One of the things I am committed to this year is capturing my Takeaways from the various events that I attend throughout the year and sharing them. Click here for Previous Takeaways.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve shared a Takeaway. About a month actually. It’s the longest I’ve gone not sending a Takeaway since starting this journey in January of this year. Let me tell you what I’ve been up to and share with you a little bit of what I’m planning.
Steak and Whiskey
Sometime around August my good friend Dori Koren got serious about an idea. Back in April we were out to dinner at an elite steakhouse (Cut at Palazzo) when the discussion came up about which is the best steakhouse in Las Vegas. “We should go visit each steakhouse”, Dori said. “If we do that we should write about it,” I mused. By July we got a crew together and visited Golden Steer for our first review.
The next month we went to a brand new steakhouse at the Tropicana called Oakville for our second review. With two reviews under our belts and a plan for a third we launched www.OverRye.com – a website and blog for people who enjoy steakhouses, whiskey, wine and interesting people. Prime at Bellagio was the 3rd review. We’ll be reviewing the our 4th venue November 16th. You can sign up here to follow our stories.
While Jarrad and I (and a few others) have contributed greatly to this labor of love, I give Dori the credit for this becoming a reality, because he put up this entire site. You would understand why that is impressive if you knew Dori a little bit better. Dori is not a web designer. Not by trade or education anyway. He is a Lieutenant on the police force with Metro. While he was building OverRye.com, Dori was also launching a new business, Threatpoint – a training and consulting firm that specializes in counter terrorism and intelligence for law enforcement. All of this in his ‘spare time’. Dori is only 33 years old.
Leveling Up
One of the reasons that I haven’t been writing Takeaways is because I spent the month of October in an online workshop. It was created by Seth Godin. It’s called the altMBA. (I should mention, before I say anything else, Seth Godin’s work significantly inspired me creating Takeaways). If I’m being honest I didn’t know exactly what I was signing up for when I enrolled in the altMBA. And when I started meeting some of the other 120 people from around the world who also enrolled we realized that the promo materials were intentionally vague. Here is the gist, vaguely.
Every week, for 4 weeks, we broke off into groups of 5. There were 3 prompts to be read, discussed in learning groups, and completed Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. In between we reviewed and commented on others’ published work and received comments on our own work. During these 4 weeks I shipped 15 projects (there were a few bonus and micro projects). As you can imagine, that didn’t leave much time for Takeaways.
We covered a tremendous amount of concept learning in altMBA like goals, business models, decision trees, sales processes, assets, boundaries, opportunity costs, sunk costs, and much more. But the important stuff that we learned challenged us with questions like:
- Who is it for?
- What is it for?
- What is the change you are seeking to make?
Now, I could not have participated in this without my wife’s support. Thank you Danielle!
Leaping
For some time now I have wanted to start a podcast. I was introduced to this medium with Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell in 2016, and have been hooked ever since. Another podcaster that I listen to, James Altucher, wrote a book about how technology has eliminated the barriers of entry for broadcasting. Anyone can do it. Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, and Gary Vaynerchuk also talk about this same thing.
It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing to do it! With incredible encouragement from my altMBA cohort and some guidance from a new friend, Kri Edholm, I ordered all of the equipment that I need to record.
This is the official announcement that I will be starting a podcast: Takeaways – where I will have conversations, with the people who have influenced me, about the lessons I have learned from them.
December 20, 2017 at 3:00 pm. During the altMBA I wrote that date and time for when this project ships in the ShipIt Journal. That’s when you can expect the first show. I am having breakfast this week with the person who I would like to be my first guest. Hopefully he agrees. I think he will.
Who is this for? It is for people who seek to gain insights beyond themselves.
What is this for? To share the most influential lessons that I have learned with others.
What change are you seeking to make? Pursuing significance not just success.
Let me riff on that last bit as the conclusion to this post. It seems like over the last 60 days I have had this theme of significance vs. success come up time and again. Or maybe I just started paying attention to it anyway. In my Vistage group a member brought this up in a discussion. At a lunch I had recently, another friend explained how he spent the first 10 years of his career chasing success, and the rest of his career pursuing significance. ***By the way, both of these gentlemen will be invited guests on the podcast, they just don’t know yet.
So what’s the difference between success and significance?
According to John Maxwell success is when you add value to yourself. Significance is when you add value to others. Success is a steppingstone to significance. But you have to achieve a certain amount of success before taking the step toward significance. Maxwell continues, “Pursuing significance takes us out of our comfort zone. The journey takes time. Once significance is sensed, nothing else will satisfy.”
I’m turning 38 years old next year. My wife and I have three healthy kids (6, 3, and 1). I am a partner in a thriving commercial property management and brokerage company. I can’t express how blessed I feel to be able to participate in a steak and whisky website; to enroll in a stimulating online workshop; and be able to pursue activities in my life like blogging and starting a podcast. These are all luxuries. That’s how I see it anyway.
Thank you for granting me your audience. It is a privilege to get back to sharing my Takeaways with you!
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