Monday, January 2, 2012

Eat. Pray. Loaf.



New Year’s Eve/Day has always been one of my favorite holidays.  It represents reinvention, new beginnings, the ability to forgive (but rarely forget).  Out with the old and the tired.  In with the new and the slightly less groggy.  I can’t wait to attack the new year with renewed passion, commitment, focus.  Winning.

I will start tomorrow.

I believe most resolutions fail because we expect instant results.  That’s why I recommend working towards fulfilling those promises to yourself after a full 24-48 hours of final revelry and sloth, post-New Year’s Eve.  January 3rd is as good a starting point as January 1st…maybe better.

Seth Godin said it best in his blog entry titled The Artificiality of Time
from January 1st:


Until the transcontinental railroad, there were no time zones. Each village kept its own time, based on its own steeple and its own high noon. And why not? There was no good reason to go through the pain of coordinating the clocks.

Factory work forced us all to know exactly what time it was. The shift couldn't start until the foreman and the workers were ready to go. Synchronicity paid big dividends, so we embraced it.

This notion of lockstep started to inform all elements of our culture. Not just what time rush hour was (what a bizarre concept) but how old you should be to go to college and to get a job and to get married and to have kids and to retire.

The web is asynchronous. Time frames have accelerated (started/funded/built/sold!) at the same time they have slowed down. It's up to you to decide how long your time horizon is--perhaps you're willing to invest five years into building a solid reputation on a web platform. The decision to work at a different rate than others can be a significant competitive advantage.

Celebrate New Year's when you want to, and as often as you choose. They're your resolutions, not ours.

With this in mind, I have some basic goals (dreams with a deadline) for 2012:
  • I’d like to become so popular that Mitt Romney feels that he should attack me..
  • I’d like to become so widely read that a vibrant Occupy Sherrier movement starts camping out on my lawn.
  • I’d like to sell 10,000 “Don’t Blame Me – I Voted for Sherrier” t-shirts before Memorial Day.
  • Catch a foul ball.
I can’t wait to get started.  I will take a giant bite out of life and let the juices run down my chin this year.  Starting tomorrow, once these kids are back in school.

I call my new 2012 philosophy – The Fierce Urgency of Tomorrow.  Urgency creates too much pressure.  Urgency can get on line like the rest of us and stay on hold one more day.  Tomorrow, it all comes together since my "decision to work at a different rate than others can be a significant competitive advantage."

Hope my boss agrees.


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