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Songs By Request

On 9 Jan I offered on Facebook, for the first time, to write a song for anyone if they’d share something personal with me.  The responses were amazing and kind of overwhelming.  I read them all and many of them were hilarious.  I picked one that resonated with me and wrote a song called You’re Failure Makes Me Happy  and you can download it for free here.

But the requests kept coming! I’m so honored and impressed that people would share such personal stories with me.  The following day a friend asked me to write a song for her husband’s 30th birthday.  I wrote You’re Tired, You’re Old and you can download that one here.  Again, the amount of details friends shared with me were hilarious and surprising.

Today was a rough day.

Today was a rough day.

All of this makes me ridiculously happy right now...

January 14, 2014 Songs by Request One comment
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To Sell Is Human: How to Toubleshoot Your Pedal Board

***This is my last post on Dan Pink’s book To Sell Is Human before it becomes available for purchase on 31 Dec 2012.  If you are quick, you can still pre-order it and qualify for a number of awesome freebies.  If you pick it up later, you lose the freebies!  Thanks to Dan Pink and his team for sharing an early copy of the book with me and letting me be a part of his Launch Team.***

The last principle from Dan Pink’s To Sell Is Human that I want to highlight is what he calls Clarity.  Pink writes that those working in sales, or who try to persuade people, need to focus on bringing clarity to people’s needs instead of simply trying to push a product or agenda.  It’s not about moving units off a shelf, cars off a lot, or making sure to up sell the lobster before it goes bad...

December 30, 2012 To Sell Is Human One comment
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To Sell Is Human: Just Don’t Give Up

Staying afloat amidst a sea of rejection requires buoyancy. Just don't give up because to sell is human.

Staying afloat amidst a sea of rejection requires buoyancy.

Dan Pink writes in To Sell Is Human, “Draw a map of the world of selling and the most prominent topographical feature is that deep and menacing ocean [of rejection].  Anyone who sells – whether they’re trying to convince customers to make a purchase or colleagues to make a change – must contend with wave after wave of rebuffs, refusals, and repudiations.  How to stay afloat amid that ocean of rejection is the second essential quality in moving others.  I call this quality ‘buoyancy’.”

One of the most important principles to successful sales, according to Dan Pink, and one with which I agree, is to be able to stay afloat.  You have to stay buoyant.  But I would add that the heart of buoyancy is, just don’t give up.

The problem...

December 29, 2012 To Sell Is Human No comments
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To Sell Is Human: It’s Not About What You Know, It’s About Who You Are

Peddling our wares in Santa Monica, California because to Sell is Human.

Peddling our wares on the streets of Santa Monica, California

I realize now that I have worked in “sales” during many different parts of my life.  I write it with quotes because I haven’t been a traditional salesman in the sense of, “I have a product and I want to sell it to you for this much.”  But like Dan Pink says in his book To Sell Is Human, I have been in the business of moving others to action.  I’ve been a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Argentina; I’ve been a door-to-door salesman for Dish Network; and for the majority of my life I’ve tried to “sell” my music and myself as an entertainer.  So, I’m familiar with trying to get someone to believe in you and buy what you’re selling...

December 28, 2012 To Sell Is Human 2 comments
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Good to Great #3: Confront the Brutal Facts

What it Means to Confront the Brutal Facts in Good to Great

In Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that successful organizations first start with an honest discussion of the environment in which they exist, what are the brutal facts surrounding your organization? The only way this conversation can occur on an organizational level is to create a culture, a climate, where people feel safe communicating; that they have a tremendous opportunity to be heard. Being heard is different from being able to say what you think, it means the other person listens. Confronting the brutal facts contributes to an effective decision-making process – it’s the only way to allow honest communication. If there is no open communication, problems or obstacles to an organization are rarely fully understood.

Cr...

September 5, 2012 Books, Good to Great 3 comments
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Good to Great #2: First Who, Then What

Key Points from the Book Good to Great on the Principle of First Who, Then What

  • With any team, organization, or company Good to Great found that it is more important to get the right people on board than it is to decide what they are going to do. Once you get those people on board, then you can decide where to take the organization. Yes, I know this is counter intuitive.
  • The “right people” has more to do with character and innate capabilities than knowledge, background, skills, or experience. The right people have passion and want to work hard.
  • Collins compares this to a bus. Great companies from his study focused on getting the right people on the bus, in the right seats, and then decided where to go. Not the other way around.
    The Good to Great Bus.

    The Good to Great Bus...

August 28, 2012 Books, Good to Great 4 comments
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Good to Great #1: Level 5 Leadership and Changing the World

good to great

Looking out the window to blame/credit others.

What is Good to Great Level 5 Leadership?

Level 5 leadership, as Jim Collins explains it in his book Good to Great, refers to a person who is ambitious and driven first for the cause, for the job, for the mission, and not for himself/herself. This is a direct reflection of their fanatic drive towards results, yet this type of leader simultaneously maintains a humble purpose. It is a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. For this type of leader it has nothing to do with them; greed and self-gratification are not the motives. It has everything to do with the people and organization.

An analogy used to help describe this type of leader is the window versus the mirror (see images)...

August 20, 2012 Books, Good to Great No comments
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Good to Great Preface

Good to Great: A Preface

good to great preface

My preface to Good to Great

I often find myself bringing up Jim Collins’ book Good to Great when hanging out with good friends. My wife makes fun of me, promising to buy a handful of paperback copies, getting me to write my personal testimony of the book on the title page, and then I can give them away to friends because I’m such a believer. I think I’ll save us some money and time and I’ll just write about it.good to great

So before I dig into 7 of the main principles over the next few weeks, I want to set the stage.

Upfront, this book has changed my life. It’s changed the way I think and the way I work – I’m not kidding...

August 11, 2012 Books, Good to Great No comments
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Good to Great: Why Should I Care?

Good to Great PrefaceBefore digging into some of the principles of Good to Great I want to write a bit about why I care, why I think you should care, about learning significant principles. In a broader sense, why I think I should keep writing this blog and you should keep reading. At this point, I offer three reasons why: There’s too much to experience in this lifetime, it helps in the struggle between the fear of loss versus faith in principle, and it makes life easier.

Too Much to Experience

One, like my father said in a previous posts, you cannot experience everything this world has to offer in your lifetime; as a result, you cannot learn everything there is to learn through experience through experience alone. There’s too much to read. You can’t study every field the colleges have to offer...

August 10, 2012 Books, Good to Great 3 comments
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dying coals

Blowing On Dying Coals

After many life changing events, to include the passing of my father, the birth of a child, and moving my family not only across the Pacific Ocean but across the United States, I’ve remembered this blog.  Like a fire that has some dying coals still glowing, I feel like breathing some life back into this project.

dying coals

Dying coals

I’ve spent a good part of the past year or more studying leadership and becoming familiar with a range of principles I’ve found extremely interesting and valuable.  Next few posts will be about principles I’ve found valuable in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great and making the connections between those principles and other aspects of life.


August 8, 2012 Inspiration, Uncategorized 2 comments
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