Chris Guillebeau recently shared a question on his blog:
You arrive very late at an airport you haven’t been to before. Security takes forever, but the flight is on time—which means you’re even more rushed. You walk into the terminal and look for your gate: A70. Damn… you’re currently at A18. Above you is an “Express Train” that runs between A1 and A75 with an unknown number of intermediate stops.
You know if you take the escalator up to the train and catch a ride it could be faster—but remember, you’re unfamiliar with this airport… remember, time is short. You have only ten minutes to get to A70 before they close the flight.
The question really is how much control are you wiling to give up on? Today, I would take the train.
It’s not because I’m lazy, or because I come from a country where it’s forbidden by law to leave passengers behind (I often forget that this is not the case in other places around the world). I’d do it because I became well-adjusted to finding myself in unexpected circumstances, and figuring things out.
I trust my ability to respond in an agile manner, regardless of the outcome I originally went for. Remember, I might miss the flight in any of the alternatives either way, so why run like a maniac? Better off choosing one action, such as going up the stairs, and figure it out from there. There’s always another flight leaving sometime, if this doesn’t pan out.
I left Israel 100 days ago. Due to an unexpected change of circumstances, I had to find my way back, QUICKLY. Reflecting on my time in Denmark, I realized that the original outcome I was aiming for (leaving Israel and living a much less stressful life) was not the most beneficial one.
Learning how to figure things out quickly and making rapid-action-taking my way of living, is the most significant benefit of this period abroad. Taking action brought me outcomes that were both unplanned and beyond any of my expectations or dreams. “It is wiser to find out than to suppose” said Mark Twain.
The Apple 1997 “Think Different” campaign, must be one of the most inspiring and uplifting one ever made.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
I always hated my name. Meron. I remember myself as a little child, sitting with my mother going through the book of names, looking for a “better” one. I must have been five years old. Maybe six.
I never found one, but also never made peace with mine. I obsessed about this for almost 20 years, until I accepted the fact that I’m unhappy with it. After all, there are worse things in the world than hating your own name, right?
During the last 90 days, I travelled more than 60,000km. I’ve been to Israel, Denmark, Australia, the U.S.A. and back. With such a non-global name like Meron, you can guess people had trouble pronouncing it correctly.
I got called Melon, Maron, Miron, Ron, Aaron, Mario and more. Most people would be bothered, but I was almost relieved. I never liked the sound of my name, and Melon was at least funny!
From the business point of view, I was taking a hit. Nothing I did or achieved had my clear signature. How can I brand something that I’m proud of, with a name I hate?
Things changed a month ago.
I was attending (together with 350 other people) the ePub conference in Los Angeles. I met a lot of people and repeated my name over and over again to the ever-changing faces.
Two things surprised me. First, the genuine effort that people made to learn how to pronounce my name correctly. The second surprise was Kamal.
Kamal is the author of the Amazon bestseller Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. The book became an amazing sensation after #1 Entrepreneurship-Guru Tim Ferriss recommended it – effectively shooting it up to the top of the charts.
Kamal is one of those people you can’t help but notice. His kindness, charm and humbleness reminds me of Leonard Cohen. His smile shines from the inside out and his heart must be at least the size of a watermelon!
I was eager to share Kamal’s amazing story with the readers of The Inspiring Innovation Magazine, so as soon as he went off-stage, I rushed towards and made a quick introduction.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Could you repeat that?” he asked.
As I repeated my name, his reaction caught me off-guard:
“Wow, I love Hebrew names!” he said with a big smile. “They always have such a deep meaning. Tell me yours!”.
I was baffled. I never thought that anyone would care about my silly name! Its meaning never even bothered me, and I only found it out by chance less than a year ago.
“According to the Tractate,” I told Kamal, “at the end of each year, the entire mankind stands in front of god, waiting for him to sentence them for the coming year. Like innocent sheep standing in front of their shepherd, humans helplessly face their creator. The Tractate describes this as ‘standing like Merons’ – hence my name.”
“I LOVE it!”. Kamal said, excited. We discussed the interview, exchanged details, and parted.
As the days went by, more and more introductions were made and consequently, less and less people could actually recall each other’s names.
One of the days, I was walking the hall on the way to the conference room, when I stumbled upon Kamal. He saw me, smiled, and greeted; “Hey! The new-born!”
Was he mocking my young age? That didn’t seem right! My face must have given away my confusion.
“Your name!” he explained. “The people! standing at the new year’s eve, like innocent sheep!”
He was reminding me the meaning of my own name!
The morning after the conference ended, I was sitting at the hotel’s lobby drinking coffee. Suddenly, the host of the event – Ryan Diess – passed by.
“Ryan!” I exclaimed. “This was terrific man! Thank you for putting this together!”
“Thanks!” he answered. “What was your name, again?”
I didn’t even have the chance to open my mouth before someone else, standing behind Ryan, answered: “It’s Meron. The new-borne” I smiled. That’s some personal branding at work!
Realization
As we took off LAX, I took out my iPad and read Kamal’s book. Since I used to have a very, very, VERY low self-esteem and self-confidence, Kamal’s calling to love yourself hit me at a soft spot. Finishing the book, I realized that I will never truly love myself, until I’ll learn to love my name as well.
I was looking back at the days of the conference. “If my name resonated with Kamal strongly enough that he remembered it – out of the hundreds of people he spoke to this weekend” – I thought, “there must be others out there that it will touch them too!”
In addition to this life altering realization, for the first time in my life, I had my personal branding. And it was me all along.
For this very reason, I will be soon moving this blog to MeronBareket.com. This blog, “Denting My Universe”, has accomplished its goal within less than a year.
Kamal’s book is short and clean of fluff: I started reading after takeoff and finished by the time beverages were served. Let me see any therapist that gets you similar results in such a short time! I urge you to read this book.
It made a dent in my universe, who knows what kind of dent it will put in yours?
I hate it when people talk or blog about branding.
It’s almost as bad as this constant B.S. being written about engagement. These two words make me want to puke. Enough with that already!
Everywhere I look, there are “proven methods” to create a brand culture and following; to entice customer engagement, and generally – become more like Apple.
The Real Secret Sauce Of Branding
You know what makes a good brand?
You know what makes customers feel engaged?
A bloody good product; Fantastic service; Great experience; Over-delivering; Quality; Fixing a problem; Fulfilling a desire – these are the core.
Of course you should have the same photo on all of your social profiles, have your own tone and claim your domain names – but without the core, all you have is a balloon full of hot air.
This is a story about a woman named Linn, who travels a lot and reads most of her books on Kindle (much like me). Some time ago, as she loaded up her Kindle app, she found out to her surprise that Amazon have destroyed her account and erased its contents (i.e. her books), with no notice what-so-ever.
You think that when you buy a book on Amazon Kindle you actually own it? Hell no, you are just paying for the (temporary) right to consume it digitally.
This story (which already unfolded and has been remedied) is quite scary, and is an eye opener to all these “Terms & Conditions” that we’re so eager to agree to, just so we can put our hands on the next ‘Hunger Games’ book (I prefer this one though).
Being locked out of her Amazon account wasn’t the worst part. The worst and most scary part is the response Linn received from Amazon when she contacted their support, as described on Martin Bekkelund‘s blog, who was the first to feature this story:
Dear Linn [last name],
My name is Michael Murphy and I represent Executive Customer Relations within Amazon.co.uk. One of our mandates is to address the most acute account and order problems, and in this capacity your account and orders have been brought to my attention.
We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled.
Per our Conditions of Use which state in part: Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion.
Please know that any attempt to open a new account will meet with the same action.
Michael Murphy
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.co.uk
So, as Amazon’s Michael offered, Linn sent him some questions, such as – what the hell was Amazon accusing her of?
The emails went back and forth, but the answers repeated themselves: Amazon wouldn’t tell Linn what she did, or even if she actually did something. They wouldn’t tell her which account (allegedly) related to hers was violating their terms either.
They just shut her account down, told her to never try to open a new one, and called it a day.
What??!
The good news is that after this story got some media coverage (somebody said NBC?), Linn’s account was restored.
The bad news on the other hand, is that for better or worse – you can’t just march on to “the other Amazon store”. There is no other Amazon. In this day and age, as world’s authors are publishing more and more books solely on the Kindle platform, this is a disturbing thought.
P.S. Please don’t tell me that there’s always the iTunes book store. Not the same reach, and it’s limited in sooo many countries, that it ain’t relevant for now.
