Like a lot of business people, I enjoy reading business books. I read on all kind of topics, but find myself regularly coming back to the writers who really fire my imagination. If you’ve been on any of my workshops you will know that I often quote from my two favourites: Tom Peters and Seth Godin.
Tom I enjoy, but Seth inspires me.
Seth’s words help me to look at what I am doing and how I focus on my business and my
marketplace. Seth and I have never met, but if he likes it or not, Seth is a mentor to me. He mentors me in a very specific and cool way. I read his words, or listen to one of his books on audiobook, and I start to see the obvious. Of course, things are only obvious once they are pointed out to us.
We all need this kind of inspiration in our working lives. We need to find the work or words of others to help us broaden our minds. If we don’t have that inspirational role model, we are stuck with only our own thoughts and ideas. Yes, of course, this is obvious. But only obvious once you see it.
The beauty of the e-world we live in is that we don’t have to wait for an author to publish a new book, we can subscribe to their blog feed, follow them on Twitter or Google+, or like them on Facebook. We can often even watch them on YouTube. We can take bite-sized chunks of their thoughts and use these to help us think about our own businesses.
Seth talks a lot about being remarkable. Being different and standing out, finding your ‘purple cow’. Being a leader. Getting to that point, however, requires us to think about what we want to achieve, how we want to be known and how do we get there. It requires us to take time away from our desks, open our minds to the endless possibilities around us and formulate a process, a direction, a goal to chase.
In its simplest form, a business plan.
Most of us will have planned our startup, our next 12 months, our new division. But the constant appraisal and re-appraisal of our businesses by seeking inspiration from others can be the difference that it takes to make us get to remarkable.
Be remarkable. Take inspiration.
About the author: James Nathan runs the James Nathan experience; the Business Development, Sales and Service Excellence Expert for Professional Recruiters.
