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10 Ideas For The Interested This Week

“Everybody loves to turn somebody on to something.” — Sebastian Maniscalco

If you read/watch/listen to a thing and like it, then share it, tell others about it, and tag the person who created it.

It’s good for your followers.

It’s great for the creator.

It’s meaningful.

It’s easy.

Now, on to this week’s ideas…

1. HOW TO TURN A STRUGGLING PROJECT INTO A SUCCESSFUL ONE

“Every project is designed to provide value to a specific audience. If you’re not clear who that audience is, or haven’t clearly expressed that to them, your project won’t get traction…no matter how great it may be.”

Most projects don’t achieve instant success.

In this post I explain how to turn a struggling project into a successful one and identify four reasons projects fail including a lack of clarity around why something exists, who it’s for, and how it works.

RELATED: The most important question in any project.

2. THE SIX BEST QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING A PERFORMANCE REVIEW

“You don’t just want to know where you fall on a scale of one to five — you want to know exactly how your employer is defining one, five, and all the scores in between.”

Most performance reviews don’t generate a lot of value for either the employer or the employee, but this article can help change that.

Rebecca Fishbein shares the six best questions to ask during a performance review including “What metrics are you using to assess how I’m doing?,” “What are the skills I need to get to the next level?,” and “What is the budget for professional development?”

RELATED: How to ask for a raise.

3. 101 BLOG POST IDEAS THAT WILL DRIVE TRAFFIC

“The real hallmark of successful content isn’t just ranking well in organic search results, or getting thousands of readers. It’s whether or not your readers actually take action and create measurable change after consuming your content.”

If you struggle to come up with blog post ideas, here’s all the inspiration you need.

Ryan Robinson shares 101 blog post ideas that will drive traffic including post ideas to inspire your readers, promote your business, and teach your audience.

RELATED: Three things the best blog posts do.

4. THE POWER OF SAYING LESS

“When people are heard first, they tend to listen to what you say when it’s your turn. Silence breeds curiosity and curiosity leads to a conversation where someone will listen to you.”

The less you say the more likely you are to be heard.

Tim Denning tells the story of a meeting in which he only spoke two sentences to demonstrate the power of saying less.

He also explains why you learn more by listening, the one who speaks less has the power, and interrupting communication patterns can be a valuable tactic.

RELATED: How to do less and achieve more.

5. ALAN WEISS ON HOW TO GROW A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

“Unsolicited feedback is always for the sender, it’s not for the recipient. So unless you ask somebody you respect specifically for feedback, don’t listen to it.”

I rarely recommend individual podcast episodes in this newsletter, but this one I’ve got to recommend.

Alan Weiss recently appeared on Noah Kagan’s podcast to discuss how to grow a successful business and it’s as entertaining as it is educational.

Weiss shares some no-nonsense wisdom on everything from how to grow a consulting business, to how to practice language martial arts when selling, to how to deal with imposter syndrome.

RELATED: The 28 best podcasts for curious minds.

6. HOW TO MAKE LIGHTNING DECISIONS AS A GROUP

“Freedom to discuss might seem conducive to creativity, when it’s in fact the enemy. Structure and discipline create the freedom needed to be creative.”

This one features a process to help you make design decisions, but it likely will work with just about any kind of decisions you need to make as a group.

Jonathan Courtney breaks down the lightning decision process his team uses to solve creative problems and avoid getting bogged down in exhausting discussions about them.

The entire process is designed to take less than an hour and ensure every member of the group’s voice is heard and their ideas represented.

RELATED: How Warren Buffet makes decisions.

7. HOW TO AVOID DESPAIR ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD

“My job is to show my children that there is a whole universe that exists beyond the grim issues of the day. This is not to divert them from certain truths, but rather to remind them that the parallel world of art and the imagination can literally save their lives, as it certainly saved mine.”

A fan asked musician Nick Cave for his thoughts about how to handle worries about the future of the world and Cave’s answer is well worth a read.

He suggests the way to avoid despair about the state of the world is to expose yourself and your children to an “alternate world,” filled with art and beautiful stuff.

RELATED: A message to the architects of our future.

8. HOW TO BUILD SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT

“The size of the market you target will be a significant multiplier of your business’ success. You can’t make a living off every niche. Some are just too small. Your niche should be narrowly defined, but sizeable in numbers.”

It’s not that hard to build something. The hard part is building something people want.

Justin Jackson explains how to build something people want including tips on how to find your target market, figure out what a community wants, and tell people about it.

RELATED: How to turn your quirky expertise into a revenue-generating product.

9. LESSONS LEARNED FROM 30 DAYS OF MEDITATION

“I do believe that the difference between zero and 10 minutes of meditating every day is a far greater difference than 10 minutes to 60.”

Even if you have zero interest in meditation, you’ll probably find this video interesting because Matt D’Avella simply makes good videos.

In this one, he shares his lessons learned from 30 days of meditation including that aiming for an hour a day of meditation was too big a swing to take.

RELATED: How to do nothing.

10. THE FOUR ASSETS THAT WILL DEFINE YOUR CAREER

“The key to a successful career is your ability to develop four key assets: Skills, Knowledge, Effort, and Time.”

It’s easy to get hung up on your what job to pursue, but that’s not actually the key to career success.

In this post I break down the four assets that will define your career including how to acquire them and the values you can exchange them for through your career opportunities.

RELATED: How to build the creative career of your dreams.

WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF

I got some of this week’s ideas from Jessica Williams, Austin Kleon, and Joi Sigurdsson — they’re awesome and worth checking out.

Image via Gary Bendig.