The following is from Tom Dixon, a really neat guy. More links to his resources are at the bottom.

I recently had a great idea for a blog post. I had it all worked out in my head. It was going to be awesome. About five minutes later I was checking my news feed, and saw that someone had beaten me to it. Not just anyone. Dan Miller, of 48 Days fame, had stolen my thunder. We had both evidently read the same article and had the same idea. He just got pen to paper a little faster.

I jokingly left the comment: “…you have to get up pretty early to beat Dan Miller!” Well that was that. The post was already written. That was going to save me a lot of time.

About an hour later I got a response. Dan knew what I was thinking, and prompted me to go another direction: “ Hey I’m an old “early bird gets the worm” kind of guy. But there are a lot of worms out there – so go for it anyway.”

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You’ve heard my little rant on mediocrity. And it recently came to my attention that the word “art” is getting diluted more so now than ever.

With as much technology as we have, we are often using it for the wrong things. My underlying question is

“Are we doing to the Information Age what we did to the Industrial Age?”

Are we streamlining too much and making knowledge too accessible? Are we creating too much and not focusing enough on the “art”?

All questions we need to answer. Let’s explore this a bit.

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As entrepreneurs, we struggle to focus much of the time. We neglect the many things that got us to where we are today.

We lose inspiration.

I remember this from the Killer Tribes conference of 2012 (affiliate link) when Daddy-O talked about the music industry and how the inspiration for creating art has dwindled. He reminded me that we all lose inspiration because we forget how we got inspired in the first place.

That really struck me at the time, but recently, I’ve lost it. Let me explain.

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The following is from Dave Arnold. He’s an author who just recently released a book, Pilgrims of the Alley. You can check out his blog or follow him on twitter. 

When I was growing up I so badly wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to stand out or be different. I sought to be just like the cool kids.

The only problem was, I wasn’t.

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This is a guest post from Drew Tewell, author of The Dream Job Program: Get the job you want. You can purchase it on Amazon, or get it for free when you subscribe to his blog. You can also connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.

“The secret to not flaking out on your friends and family while still pursuing a dream is going to work before your world wakes up — that’s what I’ve found, anyway.” – Andy Traub

Do you have something that you love to do, something that you would do for free if you had the money to pay your bills and take care of your other responsibilities?

I love blogging. For me, there is nothing else like it. Writing and connecting with other people are things that I can do all day for days at a time.

But I also have a family and a day job. I have responsibilities that are very important.

We all do.

If you are like me and you are pursing your passion, I’m sure you have had to deal with the tension of doing what you love and also being responsible in the other areas of your life.

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There’s just something different about the companies we know and love.

But what is it exactly?

What are they doing that gets us to entranced that we read every word they say and hang waiting for more from them?

And what about the companies we hate doing business with? What are they missing?

There is something there and today I’m going to take a stance on something I feel we need to do in order to move in that direction.

I’m asking you to come alongside me and rethink things a bit. Wouldn’t you like to begin to be on the path to becoming a brand that people love? I know I do.

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