Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.
Before we get to our featured men, women, and corporations, I need to give you the context—provide you the overview for the lessons and inspirations you’ll take away from these pages. Everything you’re about to read and (I hope) enjoy fits nicely under an umbrella I call my life-wealth plan. It’s a prescription, a blueprint, for success both professionally and personally. All the true tales in the coming chapters contain elements of the plan. One way or another, the fearless and crazy choices, the life-altering decisions, the incredible business instincts, and the flat-out entrepreneurial genius demonstrated by the people profiled here reflect the life-wealth plan.
What exactly is life-wealth? Life-wealth goes beyond money. It is a physical and mental state. It’s a powerful feeling of personal satisfaction for today and a confidence in the constant improvement in your life, career, and wealth for tomorrow. It’s believing that success and accomplishment are yours, if not right now, soon. It’s living a life that is wealthy in every way. People talk a lot about fulfilling their dreams. Personally, I don’t like reaching for dreams; dreams are for sleepers. I want people to achieve life-wealth, which is a higher state of accomplishment than mere dreams and wishful thinking. Life-wealth is real, tangible.
The following are life-wealth’s components, in strategic order:
Vision
Planning
Execution
Marketing
Networking
Dealing with the Unknown
Let’s take a brief look at each of these before you see them in action in the stories you are about to read.
What is vision? The best definition is a manifestation of something yet to come. That’s right, something that hasn’t happened—yet! Successful entrepreneurs don’t just try to make something happen, or hope that it will happen, or dream about something happening, or have illusions that it has happened. No, successful entrepreneurs do it. They take that vision and make it reality. The following are some further insights about the vision component of life-wealth:
The first step on the road to change is a clear and profound impression of what you want—that is, a vision of where you want the future to take you.
Visions can be crazy. In fact, it’s often an advantage to see a crazy future for yourself. It may very well direct you toward possibilities you couldn’t otherwise imagine. Having a crazy future in mind will also help motivate you to be fearless in the choices you make down the road.
Be specific about what you visualize, however. Even crazy visions need to be properly processed, so don’t forget to take the time to think practically about what that vision means, what practical steps you have to take in your life to make it a reality, and how it will affect your life goals. For example, if you want to start your own business and set your own hours, establish precisely what kind of business you want to be involved in and how you want your time to be structured.
So how do you make your vision reality? Well, you begin by moving on to the next component of life-wealth.
The late Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, once said, “Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.”
There are several dimensions to fearless and crazy planning:
Thoroughly evaluate the resources you have at your disposal to transform your vision into a reality.
Make a detailed assessment of what you really want for yourself, based on your mission and purpose.
Align your resources and ambitions to establish the right direction for your efforts.
Ensure that you maintain the right balance of focus and flexibility in your planning.
Establish a clear time frame for accomplishing your goals. Short-, mid-, and long-term planning are essential for developing your goals in a strategic, yet fearless and crazy format. Because of your well-thought-out plan, you are able to take quick, appropriate actions when the situations and opportunities fit that plan neatly and nicely. You are ready—and you strike. As you’ll see over and over in the pages that follow, fearless and crazy only works when there is a plan in place. Observers may think you’re out of your mind, but you had your mind made up long ago—you planned.
A natural outgrowth of planning is developing a mission statement that will inspire you to act and follow through on your plan even when the situation seems relatively hopeless or simply unappealing.
What next? Now it’s time to work the plan, to execute.
I’m a believer in making realistic dreams come true—in other words, executing the achievable.
Does this mean I sell my dreams short? Not for one second.
Instead, it means I work harder to ensure that I’m shooting for the right goals at the right time. It means I do my due diligence to guarantee success, rather than just rushing into an opportunity blind with no preparation or realistic potential for success.
Plan big—and execute even bigger!
The following points about execution are worth knowing:
Execution is one of the hardest phases in any development project.
You choose whether to react positively or negatively to every situation that comes at you. Obstacles should be treated as action verbs—that is, as opportunities to take action in the pursuit of your goals.
Motivating people to follow through on their plans is incredibly difficult; don’t be surprised if you struggle with this throughout your career. Leading by example, however, is one of the best execution strategies you can embrace. You’ll inspire others to follow through on their plans as well.
Execution is as much about reacting to change as it is about following a plan. You have to be rational (for the most part), and your response should be considered (which is where the planning tends to come in), but you also have to be ready to act decisively.
Keep your vision and your plan in the forefront of your mind always. Write down your short-term goals, and revise them daily as you accomplish some and reconsider others. Review your mid- and long-term goals at least monthly. These lists are part of your daily routine. You see them before you shut off the light at night; you see them when you wake up each morning. These goals become an integral part of your being. You are never far away from them; nor are they far from you. They are your execution road map. They are the blueprint to the life of your dreams.
We never act in a vacuum, of course. So to execute any plan, to sell any product or service, it’s crucial that you sell yourself. This is where marketing comes in.
Marketing is what will allow you to rise above the clutter, to distinguish yourself from the masses, to make a mark with your very special vision. It’s how you develop your brand. In fact, that brand is you, and marketing is how you develop Product You.
You begin developing Product You by figuring out how you are going to be different and why anyone would choose you over the numerous other people offering similar products or services. Basically, what will attract people to you and your business?
Why will they look for you, and how will they find you? In traditional marketing and advertising, we call this the unique selling proposition. Your unique selling proposition will allow you to establish yourself as a brand in your career or industry and maximize your overall potential. Most companies apply marketing tools and techniques on a day-to-day basis, but individuals rarely see themselves as a “product” or employ marketing tools and techniques to promote and merchandise themselves. Here are some reasons you must develop a marketing strategy for Product You and some tips on how to get started:
The success of your business depends a great deal on the image you create for your company and your brand.
A huge part of your business image is determined by your communications and interactions with customers.
You, yourself, are a brand as well, distinct from any company you are involved with, and marketing yourself successfully is as fundamental to your business success as the marketing of that company. We’ll learn much more about brands in Chapter 3.
When it comes to promoting your business venture and yourself, you need to establish a short, sharp, and effective method to communicate the key marketing message. Work on it, practice it, and perfect it. (See more on this “power statement” in the next section.)
A SWOT analysis is one of the best ways of evaluating your resources and, most important, yourself. It’s a great tool for discovering and marketing Product You. You’ll learn more about it in Chapter 8 and try it for yourself in Chapter 10.
So now you’re concentrating on your image and your brand, but you have to constantly be attuned to others—how they can help you attain your vision and how you can help them achieve theirs.
I call it no-nonsense networking—the ability to work with and through other people who will elevate your vision and at the same time promote theirs as well. As a result, you will both add value to one another. You don’t network effectively if you’re forever thinking only, What can this person do for me?
No-nonsense networking is a win-win—if not immediately, then sometime in the future. To get the most out of no-nonsense networking, you have to figure out how to develop a business relationship with people you’ve met even casually. That may involve something as simple as sending a follow-up email after meeting a person for the first time.
Easy enough? Hardly. For most of us, it’s tough being Mr. or Ms. Social. It’s difficult to walk up to strangers, put out your hand, and strike up a conversation. Chitchatting and keeping on top of the relevant topics is not effortless when you’re worried about how you look, how you sound, and what to say. Let’s face it, we’re self-conscious animals, and paying attention to some other self goes against our nature.
But you do it anyway. Because that’s how relationships are formed, partnerships are struck, and friendships are begun. It’s how business gets done. So if you’re not good at it, you’ll have to get a bit fearless and crazy just to acquire the skills, just to become at ease. But do it. Persist. It is crucial to everything in this game we call life.
Enough philosophizing. Social scientists who study business interactions say you have about 20 seconds to make a strong, positive impression when meeting someone. If that’s true—and it probably is, although 20 seconds may actually be 10 seconds too many—you should prepare what I call a power statement for face-to-face business meetings and even chance encounters. Some call it an “elevator speech.” Whatever you call it, it should be short, direct, and to the point.
I call my own power statement 20 Seconds of Thunder. When I’m getting ready to leave the house for another long day of networking, wheeling and dealing, and producing a feature motion picture, I don’t walk out the front door unless I have two things: my laptop and my 20 Seconds of Thunder!
So if I run into someone who might help me in the elevator, in the coffee shop, in the lobby, in the reception area, or in the men’s room (hey, it has happened) and he casually says, “Oh yeah, Arthur, what are you working on?” I am prepared to the nth degree. I don’t stammer and stutter and choke. I don’t hand him a business card and tell him to call me sometime. I come ready with my 20 Seconds of Thunder. I tell him in that brief amount of time exactly what I’m working on, who’s involved, and how far along we are in the process. People typically respond well because the statement is so succinct. It immediately conveys professionalism, sincerity, and trust. It’s no-nonsense.
The following are my seven essential steps to no-nonsense networking:
1. Have a plan and a goal for your networking activities and efforts.
2. Prepare a “script,” and practice what you’re going to say.
3. Get involved with and engage the person you’re meeting.
4. Focus on building the relationship, not making the sale.
5. Don’t forget to ask for what you want.
6. Follow up meetings within 24 to 48 hours.
7. Most important, relax and have fun.
We’ll explore networking strategy further in Chapter 6.
Life-wealth and its components should be making some sense to you by now. For more about it and to offer your comments, visit www.crazyandfearless.com. There’s logic and even a bit of the obvious to life-wealth. But it’s never easy—there are always curveballs, blind sides, and surprises.
Many people never succeed because they’re afraid to try. Rather than make the attempt—and accept the risk of surprises and failure—they don’t even step up to the plate. They simply shrug their shoulders, shake their heads, and say they’re being realistic.
The power of a fearless and crazy persona is that it makes you that much more ready for the surprises because you have been responsible for a few surprises of your own along the way. Fearless and crazy means ready and willing. Bring it on, whatever it is.
Yes, it’s the unknown, and it’s unnerving and even scary. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be ready for it. Here’s how:
Have backup plans. They’re crucial. Always have a plan B and even a C and a D.
Be vigilant and adaptable. Be ready to go with the flow if you have to.
If you don’t have a strong foundation in finances, get one. Or find someone who has one. We’re primarily talking about business here, so never neglect the numbers and what they mean. That financial knowledge can make your backup that much stronger.
Practice makes perfect. The more times you have to react to and deal with the unknown, the better you get at it. Just about every person and company profiled in this book has had plenty of practice.
Sure, you may fail, take your lumps, find yourself bruised, and even lose a game or two. But at least you were in the game. Life is a state of constant change, so don’t live your life in a state of constant standstill.
If the unknown wins this time, shake it off, smile, and go to plan B. Be fearless and crazy, and come back for more.
That’s what the people in this book did.