What if 2012 is Our Last Year?

Winning the Battle Over Pessimism

nealcampbell — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:54:22 +0000

Earlier on LastYear.TV, I wrote about not having time for fear in 2012. Another thing I’m not making time for in 2012 is pessimism.

Some people say pessimism is the natural state of human existence and optimism has to be cultivated. I’m not so sure that’s true. I tend to think everything is going to work out fine far more often than I worry it won’t. Still, there are times when a pessimistic attitude drops into my lap giving me two choices: roll with it or get it out of the way.

I’m in the first week of a new project called GadgetReport.TV. It’s fun, it’s hard, it’s lonely, and I know I can only take it so far on my own.

Here’s an analogy…

The top of the mountain I’m climbing looks amazing! I remember all the good times I had the last time I was up there. I just started climbing it after falling down it. Things are different now. I have aches from the injuries I got in the fall. I’m older. I don’t have a climbing partner.

There’s something to be said about setting up camp at the base of the mountain. People need supplies. Maybe I should stay down here and open a store for other people who want to climb the mountain. Maybe it’s time for me to move away from the mountain and give up on this whole idea of climbing mountains.

The thing is, though, I remember the climb. I remember surviving without many supplies. I remember the little victories as we climbed higher and higher. I remember finding abundance. I really need to get back up there just to prove to myself I can. Plus the view is spectacular!

Pessimism is a state we enter when we start thinking about all the reasons something won’t work, shouldn’t work, or can’t work. Ultimately, pessimism is a waste of time. Doing the work to make something happen has so many unanticipated rewards. The ultimate outcome might be what we hope for when we start, but ultimately life is about the climb.

Pessimism often seems rational. It feels like we’re protecting ourselves by thinking through all that could go wrong so we can avoid getting hurt. Ultimately it is the pessimism that hurts. It keeps us from moving forward.

Here are 4 Things I Do to Stop Pessimism

Regard pessimism as an enemy, not a friend
I think of my mind as a party where thoughts come for fun. If pessimism shows up at the thought party, I don’t hang with it!

Have roll models that counter my self-doubt
When my brain tries to tell me why I can’t do something I want to do, I have a list of people who have done something like what I want to do while having the same types of limitations. If he or she did this, so can I.

Take a laugh break
Pessimism will drag you down to defeat and depression if you let it. If I start experiencing self-doubt, I change the subject and change my brain chemistry by going to websites like Damn You Auto Correct and Awkward Family Photos. If you can start to LOL, all those great brain chemicals are released into your system and it empowers you to overcome the negativity.

Get back to work on the goal
Pessimism is like quick sand. I see it, walk around it, remember role models, laugh out loud, and then I get back to doing things that have to get done in order for me to get where I want to go.

It’s 2012 and there’s no time to waste imagining all the reasons we can’t do what we want. Our focus has to be pursuing exactly what we want with an expectation winning.

GadgetReport.TV

nealcampbell — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:27:16 +0000

I launched a new gadget show called The Gadget Report, and since it’s CES time, that’s taking up all my time. It becomes part of my 2012 Last Year Project. I’d like to get to 500,000 Youtube views per episode by the end of 2012!

Script and High-Res Images at GadgetReport.TV/2

Focus on a Few Things

nealcampbell — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:13:44 +0000

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:

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.
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.

Now, I’m in the middle of nowhere with the need to start somewhere. I’m taking Steve Jobs’ advice to Larry Page to focus on just a few things rather than trying to juggle all that I want to do. I want to build a podcast network, produce Bacon.TV and found The Bacon Museum, write books, teach production to aspiring chefs at the Culinary Institute of America, produce the video version of WTF with Marc Maron, produce video for National Public Radio,work with the Food Network on new media productions, move to L.A. to work with comedians, move to San Francisco or New York to do my idea of the video version of what Mike Arrington did with TechCrunch, write for a sit-com, and my want-to-do list keeps on going!

In my head following the divorce, my brain bounced around with a heartfelt desire to do all these different things. Bringing focus down to just a few starts with this LastYear.TV project. I’m pretending the Mayans are right about 2012 being our last year as inspiration to stop bouncing around wanting to accomplish 50 things.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I tend to believe almost everyone has potential success inside. I believe we know what we should be doing to let success out into the wild. Most people don’t do what we know we should be doing. We end up living fine lives that may satisfy enough to keep us going. Having experienced what it’s like to have a dream come somewhat true, I don’t want to settle for a fine life. I want to get back to an amazing life.

There are three things that work together to make a dream come true:

laser focus
hard work and long hours
connection with people who will help

I hope some folks are joining me in 2012 to focus on making a dream happen! It’s going to take hard work and long hours, and I have to overcome my weakest point on that list of three. I’m not great at connecting with people unless there is a screen in between.

A Fear of Gadget Shows

nealcampbell — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:10:27 +0000

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

nealcampbell — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:27:24 +0000

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

nealcampbell — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:44:05 +0000

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!