Our crystal palace and our fears and what that really means.

    
Here is a blog written by the legend Seth Godin and an email from the Store for Entrepreneurs  platform Appsumo - so nicely are they timed and joined together that I pop them both here.

Seth to start... With our crystal palace...  And AppSumo with an elegant answer to it all.

Emotive stuff.

Our crystal palace

Thanks to technology, (relative) peace and historic levels of prosperity, we've turned our culture into a crystal palace, a gleaming edifice that needs to be perfected and polished more than it is appreciated.

We waste our days whining over slight imperfections (the nuts in first class aren't warm, the subway isn't cool enough, the vaccine leaves a bump on our arm for two hours) instead of seeing the modern miracles all around us. That last thing that went horribly wrong, that ruined everything, that led to a spat or tears or reciminations--if you put it on a t-shirt and wore it in public, how would it feel? "My iPhone died in the middle of the 8th inning because my wife didn't charge it and I couldn't take a picture of the home run from our box seats!"

Worse, we're losing our ability to engage with situations that might not have outcomes shiny enough or risk-free enough to belong in the palace. By insulating ourselves from perceived risk, from people and places that might not like us, appreciate us or guarantee us a smooth ride, we spend our day in a prison we've built for ourself.

Shiny, but hardly nurturing.

So, we ban things from airplanes not because they are dangerous, but because they frighten us. We avoid writing, or sales calls, or inventing or performing or engaging not because we can't do it, but because it might not work. We don't interact with strange ideas, new cuisines or people who share different values because those interactions might make us uncomfortable...

Funny looking tomatoes, people who don't look like us, interactions where we might not get a yes...
Growth is messy and dangerous. Life is messy and dangerous.

When we insist on a guarantee, an ever-increasing standard in everything we measure and a Hollywood ending, we get none of those.

This wonderfully links into a great idea from Appsumo - of how to take this fear and overcome it  with a new iPhone App: called Failure Games.

This email is from Eric Fernandez 

The point of the app is gamify the learning experience through failing and humanising it as well as adding humour so we can get over it. With the app they challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and get what you want in life

This is Eric's rather wonderfully crafted email introducing the idea. Which I really hope works.
"Would you rather have the ability to fly or to become invisible? I was listening to NPR a few days ago when they asked this and it got me thinking ...

For me, instinctively, I’d choose invisibility. As an introvert, invisibility is the quiet and simple answer. I could find solitude whenever I wanted it. I could find out what’s in Area 51. I could sneak into Skywalker Ranch and be disappointed ahead of time in the next Star Wars movie.

It feels a bit unsavory, but it’s the easy answer for me. It’s the answer that lets me stay in the comfort of my private life.

Flight, however, seems like the answer of an adventurer. It’s the answer I wish I would give. It’s the answer that rattles around in my head when I hear stories of climbers who scale Mount Everest or see comedians standing in front of a thousand people with nothing but a microphone. It’s daunting, but it’s the answer that I imagine the people I admire most would give.

We all have an idea of who we are and who we want to be. Stepping out of our comfort zone and taking a risk is the first step towards our ideal versions of ourselves.

For me, it’s writing this email to hundreds of thousands of AppSumo subscribers. For you, maybe it’s cold-calling a client or validating your golden business idea.

Getting over that fear of failure is a hurdle some of us never even attempt to jump and that’s the reason we’ve developed a totally free app for iOS 7 devices called Failure Games.

It works like this. Every day, we’ll release a new challenge. The challenge could be as silly as telling a joke or as socially uncomfortable as asking a complete stranger to have lunch with you.

Some will be harder than others, but every challenge will be designed to get you more at ease with taking chances and with the possibility of failure.

 This is just one of the fun daily challenges. Think you can do it?

If you’re like me, you’ll be inspired by others who are successfully completing challenges and encouraged by your followers commenting on your pictures and videos. And with any luck, we’ll realize together that:

1. The fear of failure is never a good thing if it’s holding you back from what you want.

We get emails daily from people taking our "How To Make A $1,000 A Month Business" course thanking us for pushing them to believe in themselves and take a chance. Here’s just one of them:

Well just made under $1,500 in sales. I will hopefully receive the money on Monday 21st of October.

It's amazing how much fear stops you. I was fearful asking the guys and more so asking an already established guy to help me and more fearful again about whether or not my coaching skills are good enough.

    This is really insightful ... seems like it is just all about overcoming that fear.

    -Brian Halpin

2. When you do fail, you can learn a lot.

I know a guy that got fired from a very early position at Facebook. That period of failure was a defining moment for Chief Sumo and he can tell you better than anyone that he learned a lot about himself and the world of business from that moment.

3. Taking risks can be fun and lead to a more prosperous and full life.

I think this point is self-evident, but we all need to be reminded about it at times. Go on a spontaneous road trip or stay comfortable at home? One leads to excitement and new memories and the other is just like any other night."

The irony for myself is that... to download the app you need iOS7 - and I don't dare download it yet! ;)

I think this Failure Games App  (not my fear) is a great example of modern marketing - creating a social object through an app - of adding value and creating a talking point - doing something remarkable - all of which Seth would be proud!

Modern marketing really has changed - more than perhaps people realise. But it has also in a strange way come full circle over a decade - whereas before you wanted people to come together to be part of  your sponsored event in the real world (like we did with guerrilla marketing with Spearfish) now clever brands and ideas created digital realities and events i.e. apps and games and moments - so people can share them and talk about it all.

Perhaps in the end of differences are just the channels of experience. It's all just #greatmarketing.


(ED ADDED 27/10/2013 To make my life complete Seth Godin apparently just blogged about this as well)