Monthly Archives: April 2011

How to Conquer Writer’s Block

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L.A. Times sportswriter Walter ‘Red’ Smith said, “There’s nothing more terrifying than a blank piece of paper.” If you set a goal to create, that blank piece of paper is your worst enemy. Starting is always the hardest part.

We stall ourselves with the question, “Where do I start?” It doesn’t matter. Just start. Put something on the page. Do not bother starting from the top, your introduction will come in time. Free yourself from linear thinking. Start at the core of what you want to say, the examples, the conclusion – whatever comes to you first. Free yourself from focused thinking – something irrelevant on the page is better than nothing at all. Who knows what arbitrary thoughts may inspire you?

I started this post with the words, “I don’t know what to write.” Thus, this post was born.

You have no excuses. Go write.

Fail

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The concept of failure as an educational tool is not new, nor is it particularly difficult to rationalize. Make a mistake and you are less likely to make the same mistake again. Touch a hot stove? Fail. Lesson learned. The human value of failure is obvious, right?

Easier said than done. Nobody likes to fail. More often than not, we shy away from the obstacles that may otherwise drive us to fail. Generally, we avoid risk. Consequently, we learn very little.

Former IBM president Thomas J. Watson once said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.” In pursuit of a fulfilled life, we need to take more chances – and therefore prepare ourselves for a higher volume of failure. For what reason? Because every time we fail, we learn. The more we learn, the more equipped we are to iterate on our failure.  With enough iterations, we will unlock our potential and succeed.

Abstinence from action is abstinence of growth.

Do not sit still. Take chances. Fail. And love it.

Film Friday: Making Money on YouTube

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To start making money on YouTube, you need to become a YouTube Partner.  To qualify, you need to consistently add content, build a subscriber base and drive a large volume of traffic. If you do not already, good luck.

While actual partner revenue statistics are kept private, you can roughly estimate that content creators are only making $1 per every thousand views on YouTube. At best, Rebecca Black has made $90,000 on “Friday” (not bad, but you can never expect to drive 90 million views to your videos – and you usually have overhead costs to cover like production gear and talent). But even that $1 per thousand estimate is high and often unrealistic depending on which adds are associated with your content, how often your visitors click on them, and how viral your content is.

The short answer is that your prime source of revenue will NOT come from YouTube itself. Major online video players are getting clever with product integrations, partnerships, freemium models, and much more to help print the bacon. Our entire new media division currently lives on front-end agreements with large brands.

Plan to make money with online video? Get creative.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

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Frankly, the question is bullshit. We are guided to answer it with a profession, a title or a lifestyle.

“I want to be an artist.” “I want to be the president.” “I want to be a film director.” “I want to stay at home and raise my children.”

The problem? There’s far more to life than a title, many roads to travel, and too much time to do only one thing. Your answer will change. It has since you were born, it will continue to evolve until the day you die. My answer changed throughout my life from Locomotive Engineer to Meteorologist to Starship Captain to Video Game Designer to Film Producer to Technology CEO. I have been all over the map, with passion and curiosity. I am sure you have, too.

I understand the question. “What do you want to be?” It is a focusing mechanism, the answer of which can help guide you into the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Unfortunately, the question suggests that there is only one answer per person. It distinguishes between future (“what will you become”) and present (“what you are now”). And it prompts you to cite conventional societal roles or industries as a solution to your life problem. Woe is you if your job title is at the core of your eulogy.

I propose a new question:

“What is your purpose?”

Purpose is your mission in life, your agenda, the core principal that guides you when you wake up in the morning and drives you to make decisions. No matter the career or role you play, purpose underlies everything you say and do.

What would you die for?

I want to bring people together. That’s my purpose. And that purpose is far more noble and omnipresent than my resume or my title.

Tips for Blogging Daily

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  • Never miss a day.
  • Keep it short. Easier to write, easier to read.
  • Identify problems and propose solutions.
  • Keep a Google Doc and/or mobile notepad full of ideas for posts.
  • Save emergency posts for days you don’t have time to write.
  • Make it easy for readers to find old posts. Archives, “Older Posts” link, etc.
  • Know your audience. Figure out who is reading your writing.
  • Track traffic. Google Analytics, baby.

More in the future as I learn more.

Talent

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Today, I am taking a break from our regular programming to announce the launch of our latest web series, Talent. For those who do not know, I currently produce and supervise post production for the New Media division of Alloy Entertainment. We have been charged with tackling large scale narrative form on the Internet.
 
Talent is our latest and greatest, little over four months of hard work in the can. We wrapped production in February and have been busy cutting ever since. Below, you can find Episode 1 of a ten episode series. New episodes will launch every Tuesday and Thursday for the next four weeks. Enjoy!

Breaking Bad Habits 101

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We all have habits we are not proud of. The first step to breaking a bad habit is being aware of it in the first place. “I bite my nails. I gamble all my money away. I eat too much candy. I need to lay off the cocaine.”

Bad Habit Log

The best way to make yourself hyper-aware of your habit is to document every infraction. Keep a log or journal of some kind. Never miss an entry. Let it haunt you.

I organize my logs with “Date,” “Time,” “Days [between infractions],” “Location,” and “Reason.”  The “Reason” part is extremely important – you must explain to yourself why you have betrayed your commitment to breaking this habit. If you do not have a good reason for betraying yourself, watch the guilt roll in. Embrace it.

Spreadsheets

I prefer spreadsheets so I can use formulas to automatically calculate time between infractions and overall averages (I use Google Docs specifically so that I can carry logs around with me wherever I go).  The “time between” formula is simple and can be copied all the way down a column:  

= ( Today’s Date – Last Infraction Date ) + ( Today’s Infraction Time – Last Infraction Time )

Make it a Game

You cannot quit bad habits overnight. It takes time and realistic measurable goals. You might as well have fun with it. Challenge yourself to increasing the overall average time between infractions. Average the “Days [between infractions]” column and set a goal to reach the next full day average (for example, time between infractions is 2.3 days now, set a goal of raising that average to 3 days). If you are not too ashamed of your habit, rope a friend in to hold you accountable (betting money or meals always helps).

Documenting is much easier than breaking the habit. With enough practice, documenting becomes a new good habit. From there, the real work begins!

Do Not *Reach* for Your Goals

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Be your goals instead.

We are raised to set goals and reach them. “Shoot for the moon and you could reach the stars.” The problem? Stars are really far away. Our nearest star Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light-years away (about 26,395,661,800,000 miles). “Reaching” your goal establishes a psychological distance between you and your objective, making it that much harder for you to accomplish.

Be your goal. Forget distance. Close the gap. Discard maps. Embody your mission. Speak the language. Do not hesitate. Plow all obstacles aside. You have what it takes.

Finish lines are illusions. Be who you want to be, no less, no later. Now.

How Blogging Can Help Build Your Net Worth

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31 posts, 7,104 words, 311 unique readers, 1,721 article views, 27 states and 11 countries later, I have completed my first objective:  blog every day in the month of March. It has been an extremely fulfilling experience, to say the least. Blogging has helped me:

  • Learn to overcome procrastination on a micro task level.
  • Develop the essential skill of writing.
  • Communicate concepts otherwise lost in my head.
  • Increase social media exposure.
  • Reconnect with old friends.
  • Introduce me to professionals in my industry and others.

It is amazing how much blogging can help you connect. My network is far more dynamic and rich than it was a month ago (and I do not think that has to do with the weather). I cannot say this enough, but a stronger network correlates with your personal net worth. You are more valuable if more people know you well.

I cannot recommend blogging enough.  I will write soon about blogging tactics that have helped me build a daily audience.

I am on a role, have formed the habit, and have no intention of slowing down.  I commit to blogging every single day through the remainder of 2011.  

For every day I fail to blog in 2011, I will donate to charity $1 per total unique reader visiting my site.

And for those fooled, I am NOT moving to Europe. America is ripe with opportunity and I have much left to do!

Got A New Job, I’m Moving to Europe!

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The deal just got signed today and I am leaving the country the beginning of May. My contract will start me in London, from there I have no idea. I cannot say much about the opportunity yet, but I am very excited. I want to see as many of you as possible before I leave.

No time like the present to pick up and go. We are not getting any younger. If you find yourself at all envious of friends exploring the world abroad, think really hard about your priorities. Opportunities overseas are countless, the frontiers exhilarating and personal growth guaranteed. Your day job is not an excuse to stick around. If you feel the drive to search your soul and broaden your horizons, do not wait – get the hell out of town. 

Follow your heart.

I will continue blogging daily. Stay in touch!