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Take Advantage of Advantage

Have you ever heard the term “Home team advantage” – usually having to do with either playing a game on your home turf or knowing your “team” has your back? I’d like it if everybody knew what their home team advantages were and took advantage of them. All too often, I hear of people wanting to succeed regardless of who their home teams are and I’m all for that, but through stubborn hardheadedness they work in spite of the home team advantage, inadvertently snubbing those that could help them most with subtle “I don’t need you, I can make it on my own” mantra. That’s fine, but unless you are the Clint Eastwood hero character in Dirty Harry it’s probably not going to work for you.

The world doesn’t need more heroes going it alone in inhospitable landscapes, it’s hard to follow a leader who refuses to foster community. The world needs people who take advantage of advantage, that know the worth of their “home team” and realize, especially now that social networking has enabled us to have a myriad of “home teams”, that we are all just one home run away from succeeding thanks to our hugely varied support networks.

My advice, take advantage of advantage, if you find you have it, and it serves you well without damaging your integrity, take it, run with it as you round all the bases – thank your fans in the stands for supporting you, take a bow, and show em’ how it’s done before doing it again.

(Sports analogies – a new one for me)

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Keeping the Brain Pickers at Bay

“I’d like to pick your brain.”



It’s a phrase that unless you’re 10, or just not that interesting to other people, you’ve heard before.  I don’t know how you feel about it, but for me it conjures up used car sales men and Amway representatives picking at day old chicken carcasses while chewing with their greasy mouths wide open. Read more

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How to Ask a Stranger for an Interview

From the archives: 5/7/2008

Mr. Godin,
I would like to interview you for a documentary I am compiling exploring the evolution of purpose (personal, social, technological).  Actually, I would be ecstatic honored and quite possibly wet my pants if you said yes to an interview for my film.  It’s working title at the moment is “Life in Perpetual Beta“.  We have an interesting line-up of creatives, techies, life coaches, authors etc. that we are interviewing [ Sidney Levy, Nova Spivak, Dan Pink to name a few].  I think that your personal style would really kick ass and fit with our message. (ala Dan Pink “there is no plan” or Yoda “there is no try only do”  – how social networking and collaborative economy is changing the shape of society and shifting the way we think about work).  It may turn out to be the irreverent whorish bastard child of “the secret” with a heart of gold, thus making it world famous or it may just be another blurb that gets put up on Youtube, but all the same, I’d love to get a few moments of your time to interview you.  Please do let me know if you would grant me the honor of an interview.

In gathering information for Life in Perpetual Beta the book (common’ you knew it was coming) I looked through my old interview pitch emails. I didn’t know Seth Godin from Adam at the time to tell you honestly, but my tribe told me I had to have him, so I made an impassioned plea… was even ready to pee my pants… then had the audacity to mention honor… still hard to believe, I did eventually get the interview, You can see it here.

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I don’t want to be remembered for these things

I’ve have had some really terrible things happen to me,

I’ve had other human beings do awful things to me,

I’ve witnessed other human beings do awful things to each other,

I’ve done awful things to myself, to others,

I’ve even survived life threatening illnesses, yup – done that too.

All of them horrifying life experiences I would wish on no one.

I don’t want to be remembered for these things,

or remembered for surviving these things,

or remembered for surviving in spite of these things.

Honestly, I just don’t want to remember these things.

What I do want to be remembered for is living fully

not in spite of,

or in survival of,

or graded on some curve in comparison to the terrors of  –  my past,

But rather, I’d like to be remembered for the right now to the bone love of being alive.

And maybe tomorrow I’ll look at this post and roll my eyes, a little too cool for my own naked little heart, but in this moment, it’s the truth.

What do you want to be remembered for?

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