Took this photo a few years back during a trip to Cody, Wyoming. The scene was an old high-school gym. The lights were a blend of professional stage lights and flood lights usually reserved for a garage. The outside air was sharp and Bud Light flowed freely. Cowboy hats and mini skirts danced across the floor. And all the while the drummer was lost in his own passionate world.
One Book, 200,000 blinks of an eye and two minutes a word.
It was Junior year of college during an anthropology course on the narrative structure of disease that I first read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. By the end of the semester my book was marked up with notes, thoughts, observations, literary critiques and the occasional stain from a falling tear. My teacher, a whisper of a women struggling with her own deadly disease, took no pity on our emotional struggles. She pushed and pried our emotions apart until we stripped back the literal meaning and wove into the complex narrative of a man’s free mind trapped in a worthless shell of a body.
Over the years I have picked up the book and leafed through looking at my notes, remembering the intense, gut-wrenching class discussions and reflecting on how the metaphors paralleled with my own personal pain. Today however, as I pick up the book with the fear of learning my teacher may have passed away I can’t help but reflect on one of her most quoted messages: Just because you lose your perceived freedom doesn’t mean you have to stop living. It just means you have to change your perspective and throw everything else to hell.
Took an afternoon and headed up to Brainard Lake for some fly fishing with Dan. Views were spectacular, but the fish were elusive. Good excuse to go back up again.
Steve Jobs greatest gift to the world didn’t come with a charger. It came on a windy day at Stanford, presented to a group of hungry college graduates who may or may not have been a tad bit hung over from the night before.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” he said during a rare moment of personal vulnerability. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” he continued a few minutes later. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith…”
The speech lasted just over 15 minutes and quickly found obscurity on the Internet.
But as news of Jobs death spread around the world his carefully chosen words began to be shared. In the wake of a global recession the proliferation of his thoughts showed the world was taking a collective sigh as they reflected back on their own life and what they have accomplished. Jobs’s accomplishments are hard to ignore, but what is missing during this time of sadness and reflection is the perspective that less than 15-years-ago Jobs was considered a wild visionary. He had ideas and not everyone was a fan. Apple was also in the dumps. Stock was down to almost nothing and it was looking like they might go out of business.
If Jobs had passed then there would have been no graduation speech to pull inspirational quotes from, probably no iPod, iPhone or iPad. The world would have gone on turning with a few editorial’s written about what could have been and he would have slipped into obscurity only to be remembered in the larger historical record. And just like that we would have moved on.
But thankfully he didn’t pass and instead he stuck his ground, kept his vision and moved forward. He didn’t jump ship, look for an easy project to walk into or ask his company to stop making better products.
Today the story of his life is romantic. He looked diversity in the eye and spit in it. And while it’s easy to get caught up in the narrative, we must remember his journey started when nobody believed in him, when he had little distance to fall and expectations were low. And instead of running he embraced the position he was in. He didn’t let it get to his head. Didn’t let him forget what he set out to accomplish. He used it as motivation and kept on track.
In the end what he did wasn’t just create great products. No, instead he did something more meaningful than that. He showed in a time where fear and failure are all to present, vision is more powerful than money and staying the course can pay off. His full sacrifices in life will never be known to the masses, but his accomplishments are.
And those accomplishments are motivation to the world that the next time you’re down on the ground and backed into a corner it’s not okay to throw in the towel and surrender. Instead if you really believe in your vision, are willing to take on the needed sacrifices to succeed and are willing to risk everything then you can come out fighting with a glimmer of hope there might just be friendly ground a few feet ahead.
And that is something we need more in this world.
Hope.
After reading a well thought out post on assessing ROI in a social media world, I responded with a comment. To see the original post go here. I have pasted in my comment below, which I think stands for itself.
Great post Jason, I couldn’t agree more with the Kool-Aid references. From a young professionals standpoint who grew up with both traditional marketing and new media marketing I can’t help but get frustrated with a majority of the conversation today about social media and how businesses are being told to pick “one or the other.”
Social media in my opinion is a tool, albeit a very powerful tool, but nevertheless a tool within a marketer’s toolbox. Too many times I feel we forget marketing is a 360-degree experience. Customers can be anywhere today – TV, print, online, mobile – and it is a company’s job to effectively target and reach their selected customers through each of these mediums utilizing a variety of distribution methods.
When I explain marketing to potential clients I draw a circle and put their brand in the middle. Each part of the circle represents a different part of the pie, and in order to reach each section the company has to push their message out in that direction. Media once it reaches the edge can then flow in a circular pattern – say someone retweets and blogs about a message they saw in print and suddenly customers are reached across the circle – but it’s a complex web that must be built up over time and with the understanding that there is no one simple one answer.
Many times I find companies look at social media as a powerful tool, but then opt to place an Intern or entry-level employee at the helm. A senior executive might oversee the strategy, but the lack of economic investment means the “saving grace” of the companies marketing program is left up to an employee with potentially little allegiance. This makes me wonder: just what value do you really see in this? When I speak to companies I make it a point to not paint a social media vs. traditional media picture, but rather one that involves everyone in a form considered non-traditional.
The other large piece of the puzzle, and one that I consider equally if not more important, is the rise of content creation and understanding how content can be utilized in multiple mediums for the same purpose, but that I’m afraid is another topic.
Two years ago while sitting at a bus stop with my mother she used a napkin to demonstrate the growth pattern of toddlers. “Typically when a toddler is getting ready to make a big emotional jump,” she explained as she scribbled loosely on the creased white napkin, “they regress before taking a big step forward.” This may be why right now you feel you are regressing in your career,” she calmly concluded. “It may just be a sign you are getting ready to take a giant leap forward, but you’ve got to go back a bit first. Just be patient and pray.” I nodded my head looking for any ray of hope to grasp onto. And then, true to her motherly instincts three weeks later I landed a speaking gig that effectively launched my freelancing career.
In today’s world there is constant social pressure to always be moving upward. New jobs aren’t supposed to be steps back and second homes aren’t supposed to be smaller. And while in some areas forward momentum is vital, a majority of the time regressing can lead to a big step forward.
But what about moving horizontally? These past several months I have been having hundreds of high-level conversations with CEOs, editors, publishers, freelancers and businessman. Each conversation has the potential to catapult me forward, but many times they leave me stagnant in my career. Or better yet, moving horizontally as a good friend and mentor said.
This got me thinking: Is moving horizontally really a bad thing? With every conversation I gain more experience, learn how to articulate myself and identify the keywords that resonate with different professionals. I’m smarter, quicker and see the industry through a clearer lens. With each conversation I’m finding myself closer and closer to my ultimate goal and, while it might not come for a while, I’m ready to not only continue to grow horizontally, but regress a bit when the time feels right. Of course I’ll have to consult with my mother on that one.
Three years ago I left the PR world to be an intern at Backpacker Magazine. The economy was still good, magazines were thriving, and my passion for multimedia was just starting to get traction within newsrooms.
During my internship I was able to standout due to my ability to edit audio, shoot compelling video, integrate Google Earth and other GPS mapping technology into our stories and provide compelling content for the print magazine. I introduced myself to editors as the kid who entered high school using the Dewey Decimal system and graduated college with a profile on Facebook. In other words I refused to accept the phrase “it’s not possible,” didn’t understand why change was considered threatening, and had to shift my entire educational focus as TechCrunch kept introducing the next technology slated to change the way we consume media.
I also learned valuable lessons that have helped me make the transition into freelance writing during the recent recession. I’ve learned that being fearless when learning a new skill set is a requirement. That being able to provide value across various mediums is what opens up doors. And that maintaining a steady focus even while others say you’re wasting your time can play out in the end. But I feel the biggest lesson of all is the lesson that has catapulted me beyond the point of asking the question, ‘is it time to innovate yet?’ In a Ted Talk a few years back, Discovery Channel host Mike Rowe talked about what made the people he profiled on his show successful. Mike discussed a variety of things, but one in particular stood out. “He didn’t follow his passion,” Mike said about a successful pig farmer in Las Vegas. “He stood back and watched where everyone was going and he went the other way.”
While I don’t completely agree about the passion perspective, I do believe the second part is the question that journalism seems to keep asking itself: should we just keep doing what we’re doing or embrace something new? And this is where everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
While I don’t expect the profit model to change quickly or for magazines to embrace multimedia as they have print for several more years, I do think it’s imperative for freelancers to stop contemplating why they shouldn’t learn a new skill and instead put their energy and resources into embracing it.
I am one example of why that can benefit a freelancer. In the last two years I’ve created multimedia — videos, slideshows, interactive maps, flash info-graphics, print stories — for a variety of publications ranging from the LA Times to Denver Post to Backpacker Magazine. I’ve taught various multimedia workshops to freelancers, editors and publishers and have provided career advice to laid-off editors. And while I realize there are still much bigger fish in the sea, the ability to work in multiple mediums has opened up doors and established relationships previously unattainable in a time of great upheaval. Will I be successful? Only time will tell. But one thing will be for certain. I looked at an industry in pieces, nonexistent budgets and colleagues who were overworked and deflated and asked myself where can I provide value, how can I do it, and what can I bring to the table that nobody else is? And then I reached out into the industry for help and just about every time have gotten it.