last year i started a new tradition.  because i am blessed (incredibly blessed), i have stopped asking for presents on my birthday and started asking for a different type of gift: for the people in my life to do something different in their life instead.  last year i asked you all to make one extraordinary choice that week.  i spent my birthday yesterday thinking of what i could ask this year, and i decided that this time around i am going to ask you to define something. anything.  pick one thing that you have failed to define in your life and define it right now.

what am i talking about?  over the course of the last few years i have truly realized the importance of defining things.  sometimes we call them goals.  sometimes we call them visions.  we call them lots of things.  it doesn’t matter; what matters is the truth behind why we must define things.  and the truth is, we can not accomplish or be that, which we have failed to define.

can you truly love someone if, to you, love is an ambiguous, escapable, magical term?  can you be a great man if you have not yet decided what it truly means to be a man (or at least reevaluated your definition since your teenagers years)?  can you be a great leader to the people you are asking to follow you if you have no clue of what that means you must accomplish?  can you be or do what you haven’t defined?  the answer is no. defining things–taking them out of the ambiguous and making them concrete, tangible, and real–is a vital starting point for both the imagination and  helping you accomplish extraordinary things in your life. so for this birthday in 2011 my request to you is, please pick at least one thing you have yet to define and define it now.

in the comments, if you are willing, i would love for you to tell me what you are defining this year along with the definition (if you have it).  i am going to spend the weekend defining a few things myself (what it means to be a great husband and director of client services/leader at work this year for starters, since they are two new roles for me).  i will share with you if you are interested.  god bless and thanks to all of those who take the time to grant me my special gift.

the objective. get the girl (for the rest of my life).

as with all good marketing it starts with the customer; and more specifically, you must have a deep, actionable consumer insight to jump off of.

the insight. tanya sees me as her best friend.  and, as her best friend, she wants to know that i know everything about her – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  it is then and only then that she feels like my love for her can be real.  in short, to tanya, to know me is to love me.

so i began thinking of ways to show her that i really, really know her and love all that i have discovered.  after spinning it around for a little while i came up with a simple idea.

the idea. “a night of everything she loves;” i identified the things that make tanya happiest (thus proving i know her) and gave it all to her in one night.  though this would be a one night thing, the theme would, of course, be true for eternity.

the execution. i sent tanya a text asking her to “get fly” because we were hitting the town that night.  after she agreed, i sent her a checklist of all of the things she loves.  the list included everything from some of her favorite dishes to her most loved drinks to God anded end with “me.”  immediately after shooting her the list i received the perfect response from her, “this is a great list. it seems like u kno me so well!” check!  exactly what we were hoping for (this again shows you how having a deep, actionable insight can help you create ideas that deliver results).

so we hit nyc and proceeded to check off the list: we drank reisling, we ate ahi tuna, we downed mango margaritas, we crushed wasabi mashed potatoes, we prayed together.  we did it all and, at 11:15pm, we ended up at kanvas.  it was at kanvas, back in 2007, that tanya and i decided to stop playing cat and mouse, admit that we liked each other, and decided to date.  in short, it is the place that it all began.  and it was there that i would get on one knee, outside in the cold, acknowledge this as our start point, and request that we stop dating and spend our life together.  it was her ‘yes’ that was needed to mark the final check box on the list of things she loved; i wanted to give her “me…” for life.  she said yes, and a weekend of celebration began.

that’s it.  that’s the story.  so did years of marketing enable me to have a successful proposal?  absolutely.  now i wonder if it can help me have a lifetime of a successful marriage.  ;-)

a few weeks ago i wrote a post on how we are all one day away from greatness, but i understand that there is a another piece to the story. being recognized as great can often take a bit of fate, luck, opportunity, and/or spiritual intervention. sometimes it takes the right boss, the right client, the right interview, or the right break before it happens.

nevertheless the key to being recognized as great is being great everyday. greatness doesn’t just happen; you have to be great each and every time so that you are ready to capitalize on the the opportunity the second it shows its face. you have to be great every time you pick up that pen, walk in the building, start that assignment, or prepare for that presentation. recognition for being great may depend on factors outside of your control, but the one thing it definitely depends on is you being great everyday. failure to perform at a consistent level of greatness, will ensure you never get the opportunity to be discovered.

credit desmond for the insight/inspiration

a few weeks ago i was surfing around on the predictably irrational blog and found two interesting articles.  the takeaway from one article was that when we receive expert advice it has the potential to make decision making software in your brain shut off.  in other words, science has shown that we blindly follow experts, even when their advice is suboptimal.  the takeaway from the other article was that the more confident an advisor appears, the more likely people are to follow their advice even though their advice (even if it i was in accurate.

the lesson: we are often swayed by expert advice and over-confident people.  train yourself in those areas where you want to be the be the best in the world and then listen to your own intuition.