Читать книгу Stop Talking, Start Doing Action Book - Wasmund Shaa - Страница 4

“What is past is prologue.”

William Shakespeare

“Eyes front!”

Any drill sergeant in any army anywhere

Life has a sting in the tail.

It's shorter than we expect.

And it races by while we're working out what's really important and what actually isn't.

As time roars past our ears we drift, deliberate, doubt and take ourselves too seriously yet all the while we talk about what we would, could and should do to make it better.

And then it's gone.

So let's walk the talk.

Because there's never been a better time, or a more urgent time, to start doing the things you want to do.

Let's dance.

The speed of life

This book is about starting.

It's about shifting from the static to the active state; the state where things happen because you initiated them.

It's about shifting gears, moving direction, transforming what you do with your day, your week, your time and taking control; it's about deliberately putting one foot in front of the other and moving with purpose instead of being carried along by the current.

There's never been a better time to start something. Now more than ever we live in a world of opportunity.

But the downside to this world of opportunity – brought about by new technology and new social and working conventions – is a world that seduces us into drifting through life.

Things like: shopping, web-surfing, casual tweeting, photo-commenting and status-updating. It's not that these things aren't fun or even good. But while it might feel like you're “doing” – in large part thanks to the power of billions of dollars of marketing – you might have a feeling that there's got to be more to life.

Take a couple of years out

Supposing you could take the next 2 years off from your normal life? You didn't have to worry about where you live, earning a living, paying the bills, what family, friends and colleagues would think of what you do in those next 24 months.

Now, what are you going to do in this time? Shop, surf the web and update your status? Maybe you'll spend your time sitting on a beach talking about what you're going to do over the next few months? Or will you be itching to get on with what you've been thinking about and talking about?

• What then, after a few weeks sitting on a beach, would you like to be getting on with?

• Do you want to write a book, start a band, study, renovate your house, leave your partner, your job, the town you live in and travel far and wide?

• What's it going to be? What do you want to do? Get a pen and paper and write it down. Now.

• Write down the things you'd do and the things, people and places it would involve. If it involves more money than you currently have, you're granted a limitless fund for anything you want to do.

• The money is there so that there's no financial barrier to you doing what you've often talked about.

• Find an image from a magazine (or download one from online and print off), something that depicts what it is you really want to do.

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

Pablo Picasso

You might have an itch.

Life is short.

If you've got something you want to do… now is a good time to start.

Here are four reasons why…

The FIRST reason to start something now…

YOU CAN

The wheels are greased

Our connected world makes it possible for people to actualize dreams, ideas and initiative in ways our forebears could not even dream of.

Try it now

Put a couple of these into a search engine and see what comes up.

How to collect fountain pens from around the world

How to collect truffles

Mobile phone app builders in India and China

How to cycle across the world.

1. Whatever you want to know is accessible instantly.

Want to collect fountain pens from around the world, want to learn how to collect truffles, want to find someone to build a mobile phone app for you in another continent, want to retrain, want to research how to bicycle across the world…? No problem. It's all at your fingertips.

2. Need to locate expert help?

Then connect with people who can help you. The soaring development of the social web has demolished barriers between you and the expertise you need. It empowers you to ask friends of friends (and friends of friends of friends) if they can offer advice, make introductions, share experiences.

Try it now

Who do you know who's already doing or has done what you want to do? Get in touch with them. Ask to meet them, talk on the phone or email them and find out how they did it. What are their top tips?

3. Tribe up.

Whatever it is you want to start doing – a business, a work of art, a social project, setting up a partnership of website information architects – there are people somewhere in the world who share your passion. Want to find people to trade antique fountain pens with? There are thousands of them. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to find people who share your passion. You can support each other, learn from each other, do business with each other. The author Seth Godin² calls these groups of shared passions: “Tribes.”

Try it now

Here's a few ideas to find your tribe:

Meetup ( www.meetup.com ) – an online networking site that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. You can find and join groups unified by a common interest.

Facebook groups – these provide a dedicated space for people to communicate their shared interests, so a great way to find and connect with like-minded sets of people.

Peoplehunt – an app which connects individuals with reciprocal interests. For example, you can find someone to practise another language with, or give you guidance about online marketing.

4. The “barriers to entry” have collapsed.

OK, so that's a business term and we're not just talking about business. But the point is that the cost of setting up many businesses or even non-business projects has collapsed. Most digital start-ups don't even need an office but work from shared space or coffee shops. This has, for example, had an impact on the venture capital world. The power used to be in the hands of the VCs because you needed money to set up a business and they would exact a heavy price for the cash. Now that it doesn't cost so much to start up, the power is with people who have ideas and the “gumption” to make them happen.

Viva la Revolución!

Viva gumption!

5. You're already at the centre of the universe.

And if in fact you are starting a business or collecting fountain pens from around the world, the global markets are wide open for business. From your front room.

The SECOND reason to start something now…

Unconventional is Conventional

The boat is being rocked

The conventions of society that dictated the correct way to behave and whose arched eyebrows used to hold people's dreams in check are vanishing. In the big cities they're already long gone. The world is too connected for that and it moves too fast.

1. Sixty years ago a gentleman wouldn't go to work without a hat on; ten years ago they stopped wearing ties. Now you don't have go into work to go to work… so who knows what people are wearing. But the point is: who cares?!

Society cares less about conformity than it used to. This makes it easier to swim against the current. Easier to do something different, to challenge convention. If you want to give up your job and travel round the world, learn to juggle, join a commune – your neighbours might cough and shake their heads but you can cope with that…Or they might just tell you how they always wanted to do the same thing.

2. The concept of a job for life is long gone. The tramlines that used to confine a career from start to finish; from apprenticeship to grave aren't imposed by anyone but you. It's not unusual to hold down three part-time jobs at once or to shift jobs every couple of years. In response to the absence of job security we have had to become more agile in our approach to work. Self-employment is soaring.

3. You are going to live a long time. Life expectancy goes up and up. If you're going to be around a long time you might as well do something you enjoy for as much of that time as possible.

Pimp your ride.

The boat is already being rocked

Some examples of how lifestyle, work, society and leisure are changing.

The most entrepreneurial country in the West is built on failure

The net number of U.S. startups versus closures is minus 70,000. (Source: US Census Bureau, Longitudinal Business Database)

Folk managing themselves and themselves alone

There are over 22 million non-employer businesses. Meaning they have no boss and they have no staff underneath them.

They just get up and do.

(Source: US Census Bureau)

Locations where work was conducted during the past month

(Source: Telework 2011 by World at Work using data collected by the Dierenger Research Group Inc and World at Work)

Folk escaping the cubicle on a daily basis

3.7 million employees (2.5 % of the workforce) now work from home at least half the time.

(Source: Based on an analysis of 2005-2014 American Community Survey (US Census Bureau) data conducted by GlobalWorkplaceAnalytic.com)

Folk escaping the cubicle for a long time

Of the 2014 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies, 72 % offer sabbaticals.

(Source: Rohman, Jessica, “How great workplaces support work-life balance”, 19 May 2014, www.greatplacetowork.com)

Lots of people share the same starting line

It's estimated that one in every eight workers in the United States has at some point been employed by McDonald's.

(Source: New York Times)

…And lots of people don't: being different is becoming the new norm

In 2013, 12.5 % of the UK population was born outside the UK. That's up from 8.6 % in 2003.

(Source: The Migration Observatory www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk)

Small businesses are everywhere

There were 5 million micro-businesses (those with less than 10 staff) in the UK in 2014, accounting for 96 % of all businesses.

(Source: BIS, Business Population Estimates 2014

You will live longer

So do something you enjoy.

Life expectancy in the United States

(Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Reports, vol. 54, no. 19, June 28, 2006 and Vol. 63, No. 7, November 6, 2014. Web: www.cdc.gov/nchs)

And there's a lot of us around