Why can’t the freedom movement seem to get any traction?

Why have we lost battle after battle for at least the past century?

It’s because we tend to make the good the enemy of the perfect, the pragmatic the enemy of the ideal.

To be clear, it’s because the most passionate among us have adopted a rigid, dogmatic, uncompromising “either-or” stance in the fight.

Rather than winning hearts and minds in the trenches inch-by-inch, we drop rhetorical nuclear bombs and make enemies of potential supporters.

There’s one critical distinction that explains this tendency and, if understood, can overcome it and make all the difference to our success:

Do we view the fight for freedom as an election-cycle battle, or as a 100-year war?

These vastly different mindsets generate completely different strategies and tactics and produce completely different results.

If we view the fight as an election-cycle battle, the battlegrounds are primarily political and governmental.

The tactics include:

• Public, energetic, and angry marches and demonstrations
• Passionate, vitriolic, and partisan commentary that preaches to the crowd and riles the base but fails to win new supporters
• Literal, logical, and personal argumentation
• Directing energy primarily at getting individual political candidates elected

But in a 100-year war, the battlegrounds are cultural and educational, and the short-term tactics above shift to the following long-term strategies:

• Personal, lifelong, classical education in the quiet of our homes
• Respectful, thoughtful, open-minded discussion with people across the whole spectrum of belief, with the intention of winning hearts and minds, rather than simply spewing passion or proving how smart and “right” we are
• Symbolic, metaphorical, and artful story-telling and persuasion
• Directing energy toward reforming education, building families and communities, and becoming successful entrepreneurs (see the three choices in FreedomShift by Oliver DeMille)

In a 100-year war, we moderate our passion and smarten our strategy.

We heal the roots of our demise, rather than hacking at the symptomatic leaves.

We work from love, rather than anger.

We reform from the outside-in and bottom-up, rather than the top-down. In other words, we focus on fixing ourselves, rather than Washington.

We understand that studying Montesquieu in our homes is far more effective than waving banners in the streets.

We spend our time and energy teaching the rising generation the depths of freedom and political philosophy, rather than debating opponents in chat rooms and on radio and TV shows.

We build successful small businesses, rather than complaining about losing jobs overseas.

In a 100-year war, idealism and pragmatism aren’t mutually exclusive. We’re more concerned with direction than destination.

In other words, we don’t reject particular policies because they’re not ultimate, black-and-white ideals.

Rather, we judge them based on whether or not they take us closer to the ideal, however slight the progress.

In a 100-year war, we learn and teach principles, rather than fight candidates.

To be perfectly clear, we don’t waste time forwarding mass emails about the status of Obama’s birth certificate.

Most importantly, in a 100-year war, independent freedom lovers create an inclusive tent, rather than an exclusive club.

For example, many conservatives denigrate environmentalists, or as they’re disdainfully labeled, “tree-huggers.”

But many of these environment-conscious, thoughtful people are also highly-conscious and passionate about local, organic food production and sustainable agriculture — which is a primary battleground for freedom.

So rather than building on common beliefs and bringing these people into the tent of freedom, many conservatives banish them with narrow-minded labels.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is also a favorite target of many conservative commentators.

But wise freedom-lovers would do well to harness their energy.

The truth is that they raise a critical point that most conservatives fail to see: Vast inequities in wealth distribution and power are, in fact, killing America — every bit as much, if not more so, than governmental wealth redistribution from rich to poor.

The government does favor those with capital over those with little or none, big businesses over small businesses, which creates these unfair and unsustainable inequities.

We don’t have to occupy Wall Street with them, but we can at least be wise enough to recognize where we agree in order to work together toward a more free, just, and sustainable society.

We can start winning more friends and creating fewer enemies. We can be pragmatic coalition-builders, rather than dogmatic clique-builders.

I’m as passionate about freedom as anyone — freedom is my mission.

But passion alone isn’t going to win the fight for freedom.

The war will be won through wisdom.

Two days ago I published Monte and Laura Bledsoe’s letter, which detailed the infuriating inspection and threats by bureaucrats on their Quail Hollow Farm CSA on October 21, 2011.

They’ve now posted these four disturbing videos documenting the events.

I urge you to watch them.

The Bledsoes and people like them are my heroes.

It’s these types of people — entrepreneurial “mini-factory” owners, as Oliver DeMille puts it in The Coming Aristocracy — who will restore America.

As Oliver writes,

“…Others wonder how effective mini-factories can be in light of stifling regulation. That’s the whole point.

“By creating mini-factories, we both produce individuals with a pro-innovation, pro-free enterprise mindset who will ease regulation through voting, as well as organizations that by nature fight misguided regulation.

“It creates a drip system as an antithesis to bureaucracy and faulty regulation — drop by drop, on individual and organization at a time, the aristocratic system will be overwhelmed and deconstructed.

“In our current model of government and corporate dependence, aristocratic institutions, laws, and policies encounter only nominal resistance.

“More to the point, relatively few people are even aware of how burdensome our current regulatory environment is. Employees are largely shielded from red tape. Ironically, they feel its effect indirectly in almost every aspect of their lives, but few make the connection.

“Create a multitude of mini-factory owners and it’s a different story. Suddenly, freedom issues are brought to the forefront as more and more people clash with bureaucracy, and mass consciousness is awakened.”

Thank you Bledsoes, for having the courage to clash with bureaucracy and helping to awaken mass consciousness.

Watch these four videos now.

“We know more than we know we know.” -Michael Polanyi

Feeling overwhelmed by cultural, political, and economic forces beyond your control?

Dismayed that we’re rapidly losing freedom?

Want to make a greater difference?

If so, your power and answers lie in the right hemisphere of your brain, waiting to be activated.

If you’re stuck in left-brain mode, you’re getting left behind.

Read on to learn how to become a more effective social leader, prosper financially, and move the cause of liberty.

1 Brain 2 Brains, Left Brain Right Brain

In 1981, neuropsychologist and neurbiologist Roger Sperry won a Nobel Prize “for his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres.”

Before Dr. Sperry’s “split-brain experiments,” it was commonly thought that the left hemisphere of the brain was more important than the right.

Dr. Sperry shattered this false view and revealed stunning new insights into how the brain works. As he put it,

“The so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere, which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not even be conscious, was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.”

The left brain is linear, logical, objective, verbal, and conceptual. The right brain, visual and perceptual, reasons holistically, recognizes patterns, and interprets emotions and nonverbal expressions.

The left brain is scientific, the right is intuitive, artistic, creative, imaginative. The left brain craves order, the right feeds on chaos.

The left brain demands everything to be literal, while the right brain is electrified by symbols, metaphors, art, and abstractions.

The left brain sees a sentence like “Her heart soared to the heavens” and smirks, “What a load of crap.”

The right brain gushes, “Wow! Cool! Can I soar, too?”

“Good poets make extensive use of ‘right-brain language.’ Forget that sensible, linear, factual, left-brain speech. The language of the right brain is a horse of a different color. A riot of imagery, a cascade of connections, sensations, and associations. The right brain speaks in metaphors, juxtapositions, and similes, using a whole range of poetic devices to express the inexpressible and describe the indescribable.” -Robin Frederick

Clearly, both hemispheres are vital to success in any endeavor. Unfortunately, our society and educational system have traditionally placed way more emphasis on the left.

However, we’re engulfed in monumental shifts.

To navigate these shifts and leverage them to your advantage requires a much higher degree and depth of right-brain thinking than most people are used to.

“Employers are already saying that a degree is not enough, and that many graduates do not have the qualities they are looking for: the ability to communicate, work in teams, adapt to change, to innovate and be creative.

“This is not surprising…The traditional academic curriculum is not designed to promote creativity. Complaining that the system does not produce creative people is like complaining that a car doesn’t fly…it was never intended to.

“The stark message is that the answer to the future is not simply to increase the amount of education, but to educate people differently.” -Professor Ken Robinson of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, a group of neuroscientists, psychologists, and educators committed to educational reform

For social leaders in particular, cultivating your right brain is vital for at least the following reasons:

1. To make more money.
2. To increase your innovation and problem-solving skills.
3. To move the cause of liberty.

Right-Brain Economics

In his phenomenal bestseller A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Daniel Pink draws from mountains of research to explain that we’re moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age.

“We’ve progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we’re progressing yet again–to a society of creators and empathizers, of pattern recognizers and meaning makers.”

Pink cites three primary reasons for this cataclysmic shift:

Abundance

“Our left brains have made us rich…But abundance has produced an ironic result: The very triumph of [left-brain] thinking has lessened its significance. The prosperity it has unleashed has placed a premium on less rational, more [right-brain] sensibilities–beauty, spirituality, emotion.”

Asia

“If standardized, routine [left-brain] work such as many kinds of financial analysis, radiology, and computer programming can be done for a lot less overseas and delivered to clients instantly via fiber optic links, that’s where the work will go.”

Automation

“Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains.”

To adapt to these forces, Pink offers six requisite senses for thriving in the Conceptual Age–all of which are right-brain aptitudes:

1. Design. Making things beautiful and functional.
2. Story. Appealing to logic and emotion.
3. Symphony. Connecting dots, seeing the full picture.
4. Empathy. As Daniel Goleman demonstrated in Emotional Intelligence, emotional abilities impact our careers much more than our IQ.
5. Play. “Play will be to the 21st century what work was to the last 300 years of industrial society–our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value.” -Pat Kane, Author of The Play Ethic
6. Meaning. “Meaning. Purpose. Deep life experience. Use whatever word or phrase you like, but know that consumer desire for these qualities is on the rise. Remember your Abraham Maslow and your Viktor Frankl. Bet your business on it.” -Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes

Pink challenges individuals and businesses to ask themselves three questions:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

He then concludes:

“Individuals and organizations that focus their efforts on doing what foreign knowledge workers can’t do cheaper and computers do faster, as well as on meeting the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time, will thrive. Those who ignore these three questions will struggle.”

Get Out of the Box

Change has never been more fundamental, rapid, and disruptive.

More than ever, today’s leaders must learn to recognize, trust, and follow their intuition to connect dots, predict trends, and adapt to new realities.

And where does intuition come from? You guessed it: the right brain.

Roy H. Williams, author of the legendary Monday Morning Memo and founder of Wizard Academy, explains:

“Intellect is linear, putting facts in columns and rows, while intuition is nonlinear, putting all the facts in a big bowl, then stirring them together like soup, watching to see what might ‘connect.’

“…Great leaders have intuition. Explorers have intuition. Inventors have intuition. It is intuition that tells them how to go where none has ever been.”

Accessing and cultivating intuition is how social leaders can successfully navigate change, overcome challenges, and solve problems.

To create different results, we need new ways of thinking, and left-brain thinking isn’t going to get us there.

(By the way, if you want to test your intuition, read this article and connect the dots between Oliver’s thesis and what I’m saying here.)

Fight for the Right

In his eye-opening — and highly intuitive — lecture “The Freedom Crisis,” Oliver DeMille declares that one of the serious flaws of freedom-lovers is that we tend to think and communicate very literally.

The problem with this, as Oliver says, is that

“Literal talk is not what sways the thinking populace. The thinking populace is swayed by symbol, celebrity, and poetry — poetry in the broad sense.”

Literal language is divisive. It repels people with whom we share common beliefs and goals. Symbolism and poetics, on the other hand, speak to universalities. They unite and inspire.

To change hearts and minds and win the freedom war requires us to be artful rather than forceful. In other words, passionate freedom-lovers must take a more right-brain approach to their struggle.

Oliver goes on to explain the difference between sensus solum and sensus plenior.

Sensus solum translates as “one meaning,” while sensus plenior means “multiple, or fuller meanings.”

Sensus solum — or literal — thinking has dominated mainstream education for decades. It trains the masses to think in terms of black or white, right or wrong.

Sensus solum thinkers read things to find the correct answer. It is rigid and, by definition, limited.

In contrast, sensus plenior education — of which poetry is an integral component — explores depth, nuance, multiple perspectives, and holistic thinking. It fosters creativity and innovation.

Bottom line: sensus solum is left-brain thinking, sensus plenior is right-brain thinking.

Which is needed to promote freedom?

Trick question — we don’t need either/or, we need both.

Just as those who cultivate both left and right brain aptitudes will have greater success economically, so will they have greater impact on the freedom movement.

Still, since sensus solum is the dominant perspective most of us have been trained in, it is vital that we cultivate the ability to think in terms of sensus plenior — which means specific and consistent right-brain training.

Get the Right Stuff

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein

This isn’t “touchy-feely, artsy-fartsy” stuff — the realities of right-brain thinking are tangible, practical, relevant, and vital.

Nurturing your right brain makes you more creative, imaginative and innovative, and better equipped to solve problems, overcome challenges, and make better decisions.

It helps you recognize, predict, and capitalize on trends. It helps you communicate more effectively and universally.

In short, it makes you a better entrepreneur and leader.

And it’s the right thing to do. Uh-huh.

10 Specific Ways to Cultivate Your Right Brain

1. Attend Wizard Academy courses.

2. Take art, music, acting, and/or dancing classes. Starve your inhibitions, gorge your imagination.

3. Visit art museums and galleries.

4. Practice writing short stories. One valuable and quick technique is to do what I’ve done on this blog. Another is “mini-sagas”–stories consisting of no more than 50 words.

5. Keep a notepad and pen on your nightstand and write down your dreams. Dreams are your right brain communicating to your left; it has no language functions, so it communicates through symbols. Record not only what you visualized, but also how it felt. Try to interpret the symbolism and apply your interpretations to practical things in your life.  Compare your dreams over time to recognize patterns.

6. Read more fiction, fantasy, poetry, and humor.

7. Listen to more classical music.

8. Play more. Seriously. Video games, sports, board games, concerts, leisure time. Intuition kicks in more often and more clearly when you have no deadlines or objectives. Simply play. If you think this sounds silly, consider that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was a huge proponent of play.

9. Meditate at least 15 minutes every day.

10. Read and listen to these books, articles, and speeches:

• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink
• Free the Beagle: A Journey to Destinae by Roy H. Williams
• “The Freedom Crisis” by Oliver DeMille
• Drawing on the Artist Within: An Inspirational & Practical Guide to Increasing Your Creative Powers by Betty Edwards
• Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ by Daniel Goleman
• Accidental Magic: The Wizard’s Techniques for Writing Words Worth 1,000 Pictures by Wizard Academy
• “CEO Libraries Reveal Keys to Success”
• “A Liberal Take on Hiring”
• “What Would Plato Do?”
• “Think Your Liberal Arts Degree Won’t Get You a Real Job?”
• “The Liberal Arts & Business”

As an entrepreneur, persuasive writer, and co-creator of Hub Mentality, I’m adamantly opposed to churn-and-burn, transactional sales mentality.

Thing is, it actually works.

That is, it works in the short term. It does make immediate sales.

The problem is that it doesn’t work over the long term. It doesn’t build brand loyalty. It doesn’t create raving fans that come back again and again.

It doesn’t posture you as a thought leader, nor does it create an educational hub that consistently draws and keeps new customers.

Rather, it makes people feel manipulated and drives them away over time.

It attracts price-centric bargain hunters who leave you as soon as they find a cheaper, albeit less valuable, alternative.

(This is precisely why I would never discount a product on Groupon or similar services.)

It makes people increasingly immune to your pitches, forcing you into a hamster-wheel business where you always have to find new customers, rather than keeping customers for life.

The following are four specific sales tactics used by these types of businesses that always backfire.

Below each you’ll find appropriate ways to use the tactic.

1. Scarcity (Limited Supply)

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.” -G.K. Chesterton

Generally speaking, the perceived value of an item is proportional to its abundance or rarity. By manufacturing scarcity–using the “limited-number” tactic–businesses can generate quick sales.

The problem is that sales-mentality businesses use this principle to manipulate.

In Influence: The Science of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini describes his observance of this tactic in an appliance store, where 30 to 50 percent of the stock was regularly listed as on sale.

When a prospect would show interest in a particular sale item, a salesperson would approach and say “I see you’re interested in this model here, and I can understand why; it’s a great machine at a great price. But, unfortunately, I sold it to another couple not more than twenty minutes ago. And, if I’m not mistaken, it was the last one we had.”

Disappointment would register on the prospects’ faces, and typically they would ask if there was a chance that there would be an unsold model in the back room or warehouse.

“Well,” the salesperson would respond, “that is possible, and I’d be willing to check. But do I understand that this is the model you want and if I can get it for you at this price, you’ll take it?”

Writes Cialdini:

“Therein lies the beauty of the technique. In accord with the scarcity principle, the customers are asked to commit to buying the appliance when it looks least available–and therefore most desirable.

“Many customers do agree to a purchase…Thus, when the salesperson (invariably) returns with the news that an additional supply of the appliance has been found, it is also with a pen and sales contract in hand.”

Sure, they could sell a few appliances this way. But how likely do you think people would be to buy from them again?

The Right Way to Use Scarcity

Credibility is the key to using scarcity appropriately.

People will see through manufactured, manipulative scarcity over time. But if you legitimately have a scarce offering, you absolutely should highlight that in your ads.

For example, I once helped to market an online event for Williamsburg Academy. Their webinar software has a limit of 500 participants. I highlighted that in an email and registrations shot up immediately.

Every time Wizard Academy markets an event, they highlight that they only have 14 rooms in their student mansion. The first 14 people to register get to stay there for free, and other registrants must pay for a hotel.

When I wrote an email to Atlantic Seafood Market’s database telling them that they only had 31.7 pounds of blackfish available, that was precisely accurate and therefore credible.

I didn’t manufacture scarcity to manipulate; it’s a commonly-understood reality of the industry that blackfish is hard to come by.

Their scarcity of bay scallops was another effective tactic, particularly since the scarcity was created by their fierce adherence to quality.

2. Urgency (Limited Time)

I demolished this tactic in this blog post about New Vitality, a health supplement company that emails their database 10 times a month, and almost every email is a “Hurry! Act Now or Lose!” message.

This tactic is usually accompanied by a low-price, “once-in-a-lifetime” offer.

When overused or used without credibility, this tactic quickly loses its efficacy. It trains prospects to only buy when things are on sale.

Prospects also suspect that these low prices are simply evidence that the business’s regular prices are too high.

And as prospects become immune to urgency, it takes increasingly cheaper (as in less profitable for the business owner) offers to interest them.

The Right Way to Use Urgency

Again, the key is credibility–the offer must be trusted as authentic, not fabricated or manipulative.

For example, on this website look for the 50% off ad that says “Take advantage of this limited time offer.” Does anyone actually believe that it’s a limited time? It’s glaringly obvious that that always stays up on their website.

No credibility. While that may be a good deal, it’s not an urgent deal; you know you can get it at any time, so the effect of urgency is lost.

Credibility can be strengthened when scarce and/or urgent offers are predicated on things outside of the company’s control. John Young‘s famous air conditioner sales letter is a great example of this.

3. Reciprocity

Simply put, reciprocity is the psychological principle that we feel obligated to repay gifts and favors.

And, once again, the abuse of this potentially powerful persuasion principle is rampant among short-term manipulators.

As is scarcity, reciprocity is covered in detail in Cialdini’s Influence.

He tells of his study of the Hare Krishna Society, an Eastern religious sect. Their early fundraising efforts were to simply send devotees out into the streets to ask for donations.

It didn’t work well, so they switched tactics. They solicit in public places with a lot of pedestrian traffic, such as airports and train stations.

Now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a “gift,” such as a book, a magazine, or a flower. Only after invoking the reciprocity rule does the solicitor ask for a donation.

It worked phenomenally well–for a short time.

As Cialdini writes:

“…the reciprocation rule has begun to outlive its usefulness for the Krishnas, not because the rule itself is any less potent societally, but because we have found ways to prevent the Krishnas from using it on us.

“After once falling victim to their tactic, many travelers are now alert to the presence of robed Krishna Society solicitors in airports and train stations, adjusting their paths to avoid an encounter and preparing beforehand to ward off a solicitor’s ‘gift.’”

The Right Way to Use Reciprocity

Two Hub Mentality principles are used for appropriate reciprocity: permission and free content.

You give away valuable and relevant content in exchange for the permission to market to those wanting your content. Then, you continue giving them free content over time.

And implicit to the permission is their ability to opt-out of your database at any time — there is no manipulative chain of obligation hanging around their necks.

Not only does this engage reciprocity, but it also demonstrates your expertise, creates trust over time, and builds authentic relationships.

Free samples of physical products is an excellent way to engage this principle as well, as Atlantic Seafood Market did with their holiday open house.

4. Charisma/Flattery

Like scarcity and reciprocity, these related tactics are the counterfeit, transactional sales version of the principle of “Liking” found in Cialdini’s Influence.

The abuse here is to rely on smooth talk, rather than genuine, consistent action. We’ve all been taken by slick talkers who didn’t deliver what they promised.

It’s sad but true that these types have given legitimate salespersons a bad name. This is why we’ve all learned to be suspicious of salespeople, and to put up defensive barriers when we encounter them.

The Right Form of “Liking”

This principle states simply that we prefer to do business with people we know and like.

But to use this principle for long-term customer retention requires much more than personality and being facile with words.

The key here is to let your actions speak louder than your words. In other words, earn your likability through integrity.

Be what you say you are. Do what you say you’ll do. Ensure that your backstage systems support your front stage claims.

Switch to Hub Mentality for Long-Term Persuasion & Retention

Charles H. Sandage said:

“Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation.”

People can be persuaded through misguided and manipulative advertising tactics, but those only work in the short term.

If you want to increase trust and sales, make your marketing dollars more efficient, retain more customers, and build a sustainable business, you must be authentic, trustworthy, and credible.

You must solve people’s needs, deliver what you promise, and be transparent in your offerings.

You have three brains competing in your head.

All three are valuable. But only one of them holds the keys to thriving in tough economies.

If you let the other two dominate, be prepared to struggle.

The visionary Entrepreneur asks, “How can we make/do this better? What is the market demanding?”

The pragmatic Manager asks, “How can we systemize this? How can we control the chaos?”

The hard-working Technician asks, “How can I get the Entrepreneur and the Manager to leave me alone so I can just do it how I want to?”

During recessions, cash isn’t king; innovation is king. The companies who adapt and shift resources the quickest crush slower but more capitalized companies.

“But trying new and different things is risky.”

Not nearly as risky as maintaining the status quo, crossing your fingers, and hoping the economy will turn around.

“Think of risky undertakings as ‘experiments.’ Regardless of whether your experiment succeeds or fails, you’re going to learn something useful.” -Roy H. Williams

Change is Your Friend

The Entrepreneur faces reality and acts boldly. He’s never content with stagnation or mediocrity. He thrives on growth and creation.

But growth requires change, and Managers and Technicians detest change.

You’ve heard it before: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Are you content with your current results? If so, stop reading this and get back to work.

If not, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wait for the stars to align? Are you going to let external circumstances dictate your results?

Or will you take charge and keep innovating until you figure out what works? What other option do you have?

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” -Winston Churchill

What Do You Have to Lose?

If your business is declining or simply maintaining, then what you’re doing isn’t working.

So what do you have to lose? Money? You’re losing money already — and you’re only going to lose more the longer you wait.

This doesn’t mean you blindly throw stuff up against the wall and hope something sticks; innovation need not be reckless.

It means you set your box aside and brainstorm long and free to think in ways you’ve never thought before. It means you dig deep and analyze market trends.

It means you execute, watch your data, then shift your strategies based on what the data tells you.

The Manager and Bean Counter in your head will warn, “Now, let’s not be hasty. Those new ideas don’t have a track record. We don’t know if they will actually work.”

Never let your skeptical Manager make strategic decisions when decline is imminent and change is required.

Put your Entrepreneur in charge.

You may get a few scrapes and bruises along the way, but he won’t quit. He’ll pull you out of the wreckage of temporary failure time and time again. And eventually, you’ll succeed. It’s inevitable.

“The Entrepreneur is the visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change. The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He’s happiest when left free to construct images of ‘what-if’ and ‘if-when.’” -Michael Gerber

The “Box” is Your Enemy

I was once in brainstorming mode while consulting with a company.

I threw out idea after idea after idea, only to be immediately shot down on each of them by one of the owners.

She was in Manager mode, so she only saw all the reasons why we couldn’t do them.

Whether or not the ideas were feasible isn’t the main problem in this scenario. The problem is the endemic skepticism. The immediate discarding of any idea that’s even remotely outside the box.

My question for the owners was, “Okay, if not all the ideas I’ve presented, then what? How will you grow? What are you willing to do differently than anything else you’ve ever tried? Because everything you’ve tried in the past isn’t working.”

What will make or break your business during recessions is how you make decisions.

Is your Manager making your decisions, or is your Entrepreneur?

By definition, Managers don’t use the thinking processes that instigate rapid, fundamental, and drastic change.

Managers and Number Crunchers are highly creative when it comes to proving why ideas won’t work, yet astoundingly deficient when it comes to generating the ideas themselves.

This isn’t a criticism–it’s simply not their job to innovate. But when innovation is critical, you must learn to defer to your inner Entrepreneur.

“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” -Dr. Linus Pauling

Crush the Box

When the economy is great, you have the luxury of being comfortable. You no longer have that luxury.

If you’re not dedicating people, time, imagination, money, energy, and other resources to a growth strategy, either accept the reality that your results won’t change or start putting resources to innovation.

Managers and Technicians have their place, but to innovate and grow you need to put the Entrepreneur in charge.

“The Entrepreneur is our creative personality–always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.” -Michael Gerber

Buckle your Manager in the backseat. Put your Entrepreneur at the wheel. Slam on the gas pedal of innovation.

It’s going to be a wild ride.

Wouldn’t you like to recapture some of those tax dollars?

I’m not talking about the IRS. I’m talking about your ad budget.

In the words of Robert Stephens,

“Advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”

I was once consulting with business owners who were leery of advertising.

“We tried it in the past,” they said, “and it didn’t work.”

It wasn’t their advertising that didn’t work. It was the fact that they had nothing to say; nobody who heard their ads cared.

“Should I or should I not advertise?” is a crummy question.

My response: “Well, do you actually have something worth advertising?”

The right questions are, “What can I improve in my business to create such an astonishing, unexpected, over-the-top experience that my customers will rave about me to all their friends?

“How can I become the only choice in my category and area? What can I do that will make my competitors freak out and cause new customers to flood through my doors waving cash and begging me to take it?”

Advertising is not a silver bullet. It is not the savior to a broken business.

Advertising simply accelerates what would have happened anyway.

If your business is going to succeed, advertising will make you succeed faster. If your business is going to fail…

Worried about spending too much on advertising and getting lackluster results? Calculate what your ad budget should be, then use a percentage of it to create a “wow” experience for your customers.

If you’re a chiropractor, use dollars that would have been spent on advertising to pay a massage therapist to give every person who walks through your doors a free massage.

If you own a restaurant, spend a portion of your ad budget to give a free, signature, mind-blowing dessert to every diner.

(Overheard in salons, at barbecues, on Facebook: “Have you eaten at Cool Guys? Their Super-Dooper Deluxe Dessert is to DIE for! And you get one FOR FREE every time you eat there! You TOTALLY should try them!”

Cha-ching. See those “ad dollars” in action?)

According to Direct Marketing News Magazine,

“Each of us sees more ads in one year than the people of 50 years ago saw in an entire lifetime.”

How will your ads pierce the clutter, grab prospects by the throat, and leap into their conscious awareness?

By actually sharing a worthwhile message.

The more relevant and salient your offering, the less money and energy you have to spend telling people about it.

Your product, service, customer experience is your best form of advertising.

Is it remarkable enough to spread — even without formal advertising? Does it stand out enough that advertising will be like lighting fireworks fuses?

If you want to grow, aggressive advertising is a must. But as Roy H. Williams put it,

“‘Aggressive’ doesn’t require a big budget. It requires a big message.”

A big message doesn’t mean using an obnoxious announcer, flashing banner ads, scarcity, urgency, or price gimmicks.

It means exceeding expectations. It means giving your customers something that makes them stop in their tracks, latch onto you forever, and insist to their friends that you’re the best in town.

You create a big message by improving your business model and customer experience.

Wow your customers. Reduce your ad “taxes.” Boom your business.

Occasionally I find articles I want to shout from the rooftops.

But rather than posting a link to each one individually, I’m going to start a new feature on my blog where I give you my weekly round up of must-reads all in one shot.

So here are my first five recommended articles.

Take your time with these.

The internet is crammed to overflowing with time-wasting junk, but these are the real gems that must be savored, debated, remembered — whether you agree with them or not.

1. “Our History of Fear Started Way Before 9/11″ by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

“In times of danger or fear, we seem to feel it OK to curtail the freedoms — of religion, association, speech — codified in that ‘scrap of paper.’ We never seem to get that it is precisely in such times that those freedoms are most important and most in need of defense.”

2. “If it Feels Right…” by David Brooks

“When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.”

3. “Back to (the wrong) school” by Seth Godin

“Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?”

4. “Journeys of Imagination” by Roy H. Williams

“What future do you believe to be real? Do you have the audacity to believe in a happy ending? Do you have the courage to move toward that ending with every action you take? Persons who are frightened, angry or bitter will see this and call you ‘naïve.’”

5. “Does Property Have a Purpose?” by Thomas Storck

“Property has its proper purpose; therefore it has its proper limitations. If society, via law or custom, makes acquisition of greater wealth than is necessary for a rational satisfaction of our human nature difficult, it is not acting in an unreasonable manner nor imposing anything which is contrary to legitimate human freedom.”

I don’t like to swear.

But to make a vital point I’m going to swear. Multiple times. The vulgarity will gush.

Brace yourself – and don’t say you weren’t warned.

The single most important attribute entrepreneurs must possess and cultivate is empathy. And your, ahem, “box,” is strangling yours.

There. I said it.

See, “box” is a four-letter word in entrepreneurship. I feel nasty just writing it.

Your–(cringe)–box is your view of the world.

Your preferences and desires. Your perspective and attitudes. Your view of your offerings and qualifications and why your customers should care.

Guess what? Your prospects and customers don’t give a hoot for your box.

They live in their own box, and if you want to sell them, you’ve got to crush yours and live from theirs.

Your box harbors your blind spots and limiting factors.

Only by getting out of your box can you identify and overcome those to grow your business.

For example, I’ve consulted with dozens of financial services clients.

There’s one question that tells me everything I need to know about their business: “How have your clients fared in the recession–have they lost money, maintained, or gained?”

You can guess what the answer is for 95% of them.

Still, they want to spend hours explaining to me how they’re different, that they “really care” about their clients, that they’re more qualified and educated than other advisors, etc.

It doesn’t matter if they have dozens of official designations with important-sounding initials oozing from their business card.

Only one thing matters to their clients and prospects. Find out how to give them that and you’ve got a message worth sharing.

What do your prospects and customers care about? Why should they switch from a competitor to you?

Which of their problems do you solve (versus the problems you think you solve)?

What are your flaws and weaknesses in the eyes of your customers? Are you seeing them?

Are you trying to educate your customers on why they should care about you, or simply giving them something they actually care about to begin with?

Empathy is the magic ingredient that will grow your business. That is the secret sauce, the x-factor of successful businesses.

It’s what gets you out of your box and into the box of your prospects and customers.

And when you see through their eyes, feel through their heart, experience their frustrations, envision their goals and dreams, you’re able to craft your offerings and message to resonate with them.

Here are a few questions to help you do this, as provided by copywriter and consultant Jeff Sexton:

• What are their fears?
• What are their secret hopes and dreams?
• What (and who) do they most admire?
• Who (or what) holds power over them?
• What frustrates them?
• Where have they come up against limitations and failures?
• What’s their current worldview when it comes to your offerings/message?
• What conventional wisdom do they subscribe to?
• Where is the system and the conventional wisdom letting them down and leading them astray?
• How do they see themselves?
• What’s the biggest threat to that self-identity?
• What keeps them up at night?
• What do they wish for before blowing out the candles or while seeing a shooting star or when praying?

You can spend your life trying to sell people your box. Or you can simply give them what they crave inside theirs.

Which do you think is easier and more profitable?

Now, enough swearing for one day. Go cleanse your mind by cultivating empathy for your prospects.

Get inside their heads. Figure out what they want. Then give it to them on their terms.

Empathy is the key that will unlock your limitations and boom your business.

I had 1,252 Twitter followers and 1,056 Facebook “friends” when I killed my accounts.

In the past I’ve been an avid promoter of social media. It’s been a great way for me to drive traffic to my websites.

I’ve been drawn to it as an influence platform — an easy and effective way to spread important ideas.

Here’s why I’m done with social media (and see if any of these reasons resonate with you as regards your mission):

There’s Influence, & There’s Influence

I do believe I had influence via social media.

But it was surface-level influence at best. It may have gotten a few people to read and consider things they otherwise wouldn’t have.

But I highly doubt it did anything to really transform minds and hearts for good.

Which impacts you more: An article you skim from a Facebook link — no matter how important the content — or a profound and moving book you really take the time to digest?

My time and mission are better served and my influence will be deeper by writing mind-bending content, rather than throwing up Facebook links or tweeting 140 characters.

The time I spent on social media will now be spent writing blog articles and books.

If my content is good enough, if it really touches hearts, then it will be found and spread by the right people.

If you have to vigorously self-promote to be found, you ought to spend more time and effort on what you’re creating, rather than promoting it.

World-class products, ideas, and content get found and spread organically — with or without the creator.

Question for you: What serves your mission better — Facebooking, or creating, innovating, and leading?

Social media may play an active role in your mission, and you’re the only one who can answer that.

I’m Tired of Wading Through Frivolous Junk

Can important ideas be spread via social media? Obviously.

But is that what social media is actually used for? Rarely.

I don’t care how much I like you, it just isn’t that important to me to know what you ate for lunch or what you’re watching on TV tonight.

Social media is bursting at the seams with information — and the vast majority of it is trivial, frivolous fluff of no consequence to anyone.

Try this experiment: Don’t log on to any of your social media accounts for a month. Then log in, scroll through the past month’s posts, and see if you really missed anything.

I guarantee it will be an enlightening experience.

I want to spend my time thinking about, creating, and discussing important ideas with earnest, dedicated people, not wasting my life away on self-centered, inconsequential chatting.

Join the Conversation?

All the buzz from social media hacks has been about “joining the conversation.”

Why no mention of being the one that starts the conversation?

Do you want to be an initiator on the edges, or a follower of crowds?

Do you want to primarily be an idea producer, or an idea debater?

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Social media “gurus” and “experts,” which strangely have appeared in droves out of the woodwork like Texas cockroaches during a drought, are adamant that every business should be actively engaged in social media marketing.

As a marketing consultant for 2½ years, I worked with a wide variety of businesses, most of whom were aggressive with their social media efforts.

Not a single one of them demonstrated results worth writing home about.

In almost every business case I’ve ever experienced, they would be far better off spending their time, money, and effort in other marketing channels.

I do believe social media can be an effective tool for the right businesses.

But for most businesses, the social media phenomenon is little more than a case of the emperor’s new clothes.

Don’t Use Social Media as a Crutch

Social media has enjoyed a meteoric rise because makes so much sense to be able to connect with the people closest to us, and find and befriend like-minded people across the globe.

But for the mission-driven, it can become a crutch — an excuse to waste time, rather than doing the hard work of producing and creating.

I’m not telling you to close your accounts.

But I am inviting you to question if it’s the best use of your time and if it’s the best way to fulfill your mission.

Recommended Reading:

• Do the Work by Steven Pressfield
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• John Mayer, “Manage the Temptation to Publish Yourself”

MSNBC reports:

“Some surveys have found that 87 percent of Americans don’t like their jobs.”

This is unfathomable to me.

But it gets even worse when you realize the lie that supports the statistic.

Jane Boucher, author of How to Love the Job You Hate: Job Satisfaction for the 21st Century, says,

“Most of us can’t just quit our jobs.”

This is language of slaves.

We can’t quit our jobs or else what?

We lose income and benefits? And there’s absolutely NO other way to make a living than at our current jobs?

We can’t quit our jobs because that’s all we know? And we’re utterly incapable of assimilating new knowledge and learning new skills?

We can’t quit because we’re helpless children waiting for our masters to give us something to do?

We’re really this trapped in the freest, strongest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world?

Is this really the America for which patriots have fought, bled, sacrificed, and died?

Free men and women choose.

If they don’t like something, they change it. If they see something that needs improving, they innovate.

If they want a better life, they fight for it. If they want more money, they produce and earn more.

They realize that “job security” is a myth, and that the only true security in life is one’s ability to choose and respond to circumstances.

Political and economic freedom are worthless if you don’t exercise them.