What a cross-town trip can teach you about your business.

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2 critical miles

The distance between the FDR highway – the farthest road on Manhattan’s East Side, and 11th Avenue – the farthest road on Manhattan’s West Side, when traveling along 23rd street, is a short, straight, 2 miles.

Oh, but so many things can happen between those two points.

As I made the trip from point A to point B this week, it occurred to me how it was a metaphor for running your own business. Let me explain.

I keep my car in a garage on 23rd and the FDR for a few reasons:
- The monthly rates are “reasonable” for Manhattan (aka, less than the cost of an iPad)
- You park your own car (never handing your keys to a valet)
- Easy access out of the city to the Northeast, such as Boston

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Why you should stop your whining and listen to Elon Musk.

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How was your day?

Did you whine because your boss gave you a little extra work at the end of the day? Did you feel good about yourself because you wrote a nice little blog post, closed a sale, or balanced your budget? Or maybe you had a really productive meeting?

Well, it doesn’t really matter because you’re still a total loser.

You heard me! Are you complaining about the ONE little job that you have? Are you puffing your chest out because your Vice-President replied all to your group email and said “Nice work!”?

Well, you’re pathetic because you’re not Elon Effing Musk.

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Jim shares his thoughts on the trends from SXSW 2013.

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“The New Serendipity”

By: Unknown; Overheard in a group of people
Takeaway: Put yourself in a position to succeed
According to Wikipedia, the word serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it.

Trying to describe what goes on at the SXSW Interactive conference can be difficult, and so can choosing a single trend that emerged from it. In past years, major launches from Twitter (Microblogging) and Foursquare (Geolocation), made it easier to define a bigger trend in new media.

So whether the person I overheard talking about the term was referencing the panel with Kevin Rose called The New Serendipity, or just the overall trend of it, as referred to in the Wall Street Journal (Serendipity Is the New Synergy), I think we’re on to something.

Because our digital world is so fractured, there isn’t one trend or company or way of doing things that is right. Rather, our lives both inside and outside of work are made up of hard work, luck, and chance encounters. Pay attention, then put yourself in the right places at the right times for serendipity to happen.

Let’s explore some quotes from panels I attended to see what else emerges.

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Have something nagging at you that you need to get done? Here’s a bootcamp way to approach it.

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Slaying the Dragon

I am fired up right now. Why is that? It’s because I’ve just knocked off the biggest project on my to-do list… a behemoth that has hung over my head for months, the launch of not 1 but 2 online courses on Udemy. One is called The Negotiation Mindset and the other is How to Get a Raise or Promotion, but I’ll talk about them a bit more in a future episode.

Today I want to explain how I got it done, because it wasn’t easy. Seriously, it was almost as hard as writing my book, but then after that needing to produce and act and edit a movie.

Like going through bootcamp or doing an extreme diet and workout plan, this was a concentrated effort.

So if you’ve got a major task that’s been weighing you down, here are some tips for maximum focus. These worked for me, so make any adjustments to your lifestyle and apply what works for you. Here we go.

Get incredibly focused on one goal

It’s been said many times before that one of the main challenges of an entrepreneur is having too many scattered ideas. That was certainly the case for me, as I have this podcast, a book, 4 articles a month, and am teaching 2 online classes simultaneously among other things.

But as I tried to lay out my goals for the next few months, whether it was speaking or consulting or internet marketing, it always came back to one thing: Finish your online course.

So I made a specific decision to make this priority #1 above anything and everything else.

Invest in the best

In the creation of this course, I made some key hires. The first was Eric Pearson to shoot and produce all the video. I had worked with Eric before when doing my book trailer, and we really got along. Next was Justin Farrar to do the editing. From my loose knowledge of the film industry, I knew that anything video-related is immensely tied into the skill level of the editor.

So despite being a control freak (I prefer to call it having a specific vision on the project), I really tried to defer to them as much as possible as the experts. This project was far from cheap to produce, but I think it would have been even more as expensive, and not as well done, had I cut back.

So whether you’re writing a book or building a website or doing an iPhone app, make sure you’re working with skilled people.

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Will 25 sponsor mentions ruin Jim’s favorite podcast?

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Risk of Failure

When you start your own business venture, everyone talks about the risk of failure. You’re putting in a lot of time, effort, and money with the knowledge that there is a good chance that you might fail.

Restaurants fail at an alarming rate. Less than half of businesses are around after 5 years. This Wall Street Journal study shows that 3 out of 4 venture-backed startups fail.

Heck, I live on a busy block in New York City. The corner restaurant has flipped 4 times, my gym has changed names 3 times, and last week the relatively new Naked Pizza (I saw that coming) was shut down and replaced with a new business called Joe’s Pizza (didn’t see that coming).

Risk of Success

So when you do launch something completely new to the world, and it succeeds wildly, you think you have it made, right? Not always the case.

I’ve been a fan of the Adam Carolla podcast for many years. In fact, I’d guess that I’ve listened to more than 90% of his shows dating back to his launch in 2009, but also before that when his radio show could be downloaded.

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