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Posts from the 'Lessons Learned' Category
June 17th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
We’ve been watching the audition rounds of So You Think You Can Dance, and one of the most crazy-talented people they took to their second-level Las Vegas Round was Robert Muraine, a “popper” who can do absolutely mind-bending things with his body.
But one of the things all the contestants have to do is learn choreography - short rehearsed routines. Muraine was having a lot of difficulty with it, and was talking about leaving the show, rather than “mess up a partner” when he couldn’t perfom.
Well, word of that got to the judges, and they gave him an opportunity to do his solo routine first.
Someone posted what happened to YouTube, and it’ll just astound you. Watch how amazing he is. Watch how he gets a standing ovation from everyone. Watch how the judges do everything they can to encourage him to stay. And watch how so terribly, terribly powerful an enemy the fear is.
Posted in A-Has in the Ether, Lessons Learned | No Comments »
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April 8th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
Our buddy Kevin Skarritt flagged this post about “Managing urgencies” by Seth Godin for his staff and strategic allies recently, and wanted to hear everyone’s insights on it.
Godin’s solution for making sure you keep your focus on your goal, rather than the fires you have to put out in your business, is this:
I guess the trick is to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies. Break them into steps and give them deadlines. Measure your people on what they did today in support of where you need to be next month.
Ah…but how do you make your long-term items more urgent?
In the corporate world, managers can make the long-term goals more important for their employees by tying those goals to performance reviews, bonuses, salary boosts, and so on.
But what about the lifestyle entrepreneur? The solo professional? The micro-enterprise or small business owner?
Variations on the “How do you make your long-term items more urgent?” question have launched a thousand careers. From business coaches to motivational experts, helping people achieve their goals is a multi-billion-dollar business, and the success stories - no knock against any of them, it’s just life - requires a “results not typical” disclaimer.
In the face of so many people, with so much more experience, I’m not going to presume that I have the revolutionary answer to this question, the one that would make Epiphanies, Inc. become the be-all, end-all of personal motivation.
What I can tell you is that I made one small change, and it’s made a world of difference for me.
We have a number of clients, and I have a weekly to-do list for them. I draw my daily to-do items from that, and work in any “urgent” stuff as need be.
Previously, I used to put the to-do items for our own business at the bottom of lists. In 2008, I started putting them at the top.
Three months later:
- I’ve blogged much more for our business this year than I did over the same period last year.
- I’ve produced more articles.
- I’ve gotten our information products onto our website and available for sale (after a year of having them created).
- I’ve had more sales and lead-generation conversations than I did all last year.
In other words, I’ve become more of a business owner working on our business, rather than just being a technician working in our business.
Ultimately, trying different things until one stuck has helped in making the right things urgent. It’s not perfect - there are still things on which I need/wish/want to prioritize for our business - but I’m headed in the right direction, finally.
Posted in Dances With Gurus, Insight + Action, Lessons Learned | No Comments »
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March 10th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
I rarely open email forwards, and even more frequently delete them if the sender doesn’t add a little note at the beginning to explain just why they were compelled to send the thing along.
But I happened to open the one pasted below. And it’s bizarre, because I’d just been thinking about how it’s our fifth year in business. How 80% of businesses supposedly fail in the first year, and 80% of the remainder fail within five years, and if we make it through this year, we’ll have beaten some pretty incredible odds.
Not to mention how tough it got in the latter half of 2006, when the option of “quitting” started to look attractive for a little while there.
That said, here’s a little Mood Booster for you, and for those of you who aren’t comfortable with use of “God,” do like Julia Cameron of Artist’s Way fame advises, and treat it as an acronym for “Good Orderly Direction,” a nameless force in the universe that is constantly looking for opportunities to help you on your journey:
The Fern and the Bamboo
One day I decided to quit…. I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality… I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
“God”, I said. “Can you give me one good reason not to quit?”
His answer surprised me.
“Look around,” He said. “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.
“In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.”
He said, “In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit.
“In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit.”
He said. “Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant.
“But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.”
He said to me, “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots. I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. Don’t compare yourself to others.”
He said, “The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern, yet, they both make the forest beautiful.
“Your time will come,” God said to me. “You will rise high!”
“How high should I rise?” I asked.
“How high will the bamboo rise?” He asked in return.
“As high as it can?” I questioned.
“Yes.” He said, “Give me glory by rising as high as you can.”
I left the forest and brought back this story. I hope these words can help you see that God will never give up on you.
Posted in Lessons Learned, Mood Boosters, Storytelling | 1 Comment »
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February 29th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
This is the 10th Leap Day of my lifetime, and the 9th of Lani’s. And as it happens, we’ve been having some pretty intense conversations about our business, and our vision - not just for Epiphanies, but our own personal passions as well.
And for a while there, it wasn’t all fun. The energy Lani spent to cheer me up brought her down, then trying to bring Lani back up took a toll on me, and so on and so forth in a little vicious circle.
On top of all that, when you’re in business to create results and you spend the morning talking about things that have no seemingly direct tie to “deliverables,” it can get even more frustrating.
And then it hit me, and I finally said to Lani, “You know what? Today is a Bonus Day. This day doesn’t exist three out of every four years.”
To which she lit up and said, “Yeah! It’s like Brigadoon!” The reference was lost on me (that Wikipedia link helped), but this absolved a lot of guilt about what we “could” or “should” be doing today…and brought us both out of the muck.
Instead, we decided that, to honor the day, it was imperative that we do something awesome. And…we haven’t figured out what that is just yet, so I’m taking this little interlude to blog.
Back to the original point, though - what would YOU do with a Bonus Day? What if you were dying, and God came down and said, “You know what? Here’s a Bonus Day. Do with it what you will.”
So far, Lani and I have gotten our baby to roll over from back to front for the very first time, and dissected our wedding vows in geeky detail (we have them framed, with photos of us on our wedding day, hanging on our brick fireplace).
We’re talking about going to the planetarium (Lani’s never been, and I haven’t in two years), visiting Lani’s Aunt Joyce at her camp in Epsom (Joyce, born on a February 29th, is celebrating her Sweet 16 today), and eating at the Japanese restaurant where they turn food preparation into an acrobatic feat.
We may do all or some or none of this. And I’m totally okay with that.
More important, for me, is that I’m going to come out of this Bonus Day having decided, having chosen for my life, that I’m just going to have fun. I haven’t been recently. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the company of our clients, our partners, or our allies - it just means I haven’t been finding (or even looking for) the joy in our circumstances.
I read an interview with Jerry Seinfeld in GQ recently, and he described his career simply as an assiduous pursuit of fun. (Full disclosure - I had to look “assiduous” up in the dictionary.) And if that’s good enough for one of the most successful comedians in history, it’s good enough for me, too, especially as the co-owner of a company that preaches the power of “Bold Insight PLUS Joy-filled Action.”
It’s Bonus Day. Whatever you do, for love, money, or both, please: Have fun doing it today.
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February 8th, 2008 by Allen Voivod
 Our friend Lou Esposito, who’s the Producer at Mattel Brands Online for the BarbieCollector.com website, is awesome. (That’s him with Lani during her October 2006 visit to the old El Segundo campus she used to call “work” for three years.)
He’s wicked talented, as an avid blogger and member of the highly-regarded Shakespeare at Play theater company. (Check out a review, with him in the accompanying photo, of their recent Twelfth Night production.)
It’s the latter talent which inspired this blog post. Lou sent this email to some friends the other day:
Years ago (we’re talking decades here), my friend Anne’s boyfriend was working on a book on artists… interviews with struggling artists and performers and how they cope with the day to day survival while pursuing their craft. In the course of working on his book, he sent me a set of interview questions, which I was only too glad to reply to. And promptly forget.
Fast forward 20 years to learn that the book was published in ‘04, and I’m one of the ’struggling artists’ included … It is truly surreal reading my responses from 20 years ago and comparing them to who I am today, as I get back into acting after so many years away from it.
The book is “Artists on the Art of Survival: Observations on Frustration, Perspiration, and Inspiration for the Young Artist” by Bill Mesce. I’ve read through the parts you can see at Google Books, and I’m just amazed by how the things about which we’re passionate never truly leave us.
One way or another, you WILL “A-Ha Yourself!” in this life.
Posted in How do you "A-Ha Yourself"?, Lessons Learned | No Comments »
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January 12th, 2008 by Lani Voivod
One of my best friends got me one of those Page-a-Day calendars for Christmas.
To be honest, I usually get at least one of these every year, and more often than not, I end the year with the first few torn off, and then the rest of the year’s block of paper intact. I forget to read them, I don’t find them useful or interesting, or I just can’t be bothered.
This year, though, she got me the Page-a-Day calendar from “The Secret.” You know, the big Law of Attraction movie-book-viral marketing success story? (No doubt the musical will be coming later this year. ;))
So far, every day this year, I’ve been excited to read the little pages of insight and inspiration.
I believe in the Law of Attraction. I’ve seen it work in our lives and business. It makes sense to me. I want to get better at using it to manifest the things we want in our lives — more laughter, fun, time, money, freedom, creativity, etc. All those nice things that make life worthwhile.
I thought I’d share today’s little blurb here, because it’s definitely one of the biggest blocks I’ve seen for solo professionals, micropreneurs, and small business owners.
From The Secret page-a-day calendar for January 12th:
If you have held thoughts in the past that the only way money can come to you is through your job, then let that go immediately. Can you appreciate that as you continue to think that, it must be your experience? Such thoughts do no serve you.
So many of us unwittingly set our own limits about what we can do, how much we can make, and how money can flow into our lives. “I tried that and it didn’t work.” “No, that wouldn’t work for me.” Or “I couldn’t possibly make money doing THAT.”
Just like what Allen and I tell our 5-year-old son, and what he now parrots back to us on a nearly daily basis (and what good old Henry Ford said:
Whether you say you can or say you can’t, you’re right.
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August 6th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
Here’s how Lani explained the concept of bad karma this morning to our four-and-three-quarters-old son:
It’s like if you yell at someone, and then, not even a minute later, you get conked on the head by a flying duck.
Okay, maybe it doesn’t happen exactly like this in real life. But the idea of karma is closely linked to the Golden Rule, which we’ve also been talking to our son about recently (you know, the “Do unto others as you’d have them do to you” rule). And that all ties back into the Law of Attraction, and focusing on what you want to get out of life, business, love, etc.
The reason I’m blogging about it this morning is because I know more than a few people who don’t give any credence to the Law of Attraction, because it hasn’t appeared to work for them or people they know. And the amazing thing is, we’ve been taught similar things to the Law of Attraction for our whole lives.
I think the Golden Rule is universally accepted as a moral starting point. So if you’re going to act in ways you want to come back to you, why wouldn’t you also think in ways you want to come back to you? Or dwell in the emotions you want to come back to you?
For me, sometimes breaking out of anger is a huge struggle. Sometimes it just feels good to be angry. But I’m finally starting to learn how to step out of my anger, flip my perception of what’s going on around me, and make the active choice to focus on the positive. I’ve probably made that process much more difficult than it really is, but 2007 is the year I’m finally making progress there. I’m by no means perfect at it, but life and business have been much better this year.
Just a deep thought or three for a rain Monday morning.
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June 29th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
 Love him or hate him, Donald Trump has a few lessons for all of us. (For the record: He makes me laugh in ways he probably doesn’t intend.) And one of them kind of slapped me in the face upon waking the other morning.
Lani and I had fallen off The Apprentice bandwagon until about the middle of this last season, when we tuned in again. What I belatedly realized was that many (in not all) of the tasks seemed to be marketing-related. Create a sales brochure and video for Trump’s new Veags condos. A Sunday newspaper advertising insert for a mouthwash. Make money with a car wash. You get the idea.
“So why are the tasks all marketing focused?” I wondered out loud. One of the benefits of working with your spouse is, regardless of business hours, you get your questions answered. “Marketing’s the whole game,” Lani said. “Trump knows it. Everything he does is all about marketing. His show is nothing but marketing for him, his businesses, his lifestyle, and all the brands they feature on the show. And it’s GREAT marketing!”
I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it. You can build the coolest product, offer the most desperately-needed service, or run the most efficient business in the world, but if no one knows about it, you’re dead in the water.
Conversely, you can have a crappy product, and if you’re a savvy marketer, you can rake in the dough. At least, you can until the word of mouth on the crappiness kicks in. 
So if you’ve been putting off that press release, stalling on that article, or gotten stuck in planning a workshop, take today and get a marketing piece out there. And tell ‘em Trump made you do it.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business, sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Lessons Learned | 1 Comment »
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April 2nd, 2007 by Allen Voivod
This realization struck me as I was kind of helping teach my son to ride a bike without training wheels (I say “kind of” because in truth I was just shouting advice - he had the tough part figured out in mere minutes).
So after a couple of times of him yelling “Watch out!” and a couple of ankle contusions for the grown ups who didn’t get out of the way, I said to him, “Stop looking at us. Look past us, where you’re going, and you won’t hit us.”
And it worked! The next day, when he decided he was going to slalom between the parking cones at nearby Gunstock Mountain, I told him not to look at the cones, but look betwen them. And that worked, too.
That night, talking over the day with Lani, I remembered something similar I’d read in Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. He told a story about learning to drive a race car, and every time he looked at the wall, he drove right into it. His instructor told him to look where he wanted to go, and the car would follow, and it did. So much for my original bike-riding instructions.
Lani brought up a great point - that this instruction has a lot to do with goal setting and achievement. Namely, if you want to reach a goal, you have to keep your eye on it and head straight for it. If you want to fail, keep looking at all the negative consequences of failing at whatever you set out to do.
No, reaching your goals is never as simple as that. But #1, it’s more fun to think about what success looks like, and #2, in my experience, it’s more likely you’ll succeed keeping an eye on the positive.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
Posted in Lessons Learned | 1 Comment »
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March 19th, 2007 by Allen Voivod
 For the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of attending Karyn Greenstreet’s marketing planning teleclass (don’t look for the link on her site as of today’s post - since the class already started, you can only find this link about it on her blog). It’s good foundational stuff, and I highly recommend it.
Though there are any number of great tidbits to quote from it, the one that really resonated with me today was this suggestion from Karyn about what to do with all the emails you receive from information marketers (I’m paraphrasing):
When you sign up to receive someone’s emails, don’t look at them right away. If you use Outlook, just put them in a folder until you have about 10 of them.
Then take a little time to read all 10, right in a row, in one sitting. If you’re not getting the kind of information you want, or if you’re not feeling a connection with the author, then unsubscribe yourself immediately.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got Outlook folders for about three dozen info marketers and their emails. And who knows how many more gurus I’ve got lurking in the “Grab Bag” folder I set up, because I was sick and tired of setting up new folders.
So that’s what I’m going to do - start weeding them out. Besides, if you believe in the Law of Attraction, then you must know that you don’t have to be an information pack-rat, keeping everything you ever received until the piles of email overflow so much that you crash your Outlook with every boot-up.
Trust that when you need to know something, the answer will come to you - even if you unsubscribed from the source years ago.
For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business (and get creative AND effective with your own marketing efforts), sign up for our ezine, “The Inciter,” at EpiphaniesInc.com!
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