Author’s Note: Scott Ginsberg a.k.a. Scott the Nametag Guy is celebrating the launch of his new book, -ABLE: 35 Strategies for Increasing the Probability of Success in Business and in Life, by challenging his readers to come up with their own –able word and write about it in a blog post. Reading Scott’s blog post announcing the challenge, I realized the one –able word that I would use to describe what I strive to be, and what Scott has nailed, is transferable.

What Does It Mean to be More Transferable?

Transferable is more Memorable

Think about all of the knowledge you gained in High School. What ideas, concepts, or principles stand out most in your memory? If nothing stands out, what events during high school stand out in your mind?

Unless you have a perfect memory, the most memorable ideas or memories are attached to a concept presented in a surprising way or were highly emotional. One idea that I remember is the “Mole scream” from Chemistry class, which was a high pitched scream that our teacher let out when anyone correctly used the concept of a mole in discussions.

Since the Mole Scream was memorable, it caused me to remember the concept of the Mole and the teacher’s knowledge was transferred to me.

What are you doing to make your ideas, products, and services more memorable?

Transferable is more Understandable

To be more memorable, you could stand on a busy sidewalk and yelling random equations at the top of your lungs for a few hours. While that would make you very memorable and possibly get the video of you screaming a few hits on YouTube, like many Internet Memes, the effecive lifespan of your demonstrationwould be short.

In order for you to be transferable, you need to make yourself more understandable. I recently heard about Danica McKellar, an actress turned author who was writing math books for girls by using stories and examples from a young girl’s life to explain concepts in math. These books are understandable because they link familiar concepts to new ones.

Since these books are more understandable, they transfer the power of mathematics to people that might not have taken as much of an interest.

What are you doing to creating understandable products, services, and ideas?

Transferable is more Actionable

Let’s go back to High School (OK, I don’t want to either so let’s just go back to what we learned in High School).

While someone might have presented a quote out of the Federalist Papers in period costume so that you remembered the passage, what good did it do if you were not able to apply that knowledge in your daily life?

When you are transferable, you are able to provide information that is actionable. While many business classes provide a wealth of information, many professionals turn to public seminars, coaches, and consultants in order to bridge the gap between knowledge and execution.

When you are transferable, you are able to help people turn their knowledge into operational improvement, life enhancement, or monetary gain. From a product perspective, this is accomplished through actionable checklists, process diagrams, and worksheets that help people grasp the concepts that they need to take action on.

Though college is a great way to gain knowledge, it does not always provide actionable tools that transfer the knowledge to people that will use it.

Are you providing great knowledge with a heavy does of actionability?

Transferable is more Marketable

When you are transferable, your transferableness is more marketable. 

Which business book would you be more apt to read?

“The book contained a lot of good information, but I had to wade through ten long chapters of extraneous self promotion, archaic terms, and unnecessary definitions to get to the material that was actionable.,”

Or

“This book was great? Using the knowledge in the first chapter alone, I was able to save my business thousands of dollars.”

I would prefer the second. What about you?

When you, your products, and your services are transferable, that transferableness becomes marketable.

Transferable is more Compatible

When you are transferable, you are more compatible.

I could talk about the chemical reasons that oil and water doesn’t mix, but I am afraid I wouldn’t be transferring understandableness in my description. Instead, think about relatives you might have that don’t get along. For some reason they are just not compatible!

What happens when those relatives get together during the holidays? They usually end up bickering, making snide comments, and not listening to what the others person has to say. If there was an important message that had to get from one of them to the other, do you think it would get there with the right intention?

When you are transferable, you are compatible with your surroundings, people, and the technology in your life that allows you to be a superhero.

What are you doing to be more compatible?

Of all the –ables that I can think of, to me, being transferable has the most potential to help someone achieve success. When you are transferable, you are more memorable, understandable, actionable, marketable, and compatible than your competitors which will lead you to amazing successes.

Are you transferable?

Make Yourself More Transferable is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to make your speaking, e-mail marketing, and blogging more effective.
2. The Cake is a Lie
3. Good is the Enemy of Great

Take a moment today to realize how lucky you are and capture one of the few moments you have in time. You might not have everything you want in life, but you are alive, you are breathing, and if you are reading this. If you can do that, then you have what it takes to succeed.

Too often we get mired in our desire to succeed that we forget what really matters. It is not the quantity of success that we will be judged by, but the quality of the life we choose to live no matter how much or how little we obtain.

So on this day, stop for a few seconds and breathe in life.

Tomorrow we will get back to moving that life forward.

Enjoy.

Take A Moment . . . is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. The Greatest Moment in Your Life
2. Why I Love My Feet

Why Massive Action is Important

Here is the kicker; taking massive action to get something accomplished is the only difference between successes and failures. It is only in action that we are able to live the life of our dreams.

My Story

When I graduated from college, I barely achieved a 3.00 GPA. The quarter before graduation, I had a 2.97 GPA and earlier in my college career, I was heading towards a 2.00 GPA. From the look of my transcript, you would have thought that I wasn’t cut out for success in higher education.

Fast forward four years. After begging on hands and knees to get into graduate school, I graduated with a 3.93 GPA. If you would look at my transcript from graduate school, you would see that I had one B and the rest were A’s.

Was I A Bad Student?

If you had looked at my undergraduate grades, you might have thought that I didn’t spend much time on my studies. Here is the thing, I rarely missed classes or assignments. If you had seen me in class and working in front of the computer at the library, you would have thought I was a star student.

What was my problem?

The problem was that I wasn’t taking action.

Instead of actually taking the action to read what the professors wanted me to read; I was studying how to study, looking for simple explanations, or trying to find out how to better schedule my study time so that I could be a more effective student.

I was studying everything about studying, but not actually taking action on the materials I had in front of me.

Success Comes From Massive Action

I succeeded in Graduate School, because I spent hours in the library reading my textbooks, taking notes, summarizing notes, and working through my homework problems. I took the action required and worked my butt off in order to get the grades I wanted.

What do You Want?

Do you want to create and sell your own products online? Then stop spending $2000 on products that tell you how to create and sell products and start creating them.

Do you want to find a better job, lose weight, or fix your relationship? Spend 12 hours writing and revising your resume, exercise, or talk to your partner about the problems you are experiencing in your relationship.

Too often we know what we want and we don’t take the action required to get what we want. Instead we head to Google and start reading about how to find a better job, lose 10 pounds in a week, or what we need to say to our spouse to fix our relationship. Instead of spending 10 hours taking the action required to do something, we spend that time reading about how we should be taking action.

This post will not help you unless you are willing to help yourself.

If you want to do something, take action to do it. Don’t think about it, don’t study the problem, and don’t buy a product that gives you a formula for figuring it out. Just take action and do the work required to get it done.

Will you have to work at it? Yes.

Will it be hard? Yes.

Deal with it.

This Post Will Not Help You is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You What You Eat?
2. Time is an Illusion
3. Are You Living Life On If . . . Then . . .

What You Might be Thinking

After reading the last few posts, you might be saying to yourself, “Chris, you are killing me. Do you know how much I hate exercising, eating well, and trying to think positive about a not-so-positive situation in my life?”

There are many times in our lives were we do not love what we are doing or have a great commitment to the monotony of an activity that we are currently engaged. This happens when we feel that eating well, spending an hour on the elliptical, or repeating positive statements to ourselves is pointless. We would rather enjoy the moment by eating sweets, not exercise, and showing the world how angry we can be.

When I start to go down that path, I have to tell myself that I love my feet.

Why do I love my feet?

In my keynote, Create Your Own LUCK, I tell a story about that illustrates a point about Love and Commitment and how we can still stay focused when we do not love what we are doing in this moment.

I once had an older gentleman that used to work for me. He had lived a rough life and consoled himself with plenty of unhealthy foods, not bothering to exercise, and always coming after life with a “can’t do” attitude. Many people would have called him an old sourpuss.

This old sourpuss developed diabetes and over the course of a year and a half, it forced him to leave his job, lose his feet, and eventually lose his life.

In my keynote, I tell people that because I love my feet, I am able to cut back on the sugars, exercise, and approach more situations with a positive mental attitude. This demonstrates that even when we are not committed to what we have to do to reach success; we love and are committed to our goal. When we love and are committed to our goal, then we are able to move through the monotony to get to the greatness that is in our future.

So the next time you are down on working out, eating well, or developing a positive mindset. Remember how much you love your feet, that house by the lake, or whatever drives you towards your dream. When you focus on those goals, you can move towards taking the action you need to move yourself forward.

What do you love that drives you towards your goal?

Let us know in the comments.

Why I Love My Feet is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Energy Through Exercise
2. Does it hurt to smile?
3. Mindset Moves Mountains

What do you have control over?

When it comes to having the energy that helps you create a mindset for massive action, what is the one thing that you have total control over?

You have total control of what goes into your mouth.

If you are an adult living on your own or with a partner, you have complete control of what you are eating. Are you eating foods that are benefiting your energy levels or are you eating foods that drag your energy down?

When I feel good . . .

Last week I was facilitating a training class in North Carolina. The first day of class, I had eaten two bananas, an apple, and a small bowl of oatmeal with walnuts for breakfast. Throughout the day, I was drinking a lot of water, and snacking on fruit that I had smuggled out of the hotel during breaks. At lunch, I had a salad. I had not slept well the night before, but I was filled with energy during the day.

When I feel bad . . .

Compare that to day two, where I slept well, but struggled to stay energetic during my training class. Looking at my dining, the night before I met some former coworkers for barbecue pork, I skipped breakfast, and loaded up on more barbecue for lunch. By the middle of the afternoon, I was ready to lie down and take a nap.

What did I do to boost my energy?

I loaded up on coffee, grabbed a moon pie, and forced myself to work after consuming too much sugar, caffeine, and fat. By the end of the second day of training, I felt sick. I was groggy, unable to focus, and ready to pass out in bed.

Coming Out of A Rut

The third morning I felt like hell. I stuck to fruit for breakfast, a fat free smoothie for lunch, and as much water as I could handle through the travel day home. After grabbing dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, I ate a healthy dinner and got a good night’s sleep. I didn’t feel great the next day, but I was starting to get back to normal.

What is happening to me?

This trip really highlighted for me how much changes in my diet have affected my energy levels throughout the day. When I eat poorly, I can feel it in my energy levels.

While I am not an expert in this topic, here is a general plan to what I have been eating that has helped me gain the energy I need to accomplish more during the day:

Breakfast
A cup of coffee and a spinach, banana, frozen blackberry, and ice smoothie.

Morning Snack
A Banana or Apple and a few almonds

Lunch
A banana, small cup of vegetable based soup, and a vegetarian sandwich.

Afternoon Snack
Apple, Banana, or Larabar

Dinner
Large Tropical Dinner Salad

Water
I will drink about 2-3 liters of fresh water a day in addition to any coffee, tea, or occasional sodas that I may drink

My goal throughout the day is to eat a large amount of fruits and vegetables while limiting the animal proteins and fats.

Another thing that my fiancée and I have been doing is eating on smaller plates. Due to a late night E-Bay Purchase, we have come to own some vintage salad plates that are 1/3 the size of a normal dinner plate. Eating off of them in the evening has really helped us cut down on our portion sizes and feel fuller with less food.

Whilethere are still a few trips out to dinner, I find myself gravitating towards healthier options than I have in the past.

What Eating Well Can Do For You

The most important lesson I have learned out of eating well is that it does affect my energy and I encourage to see if eating like a Men’s Health (or Women’s Health) magazine tells you to puts you on the track on improved energy.

If it does, then you are ready for the next step in increasing the energy you need to have the mindset for massive action.

Are you still with me? If so, make sure that you subscribe to the feed by e-mail or RSS and we can talk more the next step to boosting our energy tomorrow.

Until then, leave me a comment and let me know if you are what you eat.

Are You What You Eat? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Why I Love My Feet
2. Energy Through Exercise
3. Time is an Illusion

The Story of an Amaryllis

In November, my then girlfriend (now fiancée), bought an Amaryllis bulb (which is actually a Hippeastrum).  Her hope was that the Amaryllis would bloom in time for Christmas. Being a flower lover, she read about proper Amaryllis care and she lovingly tended to the sprouting base of the plant. She made sure it was in a sunny location by the back patio door, she watered it when it needed water, and she checked it daily to make sure that the plant’s needs were met.

The plant was placed near a table in her house where I often sit and work on the computer. For weeks I would look down at the nub and comment, “Your plant is not growing.”

My girlfriend’s standard response was, “Yes it is growing. Just wait and see. By Christmas it will be a beautiful flower.”

Weeks passed and Christmas had almost arrived. All that was to be seen of this beautiful flower was a brown nub with a few tiny leaves poking out. Every time I saw this gangly little nub, I would make the same comment, “Your plant is not growing.”

A few days before Christmas, she finally made the conclusion to move the brown nub in front of a large window upstairs.

Within forty eight hours, the leaves that were poking out of that little nub grew an inch. The next day, the leaves had grown more, and within a week the leaves of the flower had grown over four inches. The flower grew because my beautiful, yet stubborn, girlfriend finally moved the flower to a different place where it was exposed to a different temperature, lighting, and humidity.

How Your Superpowers Might be Like an Amaryllis

As you pursue the adventurous life of a superhero, you might get to the point where, despite your best efforts you are not seeing an increase in the quality of your superpowers. Maybe you know what you want to do, but you haven’t been able to get any clients, create any products, or get hired for the job of your dreams. You are in a rut and don’t know how to get out of it.

You are like the Amaryllis, because you have great potential to be wonderful, but you are not growing. You are stuck in the wrong place unable to break free and realize your true potential.

In order to develop your superpowers, you must make some changes in your life. Some of these changes will be big changes, other changes will be small. Big or small, the important thing is that you are doing one or more of the following activities.

• Change Your Environment – Your environment has a huge effect on your productivity and ability to develop your superpowers. Here are a few ways that you can change you environment to spur development of your superpowers.
• Get Involved in an Organization – Many new superheroes will start their journey without a clear idea of the needs of the people they are helping. By joining an organization in the field you are interested in helping, you can surround yourself with practitioners in that field, other service providers, and people that are thriving in the field you have chosen. Getting involved in an organization also gives you credibility in the field and provides you with educational opportunities that are only available to members of the organization. A final benefit is that it gets you out of the house or office and into a new environment with new ideas, people, and opportunities for growth.
• Try to Find a New Job – I have seen many people crushed by their current employment. They have no energy, no drive, and no desire to create a life of their dreams. By getting out and getting a new job, you can have a feeling of doing something new and exciting. This can push you to developing new ideas, learning new skills, and furthering the development of your superpowers.
• Move Your Personal Workspace – Sometimes something as simple as moving your workspace can have a profound impact on your productivity. Maybe the desk you work on is a mess. Getting some new filing cabinets and getting everything clean and organized might make you more productive. Maybe you are in a dark corner of the room. Moving to a better lit corner might give you more energy during the day to develop the superpowers you are working on.

Increase the Knowledge of Your Superpowers

As you develop your superpowers, you will need to develop your knowledge of those powers. As Superman went to the Fortress of Solitude to study the knowledge crystals provided by his father, you will also need to find sources of information to learn about your superpowers. Some examples are:

• Study a Book – As you develop your superpowers, you will need to develop your knowledge of those powers. As Superman went to the Fortress of Solitude to study the knowledge crystals provided by his father, you will also need to find sources of information to learn about your superpowers.  If you are tight on cash, then you can go to the library and study the books about superpowers you would like to develop. In most cities, libraries are great sources of information about a wide variety of topics. If you don’t have access to a library, then order a book off of Amazon that is current and has a decent amount of positive reviews.
• Take a Course – Many large cities and suburbs in the United State have community training and development programs. For $100 or less, these communities offer classes in graphic design, web page development, cooking, dancing, yoga, tai chi, and many other topics. You can also look into degree or non-degree classes at local universities and community colleges.
• Get a Product – If libraries and your local community let you down, you can turn to the Internet to find a product that can help you develop your superpowers. There are many products available on product creation, web design, knitting, and any number of other areas that you might be interested in pursuing. Search sites like clickbank.com or the E-Junkie Marketplace for potential products that might provide you the information you need to develop your powers.

Small Changes can have a Big Effect

Sometimes a small change to the best environment for you will take you from being a small nub to a beautiful plant. When you are in the best environment, you might also find that you are stymied by a lack of knowledge of your superpowers. Working in the right environment, you can begin to study and learn more about your abilities. When these two tasks have increased your superpowers, you can then start taking action which we will talk more about in the next post.

Superpowers Take Time to Develop

Growing your superpowers will take time, energy, and in many cases some financial investment. The same way building a house takes buying and pouring a foundation, developing your superpowers takes spending time and energy in the right environment, with the right knowledge, and taking the right action. This is not an overnight process, but starting now is the best way to move toward future success.

If this post has given you some insight into helping you grow your superpowers, let me know in the comments how you are going to change your environment or learn more about how your superpowers can be put to use.

How to be a Superhero – Part 3: Developing Your Superpowers is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to be a Superhero – Part 4: Taking Action
2. How to be a Superhero – Part 5: Joining Forces with Other Superheroes
3. How to be a Superhero – Part 2: Becoming more Aware

Working Hard for Non-Existent Rewards

In the game, the cake is the supposed reward for completing a series of difficult spatial puzzles. Later in the game when you have escaped the puzzles, there is a message scrawled on a wall that, “The cake is a lie,” and it has been explained elsewhere that the cake symbolizes a non-existent reward for completing tasks.

I believe that for many people, it is the cake that keeps you in a dead end job instead of taking the leap to starting a business, trying a new career path, or just leaving to discover your true passion.

Are You in a Dead End Job?

Consider a situation where you are in what feels like a dead end job. You might get thrown interesting tasks now and then, but overall you are miserable. Many bosses pick up on employees desire to leave so what do they do? They let you go home a little early, tell you that they are working on trying to promote you, or toss you other small motivators that are supposed to motivate you to keep doing the job that is grinding you down.

In many situations, that cake you are offering you is a lie. It does nothing more then motivate you just enough to do your job. You are still plugging away day in and day out in total misery.

There is no new position, no exposure, and the little perks you are granted will stick around until the next round of cuts need to be made, because when it comes down to it, if it comes down to your boss cutting you or he gets cut . . . I don’t think he is going to risk his neck for yours.

“The cake is a lie.”

Many people working desk jobs live with the promises of management dangling in front of them. Bonuses, new positions, and other “intangibles” are kept out of arms reach in order to keep you motivated, in line, and contributing your hard work to the company’s bottom line. It is that cake, day in and day out that keeps you toiling away. Every day you pour your life into a job, but does that job do the same for you?

So what do you need to do if you have realized that “the cake is a lie?”

Find out what you are passionate about. Find out how others have turned that same passion into a business. Then make a plan for learning what you need to learn so that you can get a job you are passionate about or start a business that aligns your passion with your way of earning a living.

The cake is there, but it is not real. What is real is your passion to do something great with your life. Move forward and make that dream a reality. No one else can but you.

The Cake is a Lie is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You Looking at the Giant Leap When You Should Focus on the Little Steps?
2. How to Create a Value Mindset
3. Why Being Great Matters

Why not?

For all of those smart people that are struggling, there is someone out there that is getting their dream job, starting a successful business, or attracting more clients than they can handle. They are happy, because they have the resources and energy to live the life of their dreams.

What is the difference?

The people that are doing well are ignorant and if you want to be more successful, then you need to be more ignorant as well.

Stop! I don’t want you thinking that I am telling you do go out and start a business that you know nothing about. What I trying to get across is, that many people who are successful in a venture, often didn’t know about limitations that could have stopped them.

A Story of Not Knowing Limitations

Jack Canfield tells a story in The Success Principles of how he submitted a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul to a parenting magazine for publication. The editor of the magazine responded by telling him that he was enraged that he had not followed the proper protocol for submitting an article, but enjoyed the article so much that he would publish it anyway. The editor then went on to educate Jack about how to properly communicate with people in the industry.

Jack wasn’t limited by the fact that he didn’t know how to submit an article, but he did it anyway. It was a good article, so he got it published and in the process, learned the correct way to engage people in that industry. Jack’s story is one that is repeated time and time again by successful authors, speakers, coaches, and business owners. When asked why they conducted business in the way they did, they say, “I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to do it that way.”

What Limitations Can You Ignore?

What limitations can you ignore today? Is there a potential client that you are not big enough to call on? Is there someone you need advice from that is too famous to reach out to? Ignore the limitations you have created and give it a shot. What do you have to lose?

Limitations? What Limitations? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Your Greatest Competitor Should be Yourself
2. 5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses
3. The Cake is a Lie

For many years, I was one of those “smart people” who thought that putting my business on-line was a load of crap. I thought that the only way to make a living was through building a brick and mortar company brick by painful brick. It turns out that I was wrong.

The problem I have learned, is that smart people have a number of hang ups about starting an on-line based business.

Here are the five that I though of:

5. Too Much Emphasis on Credentials

Many smart people are highly educated. With a high level of education comes a respect for people that have credentials, certifications, and citations of merit. When smart people start to put their business on-line, they think they need more credentials to demonstrate they know what they are talking about. What they don’t realize is that if you provide a valuable product or service, it doesn’t matter what your credentials are if people are enhanced by what you provide.

4. That Will Never Work

There is a lot of information, both free and paid, on strategies to be successful on-line Many of these strategies or blueprints give step by step instructions on how to set up a website, create products, and promote products. Following these blueprints works for many people and they are successfully moving more of their income on-line

The problem is that smart people don’t like to follow other people’s systems or blueprints. If those people don’t have the same credentials or higher, then they can’t know what they are talking about because they don’t have the years of experience and research to back up their ideas.

They are right; many of the people providing strategies and blueprints don’t have credentials or years of experience. What they do have is trial by fire on-line and the guts to try different strategies until they have worked. Knowing that they work, they then monetize their findings further by packaging their strategy up and selling it. Too many smart people discount the strategy before ever trying to execute it because they think that the person is not credentialed enough.

3. I Need More Data

If a smart person thinks something won’t work, they will hold out for more data, for the facts to become clear, or information that they requested but haven’t gotten yet. Guess what? If someone doesn’t want something to work, then all the additional data in the world won’t change that.

Smart people have been conditioned to believe that the path to earning a living is fraught with hard education, hard work, and a hardwood casket to bury you in when you collapse at your desk of exhaustion. Due to this conditioning, smart people can suffer from a cogitative dissonance effect and find reasons that creating an on-line business won’t work.

2. I Know More Than This Idiot

Have you ever looked at a product that might help you get started and thought to yourself, “I am smarter than this goof-ball…I am not going to spend money on this piece of junk.”

Many smart people have issues of getting information from someone they see as below them on the intellectual totem pole. I know, because I was one of those people. If someone didn’t have at least a college degree, I thought that their product was not going to help me. I have learned that there is a lot out there that a degree doesn’t teach you and many people create products that are easy to understand and put into action.

1. My Work Speaks For Itself

The number one reason why smart people fail at creating on-line businesses is that they think they don’t need to promote their work. They think that because of how smart they are, people will read their blog, follow them on twitter, or add them as a contact on linkedin. Smart people don’t realize that in order to build your business, you have to market your knowledge in such a way that people will be compelled to purchase your knowledge.

The point of these points is that in many cases smart people are just too smart for their own good when it comes to creating an on-line business. At some point you have to let go of needing credentials, more information, or a feeling that someone is an idiot and trust that if you create value that you can succeed on-line.

Let me know if you have any other ways smart people sabotage themselves by leaving a comment on ways you think smart people sabotage themselves.

5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Stupid People Making Money
2. You Will Fail if You Are Not Passionate About Your Business
3. Limitations? What Limitations?

Before the interview last night, I was wiped out. At work, I felt sluggish and I was having difficulty focusing on getting an analysis finished for my boss. I had even considered cancelling the interview because I felt so lethargic and just wanted to go home to sleep.

When I drove home to drop something off before the interview, I changed my mind. I had to push through and find the energy to get this done. Taking a few deep breaths, I put on my tie, brushed my teeth, and got back into the car. This was something that I had to do.

Pulling up to the interview location, I started to perk up. As I was shown the set that Mike had created, I started to get more energized. Getting ready for the interview with Tiffany, I found that I wasn’t tired at all…actually I was the most energized as I had been all week. What was going on?

Driving home buzzing with energy, I realized that I had hit one of my flow states. When I am hanging out with passionate entrepreneurs, I am energized by their motivation and desire to grow themselves as they grow their businesses. It was a great natural high and I didn’t even have to down an energy drink to get that feeling.

If you are an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, do you know when you are energized? What activities, people, or places give you a natural energy that pushes your business forward? How are you finding out what motivates you?

In my 10 Steps to Building an Online Fan Following speaking program, I share the different tools my clients and I use to develop our businesses. What I do differently from most speakers is emphasize that I am not giving a cookie cutter solution. I also push my clients to experiment with as many of the tools as possible. For example, one client doesn’t like to write so we started to work on using audio and video to deliver content to his fans. It is something he loves doing, so it doesn’t feel like work and he is more likely produce valuable content consistently.

When you are marketing your business, you have to be passionate about the techniques you are using. Do you not like speaking? Then don’t speak. Do you hate Twitter? Then don’t use it. In order to get the most value from the time you have, spend it doing the activities you love doing. Only that will move you forward personally and professionally.

What energizes you and are you doing it enough?

What are Your Energizing Moments? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. You Don’t Want to Be Famous
2. 5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses
3. What if I Told You that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong?