“Don’t ‘aim high.’
Aim very, very high.”
Tom Peters, The Little Bit Things

When I first started playing the guitar, my only goal was to play a handful of songs decently to impress people (i.e. the fairer sex).  I learned some chords, I picked up a few tabs and tried my hardest to learn those songs.  And what did it get me?  Lack of motivation and mediocrity.

I wasn’t aiming for excellence; I was aiming for mediocrity.  The problem with aiming for mediocrity is that you definitely won’t be great, you’ll be — at best — mediocre.  And this is a sad realization which weighed me down as I progressed towards playing a few simple songs.  Luckily, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know jack.  This helped me set a new goal.  I didn’t want to just learn a few songs, I wanted to be great — not good — great.  I’m aiming for the likes of B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, or Jimi Hendrix, virtuosos in their own right.

But you want to know the scary part?  I don’t think I’ll ever get there.  I’m doomed to fail because geniuses like that only come along once in a decade (sometimes less).  But I’m okay with that because if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that if I don’t succeed in becoming a guitar virtuoso, I’ll still be damn good at playing the guitar.

There are worse things than marching out in public in your underwear like not speaking up.  It is even more dangerous than walking around in your underwear because it gives a false sense of security that you haven’t done anything wrong.  But there is a lot wrong when you don’t help that man who fell down, when you don’t tell your manager that the product has a flaw, or when you miss that chance to talk to that someone who can make your career, just because it’s not “appropriate”.  Indeed, we live in dangerous times where you can live your whole life by doing nothing “wrong” and still end up marching down the street in your underwear.

Talking in front of all those people, what if I didn’t do a good job?  The thought terrified me.  I had no ambitions of being the centre of attention, I thought of myself more as a “behind the scenes” kind of guy.  These were the people who supported those in the spot light.  The ones who helped research, come up with good arguments but certainly not be the one bringing down the rein of terror on the unsuspecting witness in front of a whole classroom of peers.  No, I never thought of myself as “that” guy.

But a funny thing happened during the trial: I was good, really good (as far as Grade 8’s go at least).  It turns out thinking logically is an excellent trait for being a defense lawyer (hence the term “lawyered”).  I was cutting down the opposition witnesses one by one.  In fact, we were winning the trial so badly that the crown side had to bring in a ringer.  They actually conscripted the other grade 8 teacher as an expert witness.  It turns out that they didn’t think it through so well as she played a priest who had heard Louis Riel confess to his crimes.  Unfortunately, I came up with the argument that confession was an anonymous activity, so how could she know that it was really him?  Circumstantial at best.  We easily won the trial after that and as I remember I got an A on that project.

I never expected myself to be good at it.  Neither did my teachers or my peers.  In fact, they were stunned how forceful and loud (I guess I’ve always been loud) my voice came down when I did my first cross examination of the witness.  I had always been the shy, quiet guy sitting in the back.  Where this vengeful pint-sized lawyer came from, was a mystery to everyone including myself.  But I guess that’s the point.  I gave myself (or at least was given) a chance to shine, to be in the spot light and I succeeded.  Had I resisted this opportunity, I might never have known my abilities to present out logical arguments in front a group of my peers and I may never have known that I could succeed in this way (worse yet, Louis Riel might have gone been found guilty in our mock-trial condemning him to a mock-death).  Unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize this and up until recently, I hadn’t been giving myself these opportunities as much as I should have.  But that’s all changed because I finally learned that I just need to give myself a chance to succeed.

The Biggest Underserved Markets

The first sentence from the video:

“In the next seven minutes, I’m going to give you the greatest opportunity you’ve ever heard in your life…”

It’s time to pay attention.

It’s a hard question to answer since by definition you don’t know it. It’s like trying to pick a good girlfriend, most of the time you don’t know until after the fact.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep at it, learning and experimenting as much as possible to make sure you increase your chances of knowing what you wish you knew.

Tina Seelig has done us who are seeking what we wish we knew by sharing her knowledge in a great book called “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20“.  It details many of her experiences and lessons with entrepreneurship, innovation and life.  After reading this short book, I could help myself from thinking “I wish I read this when I was 20″.

Many times the road ahead is unclear, foggy, or downright opaque but by asking those coming back, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to navigate.

“I’ve had bad days and weeks and months and, indeed, years. Yet the
measure of worth remains the attitude toward the next minute to come:

‘I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.’
—Helen Keller

‘We do no great things, only small things with great love.’ —Mother Teresa

EXCELLENCE. Always.
If not EXCELLENCE, what?
If not EXCELLENCE now, when?

EXCELLENCE is not an aspiration.
EXCELLENCE is the next five minutes.”
Tom Peters

What are you going to do with your next five minutes?

“Garbage In, Garbage Out”

This lesson was taught to us with the thinking that the computer was just a machine.  If you put garbage in, it’ll spit garbage out.  A simple and sweet adage (or disgusting depending on how you look at it), just how I like it.

Recently though, this lesson has resonated with me again as I dive deeper into The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr.  He tries to uncover the answer to an important question in our age of information: “As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?”  The brain after all is a computing device (albeit not a Von Neumann machine).   If we spend all day on the internet inputting Facebook, Twitter, Digg, reddit, WoW, porn… into our brains, what happens to it?  Garbage in…

The result just can’t be the same as someone who spends their time reading (entire) books and interacting with real people.  For me, my brain is one of my most important assets.  I’m going to make sure I put something useful inside, so I don’t have garbage coming out.

Today I burnt my toast.  I can’t believe it happened.  I’m not sure how I can go on.  My day — no my life — is ruined!

My friend keeps telling me it’s not a big deal.  It is a big deal!  These are the order of biggest deals:  genocide, starving orphans and MY BURNT TOAST!  It’s so obvious, I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t get it.  Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if people wouldn’t be so self centered and just think of people in need like me.

Sure, toast tastes better when it’s not burnt, but burnt toast is a fact of life.  It’s like they say, it’s not the number of times you burn your toast, but how you react to it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make some toast.

The night before his fight with Apollo Creed, he confides in Adrian saying that he just wants to Go The Distance so he wouldn’t be “… just another bum from the neighborhood”.  That’s powerful.

Going The Distance

Going the distance will get you a lot more than not being a “bum from the neighborhood.”  Something I’ve come to realize is that it’s not about falling, it’s about getting up.  Even if it means getting up after you’ve been knocked down by the heavyweight champion of the world.

Getting knocked down is an inevitability, the only choice you have is whether you’re going to get back up.

You know who’s awesome?  Future Brian.  He seems to know how to deal with every problem I don’t know how to deal with today.  I mean how does he do it?  Like without thinking he’ll do an awesome air kick and knock down any problem that gets in his way.  Some day I hope can approach the awesomeness that is future Brian.

What does your future self look like?  Mine sounds pretty awesome.