Small is the new big, always in beta, meetings are toxic, speak human, growth is an illusion, we’re all publishers now, ignore the competition, innovate—don’t recreate, planning is guessing, the 4-hour work week… Over the past few years there’s been an explosion in rethinking the way we do business and the way we conduct our lives in this crazy digital age. The core components of this new paradigm in thought center around efficiency, around banishing waste in terms of time, energy and attention and essentially giving the finger to old-school mindsets.

Advocates of these new initiatives include, among others, web luminaries such as Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jason Fried, Eric Karjalouto et al. You know the sort I’m on about. Bestselling books to their names, massively popular blogs on new business, marketing, passion and inspiration and a dash of life coaching and likely a place in the bountiful depths of the TED archives. Apologies for the lack of female references there; these were simply a few names that jumped to mind.

I personally lap this sort of stuff up. I slap my thighs in the middle of a train journey whooping ‘Of course!’, ‘Hot damn it’s so darn obvious!’ whilst flicking through Meatball Sundae or Rework, garnering peculiar glances from other passengers. Simple, obvious concepts—simply, inspiringly written. I envision myself walking away from such reads a changed man, one step closer to nirvana, ready to conquer the business world and achieve a lifestyle I could only have previously dreamt about.

However, more often than not, 90% of the words within such books and blogs, so energetically conveyed in presentations and webcasts, are lost deep in the fluff of my mind. I go to work the next day, rant at colleagues about how we should abandon meetings, build half a great product instead of a full poor product, work less but more effectively, banish wasteful protocols and become more agile, agile, AGILE!

Then I begin sifting through the backlog of a night’s emails.

Then we have that rescheduled production meeting.

Then I spend an hour on the phone to a client.

Then a fresh batch of client amends materialise on an already overdue project, and of course they’re top priority.

And all that new thinking, that inspiring new direction that was going to transform our business, becomes lost in the tired fuss of the status-quo.

What a shame.

Inspiration vs Momentum

Ben Holden of Cahoona fame did a short talk the other night on ideas and keeping that initial spark alive, when so often it dwindles. It’s 10 minutes long—watch it.

This is something that plagues me obsessively. I have a rather short attention span; I get excited and stimulated by the spark of a new idea, whether it be visual, audible or conceptual. My imagination runs away with it and symphonies of colour, sound and endless possibilities fill my mind. My moleskine (yeah that’s right, don’t judge me) is packed with rough sketches for website layouts, verses of poetry and tattoo designs, outlines for art projects and marketing campaigns.

Around 10% of those scrawls have found any form of fruition. All too often that initial spark dwindles and burns out, I forget about the whole thing and on brief recollection 6 months later I bow my head with a private shame that yet another opportunity of creative exploration has been neglected in the drag of daily life.

I believe this is a problem that curses us all. How can we break out of our old, or current mindset, and adopt new ways of thinking, new ideas, new initiatives?

The difference between ideas in a notebook and core business methods is that realistically, besides perhaps budget, there’s little to stop me evolving the ideas in my notebook. But amending the fundamental ways in which a business works, whether it be your own company, a small team or a larger corporation, is a far more daunting and difficult task.

Simply convincing others to entertain the idea of a new way of working, or breaking out of the routine they’re comfortable with, can be quite a hurdle. All it takes is a few people to stamp on your idea—”No meetings? Well that will never work, how will we ever make any decisions?”, “We can’t launch this product yet, it’s not 100% finished, the client would never agree.” and it can all too easily lose momentum, and before long it’s forgotten.

And life carries on as usual.

Adopting and abiding

So how can we try and break out of this perpetual cycle of spark and fizzle out?

My first suggestion would be to take small steps.

Instead of decisively cutting out meetings, just try reducing them at first. Question whether that production meeting’s really necessary, if it really needs the entire team present, or can the same thing be accomplished with a couple of emails?

Breaking it down will make it less of a challenge. It may take longer, or appear to take longer, but it’s better than no change at all. Like my dad used to say ‘Slowly slowly catchy monkey‘… I believe this is the correct context?

Also, don’t take it too seriously.

It’s easy to get on a high horse. So many times I’ve read one of Godin’s articles, spoke out at a panel evening, stumbled upon an Edward de Bono or Paul Arden quote and become awash in the glow of my own enlightenment. All of a sudden I become an illuminated advocate, dedicated to spreading the gospel of these new words of wisdom I’ve acquired.

Get real.

I find it’s worth taking everything with a pinch of salt. It’s all too easy to run away with ideas, blinded quite often by the imaginary status of those you’ve learned them from. Not every word out of Andy Clarke, Jeffrey Zeldman, Dave Trott, Jason Fried etc mouth’s is truth. Everything exists with a dash of opinion and conjecture. Allow your own experience and perspective to influence everything you learn.

Don’t abide.

Perhaps I’m trying to be a bit clever here, but in order to abide to new ways of thinking, don’t abide. Nothing is set in stone, and not everything will work for your business. It’s all well and good small being the new big, accurate planning being a fallacy and it being a good idea to say no to clients; but the unfortunate reality is sometimes you really can’t make it work with your business.

Determination to abide may be admirable, but also stupid. Instead experiment, constantly try new approaches that don’t necessarily disrupt the day-to-day too much and don’t feel compelled to follow a course of action because the decision’s already been made to. If something isn’t working, step back and try something else.

That’s at least better than never trying anything new in the first place.

Finally, strive to inspire others.

Life coaching time folks! Great ideas are lost when they’re kept in your moleskine or in your head. Share them, get them out there! One of the easiest ways to win people over to a different way of thinking, or a new theory, is to inject plenty of natural enthusiasm and passion. If you truly believe in it this should be a given, and there’s nothing more infectious than pure, honest enthusiasm and love for what you do and for what you believe in. It shows in the work your produce, the way to talk to others and how you dedicate your time.

Getting others on board can be crucial in seeing a new vision into existence. It may be in the form of back patting, it might involve spreading your idea and getting others on board, physically helping out or giving you a boost when you run out of steam or begin to question yourself.

But if you don’t really care yourself, then what’s the fucking point?

New initiatives become old initiatives

As usual I could go on and on, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll likely question several of the points I’ve made above in the future. But surely that’s the point? No-one has the answers, especially not me. But without speculation, debate and actually getting things done and out there in the world—we’ll surely stay stuck right where we are at the moment. Now that’s not really all that bad, but I reckon it could be a hell of a lot better.

And boy wouldn’t it get boring, stuck in the same moment, never inspiring, never changing or learning?

It always excites me to think where we’ll be in 5/10 years. How life, culture, fashion, technology, business and mindsets will change. What appear to be new initiatives now will hopefully become more of a standard, and we’ll be working towards even better ways to conduct our lives.

Well, if that’s what you’re in to.