Thursday, January 15, 2009

How to Survive Solo-preneurial Isolation.


Success Buster #1
Working Hard All by Yourself?

I'll be honest, as a designated free-spirit and lifelong work-alone kind of gal, I'm no longer a big fan of the maverick’s rule of life, liberty, and the lone pursuit of wealth. Lone methods are about as irrelevant to building a business or a hot-product today, as Eastwood’s lone gun-slinging ways (back in his Wild West spaghetti flicks days) are irrelevant to teaching kids how to smile and play nice. I believe that being a recovering maverick qualifies me to say that without apology.

Even positive thinking (all alone) won’t get you where you want to be. The law of attraction, powerful as it is, still needs some good old-fashioned shoulder rubbing to do its best work. The issues of the day demonstrate a transition from macroscopic globalization, to microscopic co-operation at the community level. The me generations and their direct ascendants grew up to feel entitled to autonomy, independence, and unapologetic wealth. Not entirely a bad thing necessarily, these expectations have taught us not to settle for less than...

Speaking strictly in terms of cause and effect, with the ebb and flow associated with all things non-mechanical kept in mind, this entitlement attitude may have come as a final accent to the 50's backlash of the post Great-Depression, Second World War. After all, part and parcel of continued bona fide ‘prosperity’ means never having to relive the bad times, right? Not ours, not our parents, and not even our grandparent's. Or so we think. When we operate from auto-pilot, we tend to behave as though joy means the absence of sorrow, and wealth as the absence of necessary inter-dependence.

The economic issues of today ask us an important question; can we afford this attitude anymore? The news, life-experience, and the wisdom of those who are radically successful, show that success is not simply a matter of having a valuable expertise, or possessing enviable knowledge. Your knowledge or service is probably well worth the world’s time to know about, but your success really depends on WHO you know.

I know! I used to hate even the sound that those words make together in the same sentence. It simply wasn’t fair, I thought. Nevertheless, it was true then and it is still true today, whether we accept it or not. The simple difference between accepting and not accepting it is that by not accepting it we make our dreams that much less attainable. Plus, it put us in an overwhelming position to have to think of and do everything ourselves. Contrary to the popular reasoning of the over-achiever this does not save time in the long run!

Not only is this a lonely way to work, but it is impossible. And even if you are the nicest person in the world it is both an arrogant and selfish attitude to operate from. So again, who we know and the quality of our interactions with them, create either success or lonely frustration.

Let me ask you a quick question. Have you ever awakened one day to the dreaded feeling that you missed a great opportunity the night before? Maybe it was a moment to just show you care, a thoughtful act, a promotion, or an opportunity to meet someone really interesting. Maybe you turned down an invitation to take part in something that could help you build a number of dynamic relationships.

As a natural introvert I certainly have. Introvert or extrovert aside, we all have, and we’ve all pondered where we might be now if we had just taken up the offer, or followed through with a new aquaintance.

All day, every day new opportunities present themselves. So it is important for anyone who uses, (or wants to learn more about) online marketing to support their business to understand when, where, and how on-line marketing happens, and how to seize the opportunities they come with. But, we first be able to spot their potential.

These days, I'm big on creating business alliances with other entrepreneurs with the strict criteria that the alliance benefits both of us and our accessibility to the public. If we develop an ethic of co-prosperity, we set up a spontaneous set of conditions that radically excite the Law of Attraction. Further, we anchor the influence of this law through altruistic co-operation and co-creating. The impact on our lives and on those around us is bigger, broader, deeper, richer and more profound than anything most of us can do alone.

Take the theory of six degrees of separation. According to Wikipedia:

“…This refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is no more than six "steps" away from each person on Earth.


Whether this theory is accurate or not, you can begin to see the theory behind venues like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The longer you hang in there the more people you will know. Let’s take Facebook, for instance; the more you connect with the folks on there, and invite friends of your friends to become your friend too, the more your contacts grow to include people you’d never have met otherwise. So, the take-away from this simple point is, that opportunities are indeed out there, and it is profoundly illuminating when we take a little time to experience this. If you do take the time, you too will experience the effect of the Six degrees of separation theory. It will begin to sink in that people aren't as far away as we had thought them to be and, they are more accessible to you than ever before through the internet. Cultivating relationships builds businesses faster, and increases the energy needed to go all the way.

Think of it, a mutual agreement with boundless benefits all around, could be just one or two conversations away. Your success-ally could be just around the corner. You may even already know them.


Irresistible question:

1. Who do you know now who through the art of mutual co-operation and co-creation could help catapult both your businesses to the next level of success?

2. How long might it take you to do the same thing alone?

No comments:

Post a Comment