. It lets people vent, but is it the right thing to do? In my experience, complainers are generally hard to be around. Their complaints usually fill the narrative gaps of what they feel are flaws in their own lives.
After all, why be successful when you can sit around and complain about everyone else who is?”
100 thousand million percent agree.
Rock on!
Hydle
“Sometimes being happy is just a choice. It’s just what you look for every day. In your work, in love, in friendships.
It’s really about how you view your place on earth. You look for joy, and that’s what you’ll find.
We all know people who make the ‘other’ choice. Nothing is good enough. They find fault everywhere. Their default mode is discontent.
For a lucky few, they eventually reach the abyss. The point at which being confronted with the dire-ness which is their life, becomes transformative.
Instead they choose joy.
Everything becomes better.
It takes nothing more than changing an attitude.
Today, take the hand of someone who you think should choose differently.”
This is really about leadership. Leaders understand, often innately, what it takes to inspire action.
Inspired action is a much different animal than top down directed action.
Inspired people will walk through fire to achieve their goal. Directed people are in it for the paycheck.
It was the difference between the Roman legions and mercenary adversaries.
It is why so many businesses these days are focussed on finding their true purpose, and why we spend a lot of our time helping companies communicate that purpose.
Purpose allows for inspired action with amazing results.
You have your individual creative moments, and you have your creative collaboration moments.
They feed on each other. Even cartooning, as in my case, it’s a fairly lonely craft, however it too relies on the feedback loop I get from the people who help me run gapingvoid- Jason and Laura, namely.
It’s something that gets clearer to me as I get older- that all good things feed on other good things, and feed them back.
It’s the wheel of life, it’s the wheel of being. This reality will never change… and Thank Goodness for that
There are few things sadder than seeing someone give up. And by the same token, seeing someone walk through life waiting to wake up. These people want something out of life, but they can’t put their finger on it, and so they wait. They wait for something to simply fall out of the sky and many times (if not always) their wait is in vain.
I don’t want to get into a discussion about fate or whatever that would imply for a person in this situation, but sometimes one has to decide to live. Not for someone or something else–but solely for their own happiness and contentment.
It can be hard, sometimes, to get out of this mindset, that things will just happen or work themselves out on their own. We have infinite potential to change our impact on the world and with the people around us.All one has to do is act.
“Some things are just better left unsaid…and when it comes to the opposite sex, many questions should be left unanswered.
Exactly.”
This is a revisit to a previous cartoon which inspired Seth Godin to write a book…
My friend Seth Godin said it perfectly, “What do marketers sell that scales? I’ll tell you what: Belief. Belonging. Mattering. Making a difference. Tribes. We have an unlimited need for this.”