Working from a Human Story

I was having one of those annoying customer problems - you know, where I'm the annoying customer? The one who doesn't know anything, in this case. You see, I'd had an accident and somehow shredded my Macbook Air cable, though I had no idea how this had happened. And so I bought a new one, only...um, it didn't fit.

I brought it home, plugged it in, but the part that connected to the Macbook Air didn't fit. Hmmmm. So, I returned it. I ordered one off Amazon, after looking it over and being sure this was very much the same cable I'd had in the past. Only, um, that didn't fit either. I returned that, and got a third cable. You'd think I'd master this at some point, having owned Mac products since 1984. But no, somehow, I bought a third wrong cable.

And then I met Alvin.

Sometimes, The Story Is the Right Tool

Alvin had an air about him from the moment I met him in the Apple store. He had a fast smile, a slow walk, and a really soft but certain voice. When I explained my exasperated tale of woe, he listened, as if anything I was saying was useful to him. He then dragged me over to the area where all the cables are stored, and pulled the box off the shelf that I needed and handed it to me. I felt my heart sink. He'd given me the wrong box. And I told him so.

"Well, let me explain," started Alvin. "You see, the old cables were the one you're describing, but there was some kind of problem. They kept breaking in a weird way. So these are the new cables. And they're shaped differently. So you're right. The old cable looked like the one you're pointing out, but that cable won't fit your Air. This one will."

I was dubious. "I'm going to open this box right in front of you and plug it in, and I really really hope you're right. (Because why would I trust Alvin? He only works for Apple, day in and day out.)

The cord... fit.

Alvin: "You know, it's really confusing. I get it. You knew exactly what the old cable looked like, and no one was listening to you. But I knew that there was a new cable, and that you weren't really hearing that, either. I'm glad we got it sorted out."

To all the people (including - especially! - me) who get stuck in telling our stories like robots repeating lines of scripted code, remember to break out now and again, and listen beyond what you already know to be true. Because somewhere out there in between what I (the stupid customer) and you (the experienced professional) know, is what really has to go down to solve the problem.Right?

Motorola releases the Moto X and It's Pretty Cool

A few weeks ago, Guy Kawasaki invited me and a whole cast of interesting characters out to Google headquarters to meet the new Moto X phone.

Being that I don't tend to write posts with any great detail about the tech guts and stuff (you'll have to read Robert Scoble's piece or wait for Leo Laporte or any host of really smart people who care about megapixels and stuff. But what I really loved about the phone bears talking about, for sure.

Awesome Battery Life

If you're a smart phone user, you know one thing: battery renders all of us fierce wall-scanners, seeking out the power outlets in any public place and asking several strangers (poor restaurant and bar staff) to plug in our phones at the drop of a hat. Motorola's X8 chipset (read nerdy things about that here) has super low battery drainage, and they're gently saying that you can charge the phone overnight, use it moderately all day, and not have to recharge. Battery life = pretty much all day.

This gets interesting because Motorola found a few things: 1.) we drain our phones faster by pressing the power button frequently throughout the day. We do that, it turns out, to check the time, and check why our phone just vibrated. Moto X does two things with this information: uses the X8 chip to give us this information (far less battery use) and once we even vaguely move the phone from our pocket, shows us the time and what just buzzed without us having to press a button. That's cool. It's thinking about what we're trying to do and it's meeting us there. (That's the kind of thing that I find interesting in a story about a phone.) I guess it's called Active Display (just read that in a press release).

Quick Draw Camera

I think it's called something else, but Moto X also knows that if you wiggle your phone a certain way, it means "hurry up and get me that camera fast!" How many times have you missed a camera phone shot? Oh, lots. I forget the numbers, but it's crazy. Like, from-wiggle-to-snap in under 2 seconds. Test that with your phone right now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Touchless Control

Talking to our devices is all the rage. Right now, if I press down hard on my iPhone button, wait a few seconds, listen for a ding sound, I can talk to a robot woman who will sometimes understand what I'm asking her and more often than not try to send me to Google to look up something.

With the Moto X, you don't touch the phone or tell it to listen. It's listening all the time (cue NSA joke here). That tricky X8 chip again. It doesn't eat up battery (hey, that's what they're telling me) and it's ready for you to ask it for things. We tried all kinds of tests at the live event (you can see some pictures here - I'm hiding behind Ben Parr's noggin in picture #9). It's pretty cool.

Custom Colors and Stuff

I'm writing this to be dutiful, but some of you care. There are tons of all kinds of custom colors for this thing. Like...16 or so. And Motorola teamed up with case designers and headphone makers and all those kinds of people so that your carpets will match your drapes. Kinda cool. Of course, being an idiot, I want the color they don't have (orange). Being that they don't care that I want orange and that most people would find an orange phone ugly, I'm okay with this truth.

Made in the USA

I'm not exactly a pickup truck driving flag-buying patriot, but all my cars have been from Chevy and GM, and I do feel a little spark of pride when hearing that something great can still be designed and built here on this soil. (Apple's recently spent a lot of time reminding us that all those products being built in China are designed in California, and that's fine. I'm not thrashing anyone for where they build. Instead, I'm saying - hey neato, THIS phone is designed and assembled in the USA.) I think that's a neat part of the story to tell.

Android Vs iPhone Vs Windows

I have had plus and minus experiences with Android devices in the past. I like them. I also like that there are lots more apps on Android than before. iPhones work so super slick that most apps just don't feel as slick on Android in lots of cases. But there's a lot to be said about the ground that's been gained of late, and I have no problem chucking my iPhone 4S and jumping onto this Moto X device. I'll say this because I love saying it and you love disbelieving: I really like the Windows Phone OS as well, except that there just aren't enough apps. Okay, I'd cave if you just put fricken Instagram on there. But I digress.

What renders this less of an issue, though, is that I love whatever Moto X calls their "talk to your phone" feature. It was just super slick and worked really well, and I'm sold.

So yeah. There's my story about the phone.

The Other Story

The other cool thing about the night was talking to people like Dan Lyons (Fake Steve Jobs back in the day, and a Hubspot guy), Laura Fitton, Robert Cialdini (yes, THAT Robert Cialdini), Elisa Camahort Page (BlogHer), Bruce Sallan (of DadChat fame), Jonathan Littman (wrote a bunch of books I love), Ben Parr, long time friend Neenz, Scoble, Leo Laporte, Mike Elgan, and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of people. It was really a crazy mix of people that Guy Kawasaki put together to see these phones, and I'm glad I was included. Believe me when I tell you that we all had our own reasons for finding the phones kind of interesting.

Will you? Who knows? I'm totally down. Can't wait to order up my not-orange Moto X (that I wish were orange). : )

A Thousand Before and After Pictures

That picture to the right is one of my "before" pictures.

I took it about a year ago last March, and when I looked at it shortly after I snapped it, I thought, "Huh. That's weird. I'm a lot fatter than I think I am."

Like all "before" pictures, it took a while for me to realize that it's supposed to be the "before" and not the "now" picture. But we all get there eventually in our heads.

If I snapped a picture today, it would look like this:

Not much of a difference. You wouldn't see it. Though I'm eating clean, going to the gym daily, have lost some weight, and all that jazz. I'm also not nearly satisfied. And that's when it came to me.

We Need a Thousand Before And After Pics

If you've ever succeeded at anything in life, there's a real fork-in-the-road moment that comes shortly thereafter. You can either rest on those laurels, or you can push onward. When Julien and I got the New York Times Bestseller nod in 2009, I knew that it was a fluke and I barely acknowledged it. I certainly include that in my bio everywhere I can, but I'm on the path to writing more books, and I'd like another New York Times betseller. If I'd settled for that one "after" pic of hitting the list, I know that I wouldn't be happy with my life.

I ran and completed a trail marathon back in 2004. And then I barely did anything with fitness from Jan 2005 until a year or so ago. I certainly rode that "after" pic of me crossing the marathon finish line for a long time.

Make Today "Before"

Take wherever you are right now in life and make that the before picture. Who knows? Maybe you just did that recently. That's close enough.

Capture the "After" and Then...

Then, once you have your "after" moment, leave it an after for two or three days. And then take a new "before." Whatever project you're doing, whatever matters to your success, make a new "before" picture for that.

I obviously don't mean simply fitness and health. I mean whatever. If you're excited you've got your first 1000 readers on your blog, aim for 5000, or 10,000. Or aim for a new direction that adds to that previous success. Make another "race" to run and start with a "before" snapshot.

After is Too Tempting to Enshrine

I can tell you this: my "after" photo for my fitness will be taken several times. My "after" photo for my writing career will go a long way. My next big project is a "before" picture right now, and I really can't wait to share that after picture, years down the road.

It's your turn. What's your before? What's your after? Share with me.

Secret Lairs and Passion Economies And The Less Visible Revolution

Yesterday, I shared something with my accomplices inside the Brave Group. It won't be public knowledge for months to come.

I make no secret of the fact that my newsletter is my favorite way to connect and communicate and that I share my best stuff there and not here on this blog. In fact, I'm thinking of taking down the RSS feed for this blog at some point. Not because I don't want to interact with you. But because the blog is the fake storefront. This here? This is where Google sniffs around to see if I'm worthy.What's going on, though? The cool stuff? The real stuff? That's happening in the secret lairs and hideouts.

My Prediction Was Kind of Close, But Wrong

I started telling people back in 2007 that what was coming next were "velvet rope social networks." That there'd be very tight niche communities and that they'd be exclusionary and cater to very specific verticals. That didn't exactly happen in any particularly large way.But what did happen is that a huge economical pathway has shifted hard and opened up and the world of "lifestyle businesses" came into play, and Kickstarted and IndieGoGo and there are all kinds of other little passion economies are popping up and we are equipping ourselves to be as much or as little of the movement as we would like to be. There's Square so we can be merchants and PayPal and we can be a band and throw micro concerts on StageIt. We can create books in PressBooks and publish them to Amazon and Barnes and wherever without really getting anyone's permission.

You CAN Do It This Way, But It'll Be Difficult

There is a parallel economy: the dispassionate economy and the passion-fueled economy. Though I've divided these, let's understand that one isn't better than the other. I can buy toilet paper at WalMart and not need to think about the passion behind the product. But where I do care about something, there's now going to be a choice (there already is a choice) of someone who does it (whatever) with passion.Record labels - dispassionate (profit first)Kickstarter and Amanda Palmer - passionate (connect and rally)Now, let's accept that there are always exceptions. I know people in mainstream dispassionate economy corporations who are quite passionate. But I know absolutely zero people in passion-based economies who don't love what they do with all their heart.The Misfits are passionate (no, not the band, the revolution riding a Pegasus, silly. Keep up!). The Minimalists moved out to Missoula to make a publishing company. The empire builders and world dominators are ready, too!

Two Huge Requirements, Should You Choose to Build a Secret Lair and Start Your Own Visible Revolution

You need a bigger story (bigger than just you, a collaboration, a movement, a manifesto-worthy experience), and you need secret lairs and hideouts where you can talk with your secret team (a place where people feel that they belong, where they can share in the experience and not always as a customer, but definitely always as a co-conspirator, an accomplice, a collaborator.My podcast is a rising secret network. I leave hidden messages for the faithful. I call them out by name. More and more, every episode, there's the great value of the interview that I've conducted with fellow travelers, but the real magic? That's the secret part of the show.

Oh and lair is not equal to clique and not equal to must-pay. Just make a place where you can interact with follow travelers, co-conspirators, those who feel what you feel. There's a gathering element for all of us in the next little while, and we shall gather our little groups and find common passions to nurture.

Superheroes Have Secret Identities Sometimes

So maybe you still need the day job. Maybe you've not yet figured out all the bills. Health care costs a ton and to be without it can be terrible. Too many allies are in a rough bind right now because they work from their hearts and haven't quite launched their own passion economy such that they can stay fed on that alone (yet!).So fine. Do the day job. Work the work that you can right now. And that might well serve the dispassionate economy for now, but don't let that get to you. It's okay. Just don't throw out the other part of this experience, this opportunity, this huge chance.Because this invisible revolution is upon us. And you can stay beige or you can wear purple. It's up to you to decide. And if you want to visit one of my secret lairs and talk with the collaborators, I give you many links above that will lead you there.

Join me for free and get valuable insights that go beyond the articles posted here.

Your privacy and email address are safe with us.

And thanks so much for your support.

--Chris...

Are You Wearing the Role You Occupy? - Brave Now

No, this isn't one of those rah rah posts where I call you all rockstars. I'm over that. This, instead, is where you and I take a look at what it takes to fly, and part of that is the bravery to assume your role fully.

What Hillbilly Herald Taught Me About Bravery

You don't have to listen to this song by the band Hillbilly Herald, but it'd help you get a taste of what I'm about to talk about. (Oh, the language is not safe for work.)

Can't see the video? Click HERE

Jacq and I saw Hillbilly Herald as the opening act for Slash the other night at the Hampton Beach Ballroom, a legendary but small venue. When you're the opening act, you've got a really tricky gig. You have to be really good, plus you have to be somewhat complementary to what the headlining act is going to be, and you have to be able to stand on your own with a rock band's ego.

Jimmy Herald, the lead singer of the above-mentioned Hillbilly Herald, had a powerful stage presence. He kept leaping onto the monitors and staring out into the audience with an almost crazed expression. He made a lot of eye contact. And he said all the things a lead singer of a rock and roll band should say, loudly, proudly, and as crass as a... well, a rock star.

What I learned by looking at Jimmy that night was that he looked the part, he performed in a role that we'd expect, and he took on the mantle of lead singer of a rock band. Does Jimmy Herald act like that when he's sitting in a restaurant? Probably not. Is he every bit as bombastic as he was when he worked whatever his last real day job was? No, he's a hundred times more outgoing, whether he's the most shy guy in the world inside.

Be Willing to Commit Fully

I was talking to S. Anthony Iannarino about the acting in a certain movie. He told me about a story that Dustin Hoffman said about getting the role of Captain Hook in the movie "Hook." He said something akin to: "They would've given it to DeNiro but they were worried he'd cut his hand off." (Meaning, he is the kind of character who is very committed to his roles.)

What does it take to be who you intend to be? What level of confidence and bravery does it require? If you're naturally shy, is that a challenge to you?

Here's a Recipe to consider when working on wearing your role.

Ingredients

• The larger vision that you drive by goals.
• A sense of what will help you succeed (boldness? collaboration? patience?)
• The willingness to assume a role different than your default self.

Preparation

Decide that you're willing to embrace the role you need to play for the work you're doing. If you need to be a bit more outward than normal, then try to play that role to serve those visions. I'm not really saying "be someone you're not." I'm asking if you're willing to amp up whichever behaviors you'll need to achieve your goals.

Be brave in being who you need to be, but not invulnerable. Leaders can be wrong. Bosses don't have all the answers. The lead singer of the band has to back down every now and again, no matter how the legends go.

If you are quite different from this role you're assuming (maybe you're super shy but have duties as a public speaker), you'll need extra recovery time. Be ready for this. Plan for it. Don't overschedule yourself, if you're pushing into parts of your personality that aren't the norm.

Bold is a Nice Cousin to Brave

Brett Cohen is your typical guy. He looks typical. He has a rather common job. But one day, he decided to try something out. He decided to be a celebrity. He ended up temporarily convincing thousands of people in New York City that he was the latest young celebrity.Pay attention to Brett's expressions in this video. Look at the various ways his transformation changes him. Look at how his choice to be bold and imitate confidence gave him many new traits. Also realize how he carried himself before the transformation. There's a lot to learn and model in here.How will you accept the role you're in? What are you doing to be the person you want to be? What part of it is the hardest for you?If you missed my presentation with S. Anthony Iannarino called Finding The Superpower of Flight, a great deal of what we talked about would apply to this post about bravery. Included in the presentation materials are a recorded video webinar presentation, a one-hour audio program (separate to the video), and a 30+ page workbook to help you find your success in taking the next big step.

If that's interesting, CLICK HERE

The Opportunity Engine

In previous years, and including this year, I tend to talk negatively about South By Southwest Interactive (also known as SXSWi). It's an annual event in Austin, Texas, that has turned in recent years into lots of frail attempts at brand outreach and countless parties. Heck, I co-hosted a party this year, too, so I'm throwing stones at myself for putting it that way, but that's what it's become, if you let it. (Hint: "if you let it.")

What I almost forgot was that every event is what we make of it. Every event is a chance to make an opportunity happen. The trick, however, is that we have to be diligent and open to such opportunities, and we have to have a sense of what we'd like to see happen.

The Opportunity Engine

It's your duty to create an opportunity engine for yourself. This is essentially a mix of the following elements:

• Your goals and mission (and the will to advance your own ideas or causes).
• Your drive to take the initiative to make something happen.
• Your ability to find the people or resources you need.
• Your capabilities in serving or helping other people.
• Your ability to communicate.
• Your ability to collaborate.

I'll give you an example.

I ran into Gary Vaynerchuk on the street outside my hotel at SXSW, and we talked for a few minutes about this and that. Because I hadn't really been ready, I didn't talk about what I might have wanted to cover. Instead, I went down a weird road that didn't really help either of us. It was nice to see Gary, but I should have spent the time talking to him about his own world more. I didn't need or want anything.

In another example, I did what I should have. I ran into Brian McKinney and Glen Stansberry from Gentlemint and I was able to quickly express my goals/desires for their service, could clearly explain my ideas, and made some recommendations and an offer that I felt might be helpful to the gents. It was nearly the opportunity engine should have worked (no matter what happens next), though I probably should have asked more clearly what I could do to be helpful to them, instead of simply prescribing my thoughts on what I could do to help them.

Notice That It's a Two-Way Experience

In explaining the opportunity engine, it's your obligation to lead with your goals in mind, and it's you who must take the initiative, but it's a two-party experience, where you should attempt to be just as helpful and serving of others as you are interested in seeking ways to advance your own ideas or causes. It's your obligation to collaborate in some way, which means to give back as much as (or more than) you ask for from another person. (This is where it often fails, by the way, because people are greedy, either intentionally or accidentally.)

Create and Facilitate Opportunity

Next year, Jacq and I plan to attend SXSW Interactive, and we intend to play during SXSW music. For my time during Interactive, I promise not to gripe about all the parties and the silly drunkenness. Instead, I will go with my mind set on helping others with their opportunities, and I will go with a few of my own plans in mind as well. I will seek out meetings with others who might make good collaborators, and I'll listen and be ready to help when talking with someone from whom I don't need anything in particular.

Create and facilitate opportunities. You and I both miss many chances to do this every week. Let's make this week the first of many celebrations of our fortune: the richness of the friends and colleagues we've met over the last while, and let's reach out to see how we can better operate our opportunity engines to help others, and maybe to advance our own causes, too.

Remember the Engine

Remember to:

1. Think with your goals and mission in mind (and the will to advance your own ideas or causes).
2. Take the initiative to make something happen.
3. Find the people or resources you need.
4. Serve or help other people.
5. Communicate your ideas and stories clearly.
6. Collaborate where it makes sense.

And I'll see you at the next big event.

Setting Your Plate

When you wake up, what are the first actions you take? If you're like most people who read this blog, you probably reach for your phone or iPad and check your email, texts, tweets, and other notifications. You might do this before most anything else. It's probably habit by now.

But consider it: what you're doing is letting other people's thoughts and opinions into your head before you've had a moment to consider your own. You're letting the world set your plate for you, and pick your breakfast thoughts. You're setting yourself up to have to react to whatever you encounter.

Abundance and Your Plate

I'm learning about abundance and spiritual wealth by reading The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Pocketbook Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams (One Hour of Wisdom) (amazon affiliate link). It's by Deepak Chopra, and is one of those "law of attraction" kinds of books. But when I look through my bookmarks, the advice I follow makes for a great "breakfast" for my mind. Here's just a quick sketch of notes that I read upon waking.

"Success in life can be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals.""In spiritual terms, success is measured by how efficiently, how effortlessly, we co-create with the universe.""Whenever you meet someone, silently send that person a blessing. This kind of silent giving is very powerful. Give wherever you go, and as you give, you will receive."

How has this affected me? It has most definitely put my head in a completely different place before starting in on my day's efforts. It has let me relax my worries about people who don't like me for one reason or another. It removes a lot of my frustration with how other people do what they do. It lets me think more about my own goals and plans instead of letting the world's ideas flood into me and over me.We pre-program ourselves with a whole lot of negative thoughts, and the requirements of others. Maybe it's time to rethink that.

Set Your Own Plate

In the morning, when you wake, leave the outside world out until you're ready. Close your eyes. (Did you know your optical functions take up 1/3 of your brain's energy?) Take a moment and ask yourself how you want to face the day. Ask yourself what you want to focus your energies on, what matters the most to you, how you'll communicate with the people you interact with, and more.

And if something sets you off, try to get back to your own side quickly. If you're thrown off balance, do something about it. Start again. Reset. Just set your own plate. Remember what matters to you. And do it over and over again.

If you start your days off like this, I can promise they will work a lot better than when you let the world in to interfere with your thoughts ahead of time. You'll enjoy this a bunch more.

How will you set your plate?

Those Not Performing

Know who has an interesting role? The "audience." Look at the picture that goes with this post. None of these people would officially consider themselves the audience. They don't list that as an occupation. None of them started out their day thinking, "You know, I think I'll head down to Santa Monica Pier and see if I can find someone performing so I can stand there and take photos and cheer their antics." But for a moment in time, they were the audience.

Those Not Performing Are the Audience

I have a thing for hip hop music and culture. Part of what I enjoy is the notion that there can be many voices in a particular song bringing their own ideas together. Jay-Z and Eminem and 50 Cent and several other performers show up on each other's tracks. They share the spotlight with others, especially up and comers from their own label. So at any one point during these songs, even Jay-Z or Eminem or 50 Cent becomes the audience. Briefly.

But those who aren't performing ever, those who choose not to perform, I wonder about them. It's a new world. We all have these devices that allow us to be critics. Audiences are full of critics, who vote with their dollars, or make noise just to make noise.And, of course, there are those who complain because they are "sometime" performers that believe they'll draw a better audience by heckling someone else's moment on stage.

We Are All The Audience At Some Point

I took that picture above. I was in the audience. On the day that photo was taken, I was enjoying a beautiful day with Jacqueline, and she and I watched some break dancing artists do their magic. And I cheered loudly, and gave what I could when the hat was passed, and I talked about the performance for some time afterward.

And when I am your audience, I don't always see it the same way as you. When I am your audience, I don't always feel that you and I would come to the same conclusion. But I appreciate you for taking the stage. If you're doing something, and not just complaining from the comfort of the audience, then I give you credit for that.

But what about those who choose to take their moment in the audience to boo loudly? What about those who spend effort and breath to tell you that you're not what they find appealing? What do you suppose they are thinking?

I never know. I tend to feel that they are lonely. I feel they are frustrated. I feel they worry that they're not visible, so they speak up to show that they can still have their say. And I understand. Because most times, when I go to learn more about these voices, it's hard to find their stage. It's hard to understand their audience. Most times, they don't have either. They, for all intents and purposes, are just like the people in the photo above: an audience waiting to happen.

Perform The Way You Intend

I'm very taken by Bhangra music right now. Sometimes, when others hear it, they're not that into it. That's fine. Some people like it, and others don't. It's the same with all things. I will perform on my stage the way I intend, and to the audience I believe appreciates what I'm saying. And when I learn from a creative and constructive critic, I will tip my hat in thanks. But when those who don't like my music come to simply be a sour note in the audience, well, I'll smile and wish you peace.

Welcome to the audience. I'm in it, and I'm clapping and waiting for the encore.

What Flossing Taught Me About Success

I think a little too often about flossing my teeth. It's a really unfun thing to do. No one gives you a medal for doing it. People rarely talk about it (for good reason). And yet, it's an interesting way to think about success.When you floss your teeth, it's something you do for a few minutes a day that keeps your teeth clean and your gums strong. If you do it every day for two months and then stop doing it for a few weeks, your gums will grow weaker and there will be stuff all caught in there, and the overall health of your mouth will all get worse rather quickly.What does this have to do with success?

Success Is a Daily Practice and Is Rarely Sexy Unto Itself

Success, near as I can tell, comes from daily effort. I write daily (be it for this blog or for my new book with Julien Smith, for articles for Entrepreneur Magazine or Success magazine, or for other projects like my blog topics newsletter. Writing has become a practice. The more I do it, the better I get. It's not always sexy, and it's not always fun, but it's what I do to accomplish some of my goals.

Success in health is the same way. Jacqueline and I are doing the 30 Days of Paleo (affiliate link) project, and that requires eating right for every meal (I fudged just a bit around Thanksgiving, I'll admit). If I worked on eating right "most" of the time, that would deteriorate into "some" of the time and then probably fall back into "not much at all."

The Opposite Of Success Isn't Failure

To me, the opposite of success isn't failure. The opposite of success is entropy. Because we quite often lose hold of success only when we let our constant progress decay and fall apart. When I slow down on my fitness, I get flabby quickly. When I stop writing every day, it gets harder to pick it up again. When I don't keep up with email and contacts, it falls away fast.

Entropy is the enemy. Letting things slip. Falling back into where we were before. That's the bad guy.

Success Is the Practice

We mistake "shiny glamour" with "success" all the time. Shiny glamour is a byproduct of success. You can have a fancy car, but that usually comes from hard work (or rich loved ones - who likely worked hard at one point). You can have a great physique, but that takes work (rich people can't help you as much with this, except to hire you trainers and personal cooks). Success is the practice part. It's doing the work to get better and better. It's the sweat no one sees. It's the work of drudgery and repetition and yes, success is the practice of moving past failure, and pushing into that next opportunity for success.

Three Cheers for Practice! Three Cheers for Flossing

Flossing isn't sexy. Running in the rain isn't sexy. Eating more broccoli and less chocolate molten lava cake is very definitely not sexy. Practice isn't sexy. But success is practice. Success is doing what needs doing every day. Success is the root system for all the shiny glamour you might be lucky enough to get in life. And success, my friends, is a wonderful practice in and of itself.

Who's with me?

Amazon Kindle Fire Is Worth It

I just picked up my Kindle Fire (amazon affiliate link) and found it to be really good as a consumption device. I'd seen some early tech reviews saying that it wasn't all that and a bag of chips, but I'm not seeing it. I think the device is pretty slick, shiny, and works well. I shot a video review, so scroll down if you want to see it in action for a moment. (There's even some Batman to be seen.)

What it isn't is an iPad2. And maybe that's where people are getting all hung up.

Amazon Kindle Fire

The device is about 7 inches, which makes it a bit smaller than an iPad2, bigger than a smartphone (one hopes), and absolutely reasonable to put into a larger pocket, or to tuck into your laptop bag or purse. There are a decent number of covers and sleeves available at this time, but I haven't tried any out, so I will just point you towards a few at the bottom for you to check out (again- none of these have been touched by me, so I can't vouch for them.) Upon getting the device turned on, connected to my wifi, and then linked to my Amazon account, I suddenly had access to all the books I'd bought from the Kindle store, to all the music I'd purchased from the Amazon MP3 store, to the movies and TV shows I'd purchased from Amazon's video service. It was pretty quick and simple.

The system running underneath all this is an Amazon-skinned flavor of Android, the popular Google OS. Amazon offers a much smaller version of the Android App store with fewer applications available, but I haven't yet found that to be particularly limiting (except there's no Google+ yet, which kind of bums me out). The average regular person user will likely not notice a thing, plus all the other social networks are well represented, and I presume Google+ will have a Kindle Fire version soon.

My Video Review

Can't see the video? Click Here

NEW: My PARENTS' Video Review

This video is a tad long at over 11 minutes, but there are some interesting parts to consider. Plus I trimmed out some of it, so what's left is pretty meaty.

Can't see this video? Click Here

So Why Were People Complaining?

I think it's because we've seen how slick an iPad2 is, and because we've seen some of the other feature-heavy tablets, and we think that the Kindle Fire should be that instead of what it is: a perfectly good, quality digital consumption device. If you're thinking of getting a non-Apple tablet device for someone over the upcoming holiday season, and the person isn't a hardcore Apple fiend, this might well be the device.Get the Kindle Fire (amazon affiliate link)Need a Cover or Sleeve?

Are You Writing Chapters or Episodes?

This came to me quite suddenly the other day: a lot of how people interact with your stuff online, especially on your blog, has a lot to do with whether you're writing chapters or whether you're writing episodes. They're quite different, obviously. Let's dig into that.

Chapters vs. Episodes

First off, neither method is wrong. Television shows are based on both models. In the "chapters" model, we get a little precis at the beginning of each episode. It says, "Previously, on ____." Then, we get to see a few seconds that should remind us of whatever it was we saw last time we tuned in. In the episodes method, often used in sitcoms, everything seems to reset from whatever happens during the show by the time we get to the end. When we start up again next week, there's usually enough exposition and context to know who's who and what the relationships are like. If you've seen one episode of the Simpsons, you know roughly what's going to happen, though the actual plot points are dramatically different.

Again, neither method is the right way to do it. However, if you think about it, you've really got to decide how you're going to structure your information. As people come to your site for the first time, will they know enough about the backstory to move forward? We tend to write as if we're doing chapters, except that we rarely (never?) have a "Previously, on _____" part to help people get context.

How Will You Welcome Your New Readers Without Boring Your Old?

This is at the heart of the matter, I believe. Imagine that for every Daniel Decker that has been reading me for a year or two or more, there's a ____ _____ who just showed up today and found this blog TODAY. How will I keep Daniel interested while welcoming ... YOU? (You'd better leave a comment on this post, new person!)

That's the challenge.

But in thinking about it, I wanted to know what you were already doing. Are you writing chapters or episodes? Do you think newcomers can gather up enough context to move forward? If we switched metaphors entirely and you were a magazine, do they know enough from skimming a few pages and posts whether or not they've picked up the right product?

Recycle Your Blog

If you've been fortunate enough to write your blog for any length of time, I can almost guarantee that you have posts from the early days that people haven't seen that are still relevant. It's not that they might be the best thing you've ever written, but they can still be of value.For instance, I wrote If I Started Today back in November of 2008. It's still valid. Almost 3 years later, I'd do pretty much the same thing. So, that makes it a post worth resharing. But how? And what can I do to make it interesting for you to visit?

Recycle Your Blog

There are a few ways to recycle your blog. Way number one is to pull out information from a post you want to share, expound on it until it's a standalone post, and then link to the original post at the end. So, in this case, if I wanted to do that with "If I Started Today," I'd write up a section about "Five Elements Your Blog Needs When Starting Out," and then I'd link to the post at the bottom to show what else you need by pointing to that post.

The other way to recycle posts is to group them up with a post that tells a story through sharing more than one post. At this point, I've written about 8 or 9 posts talking about Google+. I could write a post called "My Best Advice on Google+" and put links to those posts all in one place. This would give my readers a simple way to walk through everything I'd written about the topic, and it would give me much more attention on the site, without having had to write a new post of any size or value.

Recycling Is Good For Everyone

Recycling some of your older material so that people can get something out of it is helpful. But just like you see on products that use recycled materials, you probably want to always maintain a mix of new material and post-use recycled material. And you never want to flat out reprint your posts, as that is frowned upon by Google.

So, with that in mind, look back on your blog and find some posts worth sharing again. Who knows? You might find a hit the second time around with something that went unnoticed through no fault of your own.

Maybe you'll make some art from trash.

Your Loudest Voice

My girlfriend, Jacq and I went to see Moneyball last night (and I highly recommend that you see it- it's not really a movie about baseball). One of several lessons and insights that I got from the movie was that, when you know with all your heart that you're working according to your own plan, that you don't need outside validation. This resonated with me. Your loudest voice, in support of you, must always come from within.

External Voices Can Be difficult

Let me set the stage a little.

In the movie, Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, and in this specific season, he's been dealt some tough cards. Three of his biggest "star" players have been taken by other teams. He's got one of the smallest budgets in baseball, and yet, he has to do something to turn the team's fortunes around.

Enter Jonah Hill playing Peter Brand, a statistical genius with a degree from Yale and with no previous experience in baseball. He works with Beane to figure out some statistical models that point to a way to do better with a very limited budget. It runs completely against what everyone else in baseball believes to be true. (This story, by the way, is based on a true story. This is the book: Moneyball - amazon affiliate link).

Art Howe is the manager, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has to make something out of the team that Beane and Brand have put together. Only, he doesn't like what he sees, and so he fights against the changes. This leads to the A's falling into last place early, and with that comes tons and tons of bad press, anger, and frustration.

Everyone is yelling. The press says they're wrong. Their families and friends don't see it. The players don't quite get it yet. No one is on their side.

Your Loudest Voice is Valuable

But Beane and Brand get it. They believe it. Billy Beane is all-in from the very beginning of the concept, trusting Peter Brand with his future by believing that Brand's modeling holds the key to what comes next. But they are the only two who believe, at least for quite some time.

The voice you should believe in the most is the one inside of you. No one outside of you should ever be able to drown out the belief you feel inside. If you've locked into a solid conviction about your path, your goal, your view of the universe, then believe in it, and make your voice the loudest, inside of you.

Critics Come and Go

Critics attack unique thinking. Critics attack anything that threatens the status quo. Critics quite often attack that which seems to simplified, explaining how everything is complex and can't possibly be boiled down to something simple.

Critics also come from their own perspective, see things as part of a larger tapestry of the past, and rarely understand innovative thought when they see it.

Be Willing to Learn, but Believe in Yourself

I'm not saying that you should close out any kind of external insights, but what I am saying is that there will be many (not a few, but many) times when you'll feel that you've faltered based on some external advice. Believe in you. Believe in you hard. Be willing to absorb other people's thoughts, but weigh them against your voice being the loudest, at least in areas where you have the strongest of convictions.

And that's the little kicker.

Be Willing to Be Silent and Listen

In all areas where you don't have strong conviction, be willing to be silent and listen. Learn from those around you. Absorb what you can. Listen and observe and see what there is to know. Because in those areas where you're not sure beyond belief that you've got the right idea, or at least the idea you're going to pursue with fierce self-belief, then you can afford to wait, be silent, and see what comes from the world around you.

What Say You?

Does this resonate? Have you had those moments where everyone outside of you said you were wrong, but you still knew you were on the right path? Have you ever succumbed to the voices outside of you? (My answer to this is yes far more often than I wish, but I'm working on that now.) And how do you know when to listen to your loudest voice versus be willing to be silent and open?

Educators - Google Plus Is For You

If you're an educator and you haven't yet started experimenting with how Google+ might be the next best most amazing and awesome collaboration tool to help your classes do good work, then you're missing out. There are some great ways to think about this to get you started. Plus, the tool is open to anyone with a gmail account and is free. So, dive in.

Make a Class Circle

After you've set up your account and published your profile, go to your Circles page and start adding people in your class to the circle. When you have it all populated, share it with the people in that circle, so they can all add each other to the same circle. Do this by clicking "share this circle" in the upper right hand side of your screen. (If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and we'll sort you out.)

Share Lesson Plans

You can post your lesson plans to your circle without sharing them to the outside world. Simply click the X on other circles and sharing options like "public" and "extended circles" until your special class circle is all that's remaining, and you have your privacy. Now, post lesson plans, share YouTube videos, photos, and more via links. You can even do location-related homework by having people post location check-ins to the circle as a response to your plans.

Seek and Respond To Comments

Comments are gold. If you want discussions, make sure to answer questions and comment back and forth with people based on the information you've shared. This is the best way to take advantage of this platform, as keeping a running thread of conversations about your topics allows everyone to see the evolution of your efforts, as well.

Start a Hangout

Want to see everyone's shining face or share a document or draw together on a collaborative whiteboard? Hangouts (with extras) allows for all of this. There are a limited number of people who can be live in a hangout at any time, but you can accomplish the same efforts by scheduling more than one hangout, if your class is too big.Invite special guests! It gets even more fun. There are lots of really interesting people already on Google+, and most of them would probably be willing to drop into a hangout, if you give them advanced warning.

And That's Just the Beginning

You can experiment and see pretty quickly just how great this platform can be for educators. Heck, maybe you have. Have you done some cool things? Share your thoughts in the comments section. (If you share a link, give me some time to approve it.)

What do you think?

Choices

We make choices. Every day, we choose many times, from the moment we wake up, until the time we choose to fall asleep. What makes this interesting, however, are how many times we believe that we didn't have a choice, and acted as if something was decided for us, including our reaction.

Our Choices

Yesterday, I was sick with a head cold. I chose not to blog at [chrisbrogan.com]. I also didn't get my Blog Topics letter published. These were choices. I could have written enough posts and had some in draft so that I didn't miss either publication, but I didn't. I chose to use that time for other things, like my upcoming book. These choices impacted my day yesterday. But even then, I made the choice not to feel bad about it, because I wasn't feeling well, and it just didn't feel as important.

I have many choices in front of me today. We all do. That's the point. There are choices all around us that need to be made. But we make so very many of them without thinking.

Recognizing Our Intentions

Answer some questions:

• Is rest and sleep important to you? What time did you go to sleep and wake up? What did you do instead of going to sleep? Which choices did you make instead?
• Is your health important to you? What did you choose to eat yesterday? How much time did you schedule for your fitness?
• Is your future important to you? What moves did you make yesterday towards advancing that future? What did you do with your time instead?

If you stopped and answered those questions honestly, you'd see your choices in action. But more interestingly, you'd hear the voice of guilt, the voice of justification, the voice that excuses make to dull your guilt. You'd hear many little decisions and self-talk click in, all of which serve a purpose (most of which is the purpose of avoiding pain and discomfort, or the perceived pain and discomfort we associate with guilt).

We are Addicted to Excuses

What I'm saying is that we all grow very comfortable with our excuses and justifications. This impacts how we do our job. This impacts how we relate to those we love. This impacts how we face every moment of the day.

And the gravitational PULL of excuses and justification are huge. Think about it. "I really should work out today, but I've got so much stuff on my plate." The word "but" is your indication that you didn't mean what you said in the first half of the sentence.

The truth is, in the above example, you will always have so much stuff on your plate, and if you don't, the excuse will be that you really should work out, but you've gotta search for work, so that you can have a lot of stuff on your plate.

I'm right there with you. I'm addicted to excuses the same as you, the same as everyone. But that's also not an excuse, not license to do nothing. It's a call to action.

Live Your Plan

If you don't have a direction or goal or path in mind, how will you know you're going the right way? I've recently made a commitment to my fitness and health. I now have a very simple path that I can clearly explain. When I'm not on the path, it's really clear. So I make choices that keep me on that path. In my case, my simple path is to eat more meals than not according to my goals, and to make time for fitness five times a week. There are no excuses allowed for this. Even with a head cold, I'm working out today.

The trick to this all is creating enough simple paths and putting success in our way every day (I wrote about this recently in a post about discipline.)

But then beyond that, it's becoming acutely aware of choices, and of seeing each moment that they come up as an opportunity to practice the response that is in better alignment with your goals. I'm writing about this today because I saw a very obvious stumbling point of my own come up. And for once (and yes, it's rare for all of us, and even that is something to think about), I made the right choice in this specific instance.

Success Breeds Success

One last point and then I'll let you go. The more times I choose to honor my paths and avoid excuses and justification, the more times I can leverage that success for other things. My eating better and getting more healthy remind me to stay more disciplined about other things in my life. All of this together is leading me towards even better choices. There's a snowball effect at play here. The more we can work on our choices, the more times we can have small victories and bring that success to bear on other choices in our lives.

If you stopped right now and just wrote five choices you'd like to think about today and for the rest of the month - just five, I bet you'd have a better time of things. If you had even the simplest of guides to the path you'd prefer, versus what comes up or what can be excused and justified, even if this is just a starting point for something else, I promise you'd feel better.

What do you think? Are you willing to make that choice?

Say No Faster

I'm cleaning up my inbox this morning. I use Google Apps and as such, have a Gmail type interface. When there's something I think is important and requires follow-up, I put a star next to that piece of mail (if you've never seen it, it looks like this):

It's come to my attention that I don't really use stars to mean something is important. Instead, I use stars to say, "I don't really want to deal with this much at all, but I took on the responsibility, so the potato is mine until I've dealt with it." In several cases, this all would have been much better if I'd learned to say no faster.

Say No Faster

Why do we linger before saying no? One reason is that we hate to disappoint. This is my primary reason. The other reason is that we sense that something might be a good opportunity, even if we have absolutely no capacity to handle what's being pointed in our direction. In both cases, no one is all that happy with the way you end up handling things that end up falling into this category.

I think some of the problem is that we don't fully understand the syntax of saying no in such a way as to say, "What you're doing is important, and I'm very supportive of you, but I'm not able to take on what you'd like me to do because of my own full plate of commitments."

That sentence is often what's missing. That, plus the ability to accept that we shouldn't feel guilty for being busy.

No Fast is Better Than No Response At All

Today, I sheepishly deleted several emails with stars on them that were waiting for a quick response, and that ended up getting no reply at all. Dozens. Maybe 100 overall. So that means almost 100 people got my attention, got me to read something, got me to think that maybe I should do something, even though I really didn't have the capacity, and then received no response. To those 100 people, I didn't respond at all. I'm more of a jerk than if I'd said no politely.

Make the "Say No Faster" Resolution

Repeat after me:From now on, I resolve to say no faster. I will say no with grace and poise and kindness, but I will say no. Even when something takes "just five minutes," if I don't have the time or don't feel compelled to sway from the course of my own commitments, I will say no with kindness, and wish the person well. Saying no faster is much better than not responding, and much better than the guilt I will feel if I say yes, but can't deliver.

And so it is.

You all deserve better. I'm sorry if you were one of the people I never responded to, and I will do much better at communicating in the future.

Take Back Your Strings

Twice in the same week, someone wrote the word "disappointed" with regards to their feelings about me.

For the past 30 or so years, those words (and many others) have pushed me into terrible depression. In reasonably sane people, you'd probably allow only a few people's disappointment to let you feel this way. Maybe your mom's utterance of that phrase (and many others) would send you into that depression. Maybe your spouse.

With me, however, I would let anyone use the words and their impact would take me down. Whoever wanted to pick up my puppet strings and alter my feelings, I'd surrender that power unto them. Not consciously, mind you, but I was always trying my best to please whoever it was who came in contact with me. All the time, I was seeking to avoid that worry of disappointing people.

We Give Others Our Strings

Now that I've been working so hard on figuring myself out, I've realized that I was running around, giving other people the strings so that they could pull me in plenty of directions. None of those people were bad. Heck, several didn't even realize that I'd tied my strings to them. Other times, I most certainly tangled my strings around someone, thinking that maybe I'd avoid disappointing someone if I could just be whatever it was I thought they might need.

But that's all me. I gave away my strings. I tried tying them to anyone walking by. All me.

Take Back Your Strings

The only way to bring yourself to a better functionality is to take back your strings. This requires a lot of work, for some, and just a little bit of work, for others. It also requires acknowledging that we've given our strings to other people.

We give our bosses our strings when we worry that our actions will cost us our jobs. If we had our own strings, we'd just do the job the way we wanted to do it, and we'd hope to accomplish the goals our jobs held for us. We'd be open to learning, but we'd move our own puppets around instead of letting other people's moods and thoughts direct us.

We give our loved ones our strings all the time. "I'd be a better writer, if only he supported me." "I'm trying to get more healthy, but he keeps bringing home Kentucky Fried Chicken." Really? These other people have all this power over us? We've given them the ability to decide our actions and outcomes? Wow!

So, take back your strings. Agree that you'll move your little puppet self around through life. If you're religious, and you don't trust yourself with your own strings, give them to God (however you see that), but don't give those strings to humans (even those who work for God). If you're Buddhist, you work your own strings. I can't speak for most of the other religions.

Disappointed

The two people who were disappointed in me had their reasons to be disappointed. In both cases, I'd chosen to do something that was counter to what they wanted me to do. Lately, I've been doing a lot of disappointing. I don't mean to hurt anyone; instead, I'm working on taking my strings back, and doing the things that I think will grow me, and grow my capabilities to help others.

To really accept that the term "disappointed" is pretty much synonymous with "you're not doing what I want you to do" gave me a whole new sense of joy. Because those disappointments aren't mine. They relate to someone putting their expectations on me. I don't own that. Those aren't my strings.

And now that I have my strings back (at least most of them), I'm working hard on writing my own damned puppet show. How about you? Who has your strings? Are you ready to get them back?

The Truth About Discipline

I'm writing a book and the deadline is looming. I was given six weeks to write it, which is the tightest deadline I've ever had. The work of doing this requires a great deal more discipline than I typically afford myself.At the same time, I'm working with a renewed vigor on my fitness and health. With eating, that means being diligent at every turn, because a busy lifestyle plus travel makes it so easy to justify stuffing any old thing in your mouth to quiet your belly while you do "what's important." It means doing the work of exercise all the time, instead of just every now and again (I'm still not there on this point).All of this makes me think about discipline, especially what's untrue about it.

Discipline Isn't Willpower

Rob Hatch and I were talking about a guy who wanted to practice his guitar more (I think this story is from a book, but I forget the book). He put little notes on his calendar to remind him to play guitar. Yet, after a busy day at work, he would come home and watch TV. One day, he realized that the reason he wasn't reaching for the guitar he intended to practice more was that it was in the closet. He took it out and placed it between the couch and the TV. Pow, instant improvement in how often he practiced guitar.Discipline isn't willpower. Discipline is setting up the perfect environment to achieve the goals you have. If you want the perfect book for this, read Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath. If you read it already but still haven't changed your environment to accomplish what you want to do, then read it again.

Success Breeds Success

Once you feel great about adhering to a better diet, you feel more inspired to work out more often. Once you get your writing into a steady flow of 2000 words a day, you expand your goals to accomplish something else, like resolving to record one video a week, or something. Success breeds success. So, find something simple to start with, build the appropriate environment to succeed, and then feel super excited that you hit something.

Beware Justification

The biggest enemy of your work on discipline is using your early successes to justify slip-ups and slacking. "I went to the gym two days in a row. I can take a break." That will derail you faster than anything else. Doing what you've set out to do is not a badge you can wear. Imagine flossing your teeth once and deciding that you're done. Discipline is a routine, not a single goal. Discipline is the power that fuels the systems that LEAD you to larger goals.So make justification the enemy. The minute you hear yourself saying that inside your head, say, "I'm going to do something right now to counter that justification." Do it. Without a quick snip, that justification will have you in the "I used to do that..." category faster than you think.

Discipline is the Ladder

Discipline is the ladder that gets you from where you are to where you want to go. Once you can write 2000 words a day without flinching, you can take on bigger projects. Once you can work out four times a week, you can take that trip to the mountains without worrying, or you can apply all that extra energy to doing more work (working out has given me more energy to make more money-making projects). Discipline is the ladder you can set against the wall that is between you and what you want. It's not something to be longing for; it's something you can accomplish by starting small, setting up the best environment, being consistent, pushing away justification, and then building on your previous successes.So, where would you want to place that ladder? And what are you working on, discipline-wise? What are your challenges?

All You Have

I'm in a bit of a bind. I've taken on a lot of favors. I've picked up some projects. And I've got a very rush job project that just came to contract Friday. Suddenly, I've gone from wondering what I'm going to do to about the next few months to wondering how I'm going to survive them. You've probably had that happen before too, haven't you? You've gone from worried to crushed with work, and then back again, right? Because it's what we all do, especially those of us you who own your future. It's at those moments where you start thinking about all you have.

All You Have

On one side, all you have is yourself. You hear this a lot. Sometimes, it's comforting. Other times, it's what you do to counter the ouchy feeling that others can inspire in you.

On the other side, all you have is the love and support of those you've come to count on as your friends, and those people who nourish you. But even then, they don't actually do the work. They can support you, but even that will be very strange and squishy and not always befitting of the situation.

So really, when you come down to that moment of execution, all you have is you.

No one writes your book for you (unless you pay them to, I guess). No one makes the hard decisions for you. No one actually helps you put your butt into the chair to do the work. That's all you.

And yet

And yet, if you think you do it all by yourself, you're fooling yourself. There are many people who got you to where you are now. There are many people who care for you, who love you, who support you and put a lot of energy into helping you get where you're going. And if you doubt that, even for a moment, things go awry. Some of this might take the form of whatever spirituality or religion you believe. But some of this is real, honest, wonderful people, right here on our little blue marble.

And both matter in the equation, no matter what.

Tips for Flying

I travel every few days. On the day this posts, I'll be flying to Chicago. A few days later, off to the west coast. Then, Chicago again. Then home. Then, Latvia. Yes, I fly a lot.I thought I'd offer some tips for flying.

Tips for Flying: Planning Your Flight

• Airline rewards programs are important. However, I sign up to them all, and then just try to use one or two airlines more than others. Lots of people want to stick to one airline. I think this isn't advisable these days.
• When possible, try to fly in the night before. Travel is always messy these days, and hoping that you'll get in when the ticket says you'll get in is right up there with hoping the tooth fairy will bring you that quarter she owes you from when you were six.
• Use services like SeatGuru to understand the best potential seat for your flight. I forget this step sometimes, often to my detriment.
• Obviously, leg room is important to most folks. Most flights now charge for the good leg room seats. Decide ahead of time by distance traveled and activities planned whether that's what you'll want to do. Also, and this is personal preference, I prefer the window seat for one reason: carts and people having to pee don't bump and jostle me as much. Mind you, I'm very broad across the shoulder, so maybe that's a personal preference.

Tips for Flying: Packing

• Learn to pack light and compact. My friend, Ben, showed me One Bag a year or two ago, and it's made a world of difference.
• Pick up the Monster Portable Power Cord with USB. I call this the friendmaker. Every airport has too many people seeking power from too few plugs. Offer to help with this and you'll meet a few friends.
• Pack a few energy bars or other dry snacks in your personal bag or laptop bag. It fends off really bad food purchases at the airport, and bringing bars from your grocery store saves you that ouchy moment when you pay $3.79 for something you know costs $1.49 anywhere else in the world.
• Pack a few extra quart-sized plastic zip bags in your case. They are always useful.
• If at all possible, carry your luggage onto the plane. I use the Eagle Creek Tarmac 22, but Mitch Joel (who recommended this bag to me) has recently upgraded to the Eagle Creek Traverse Pro Daypack (amazon affiliate link), and I have looked it over and plan to buy the same one when I'm next in the market. Why carry on? Because waiting for your luggage at the carousel adds another 15 minutes to your time at the airport.

Tips for Flying: Airport Experiences

• Always ask someone upon arriving at the airport whether the good food is before security or after security. They'll know. In some airports, everything worth doing is before the security line (Orlando in Florida comes to mind, as does Kansas City). In others, what's before is slender pickings and what's after is where you'll find the fun (DFW comes to mind).
• Stick your boarding pass and your ID somewhere really obvious and always the same place. I use my right front pocket. You can use your suit jacket pocket, or whatever you want. But make it REALLY easy to access.
• If you're wearing a jacket when you travel, it's easy to plop the things you need out of your pocket into your jacket pockets, including your watch and whatever metal jewelry, and then lay that in the tray, instead of dumping it all in the tray. It's easier to fish things out of your pocket while walking instead of having to scoop it all back out of the tray.
• I try to put my things on the scanner belt in an order that makes sense on the other side of the screening. So, I put my shoes down first, my jacket over my shoes, and my toiletry plastic zip bag on top of it all. I put my laptop in its own tray, and then my luggage follows these two trays. When I get through the metal detectors (or those joy-sucker xray devices), I scoop up the bag of toiletries, put on my jacket, put on my shoes (I try to wear slip-on shoes for flying), and then tuck that zip bag into my suitcase. I put the suitcase down on the ground, scoop the laptop back into my laptop bag, and I'm off with my luggage. (If anyone else is thinking about Up in the Air at this moment, it's very much like that).
• Personally, I like finding my gate sooner than later for two reasons. One, quite often I misunderstand where the gate it in comparison to where I am, so if I actually set my eyes on it, I'll know how far I am from it, so I can judge when to get back there to board. Two, no matter what the signs say all over the airport telling you which gate you're at, things change at the last minute quite often, so I like to see what the gate actually reports will be leaving from it versus what the boards say.
• People not to argue with: TSA. They don't care. Gate Agents after reporting a delay. They can't change much. Instead, with TSA, simply know their system and navigate it with the least amount of annoyance you can muster. For the gate agents, think of intelligent questions related to your delays, such as whether your connecting flight is delayed as well, and whether the other airport has later flights matching your final destination, etc. Neither of these groups are worth fighting with.
• Most airports are starting to offer free wifi, or at the least, Boingo. I've found that having a Boingo account has been very useful, even though I also travel with a 3G card. Sometimes, airports don't have the best cellular reception, and to me, connectivity matters. Having a few ways to connect is easier than one.
• The airport is the single best place to answer all those emails you've been neglecting. Doing this at the gate instead of diving into the magazine you bought for the flight saves you twice. If you're a gmail or other online mail user, use an offline mail client that supports POP3 or IMAP like Thunderbird (free for Mac or PC), so that you can work on these mail messages even while you're on the plane (if you have room).
• Boarding in order is vital for Southwest. For everyone else, it's up to you. The risk of boarding last is that the overhead bins get filled up and you have to gate check your carry-on. The reward is that you can just hang out, not stand in an awkward line, and get more laptop time before standing around on the jet bridge feeling like cattle.

Tips for Flying: On Board the Plane

Those really good headsets are worth it for soothing the roar of an airplane. I went with Beats by Dr. Dre Beats Solo HD Black On-ear Headphones with ControlTalk (amazon affiliate link) after buying the very low end Bose and not finding them as nice for music. Even if I wear these but don't plug them into music, they make my flight a lot nicer. On-ear drowns out a lot more than earbuds, I've learned.

I bring a bottle of water or juice onto the plane so that I'm never stuck in that "drythroatneedadrinkbuttheattendantisn'tcomingforanother20minutes" feeling. Anything I can do to eliminate discomforts or frustrations, I'm going to do. This one helps a lot.

Quick note: parents can't usually do a lot to help that their kid is crying. Give them a break. Smile politely.

Quick note 2: if someone looks like they need help (like getting a bag into or out of the overhead), then offer to help.

Quick note 3: if someone's in your seat, don't make a big stink. If you must have that seat over what they've left you, just ask nicely. If they don't comply, a flight attendant will fix it. No worries.

Upon landing, your only job is to get your stuff and get out quickly. Never EVER stand still the moment you exit the jet bridge and stand at the mouth of the terminal. This is the single most worst part of the flying experience, because there's inevitably one person mucking up the line (see Quick Note 2 above).

Tips for Flying: Getting Out of Dodge

• When you deplane, go pee. You might think, "Oh, I'm fine. I can make it to the _____," but what almost always happens is that traffic snarls or something else happens, and you find yourself really having to pee. I'm only telling you this because it happens quite often. (And wash your hands.)
• I sometimes stop and get a second bottle of water on the way out of the airport to go with one of my energy bars, in case I get stuck in traffic and in case I'm going to be a while before dinner.
• If you're taking a cab to your destination, always have the address ready when you get into the cab. I use my calendar software for this and not only do I have the hotel name and address, but I have the telephone number, in case there's a question about directions, or in case I arrive VERY late and need to ensure I still have a room reservation.
• And from here, the adventure is up to you.

You Know Most of This

A lot of travel tips are somewhat self-evident, but maybe you don't travel as much and the refresher is good. In other cases, maybe you're a frequent traveler but are always looking for tips to keep things fresh. In fact, that gives me an idea.What if YOU wrote YOUR travel tips post and linked it back in the trackbacks to here? What if we could see via the comments your tips added on your site, so that people can come and find the best advice through a simple exploration? (Remember: posts in the comments with a URL take a day to get through the filter. Don't worry and repost. We'll get you settled.)What do you think?