Focus on a Few Things

Posted by nealcampbell on Jan 3, 2012 in Focus, Last Year Challenge | 0 comments

Before Larry Page consulted with Steve Jobs and took over as CEO of Google, what was Google NOT working on?

Search was the main business, but Google has this policy allowing employees to work on whatever they want for a certain amount of time. The freedom brings a lot of new ideas to Google’s table. If you ask me, it was working just fine for Google, but Larry Page asked Steve Jobs and Steve told Larry to focus.

“We talked a lot about focus … The main thing I stressed was focus. Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.”

We’ve seen Google do just that. We’ve seen Google simplify and work on just a few things. They’ve embraced design in addition to engineering. Google products look good for the first time ever.

During the production of GeekBrief.TV, I dreamed about building a podcast network. That was a back-burner dream for two reasons:

1. We started the show with no experience and it took 16-18 hour days for the first two and a half years to get the show to start looking a little like I initially imagined it. The 10,000 hour rule applied in a very real way. I did the math and right about at the point where I had been working on producing the show for 10,000 hours, it started to get easy. That was a very cool moment.
2. Our deal with Mevio limited what we were able to do without them. Luria wasn’t fond of Adam Curry, who is one of my heroes. Love for me meant going with her instinct more than mine. She was the one who dealt with them and the business part of the show, so I could spend my time creating. That was cool for me because I got to work on what I loved, but it resulted in a less than smooth relationship with Mevio at times. Luria and I both struggled to understand Mevio focus on Madison Avenue sponsorship deals when we had people begging to advertise on GBTV.

A Fear of Gadget Shows

Posted by nealcampbell on Jan 2, 2012 in Last Year Challenge | 5 comments

Earlier this morning I wrote a post about not making time for fear in 2012. After the end of GeekBrief.TV, I was afraid to do another gadget show. I don’t want to be in the same business as Luria because I don’t want to ever find myself at an event with her business partner or friends. Launching a second show that continues what I did with GeekBrief.TV is scary because Luria took the audience with her when she left. Starting from scratch, when you don’t want to and believe you shouldn’t half to, is not exactly motivating.

Here’s the thing, though, I wasn’t finished with GeekBrief.TV and gadget news. If you look at the last episodes of GBTV released in December 2009 and the first three or four, you might notice a change. I had figured out how to do something really interesting with the virtual set, which for me was one of my favorite parts of producing the show. I spent hours perfecting graphics. For me, every day, I was painting a new canvas. I was just starting to roll out a new elaborate production feature where we would have had a virtual newsroom with live monitor banks in the background. It would have been so cool, and I think gotten to show to finally look like I imagined it should look.

I’m not going back to do what I started. I’m going to start from where I was headed in my imagination, but with a shift. GeekBrief.TV was shiny happy tech news because Luria was a shiny, happy person. Without her in the picture, the vision becomes something darker … the kind of gadget show that might emanate from Bruce Wayne’s Batcave.

As I’m typing this, I’m waiting for the first episode of a new gadget show to finish importing from the camera. I’ll have the pilot ready in the time it takes to work out the technical bits in Motion 5. This is my first Motion 5 project.

There is valid fear. If you’re driving down the highway at 75 miles per hour and your tire blows out, take a moment to have some fear. To often, though, we let fear have us and it’s not even valid fear. It’s something we tell ourselves we’re afraid of like a monster under a bed. With that kind of fear, we just have to face it and kick it’s virtual butt.

Today, I did something I was afraid to do. I produced a gadget show. What’s something that’s been on a back burner in your life … something you haven’t been ready to tackle? Why not pretend the Mayan’s are right and move forward to do things we’ve been afraid to do? If we fail, we learn and that’s better than letting dreams only be dreams. I want to hear what you’re going to tackle in 2012!

The Force of Faith vs. The Force of Fear

Posted by nealcampbell on Jan 2, 2012 in Last Year Challenge | 0 comments

I’m going to use the word faith, but not in a religious way. The essence of being human involves a lot science can’t explain yet. I have faith in science and technology to ultimately deliver answers, but until it does some of what happens in life is kind of mystical.

I believe faith is a soul force that focuses energy on something desired. What is soul? Soul is mind + will + emotions. Faith is the power a person uses to bring positive things from hope to reality.

I believe fear is the exact opposite force. With faith we focus energy toward bringing positive things into our lives and with fear we focus energy that brings negative things into our lives. Fear is hardly a factor for people who win in life. Then for bunches of people, fear keeps them in jobs they hate while dreams get stuck on the back burner. For other people, fear is dangerously crippling to the point they panic at the thought of just going outside.

Paula Deen is one of my favorite TV personalities. She loves butter and bacon and she doesn’t give a damn that Barbara Walters thinks it’s disgusting. She’s bigger than life and has an infectious joy that I choose to believe is the purpose of life.

When Paula Deen was 40 years old, she was so full of fear that she rarely left her house. When she went out, she had massive panic attacks. She had irrational fears. She sincerely feared she would die if she left her house. Her fear started when her parents died and grew out of mourning the loss. At the age of forty, she confronted her fear and started taking What About Bob style Baby Steps. She would leave the house, walk two blocks and then walk back home. She’d drive a little ways and then drive back. Over time she overcame fear that was destroying her life.

She lived 20 years with an irrational fear, and you know what? I doesn’t matter that the fear might have been silly. It kept her from realizing her potential. Maybe the world doesn’t need Paula Deen entertaining the world with her butter love, but I’m sure as hell glad she got out of her house and started living life in an amazing way.

One of my fears that I don’t want to be on camera. I don’t think I’m pretty enough to be on camera and I think I sound funny when I talk. In the last year, I worked out show plans for 20 new Internet TV shows and brands. I don’t have the capital to pay for someone else to be on camera, and I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere where finding talent would be difficult anyway. I’ve got great gear, though!

Setting fear aside, I turned on the lights, cameras and microphone and put my butt on camera last week. I still don’t think I’m pretty enough to be on camera and I still hate the way I sound, but I think I did okay! I’m going to do it more and I’m going to get better at it and grow more comfortable doing it. I have faith that I can do well enough on camera to move my dreams forward again. I may turn out to be great on camera or I may just move myself forward enough to hire someone. It’s the Climb.

Pretending the Mayans are right about 2012 being our last year means you and I don’t have time for fear. We’ve got stuff to do! I don’t know about you, but I want my last year to be filled with fun, not fear.

Last Year Challenge

Posted by nealcampbell on Jan 2, 2012 in Last Year Challenge | 0 comments

It’s interesting that the Mayans and Nostradamus predicted 2012 would be our final year. It isn’t something I believe, but it’s something I can be inspired by.

How would you live, if you believed the world will end in December? Would you become religious or reckless? Would it make you afraid or would it make you brave?

I’m divorced against my will. I’ve lost all I ever wanted. My life has been externally altered in a way I hate. So now what? The best thing I can imagine moving forward is to live as though all that mattered to me before no longer does. I’ve decided to make the most of every day and live in the moment. Every day, I’ll be motivated by the idea that this is the last year we have on earth. The idea inspires the epicurean in me toward a fearlessness that isn’t my nature. I’ll try things that scared me before. Instead of pursuing my future, I’m going to be pursuing my present as if the present is all the future I’ll have.

I want to invite you to join me this year. We don’t have to buy into an idea that the Mayans knew what they were predicting. Heck, if they weren’t able to predict the end of their culture so taking their prediction seriously isn’t the point. Join me in imagining this is our last year and living with that knowledge. Do what you’ve always been afraid to do and pursue dreams you’ve kept on the back-burner for later.

If no one joins me on this journey, that’s okay. I need to do what works for me, but it sure would be nice to build a community around this idea. Imagining this is my last year inspires me to make choices I might otherwise postpone. I’d love to know what the idea does for you. If you embrace this idea for 2012, I hope you’ll connect with me. I want to hear about your journey, your goals and how the idea of living like this is our last year works in your life.

I invite you to join me. You’re welcome to join the blog and write about your goals and experience. Post videos on YouTube tagged as LastYear.TV and I’ll add them here.

I look forward to connecting with you this year!