The problem with the loyalty thing is the loyalty thing. Forget about the concept of loyalty and start thinking about dialogue. Choice means customers aren’t married to us anymore. Let’s start with the assumption they don’t care and make the effort to be there when they need us.

It’s a challenge. We are so geared otherwise.

It’s not exactly what some wine lovers are looking for in a wine expert, and I lose about 12 percent of my viewers right off the bat because I yell and scream like a maniac.

For a businessman like me, that number is intolerable. I desperately want to change the opening of my show to something a little calmer, more refined, something that won’t scare people away.

But I can’t, because that yelling, screaming, superexcited guy is who I am. If I tried to tone things down and make myself appealing to that missing 12 percent, I can guarantee that everything I’ve built until now would start slipping away, because now every time I’d get in front of that Flip Cam I’d be putting on an act. I’m not putting on a performance when I do the show or my blog posts— I’m just being me.

- Gary Vaynerchuk ‘Crush It’

How often do you compromize your style because you want to get ahead, make the sale or be “accepted”? Well, we live in a world full of mundane compromize and are desperate for individuals brave enough to buck the trend.

A switch had been flipped inside me. I wasn’t going to check my messages and then slip into the comfort of my warm bed. There was a determination to make tomorrow morning different, too. I wouldn’t be showing up at the office as usual, only to exchange gripes with my colleagues about how our jobs had taken over our lives and how there was no time left for anything else. I’d no longer stand for it.

This was my life, and I was damn well going to live it on my terms. Over the years I’d softened, lost my edge. But that was all about to change tonight.

Dean Lazarides – “Ultramarathon Man”

Your guru should live at least three valleys away – Jack Kornfield “A Path With Heart”

Do we knowingly seek out gurus as the silver bullet to our business, life and career issues? Do we confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself?

Once upon a time the most popular celebrities were boxed up in such slick, sleek packages it was almost impossible to get a feel for their real personalities.

Every move was choreographed, even their love lives, and even when they weren’t on the red carpet they were red-carpet ready. Those days are long gone.

The celebrities of today, the ones who are making it huge by connecting with their fans, whether on the screen or online, are all about keeping it real and being themselves.

No matter how big or small you want to go, your authenticity will be at the root of your appeal and is what will keep people coming to your site and spreading the word about your personal brand, service, or whatever you are offering – Gary Vaynerchuk

Success now means being authentic.

You can’t simply throw money at the problem because everyone has money.

Now you need to think about connecting at a meaningful level. This is good news – it levels the playing field. Gives small companies an advantage and penalizes the big guys. How could you use this to your advantage?

Ipad vs HP TC1100

Marketing is often like a magician’s trick – we don’t like to admit that it was just a lot of practise and clever staging. We put it down to design because it panders to our need to believe in the power of the product. This isn’t design. Sliced bread took 18 years to catch on. Marketing creates the context in which we experience the content. Yes, in the Pepsi Challenge, Pepsi tasted better than Coke but when the experiment was repeated and subjects were told the brand, Coke tasted 4x better than Pepsi. The difference between HP and Apple isn’t product it’s marketing and the context Apple creates for its products that makes us see them differently.