Dunno why. Maybe it’s that I was raised in a household with a hippy, potter (not pothead) mom and a mad professor dad. Either way, I never quite learned the standard party openers, you know, first 10 questions to ask or ways to be instantly known as the life of the party.

And, I have to admit, I kind of resented this lack of proper social grooming for a lot of years.

Because everyone I knew seemed to have a much easier time than me. But, with age, comes wisdom (also known as eccentricity), and I eventually realized my parents’ socialization skills were actually pretty killer. They were just finely tuned to the very narrow craft-world and academic communities in which they operated. Hell, my dad could throw down with the best cognitive scientists out there and my mom could talk gas-fired celadon circles around your average potter.

Problem is, outside those counterculture cliques, mainstream America operates differently.

And, while they were comfortably ensconced in their worlds, I was growing up in the bigger soup of mainstream suburban U.S.A. So, I learned how to fit into their worlds…but not mine.

And, after years of not really getting it, I started looking for the secret. I was fascinated to hear, many times and from many people, that the REAL secret is…

If you want to be interesting…be interested.

It sounded so easy. Just learn the standard openers, the 10 new-person questions, then listen to the answers and keep asking questions that demonstrate that you’ve listened and want to know more. I tried it. It took a bit of practice. But, it worked. If you pretend to be interested by mimicking the behavior of a genuinely interested person, people love you. I figured this would be a great skill set to have when looking to build clients or get a job.

Only one problem…a solid 80% of the time, I didn’t WANT to know more.

In fact, it was all I could do to keep my inner geek/hermit from raising it’s head three words into a conversation and screaming, “NEXT!”

I’m not antisocial by any definition. But, I am selectively-social.

And, here’s what I discovered. I don’t want to be considered interesting to everyone in the room, everyone at the conference or everyone at the bar. Because it takes a boatload of energy to feign interest in the name of being found interesting by people who, when it comes down to it, you don’t want to share your damn cookies with anyway. It empties you out in the name of being liked by people who, even if you’re successful in your quest to be found interesting, will have fallen not for you, but for who you’ve conned them into thinking you are.

Ya know what? Maybe, just maybe it’s time to (wo)man up and learn that it’s okay for only 5% of the people to find you interesting. Because life’s not about mass adoration, it’s about individual connection and we all have a relatively limited capacity for that.

I DO want to be considered interesting to that small subculture of people who are so genuinely likeminded and/or engaging that I authentically DO care about what they are saying. I DO want to be respected and loved and be known as a vital part of a select community, not because I asked the right questions to create just enough feigned interest to pass social muster, but because they’re them and I’m me…and that’s enough.

In the end, it’s not about how many hands I shake or the percentage of people in a room who find me interesting. It’s about the 5 people with whom there’s the chance for a genuine connection.

So, here’s a new rule about how to be the most interesting person in a room…

DON’T!

Be authentic, filters down. Have something to say, fueled by passion, to a small subset of the room who care and who you genuinely want to listen to.

Because the moment you have to feign interest, you’ve already lost the interesting game.

As always, just thinking out loud.

What do YOU think?

• One is about your legacy, the other is about what’s in front of you.
• One is about the impact trail you deliberately blaze and leave behind, the other about the income trail you haphazardly piece together.
• One is about progressive, conscious building within a well defined area of interest, the other is about bouncing to wherever the next perceived opportunity lies without regard to growth and consistency.
• One is about being mindful, present and proactive, the other is about being disconnected, frenetic and reactive.
• One is about peace, power and passion, the other is about searching, yearning and hoping.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer, a painter, a blogger, a lawyer or an executive. We all have within us the opportunity and the ability to create a profound body of work, a legacy.

There is, no doubt, a time for chaos and exploration.

In fact, it nearly always proceeds and informs a period of greater, more focused building. And, it’s not unusual for it to occasionally return as you question your current path. But, understanding and, to the extent possible, directing that chaos toward a resolution is critical, even if it means letting go of paths and options in order to create the space, focus and intention to drive forward with one. Because, with rare exception…

For greatness to emerge, options must narrow…and chaos must die.

Powerful legacies rarely if ever come in the form of scattershot, piecemeal efforts…cornucopias of chaos…no matter how fun, windswept or purposeful they seem when we’re adrift within them.

So, my question is…does this make sense to you?

And, more importantly, are your building or floating and why?

Ever wonder if you could truly come alive while working for someone else?

By the time I finished writing Career Renegade, the book ended up with a decidedly entrepreneurial bent. But, truth is, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, there was an entire section on going renegade under someone else’s roof that ended up on the cutting room floor.

And, more recently, as I’ve been culling and refining my own quest to play a smaller number of bigger games, I’ve been revisiting that very question. No doubt, going renegade most often taken the form of entrepreneurship, but I’m increasingly wondering if it really has to be that way. Because, in the end…

Going renegade is less about running the kingdom and more about delivering yourself into a place where the qualities and quests that allow you to come alive are ever-present.

You can create that scenario through entrepreneurship as I’ve often done, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of also finding the necessary qualities under someone else’s roof.

For me, the 8 Critical Renegade Qualities include:

• Mission – Is the mission/vision closely aligned with my own personal mission and desire to create a powerful, lasting impact on peoples’ lives
• People – Are the people within an organization “my people?” Are they like-minded, do they buy into a similar vision, lead with respect, transparency, impact and truth over politics and value similar qualities?
• Culture – Is the overall culture, pace, level of formality, layers of oversight, directness of interactivity, lightness/heaviness, sense of joy and mutual respect and emphasis on collaboration and contribution to a collective vision in sync with the type of culture that allows me to thrive. Is it fast-paced and innovative or locked into established systems (that often bear little relevance to the concerns that gave rise to them). Will people understand that my most powerful innovations often come while noodling away on an electric guitar with headphones in the middle of the day?
• Setting – Is the physical setting one that resonates and supports my quest for innovation and impact, from the nature of the office layout to the geographic location?
• Content – Barring a smallish percentage of admin that comes with any position (even entrepreneurship), is the content largely intrinsically rewarding? Would I do it for free simply because I love to do it? Do I wake up thinking about ways to do it more, better, cooler?
• Process - Are the processes and procedures in sync with the the processes and procedures that allow me to do my best work?
• Control & Accountability – Am I given enough control over the means to be able to effectively deliver on the results I would be held accountable for? Hold my feet to the fire, but give me the matches, the wood and, if needed, an axe.
• Energy – Every organization has an energetic subtext, a visceral pulse that inevitably runs from the top down. On an intuitive level, does my heart beat along with that same pulse?

If the answer to these questions is a strong yes, you might want to go for it.

But, there are a few wild cards…

And, lack of ultimate control is one. When you’re not the final word, you never have the same level of control over your own personal journey or the course of the greater entity that you’d have as the head of your own vision. You may play a considerable role, but you don’t get to set the tone for all the qualities listed above. And, that’s something very serious to weigh. All too often, though, peoples’ quest for control isn’t built around the desire to define the above qualities, but rather the mad dash for security.

People equate control with security and, truth be told, they’re not the same.

Control may get you one step closer, but in the end, the closest you can ever come to the near-fiction of security is extraordinary competence. And, that follows you wherever you go, whether you run your own venture or bring it to life in the context of another’s.

Plus, the entrepreneurial route may also compel you to trade off certain extraordinary experiences.

These often include:

• The resources and support of a larger, better funded organization that would allow you to accelerate and magnify the impact you can have on other peoples’ lives. And,
• The opportunity to work with and learn from extraordinary individuals and mentors, on a day-to-day, face-to-face level.

Right now, 80% of all small businesses in the U.S. are 1-person business. And, according to a recent Business Week article, more than 50% of those are home-based, dropping tens of millions of entrepreneurs into a never-ending quest to find a small collective of trusted Rabbis, mentors and compatriots in an effort to continue to learn and grow and have a group of trusted advisers.

Establishing your own renegade think tank can be massively helpful in moving your vision forward. I’ve done this myself and supplemented it by reading voraciously, attending events and leveraging my platform to interview many of the people I seek to learn from. That’s a very different level of experience, interaction, learning and growth, though, than working with genuine thought-leaders and mentors, face-to-face, day-in, day-out over a period of years.

In the end, there’s no one-size-fits-all renegade solution.

And, as much as I believed for a long time that some people are just cut out to be entrepreneurs and others to be employees, I have to confess to seeing a very real muddying of those waters. Because, to me, going renegade or “coming alive” in the way you earn your living is less about choosing between entrepreneurship and employment and more about:

• Revisiting the 8 qualities above,
• Defining who and what makes you come alive under each category, then
• Building or finding the path and income you need to live well in the world, that aligns most closely around those qualities and that allows you to build your living around the greater lifestyle you seek to manifest.

Either way, the beautiful thing is…we have a choice.

Question is…how will you make yours? WILL you make yours?

As always, just thinking out loud.

What do YOU think?

1. On Leadership: Give a damn
2. On Product Development: Solve a huge problem at the point of greatest pain
3. On Customer service: Give a public damn
4. On Employee Management: See rule 1 & be ruthlessly honest
5. On Marketing: See rules 1 & 2, then show, don’t tell
6. On Advertising: The more you need it, the more your product sucks
7. On PR: See rules 1 & 2, then light a match. If a fire doesn’t catch, do rule 2 better
8. On Operations: See rules 1, 2 & 4, then add trust and accountability to a result
9. On Sales: See rule 1, then solve, don’t sell…and only if you can
10. On Success: The only metric that matters in the end is impact
11. On Life: If you’re a macintosh, don’t try to be a gala.

Got more to add?

Have at it in the comments…

1. Suck up to well-known bloggers with giant followings
2. Guest post on well-known blogs with giant followings (usually done after #1)
3. Link out to well-known bloggers with giant followings a lot
4. Trash well-known bloggers with giant followings (then run for cover)
5. Make out with well-known bloggers with giant following at tweetups & conferences
6. Tweet about how you made out with well known bloggers are tweetups & conferences
7. Post/tweet about breaking news and take a strong contrarian position
8. Lead a post with a stunning/controversial image (stumble-bait)
9. Ask a question that cannot be left lingering in a headline
10. Include strong self-interest in your headline
11. Tell half of a story in the headline
12. Piggyback a giant news story in your headline
13. Call out a celebrity in your headline
14. Call out a social media mogul in your headline
15. Do an experiment that debunks a popular myth
16. Interview well-known bloggers
17. Interview well-known tweeters
18. Interview well-known business people
19. Interview well-known web-celebs
20. Be a complete and utter ass and write about it in detail (not my style, but it works)
21. Be the nicest person alive and write about it
22. Reveal your wildly dysfunctional train wreck of a life to the world
23. Ask a compelling question to 20 top bloggers, then post answers in a roundup
24. Film yourself naked on a unicycle in front of the major landmarks around the world
25. Write a 10,000 word post without punctuation or paragraphs.
26. Run a contest that requires people to evangelize you to enter (spam-alert)
27. Run a contest that requires thoughtful entries in the comments
28. Run a contest that requires people to submit videos entries on YouTube.com
29. Run an Ironman Triathlon and tweet every minute of the entire race.
30. Follow a guy running an Ironman who’s tweeting every minute and tweet about how he’s tweeting every minute.
31. Shave your chest for charity
32. Shave your back for charity
33. Shave your eyebrows for charity
34. Shave your ass for charity, or…
35. Shave someone else’s chest, back, eyebrows or ass for charity (disclaimer – get permission)
36. Start a conversation about a highly controversial topic and link to thought-leaders’ blogs
37. Create a list of the top blogs in your niche, then email everyone to let them know they made the list, wOOt!
38. Create a list of the top twitterers in your niche, then tweet them that they made your list, wOOter!
39. Create a list post about getting traffic without using list posts, then recommend using lists.
40. Provoke a ton of people, then turn off your comments so they have to respond on their blogs, twitter and Facebook
41. Help a ton of people without expectation of anything in return and know it’ll come back to you (my fave)
42. Offer free design advice
43. Offer free copywriting advice
44. Offer free marketing advice
45. Offer free business advice
46. Offer free technical advice
47. Offer free food & bevvies
48. Offer free product development advice
49. Run polls
50. Respond to every comment
51. Find hot stories on Digg and write rebuttal posts
52. Find hot stories on PopUrls.com and write rebuttal posts
53. Find hot stories on Mixx and write rebuttal posts
54. Find hot stories on Reddit and write rebuttal posts
55. Call out a guru
56. Provide insane value on a consistent, enduring basis
57. Answer questions everyone’s afraid to ask in public, but are dying to know the answer to
58. Stand in the Today show crowd with a giant sign linking your blog to Al’s outfit
59. Write a 5,000-10,000 word, insanely high-value series on a hot topic from digg or popurls
60. Make an insanely high value video on a hot topic from digg or popurls and post on every video site
61. Make an insanely funny video on a hot topic from digg or popurls and post on every video site
62. Make an insanely emotional video on a hot topic from digg or popurls and post on every video site
63. Be real…if being real is remotely interesting to anyone else
64. Buy PPC ads
65. Buy blog ads
66. Buy banner ads
67. Buy StumbleAds
68. Buy paid posts at Izea.com
69. Buy solo email blast ads
70. Figure out how to something that changes a lot of people’s lives, then share it
71. Do something that changes one person’s life, then share it
72. Solve a huge problem a ton of people have in a way nobody else has
73. Manifest your dream, then teach people how to do it and change even more peoples lives
74. Edit 20 old posts to add in keyword anchor text that points to a single new keyword-driven post
75. Do an SEO audit on your blog to make sure you’re doing everything possible to increase search traffic from both a content and architecture standpoint
76. Check every pforst four typoes…twice
77. Read the top mags in your niche and write about what they are featuring as hot topics
78. Write giant, evergreen flagship content that people will value forever
79. Write 3-15 itty-bitty posts a day (95 of the top 100 blogs posts multiple times a day)
80. Link out liberally
81. Promote other peoples’ stuff 10 times more than you promote your own
82. Take a damn shower, at some point you’re going to need to get lunch and talk to human beings
83. Post your best stuff earlier in the week
84. Try article marketing to drive keyword-specific traffic and build links
85. Get off your damn computer and talk to real people in real life who really care
86. Find forums in your niche and share killer insights
87. Make it easy to share your content with social media buttons
88. Write a bestselling book and send people to your blog on every other page
89. Become a moviestar, then challenge CNN to a public race for followers
90. Mock a moviestar who challenges major news outlets to win followers
91. Create an anonymous blog using an identity-protected domain to rail against an industry and share insider secrets (job hunting on the side, of course)
92. Hire linkbuilders to seek out huge numbers of links to your blog
93. Syndicate with RSS
94. Incentivize subscribers with “relevant, high-value” monthly giveaways
95. Don’t use a stock blog design template without modding & customizing it to reflect your genuine brand
96. Give waaaaaaay more than you get. Oh, did I repeat that? Damn straight I did, it’s that important
97. Involve your readers by, oh, letting them finish your post in the comments…

Got anything to add?

Scale aside…

There is a single quality that is so rare, when you find someone who has it, you’ll do pretty much anything to bring that person on board and keep them happy.

And, the thing is, some people cultivate it naturally. But, others, once they realize it’s power, may be able to build it into who they are and how they operate. So, what do we look for?

What is that single quality that makes someone precious and indispensable?

Beyond intelligence, loyalty, kindness, respect, discipline, pride, passion and compassion, it’s…

…the ability to create.

Sounds so simple. But truth is, the vast majority of people spend their lives learning how to follow then execute other peoples’ game plans. Fitting their skills, abilities and mindsets into the predefined responsibilities and tasks required by a predefined job. And, that’s fine. We need people like that in the world. If that’s you and you work with pride and add value and that makes you happy, rock on.

But, know too that you regardless of how “hard” you work, you will very likely never be toward the top of the “gotta keep ‘em” food chain. Not because you’re bad at what you do, not because you don’t add value. Not because those around you don’t like or even love you. But because there will always be a sea of people lined up to take your job who can do what you do in a similar enough way to make your boss, partner, colleague or collaborator happy.

For every creator, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of operators.

Which is why, when you’re a creator, everything changes. Rather than being the one people ask to carry out a plan, people look to you to create a plan. To solve a problem, to innovate a new idea, product, service or campaign, to see opportunities where everyone else sees barriers, to blaze a new trail rather than follow a well grooved one.

And, the thing is, most often it’s not about radical departures from the norm or Earth-shattering breakthroughs.

What I’m talking about is the ability to create solutions on a daily basis. To understand we’re at point A and we need to get to point B, then tap your creative/problem-solving juices to conjure the best possible way to get there. As someone who’s steering the ship, that ability is immensely more valuable to me than someone who needs to be told every step from A to B (provided I also have skilled Operators in the pipeline). Because it frees up my own creative juices to focus on other projects, while trusting in another’s ability to figure out how to get done what needs to get done.

Truth be told, though, there’s one person who’s even more valuable than the pure creator/problem-solver.

And, that’s the Creator-Operator—the individual who can not only create anew, solve problems and map out innovative pathways, but also possesses the ability to execute, to bring those plans to life. People who can do both are extraordinarily rare finds, because creation and implementation are very different processes and almost always inhabit different brains and bodies, too. Most peoples’ minds just don’t function well on both levels. Which is why those folks tend to rise quickly up the ranks and often become entrepreneurs.

And, that leaves us with two important questions:

• Are you a Creator, a Creator-Operator or an Operator? And…
• If you’re an Operator and you’d like to become more of a Creator, is that “trainable?”

I’ll share some thoughts on both these questions in the comments in a bit.

But, right now, I’m curious…how would YOU answer these questions?

Let’s discuss…

At the same time, I’ve just relaunched TribalAuthor.com as a full-on blog and began contributing a weekly column to the new Huffington Post book section.

Now, as I begin to do some retooling and reigning in (part of my “bigger game” plan), I’ve decided to merge the blog element of CareerRenegade.com into JonathanFields.com (which should make the sizable chunk of you who subscribe to both blogs happy, too).

On Tuesday, October 13th, we’ll be merging the two blogs. CareerRenegade.com “the website” will continue to exist and that site will host book-related things, the Career Renegade podcast and related events. But, when you click on the “blog” button, you’ll be taken over to the newly merged blog at JonathanFields.com. We’ll also be importing all of the posts from CareerRenegade.com’s blog into JonathanFields.com, so you’ll be able to find and search for everythere in one place.

And, for those who subscribe, either by RSS or email, we think we’ll be able to make the switch pretty seemlessly, but if we hit any snags, we’ll let you know and share what to do to continue to receive updates.

Thanks so much to my family at both homes, I look forward to continuing to grow with you in our newly unified blogging homebase at JonathanFields.com.

Kapish?

Seriously, I never thought this would be the effect…

This week, I was asked to be a featured blogger (actually hooked up by my amazing friend, Liz Strauss from Successful Blog), where I was charged with live-tweeting a conference packed not with social media people, not with writers, bloggers and other geeks, but leaders on a very different scale—the World Business Forum.

The lineup included folks like Bill George, the now Harvard professor who, in a past life, built Medtronics from a $1 billion a year “small biz” to a $60 billion a year monster. Guys like corporate titan, Bill Conaty and management wizard, Patrick Lencioni (author of the massive bestseller “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”). People like T. Boone Pickens, who made millions in oil, then lost 90% and rebuilt $4.3 million into $1.5 billion in 3 years, while launching a massive “security-driven” cleaner energy blitz along the way. And, the sole woman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kraft Foods, Irene Rosenfeld.

The two day summit was wrapped up by none other than Bill Clinton. Beyond the fact that I noticed a astonishing preponderance of Bills and a dearth of women on the podium (we’ll save both for another discussion), the experience did something to me that took me completely by surprise…

It made me want to play a bigger game.

Not a bigger money game…a bigger impact game. A bigger footprint game. A bigger life game.

For this to make sense though, I need to reveal a deep dark secret…

I am so far away from my potential, it’s scary. Which is a bit odd to admit, because, that’s not really the public persona I’ve stepped into. When I pitched my first book to my publisher, and here’s another secret, it wasn’t the book that’s now come to be known as Career Renegade. In fact, the only place I wanted my name to appear in the book was on the cover. I didn’t want to write about myself, share my story, reveal any awakenings or lessons I’d learned, spout off about any accomplishments or lay bare my journey. Because, I felt uncomfortable, really uncomfortable positioning myself as the guy who, in any way, shape or form, had it all figured out. I still do.

“That’s madness,” friends, colleagues and editors said, “look at everything you’ve accomplished. You’ve left a career and an income that few ever leave, no matter how much they hate it. You’ve built and sold two companies, you’ve been there for your family, touched the lives of thousands, led with passion…blah, blah, blah (this is where their voices began to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown).” Over time I grudgingly acknowledged I had done all those things. So, eventually, I came around to accept the fact that I had something, unvarnished as it was, to offer and that’s what ended up going into Career Renegade. And, in the end, I’m proud of the book and humbled by the thousands of notes I’ve received since the book came out that make me smile and know it’s had an impact.

But, the thing is, while seemingly outwardly accomplished, my view from the inside continues to be very different.

Because, while I love so much about what I do, I can’t help but feeling I still have so much more to do, so much more to learn, so much more to show and to offer. Not a little bit…but a massive bit. I’ve been feeling this for a while now, and spending a solid chunk of time hearing about the global impact the luminaries on the stage at the World Business Forum have had, it brought me screaming back to my own need to take some time, look inward and begin to plot a new course that will allow me to more intelligently manifest what I know I am capable of.

And, here’s where it get’s really sticky for me…

One of the things that’s held me back from doing this for a long time is the understanding that I’m not just talking about one game. There are those who are content, at least for a certain period, devoting nearly every waking hour to the pursuit of excellence in a single area of life. Playing one game to win. When you do that, magic tends to unfold in that single area…at least for a while, when almost without fail, all the other areas come crashing down and bring your one standout with it. Because, truth is were not playing a single game. Ever.

We are all playing a bare minimum of 5 games at any given time:

• The work game
• The health game
• The relationship game
• The spiritual game, and
• The mindset game

These are the 5 Mandatory Games.

And, you can’t check just out when it comes to any one. Sure, you can make a conscious choice to emphasize one for a given period of time. But, fact is, you cannot succeed on a massive scale at any one of these games for an extended period of time if you abandon the other four.

Actually, strike that. You can, but to what end? Spend 100% of your energy on the work game and there’s a good chance the other four will wither if not outright die on varying levels. Does making a billion dollars or building a huge company make up for the personal carnage that used to be your husband, your wife, your daugther, your son, your heart and soul, your disease-free body? Only you can answer that in the context of your own life, but I know my answer.

Which is why I was amazed to hear billionaire T. Boone Pickens stop his interviewer during the WBF event to make sure that, among his big accomplishments, the interviewer made sure to tell the audience Boone was also the father to 5 kids and the grandfather to 13. I loved that. Truly, it floored me. But, in the next sentence, he also mentioned his failed marriage…which made me wonder at what point the preeminence of his children and grandchildren took hold (Boone, if you’re reading this, call me).

Nearly every person I know who’s accomplished what others would consider massive outward business success has done it at the expense of their health, their relationships and often both. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Look at my twitter bio and you’ll see the first two words are “dad” and “husband.” That was intentional. They’re my most important game. But, then, how do I balance the equation when I am increasingly driven to embrace what I know is a level of business capability that far exceeds what I’ve demonstrated to date.

How do I play 5 bigger games all at once?

How do I keep all 5 areas of my life moving strongly forward? And, added to this already gargantuan challenge, I’ve come to realize lately that, while I love to be involved in about 5 different business ventures at any given time, if I choose to play the lead role in all, I’ve now just just raised the total number of games I’m playing from 5 to 9.

Bad, bad move.

If it’s a ridiculous challenge to figure out how to play the 5 core games on a global domination scale, how the hell am I supposed to play on that level with 9 balls in the air?

The answer has become pretty clear…I’m not. It’s not possible. At least, not for me.

The logical answer, then, is that it’s time to make some decisions. Something’s gotta give.

Step 1 is to scale my work game back from 5 to 1 or 2 max. To spend some real, possibly even sobering time contemplating the games that comprise the mandatory 5, that hold the most meaning to me, then run with those 5 and commit to building them out for a long enough period of time and with a level of conviction and deliberate practice that will fuel greatness in all. And, according to the research on greatness, that’ll likely be the better part of 10-20 years. Yes, I said years.

So, it’s crunch time for me.

Time to relegate certain ventures to the occasional hobby. Time refocus and hone. Time to become meticulous about my own productivity and time management skills.

And, literally, as I write this something else is becoming apparent.

While it is quite impossible to play 8 or 9 bigger games at once, maybe it IS possible to play 5 bigger games at once. In fact, maybe it’s essential to move all 5 forward at once. Because, truth is…

The health, relationship, spiritual and mindset games, played well, boost your ability to excel at the work game in a fairly profound way.

Play an optimal health game and you have less pain and a far deeper reserve of energy to bring to work, relationships, mindset and spiritual practice. Play an optimal mindset, relationships, health and spiritual game and you have so much more to bring to your work game. It seems to make so much sense, but I guess the real challenge is going to be bringing this approach to life. Sounds so sensible on paper. Testing the water and seeing how much TIME it takes to do each, though, that’s going to take some figuring.

Does that mean you’ll likely see me scaling back a number of public projects in the name of playing a bigger game with what’s left standing? Very likely. Is it even conceivable that I’ll kill them all? Doubtful, but right now…everythings on the table. Beyond killing ventures, though, it’s more likely my game re-engineering will take one of three forms:

• Selling or becoming a silent partner in some ventures
• Closing down/walking away from some, or
• Teaming with people and handing over control of certain projects

All with the goal of allowing me the space, time and energy to play a bigger, realer, more profound game in the one or two business ventures that remain. And, also to refocus on all of the 5 mandatory games.

I’m honestly not sure how this will all shake out.

But, I am excited at the sense of awakening and what I am sure about is that it’s time to scale back and step up. Time to rise to my potential on a level that has, despite my many stepping-stone successes, still eluded me.

Time to play a much bigger game.

What about you?

I’ve been asked the question a lot since Career Renegade came out in January…

How do you handle fear?

“Well, comes my answer, “that depends. Fear of what?”

“Of failure, of course.”

“Wrong fear,” I add. “You wanna be afraid, really afraid, take a look at what your life’ll look like not if you try and fail…but if you keep on keeping on for decades. That’s the real nightmare scenario for most people.”

Whaaa?

Simple fact, there is no sideways, no coasting…no neutral.

Not in relationships, not in business, not in spiritual growth, not in life. There’s only up or down, though the rate of acceleration and the magnitude of the progress in either direction often leads us to to some very warped perceptions. When we’re rising quickly, life is grand…though very likely unsustainable. When we’re plummeting rapidly, life blows and, similarly, with even a modicum of intervention, this path is rarely sustainable either.

In each of these scenarios, though, the speed and magnitude of the change in the way we experience life is so great and, often, so outwardly apparent, that we or those around us are moved to act to either support or redirect our trajectory. Action in the context of such powerful movement is a near mandate.

But, what of those periods where we’re sliding ever-so-slowly up or down?

In those periods, we’re often governed largely not by action, but by inertia. The desire to not have to rock our own boats. “Hey,” we say, “life’s not so bad. So what if I’m not making what I’d like to make, I’m getting by. So, what if my marriage ain’t great, it’s not THAT bad. Who cares if I’m a little fatter, sicker and in just a bit more pain. It’s not such a big deal.”

Problem is, “I’m getting by, it’s not THAT bad and it’s not such a big deal.” may be “workable answers now. But, the only reason they’re workable is because you’re assuming that you’ll stay largely at these same levels over time. That if you don’t do anything substantial to change, 10, 20 or 30 years from now, your business, income, health, relationships will just keep going pretty much sideways, coasting…and you’re okay with that.

Except there is no coasting. There is no neutral. No sideways.

It’s a myth, an illusion. There’s only up or down.

Which means, if you’re teetering on the edge of happiness, health, liquidity and contentment now, then 10, 20 or 30 years from now, if you really paint a vivid picture of your “do nothing to change” scenario, your life will likely be somewhere between really unpleasant and really dead.

Because unaddressed over time,

• Nagging pain becomes chronic, acute and debilitating
• Unrewarding work becomes soulless, lifessucking agony
• Passable health becomes obesity, disease and, for many, early death
• Unattentive relationships become estranged, angry, bitter, dysfunctional and nonexistent, and

Your currently “passable” life becomes increasingly painful as you enter the long, slow slide toward death. Because you failed to accept the knowledge that there is no sideways, there is only up or down. Even if the pace is slow, barely detectable. There’s no such thing as sideways.

Which leaves you with a realization and circles back to my original question.

How do you handle fear?

Don’t just ask the fear of failure question, add two others…

• What if I succeed?
• What if I do nothing?

Then, paint lush, vivid, highly-sensory pictures of each. Play out your failure scenario, along with it’s recovery. Play out your success scenario. Then, play out your do nothing scenario, 10, 20 and 30 years from now. For far too many, that become the real nightmare, the outcome most important to abort. Then tap your fear of manifesting that outcome as a core driver to break your state of inertia and go after the vivid success scenario.

And, the next time time you feel like inertia, sideways, coasting…neutral is enough. Think again.

Let’s discuss…

Two bloggers meet in a smoky bar…

They’ve both been at it for years. Veterans. Each growing giant readerships, respected and renowned by their peers. Both writing on similar topics. One, however, seems burnt and harried, while the other is kicking back enjoying life. And on this night, in the veiled anonymity of the bar, lubricated by a bit of booze, a confession tumbles forth…

“Sometimes,” says one, “I go without it for weeks…even months.”

“No way,” comes the reply, “if I miss a day, it’s like the world is ending.”

“Damn shame,” says the first one, “but you did this to yourself…”

By now, of course, we all know what they’re talking about…post frequency!

For years, there’s been a raging debate about how often you need to post to pattern your readers’ expectations and consistently grow your blog.

I’ve written about blog post frequency and size along with many others. And, even noted how 95 of top 100 blogs post many times a day. After watching some pretty interesting experiments, though, I’ve come to a conclusion…

Post size and frequency don’t matter nearly as much as Post-Fungibility.

Let’s look at two telling examples…

ThinkSimpleNow.com, written by Tina Su, launched in September 2007. Tina only writes once a week…max. And, there have been times where she’s literally shut her blog down for months while she travels overseas. Knowing little more than this, you’d figure her readership would be razor thin. Spotty at best. But, as I write this, only 2 years into blogging, she’s rocking more than 15,000 subscribers and she hasn’t posted in over 2 weeks!

What gives? Tina understands something very powerful.

Frequency matters most when your content is fungible with what everyone else who shares your niche writes. So, instead of throwing out rehashes, tips and spins as do many others in the wildly crowded “personal development” niche, she writes only when she’s got something deep and unique to share. And, if you thought my posts were long, Tina’s the queen of mega-posts.

So, her readers stay with her because they know, even if they have to wait a while, it’ll be worth it. Plus, she also does two key things that let her blog thrive with minimal content injection.

One, her content is so long and evergreen, new readers can stumble upon it and connect with it, even though it may have been written months (or years) ago. Nod strongly taken from StevePavlina.com. Two, Tina does something a lot of really savvy info-marketers do…she buries her post dates in small type at the very end of the post, which gives new readers the opportunity to “not” pre-judge her content as stale because the date is old.

So, Tina can write a couple of times a month, travel at will and continue to build a giant following.

Now, contrast that with another blogger I know in the same niche, a/k/a, the one who has to do it daily.

We’ll call her/him Charlie to protect the disgruntled. Charlie runs a very well known blog, has been at it for more than 5 years and has a bigger readership. Charlie’s approach is more self-help/lifestyle tips. And the blog is updated at least once a day, often times more. This leads to a huge content creation burden and the need to bring in paid writers and contributors. Sounding like fun, yet?

And, because the content is far less unique and far more fungible with other lifestyle tip based blogs, readers become patterned to view Charlie’s blog as more of a daily reminder of what they know they should already be doing, along with the occasional good insight. With content that’s less than mission-critical, readers don’t value the blog as much as Tina’s and the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” applies far more to Charlie’s blog than to Tina’s. Because of this, Charlie has shared with me that any day on the blog without a new post is a day where subscribers are lost.

It’s the Fungible/Frequency corollation—the more fungible your content, the more you have to rely on frequency and exposure to keep yourself in front of people and growing. The less fungible and more original/unique your content, the less frequency matters. Readers will wait however long they need to in order to get the long, deep, down and dirty stuff.

There’s one more big consideration, too…your money model.

If your model is based purely on ad-revenue, then daily traffic really matters. You need the exposure and the clicks. If your model is based more on developing a long-term consistent readership/list and then serving solutions into that list, then frequency doesn’t matter nearly as much. Something else to consider when deciding whether you’re a “need it daily” blogger or not.

As always, just thinking out loud.

Where you do stand?

What’s YOUR model?

And, do you really need it every day…

…or is really good, but less often good enough to keep you chirping along?

Let’s discuss…