Author: Scott

24 Jul

Posted at 08:17h in Announcements, Career & Purpose by

When Small Projects Become Huge

Have you ever started a "small" project that ended up requiring about 10 times more energy than planned? Seems like that's more and more the story of my life these days ... A few months ago, I set out to make some improvements to one of our flagship courses, Live Off Your Passion. I thought it would be a "quick" update that would take about a week. Three months later, as of about 7 this morning, it's finally done. And between you and me (and Liz, Glen and Cherilyn, who put a ton of sweat into it), I am damn pumped about how it turned out! The changes ended up being so dramatic that we're even changing the name up a bit to "Live Off Your Passion Guided-Discovery," but we'll get more to that in a second ...

17 Jul

Posted at 12:06h in Emotions & Happiness, Entrepreneurship, Influence & Negotiating by

Rejection Therapy & Creating Overnight Courage

"Our rejections make us who we are." - Jia Jiang

I fail a lot.

I pretty much always have. I get more things wrong than I get right. I try things and they blow up. I think I have something figured out only to realize I'm further behind than when I started. I've learned how to help people, but I do not have all the answers. In fact sometimes I wonder if I have any at all. I get reminded of this daily. So now that I have that off my chest, how about you? You ever been there? Most the world sees rejection as something to be avoided. But this past weekend at World Domination Summit, Jia Jiang gave me a different look at things. After investors turned down his startup, he decided he'd turn rejection on its head. He went on a quest to get turned down once a day for 100 days. He proceeded to ask people for things that seemed to guarantee a "no" (or slammed doors or slaps in the face). He called it Rejection Therapy. He asked a police man if he could drive his cruiser. He asked a pilot if he could fly his private plane. With ball in hand, he knocked on a random neighbor's door to ask a man if he could play soccer in his backyard (while dressed head to toe in his favorite team's uniform). He even asked a donut shop to make him a custom treat in the shape of the olympic rings. Anything was fair game.

11 Jul

Posted at 11:45h in Career & Purpose, Entrepreneurship, Life on Your Terms Interviews, Self-Guided Education by

What kind of future will you create

"Notice the sparks. Follow them. The next big thing may be the small thing right in front of you." - Darren Rowse

Rule #1: Put All the Crazy People in the Same Room (or River)

Last Friday morning Chelsea and I grabbed some fresh Portland coffee, walked down to the Willamette River, stripped down to a bikini and board shorts (I was in the shorts) and hopped in a couple inner tubes with about 618 other friendly folks. A few minutes later we broke the Guinness World Record for creating the longest human floating chain (old record was 542 in Viareggio, Italy in 2008). Hat tip to Tyler of Advanced Riskology for orchestrating the seemingly impossible feat. It was fitting that the first official event of the World Domination Summit involved hundreds of people sloshing around in a river for a few hours wearing next to nothing. Something tells me that little vulnerability exercise wasn't a coincidence. Also wasn't a bad way to meet a few new friends. And it set the perfect tone. For those of you unfamiliar, WDS is an annual gathering put on by Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non Conformity. The event's core theme is "How do we lead a remarkable life in a conventional world?" This year 3,000 people from 30+ countries descended on Portland, Oregon to share in that vision. Their stories were proof of what's possible.