Embrace the niche

There are ~300,000,000 people in the U.S. alone.

I garuntee close to none of them are normal.

Not only are every one of those 300 million people not normal, they all have a need that isn’t being met as well as they’d like, and they could all use something to make their life better or express themselves better.

Be creative. Stray into the weird, be unique. Chances are there is a niche waiting for just that. Find the opportunity, find the niche, and embrace them with your creativity.

Blue

I wanted to take a break from some business stuff for a little bit and excercise the creative, right side of my brain a bit more. I quite enjoy creative writing, so I decided to just start writing. Below are the fruits of my labor. I enjoyed the process, as I found a new voice I wasn’t aware I had.

Blue

I played with a ball, once, when I was young. It was large and blue, this ball. When I caught it I held it close because it smelt of rubber. But it wasn’t a bad smell, it smelt of new rubber, a scent that filled my lungs with an odd joy. A kind of guilty pleasure, but not quite. It was the kind of feeling you get when you’re happy, but you don’t want to tell anyone because you know they would give you that look- you know the kind. Yet still I held it close for the smell, at least for a moment because that’s all it took.

That’s all it took for the ball to tell me, to reverberate its message through the air around me, to whisper softly in my ear the next victim it wished to take. Then, as if in direct obedience, like a machine that couldn’t help but comply, I complied. I flung the ball towards that victim, and as it was propelled from its obedient machine, it always had a particular movement. A movement of wobbling while shouting ever so slightly as it had its own battles against the air molecules that resisted it. It held a particular majesty as it sailed through the air, too. But it never sailed long, no. Blue was impatient. It never took long for Blue to take its great climax. A climax everyone waited for, longed for, really. Because there was an everyone, everywhere. They were in front. Then to your side, your proclaimed ally’s- but they never were. They said they were, but they all knew they weren’t. That was okay though, because you knew it, too. Others were behind you, too, and you learned to never trust the ones behind. But still, no matter where they were -everyone waited. Those in front, those to your side, those behind, they all waited for that climactic moment, for that special moment in time when Blue impacted its chosen victim- for the sound of the impact. It was all about the noise. No one could ever explain what it sounded like. But we all knew what the sound felt like. Something like the sound the universe would make if it were to, more or less, explode.

And sure enough, the Blue finally took its climax., and it was quick. Blue impacted the victim it whispered ever so alluringly to me moments before. I was always sad after that climax. Everyone was. But it was never too long before you heard another climax, and then another person joined the ranks of everyone behind you. But it always felt long before another climax. Sometimes I would hear Blue’s brother, Red, as he shouted while I effortlessly moved from his path. I knew I wasn’t his victim. I made sure I wasn’t his victim. Sometimes people asked me why I was never a victim. I joked that it was because Blue and I had a deal. We didn’t really, that would be silly. But sometimes I wondered. I wondered if Blue whispered to Red, or to his other machines before they responded obediently. Maybe we did have a deal. I am not sure, but I do know that I almost always had the fake allies to my side. Until that one day when I had a real one… and that was the first time I became a victim.

Link 11-24-06: Stealth Disco

Saw this hilarious video over at Jaffe’s Blog. To me, this is what it’s all about (not just the disco, the community with the hilarity of the stealth disco).

http://www.jaffejuice.com/2006/11/stealth_discoin.html

Passion & Ambition… Caesar Style

“When he was a young man on assignment in Spain, Caesar came upon a statue of Alexander, who died at roughly the same age that he was then. Upon regarding his image, Caesar wept, not because he had no more worlds to conquer, but because he hadn’t yet conquered any.” (108 Rome Inc.)

The perfect quote. I love it. It’s motivating. It’s passionate. You can feel the desire. It resonates with me. It’s on my wall. It keeps my passion aflame.

Are you like Caesar? Do you have that passion? That desire? That something that draws people near? Who helps you keep that fire going? Thank them.

For me, it’s my parents, it’s everyone willing to listen, it’s every person on my blog roll (and for honorable mention: Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Tara “miss rogue” Hunt, David Armano, Jake, Those at Brains on Fire like Spike, the people over at Marketing Profs: Daily Fix, and really… the rest of my blog roll). They educate me, inspire me, and help keep my passion for business burning.

Burn hot.

Do You Set Yourself Apart?

While this is a few days old, I thought it was worth sharing. One thing I always talk to people about is how having a distinct identity isn’t a bad thing. That those that set themselves apart (in a good way, not Hitler style or anything) are those who have the right idea- those who will be noticed. Here’s a great example of setting yourself apart. The article is from Breitbart.com. It’s about a guy who dropped a $20 over a 50ft ledge and jumped over after it.

Then he swam about 100 yards to fish the bill from the water.

“I got my money back, hell yeah,” Giorgio told the Sarasota Herald- Tribune. “Twenty bucks is a lot of money when you’re broke.”

What do you do to set yourself apart? I play freeze tag in hurricanes.