Category Archives: Quick Thoughts

Premium Quality Anything Takes Time

While being inspired on Twitter one fine afternoon, a friend of mine started talking about how premium quality anything takes time to develop and build. We dove into a discussion about this, and how relevant it is today with the rapidity of growth, economies of scale, and the power of the exponent.

I asked her if she wanted to write something for the site, and she obliged.

It’s comforting to remember that premium quality anything takes time.

By Anna O’Reilly, 21^st Feb 2014

My friend Ned picked up on a thought bubble I wrote for my twitter account, and asked me to expand on the concept within the context of strategies for success.

While considering how to convey the idea in terms of success, my mind kept going back to something I read from an obscure Buddhist text in my early 20s. The words I recall were something like the following: If you wish to become a master, you must begin by learning to sweep a floor.

The notes to the text went on to explain that sweeping a floor properly, along every edge and corner, requires that the sweeper pay attention to detail. The individual who aspires to mastery of the mysteries must first become a master of the mundane. Furthermore, a master must never forget to remain humble. Beginning the journey with a menial task is an excellent leveller to yoke the wily ego. It’s the ego in the end that spoils quality.

The ability to create premium quality actions or articles in any medium requires that the mind of the creator is refined. Quality thinking demands attention to detail, method, logic and discipline without which, abstractions of the imagination become meaningless. There is a correlation here to the link between the concepts of limitation and freedom.

And so, the experience accumulated between learning to sweep a floor with thoroughness and discipline, and the creation of a premium quality work of art, craftsmanship, literature or theory, takes a lot of time.

Getting back to my original statement, it is comforting to recognise that quality anything takes time. In general, the human world around us is demanding and fast. Much of what is produced and promoted is neither premium quality nor considered beyond the value of immediate profits or benefit. In short, many products are shabby and thoughts are half-baked at best.

Those with a taste for quality resonate to a different frequency, dance to a different beat. We expect high quality thoughts and action from our relationships, our work, our governments and ourselves. It’s about context and taste. It’s about noticing the dirt in the corners of the floor and the dust along the skirting. Don’t worry if your project is taking time, it’s supposed to take time to get the best.

Email Etiquette 101

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Emails are abundant in the day to day.

And I’m not using the word abundant lightly. I’m sure everyone who is active on the internet can sympathize with waking up to 30 new unread emails – on a good day.

Email Rules to Live By

I would like to point out a few rules to live by, when it comes to sending emails to anyone.

Signing up to a mail list is permission marketing. They want to receive your emails. This puts the onus on the email sender to provide relevant, personal, and necessary information in the communication.
Don’t amalgamate email lists, this will lose subscribers interest very quickly – and also known as spamming. This doesn’t mean don’t cross promote. If another site/person’s message is relevant and you suspect your readers will benefit from it, by all means promote it. That’s why they love you.
If you expect the subscriber to spend 5 minutes to read your email, is it not fair to expect you to take 5 minutes to go through your contact list and make sure their information (merge tags) (ie. first name, last name, company, etc.) are updated and populated with proper vitals?
If there is no particular reason for the email, why are you even hitting that send button? Nobody wants unnecessary emails clogging up their flow.
Did you just cc (carbon copy) somebody in on an email and there is no identifiable reason why they should have been included in the communication?
If you’ve been discussing a plethora of items with a co-worker, client, etc., and one particular item needs other members involved in the communication, take the time to compose a new email with a new email subject with: an overview of where the discussion is at, any relevant background information, followed by specific requests. Don’t waste my time by making me go through the entire conversation history trying to understand why I was just included in this communication, and if there is anything I’m supposed to be doing.
Just cc’ing somebody at the end of a long conversation is extremely frustrating, not to mention the possibility of breaching confidentiality or exposing a level of formality between you and a contact only achieved after a long discussion or many messages.
Remember, you’re a person and you’re engaging somebody on a personal level – much like letter mail – so focus on being coherent, precise, and easy to understand. Unless, of course, you’re a unique writer sending out abstract writing short stories…
If you’re not getting responses from email subscribers, it’s not their fault. It’s your email, it’s your message, it’s your content, it’s you pressing the send button. This is your image and it is your engagement as a producer to your subscriber; make the communication valuable and if it’s not, change it up.
If your message/request is exciting, alluring, clear, and cohesive, you might convince me to do it. Otherwise, you have very little chance to engage me and I’m going to get bored after reading the 2nd line in the email.
If your message/request isn’t exciting, alluring, clear, and cohesive, I will not respond to it immediately which risks the hazard of being buried in my inbox.
If you have an email, and a call to action, there had better be a hyperlink for me to click to follow your directions. This makes it easy for me, and also smoothly directs the flow to your website, event page, etc.
“When does this end? And why am I even waiting for this to end?” <~ this is not a good reaction to an email.

I’ve amalgamated this from a variety of sources over the years (Seth Godin in particular), and my own personal experiences.

Do you have any other email taboos you’d like to illuminate? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

…because time

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Because we can only do so much in the day, there is a problem.

You see, to do everything one must do in the day, every day must be filled with what we must do. In order to fill every day with what we must do, we must do it, every day, always.

What I’m trying to point out here is that there is no rest. No time off. No pause button. No: “Can I get that back?”

Time has been fairly accurately divided into 24 equally spaced sections – let’s call them hours – for your organizational convenience, not to mention planning helps reduce anxiety and the feeling of overwhelming.

Now: do.

🙂

Earth, Fast Food, Pills, then Earth: A Return

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It’s a circle.

We started with eating fruits and vegetables, and maybe some meat if we sharpened our spears effectively (and trained our eyes). Then fast food came out, and waiters delivered them on roller skates, in boxes or bags, with plastic spoons… And the substance of those products came from far away lands in mass quantities, all mish-mashed all together. Then the effectiveness of the salts applied to the mish-mash became tastier, and we became more and more entranced with the microwavable, instant gratification (of stuffedness).

Of course, as this was developing, as we were moving away from our natural sources of essential vitamins and minerals from raw vegetables, fruits, and nuts, great developments in ‘one-a-day’ pills for him and her came out. So now we could eat all the cardboard we wanted to, and take a magic pill once a day and it would give us all the nutrients we were lacking. I guess the sailors wouldn’t have to worry about scurvy anymore…

Or kind of.

My word of the decade seems to be awareness. Being aware of why we’re doing the things we’re doing, being aware of how one action has a rippling effect, can go a long way to help reduce the clutter in the world (and our minds).

It’s a thought. I guess I’m trying to encourage a full circle return to roots (for some things).

Nobody’s going to grow their own tablets or smartphones, but some seeds in the ground is another thing.

Humanity vs. Hyperlinks

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You see, as we lose our humanity we begin to increase our automation. Everything is a get rich quick scheme, that if we just follow this strategy a few lucky early catcher-on-ers had the fortune to mastermind, we will be just as successful!

But in reality, for the rest of us that aren’t staring in some website promo add, it’s not like that.

Automating a tweet about your latest promotion, 3 times a day, for even just 3 days in a row is too much for most people.

It’s almost like the domino effect. So BIG AWESOME COMPANY is doing it, we see that BIG AWESOME COMPANY appears to be successful, so let me do it. Let me follow their successful strategy. We’re not the only people seeing this, everybody loves BIG AWESOME COMPANY. Everybody want’s to follow their strategy to success.

Who’s doing it better? Who has the more effective method?

What is missing in the first place is that gap between startup and BIG AWESOME COMPANY. BIG AWESOME COMPANY started as a startup, built the following and loyal fans, and became BIG AWESOME COMPANY through strategic operations and planning.

Sure you can act the part, you can even spend the part, but the only way to really be the part is to put in the ground work, gain that following of loyalty through engagement and appreciation, and build your name organically.

If you have a bottomless wallet, I guess it’s another game all together.

Loyalty is big though. Apple certainly has a bigger loyalty base than Blackberry. Lulu Lemon certainly has a bigger customer loyalty than the Gap. Have you ever wondered why people buy brand name rather than Presidents Choice no-name brand?

What you’ve been sold is a success story. What you haven’t been sold is hard work, commitment, humanity, and meaning.

It’s your game in the end, but this is customer service & satisfaction.

Presenting With Your Best Foot

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As much as we want to throw in the face of any nay-sayers that it’s not what’s on the cover, it’s what’s inside, there is no denying the simple fact that this just doesn’t have 100% validity.

Well, it does and it doesn’t.

You see, Impressions are.. a lot, but not everything.

[first] Impressions catch eyes, invite conversation, spread the word, approve, and in some ways validate. On the other hand, impressions can also discredit, dissuade, disapprove, or scare.

The thing that befuddles me the most, is when the opportunity to present that best foot presents itself, and the presenter is either not prepared or choosing to live by a different set of social dynamics.

It really is a choice, a game, for you to play your own unique way.

My advice is to be wary of how you want to play it.

Commitment and Intention

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Committing is perhaps one of the scariest things we face as humans.

Do I want to commit to this vehicle for the next 6 years? Do I want to commit to this smart phone plan for 2 years?

Further, the I cannot’s. I cannot commit to my exercise schedule. I cannot commit to you’re needs full time. I cannot commit to this project. I cannot make plans that far in advance.

By no means am I saying that evaluating the tough decision ahead is a bad thing. In fact, I think an evaluation is very necessary almost always on a regular basis to keep yourself and your actions aligned with your intentions.

This is our life, these are our days, the present is now. There isn’t a moment in our life when we shouldn’t be moving with intention, with care, with awareness. The only thing we’re guaranteed is that right now this is happening. Let’s not squander this.

Getting into the shower in the morning, do it gracefully and magically. Making coffee, every scoop of coffee should be exactly measured to eye and placed into the press with a touch of flair. Shoveling the driveway, don’t just push the snow aside; design a fantasy world.

How present we are in our world is what makes us humans uniquely so. How conscious we are of every fine detail in life.

The choice is up to you, how do you want to draw your desires? Commit with intent.

I Am Your Market

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Or am I your target? Or am I your audience? Or do I put my money where my mouth is?

Or do I distract you? Or am I just another voice looking for validation? Should I be heard?

We all have processeses, steps to life for life that have become familiar, that have begun to feel like they’re fairly necessary (especially marketing strategies).

Are they?

I would say it’s the wise person who is conscious not only of what they are doing (if you are doing it, make sure you’re doing it with a valiant effort) but why we are doing it.

Desire map, goal set, target alignment, reality check, take a step back and identify the filler.

It might be a nice step to become familiar with – if you are doing it, make sure you’re doing it with a valiant effort.

Present is Presence

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It may be an old axiom beaten around the bush, but presence is a truly remarkable state.

If you cry, you are feeling. If you help you are building. If you wait you are respecting. If you hold you are encouraging. If you are aware you are present.

Present isn’t just now. It’s really not. Now is far too restricting.

My friend Brian Thompson, aka. Thorny Bleeder just reminded me of satori in his recent Medium post on the unfolding of happiness. Though he was talking about taking the steps to ensure happiness will have the ground to awaken within, I feel that presence can also lead to happiness.

What’s it called when you accept what happens, when you recognize beyond verbally expressed explanation the caveats of a situation? What’s it called when you bob and dip with the punches?

What’s it called when you do take precious moments to acknowledge little things in life that can easily be – and very often are – missed?

Whatever that’s called, that’s where it comes from. That’s where presence resides. I also believe that’s where happiness builds.

Left Brained, Right Brained, Center Brained, My Brained

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Perhaps you’re the kind of person that likes to identify with trends, use labels, associate activities with certain characteristics.

To be able to quickly and easily identify people with a label and then be startled when sometime in the future your prejudices are shattered doesn’t sound too open and willing to me, but perhaps I’m being prejudiced.

A friend of mine just called me ’emo’ because I said I wanted the slowest and most emotional music possible. She thinks I’m about to cry now. All I can think is how unfortunate it is that she has now lost all abilities to experience the very beautiful music I was listening to.

I just read this piece on The Guardian debunking the myth that there is no such thing as the left brain and right brain. There is no isolation. They work in unison. There is no separation, and has never been. And in fact, the separation has apparently never been proven by research, it’s just psychologist looking for catch-all phrases to characterize people.

The most important message from this article was the last paragraph.

What research has yet to refute is the fact that the brain is remarkably malleable, even into late adulthood. It has an amazing ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells, allowing us to continually learn new things and modify our behavior. Let’s not underestimate our potential by allowing a simplistic myth to obscure the complexity of how our brains really work. ~Amy Novotney

Letting labels cloud the future is a dangerous proposition. Mind the gap.