Kicktastic Blog

In 279 Days to Overnight Success, Chris Guillebeau calls them “vampires.” In The War of Art and Do the Work, Steven Pressfield calls them “the Resistance.” When I released Melting Chocolate Kettles back in 2010, I borrowed one of J.K. Rowling’s nastier creations from the Harry Potter series to describe them: Dementors.

Dementors destroy, negate, scourge. They suck out people’s souls—literally.

Are critics so different?

Most of the critics I have met were frustrated artists: the choir director who couldn’t hack it as an opera singer; the arrogant fiction writer who never had anything positive to say about other people’s writing; the businessman from D.C. who shot down every marketing idea without proposing a better one.

Critics come in various shapes and sizes.

At different times in our lives, they have different titles. They may be parents, teachers, coaches, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, strangers, colleagues, co-workers, bosses, and business partners.

• They know the right way to do anything.
• They interrupt you while you’re speaking.
• They harumph and snort and sigh when you disagree with them.
• They’re fond of the words “idiot” and “ridiculous."
• They hold you to a higher standard than they hold themselves.
• They usually haven’t accomplished the things they try to dissuade you from doing.
• They give unsolicited advice before asking questions.

Perhaps the most difficult part of bypassing critics is recognizing that they are often people we love. In early 2011 I was training for a marathon, and my wife and I were in Nashville for a weekend, visiting my family. I had a sixteen miler on Sunday morning, and the night before, we were sitting around talking about this and that when my dad made this remark:

“Churches aren’t runners.” 

My dad is a good man, for whom I have a great deal of respect. We are close. But that isn’t the thing to say when your son has already injured himself twice training for marathons and he is waking up to a long run and the prospect of getting hurt again.

The good news is that I ignored him, finished the run, uninjured, in record time, and said to my dad with some “feeling” on Sunday night: “Clearly Churches are runners if we want to be.”

But the story isn’t over yet. The day of the marathon, my wife Megan and my parents popped up at random places along the course to cheer me on. They met me at the finish line, and my mom said, “That was fun! You should run another one.”

The only way to prove to your critics what is possible is to go do that thing: plan an around-the-world trip. Start a new business. Quit your job.

Run your toes bloody.

I’m not saying that people’s words won’t hurt. You’ll feel angry, confused, and sad all at once. You’ll want to rage with elaborate arguments justifying your dream or chosen course of action. You’ll want to defend your integrity and your intelligence.

Don’t waste your breath. You’ll just come across as defensive and impetuous. After all, you can’t describe ice to a jungle dweller. If you take big risks, then you’re working from a totally different frame of reference than people trying to minimize risk while maximizing comfort and safety. Their paradigm frames you as a lunatic, a charlatan, or a dimwit.

Most of Einstein’s teachers interpreted his boredom in class as laziness, and thought he would never amount to anything. Einstein had this to say: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Might I recommend the latter?

History forgets critics. You should forget them too. History remembers innovators. Join some miracles.

Good news, fellow Kicktastic friends! Nate and Jon will be at two - yes you read that right - two conferences in October sharing some good ol' nuggets of Kicktastic knowledge. Where and when are these wonderful gatherings of like-minded web people so that you might partake? Read on to find out.

People are always asking me how to get more business. They typically express their needs in one of four ways:

• “I need more [new] business.”
• “I need more repeat customers [or clients].”
• “I need more referrals [from existing customers].”
• “I need better profits.”

If any of the above statements resonates with you, then I'd advise you to start more conversations. At its heart, business is all about relationships. Needing more business is thus the same as needing more relationships, and relationships start with conversations.

The subject of today's post is a simple conversation starter: stickers.

It's time to get your Marketing skills leveled up! The newest video in the Best Year Ever series covers the marketing basics to help you get your company out there and noticed!

People can't buy from you unless they know you exist and that you have what they want. How does that happen? Marketing, that's how! Jump into the video and get started marketing your business.

Watch it Now

We started Kicktastic back in June of 2012 to provide high-quality video training and help people create more profitable businesses. 

We also wanted to transition out of full-time client work. Visions of making mad money while sipping frosty beverages by the pool danced in our heads.

But along the way we realized that the part we liked the most was helping people!

“If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.”

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When we polled Kicktastic members awhile back, a good number of them confided that they needed help deciding what to do next.

Sometimes success can lead to inertia: “If it's not broken, why fix it?” Sometimes failure can paralyze us: “Remember what happened last time? We can't take afford another big loss like that."

So we wait. We hedge our bets. We strategize.

And the Christmas lights strung up in the rooms of our hearts go out, strand by strand. 

If you've ever been at a loss as to how to meet your goals, then maybe you can learn a thing or two from Darren Rowse of Problogger.

Darren and his wife had just welcomed their first child into the world. 

Those of you who have children of your own will remember being jarred awake by those impossibly loud cries. You remember trying to comfort your child through gritted teeth, stumbling around bleary-eyed while mixing a bottle of formula, and waking up in the morning already bone-tired and out of patience.

Darren managed several popular blogs, and many of his loyal readers had been asking for him to write a short ebook. He had a hungry crowd, and he had a baby. Could he give both what they wanted?

In those early months, making the time for creative pursuits meant getting even less sleep. Darren had every excuse to not write the ebook, but he decided to start anyway and give just 15 minutes a day to writing.

Here's the short answer to how to grow your business: give up control. Let go. Surrender.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard first taught me this truth in his book, Let My People Go Surfing, when he wrote about his M.B.A.—management by absence. Your business's capacity for growth is inextricably bound up in your ability to relinquish control. 

If you're a micro-manager and must have the final say-so on everything, you're probably spawning bottlenecks at every stage of every project. On the other hand, if you look for ways to delegate tasks and responsibilities and empower your employees and independent contractors, then you can call forth and capitalize on their creativity, enthusiasm, and initiative. 

I've had the privilege of going to several thought-provoking conferences this year: ConvergeSE in Columbia, South Carolina; Trey Smith's App Elite 2 in San Diego; Southland Summit in Nashville, Tennessee; and World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon.

Going to conferences creates whitespace. I can take a step back from client work, app development, and other business pursuits and take stock of how I'm spending my time.

What is my Big Why? What is my definition of success? What do I want?

Yes, I enjoy the exposure to new people, new ideas, and new opportunities, but I also need a chance every once in awhile to take a deep breath, to recalibrate my many projects, and to realign my day-to-day activities with long-term goals.

But any creative professional and entrepreneur with technology- or internet-based businesses runs the risk of missing the forest for the trees. Inspirational speakers stir our imaginations and remind us of our dreams. "Follow your heart," they say. Or, "do what you love." Or, "turn your passion into a seven-figure business.”

"Work" morphs into a synonym for self-actualization, and those of us who live in the U.S. and other wealthy countries quickly lose sight of the hard reality faced by most of the world's workers:

Bringing your heart to work is a luxury.

A wide, one-way street runs between Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. On a Sunday in early July, it fills with sunlight.

Nate, Jon, and I had skipped the morning sessions to wait in a long snake of a line outside of Voodoo Doughnuts, and I'd spent the remaining forty-five minutes before the lunch break trying not to eavesdrop on a conversation about technology, theology, and business that Chris Brogan was having with some friends. 

When I walked outside on Southwest Broad, which was blocked off for WDS, I saw something unusual. Keep in mind that unusual sights become usual at the World Domination Summit 2013. But I couldn't help but stare as a man with a shaved head and bushy eyebrows bound together the feet of a younger man in a wheelchair. This scene, which later became an experience and not simply another snapshot or postcard, caused an eddy in the flow of foot traffic.

Benedict, the one in the wheelchair, was pensive. He watched Slade work, and for his part, Slade finished with the string with quiet confidence, as though he were in the regular habit of tying up strangers.

They were strangers, I learned later, and that was significant, considering what happened next.

Today I'm in Portland, Oregon, at the World Domination Summit 2013, and I've got good time management on my mind. Darren Rowse gave the second keynote this morning, and he posed a simple yet profound question:

"What do you want your future to look like?"

The question really pertains to the present because the future doesn't yet exist. I don't think Darren will mind if I qualify his question with two of my own:

• What in the present will keep your desired future at bay?
• What changes can you make to welcome your desired future?

You'll find that making changes in the present usually involves changing how you budget your time. 

Let it be known that I dislike email.

Deleting emails gives me the same grim pleasure that I feel when using a weedeater to rip through the juicy stalks of weeds. I'd rather be doing something else with my time, but if I must, then I'm going to make those weeds (and emails) pay for it.

Whether I like it or not, email is here to stay, along with self-employment tax and Pigeon Forge. I choose to make the best of it, and to that end, I've captured in this blog post a few of the tricks that I use to grind down my inbox as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Enjoy. Or don't. Just get better at email.

My friend Drew asked me for some productivity tips the other day. 

I don't consider myself an expert on the subject, and I certainly waste my share of time. In fact, I believe that not being productive all the time is important for our emotional and spiritual help. 

But Drew's request did give me a good excuse to gather my thoughts. Let's dive in.

I recently wrote a post about three crucial shifts in perspective that prepared me for success. They're important for changing the way you see yourself, your work, and your role with clients.

But they're not enough.

You also have to exercise certain habits, and before you can do that, you must first believe that your personality is plastic, malleable, changeable.

If you believe that people don't change, well, Buster, don't waste any more time reading this post. You'll be better off stockpiling weapons, canned beans, and gasoline for the Zombie Apocalypse.

For the rest of you who are more hopeful, know this: not only do I believe that people can change, I believe that we must change. Otherwise, we will never develop the pluck and emotional intelligence to stop letting fear and an addiction to comfort (which is really just fear of scarcity) make our decisions for us.

When you run your own business, you have ample opportunity to feel anxious: what if you don't get the project, what if the client is disappointed in the work, what if you can't pay your bills.

All those "What If's" can do a number on one's enthusiasm and productivity. Anxiety causes you to waste time and energy dreading things that may never happen. Anxiety is the adult version of seeing a boogeyman in the closet and monsters under the bed. So you sit there and tremble and wait for the worst.

Anxiety is the antithesis of productivity, yet once it has a grip on you, it's hard to shake off. What do you do?