Quitter

Does branding matter?

Creativity/ Quitter December 10, 2012 • Comments

What is branding?

Simply put, branding is the story you tell about the story you live.

Does it matter as you chase your dream? Here’s a quick example:

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Somebody hating on your dream?

Quitter December 4, 2012 • Comments

What have I learned in the last two years about haters and dreams?

1. Hate only gets loud when you do things that matter. It won’t bother you if you decide to be average.

2. Some people take it as a personal attack to themselves when you work on your dream because it reminds them they are not working on theirs.

3. Hate is inevitable. Your response is up for grabs.

And if you forget all of those things, at least remember the image below, which is brilliant and true.

If you’re going to dream, you’re going to bump into some hate. Don’t quit just because you do.

Source: handcraftedinvirginia.tumblr.com via Jon on Pinterest

Dreams never look the same to everyone.

Quitter December 3, 2012 • Comments

When most people pick up a comic book, they see a comic book. (Or a “graphic novel,” if you want to be all fancy about it.)

It’s printed like a comic book.

It’s bound like a comic book.

It feels like a comic book.

But that’s not what Dexter Jacobs saw when he picked up an issue of Daredevil. He saw something completely different.

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The big reward of a small act of bravery.

Leadership/ Quitter November 30, 2012 • Comments

I fly a lot in the fall and spring. (Yes, like a migrating monarch butterfly, which is probably what you were thinking.)

A few weeks ago, while at the Nashville airport, I walked up to the security line.

There were three lines open for the station where the guy checks your ID and your boarding pass. The one on the left had 25 people in it. The one in the middle had 25 people in it. The one on the right? It was empty.

Nobody was in the one on the right, which I thought was weird.

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How to take your picture in front of a tornado.

Quitter November 28, 2012 • Comments

This is Audra Thomas. She is from Beaver City, Nebraska. Her mother Marla took this photo in 1989.

If you squint, you can just make out an F1 tornado in the background.

Did you see it? It might take a minute, you have to really look.

Marla was fine that afternoon. Her mother was fine. The tornado destroyed a barn on their property, but no one was hurt. (You can read the whole story here.)

The thing that struck me about this photo is Marla’s casualness. She’s standing perfectly still like she’s posing for a school photo. If she was here today, she’d probably tell you that taking a photo in front of a tornado was easy:

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This took me 36 years to learn.

Quitter November 26, 2012 • Comments

I used to think my purpose was to write a blog.

And then I wrote one and realized it wasn’t.

I used to think my purpose was to speak at events.

And then I spoke at some and realized it wasn’t.

I used to think my purpose was to write a book.

And then I wrote one and realized it wasn’t.

I used to think my purpose was to make money.

And then I made some and realized it wasn’t.

Those are short sentences, but they took me 36 years to live.

What changed? What did I learn?

The joy of serving other people.

I learned that helping change somebody else’s life is always more rewarding than obsessing about your own.

I got to be part of the Quitter Conference and helping other people chase their purpose, and I was completely surprised to find that became mine.

The funny thing is that I didn’t stop doing all those things I just mentioned. In fact, if anything, now I write more blogs, speak more places, publish more books, and make more money. But now they matter. Now they’re not about me. Now they have purpose.

This simple image, that I did not create but do love, sums it up perfectly.

What’s purpose? I’ll let the picture finish the story: