I’ve got a lot of notions about what it takes to be successful in life, business, etc… I spend a lot of time reading, learning and observing the world at work. I’m constantly looking for a new way, a better way, a more productive, or even a more satisfying way of doing things; whether it’s music, writing, Web and electronic communications work… whatever it is I’m always looking for ways to make things a little bit better.

This approach is a major piece of why I write. I learn through writing and I learn through doing. I’ve been lucky enough, to take some of these skills that I’ve cultivated, and make a pretty good life for myself.

I love the rush of making something new, doing something new, or learning something new. After a while the good feelings wear off, I get restless and I’m back looking for something new to learn, something new to undertake and learn. This is how I’ve made my way, and built my ladder, so to speak. I’ve had a lot of help from great people and friends, as well as from people who very much disliked my hunger to learn and know and saw it as a threat — those folks were some of my best teachers.

All I’m saying is all you have is *you*, and nobody’s going to build that ladder for you — go for it!

The title of this post sort of says it all. When you’re a workaholic, living, breathing and being totally immersed in a job, whether at work, or at home, creative or administrative, you get too close to the work to know what’s good for the work.

When you’re constantly involved with a project or endeavor and you don’t take breaks you lose perspective. Good ideas aren’t born in vacuums, and when you become immersed in something like this you begin to do a real disservice to the project. Now the dilemma is, especially in many cultures, that you’re not going to look as dedicated as some other artists or folks you work with, but it’s likely you’ll also have a better quality of life, live longer, have better family and friend ties, and ultimately be less attached to the work when it goes away, as everything goes away – the key in many ways is to change the mindset that giving 110% all the time and always being on is a benefit; it’s not.

Some of the most rewarding and satisfying creative and business projects I’ve been involved with have come from a period of just stepping away. Sometimes, Ok, often times, it’s been done out of frustration, but whatever the reason coming back to it was that much better. After a while I learned that just stepping back is the right thing to do, even when my type A personality pushes me to keep working.

It’s not easy, but if you feel like you’re constantly thinking about work or a project (a workaholic, and you know who you are) try to step away. It won’t be easy at first, but I’ll guarantee that however great the resistance is to step back the fresh perspective you return with will be comparable in satisfaction.

The surest way for a plan to go awry is to make one. I’m a planner. I struggle with this. I like to think about plans and strategies and goals. Sometimes, I reach them, but I’ve also found that having no fixed plan is the best way to travel, especially with creative work. For me, it’s kind of scary, because at least with a plan, you have a fixed idea of where you’re going and that becomes the vision of what you expect to see.

However, even the best plans never have visions that turn out as we had anticipated. There again, I say why bother with making a plan.

Without a plan you just take things as they come. You don’t try to imagine what’s around the next corner, you just walk up to it, see what’s there and decide what to do next.

There are a lot of models out there for getting people to your site and usually it’s to buy something. You might bait them with free eBooks, special content, or Mp3 music downloads. All of those models, somehow, have to do with exchanging a little bit of your work for a little bit of their money; the exclusive eBook, the exclusive content, the video without ads, the music at a higher bit-rate, but what about just giving stuff away because you want to share it with people? What about them just paying for your work by giving it the attention that every creative person longs for?

I do this. I sell music, though, most of it’s through IODA these days. It’s just easier that way; easier to give away. I’ll take it a step further.

Having given away a lot of music and writings I’ve found that, to some extent, people don’t value (at least as much) what they don’t pay for. There’s some kind of crazy economic principle at work there. Nevertheless, I’m going to continue to give my work away, at least as much as make sense.

Mini Case Study: Selling through IODA has brought a lot of new visitors to the MattBorghi.com, visitors who may never have heard of me or my work, so what I make in pennies and nickles per download is little more than the opportunity cost to introduce the music to folks who might not otherwise find it.

Basically, where I’m coming from is, as always, content is king. This is just another angle to that adage. If you do quality work with passion, care and integrity, you’ll find yourself having stuff that you can, not only, give away, but maybe even sell a bit of.

Well, Ok, that’s not totally true. A lot of people can help, but you need to get it started, whatever it is, and once it’s out there in the universe who knows what can happen.

This is the single greatest thing that an entrepreneur has going for them.

I couldn’t help but think about this during the lunch at the  Michigan chapter of the PRSA‘s annual Conference where Peter Shankman was speaking. He had a lot of really interesting and inspiring stories, but more than anything what I took away from what he was saying was: play, experiment, don’t be afraid to take risks.

You never know what can happen and you never know how good it could be. Help could be just around the corner, but you’ll never know unless you put your thing out there.

When you’re doing anything, from the smallest task to the greatest feat, nothing will mess you up more than self-doubt. This is no joke. It’s easy to take for granted the power of self-doubt and the iron fist that can bring down on your sense of self-worth. I’ve seen people crumble under the weight of their own self-doubt, and it’s something that has always been a huge vitality suck for me.

Whether it was not enough attention from mom and dad or their own struggles that kept me feeling dejected and rejected, self-doubt and its fatty by-product insecurity has always played a major role in everything I do. I’ve got something to prove, usually to myself, but something to prove nonetheless. Oh, how I’ve wished I could just be a perfectly self-actualized being that’s not striving or grasping, but not in this life time, I’m afraid, or any other, for that matter, because this is all there is. The most I can do, you can do, any of us can do is recognize that creeping vitality suck that is self-doubt that leads to insecurity and nip it in the bud.

Pray, meditate, run, eat, memorize the lyrics to the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty in their entirety, or just focus on the feelings without judgment; whatever you do, acknowledge them, and know that it will pass, and it will pass faster if you resolve to move on.

It’s tough, I know. You want to dwell on it. You’re pissed, and with good reason. You’re not just feeling self-doubt because there were no other available emotions, some thing, some one triggered it. What is it? Who was it? In the scope of things it’s usually something pretty freakin’ inconsequential, because if it were truly a big deal we wouldn’t have time to dwell on our neurosis and petty feelings of inadequacy, we’d be tending to our crisis.

You know it’s true. When you look inside yourself, if only for a second, you see it passes and you move on. Help the process along, by making the conscious decision to understand and put it behind you. I know, it’s easier said than done, but that’s the only place we have to start from.

Everything is temporary.

This is a thought that first crossed my mind years and  years ago, but it’s only something that I’ve begun to truly internalize and realize in the last few years. Surely, it’s part of the human growth process, but it’s kind of a frightening concept and one that many of us spend large portions of our life fighting. Whether we’re buying ant-aging creams or constantly excercising try to stay young and youthful.

We get old, our bodies break down, we’ll turn into dust and go to from where we came. Part of the realization is that this is Ok. There’s nothing to fight. There’s nothing to do battle with and there’s nothing to resist. Trying to fight the impermanenece of life is a loser’s game, but realizing this enough to not continue to fight it is something, too.

Sitting this morning, listening to the spring birdsong, and drinking a cup of coffee I felt good, and then I felt that this moment was over, never again to exist – somehow, that felt natural, that felt Ok.

The title of this post is a slide from Domino’s Spokesperson Tim McIntyre’s presentation yesterday at the Michigan chapter of the PRSA. Tim was talking about crisis communications, specifically the Dominos/YouTube PR nightmare from 2009. This was a great presentation, but he slid this slide in sort of near the end, and it’s just stuck with me, and I may not even have it totally right, but the sentiment stuck with me:

Be who you want to be perceived as.

Thanks Tim… truly words to live by.

Read this quote today, the tone is in your fingers, in the excellent 37Signals book Rework. Even as a guitar player I had never heard that, but yesterday when I was playing the piano I hit a note, and found myself rubbing the key, as if I was going to get some expression or vibrato out of the note that way. It took me a second or two to realize that unlike a guitar note on a string, there was no way that was going to happen. Since I was practicing on a synth controller I could have used the modulation or expression dial, but it was weird to me how my mind, my composing mind, tried to manipulate the sound in that way, even thought the device wasn’t set to do it that way. That realization was even more profound when I read today that the tone is in your fingers. When you’re on the guitar, violin, etc… the tone surely is in your fingers, but with a piano that’s true to much lesser extent. Interesting realization.

It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone that’s followed my work even a little bit, since about 2003, that I’ve gone back and forth a bit with the ambient/drone/space music and my singer/songwriter work, trying to find some happy medium. At times, I’ve found that happy medium, whether it was in the form of 2005′s Olagra, named after my band (of the same name) at the time, or whether it’s been in my work with The Elevator Conspiracy. However, I’d say that I’ve come the closest to achieving what it was that I was seeking, and of course not knowing what that was, when I met and begin playing with Michael Teager, a saxophonist and musician that I admire greatly, in our duo Teag and PK.

Mike and I also play in The Elevator Conspiracy together, but in our work as Teag and PK, of which, there hasn’t been much more than a couple gigs, a few “jams” and a recording session, I met my match as both an improviser and a musical creative force. We can turn and burn playing off each other to exciting results, pushing the music to new heights, considering it’s only a duo of sax, voice and guitar. We’re able to do a lot with that.

I mention Mike, because as a singer/songwriter that’s stalled on and off for nearly thirteen years, never really fully committing to it, mostly out of insecurity whether about the songs, my singing or both, Mike’s been a huge and supportive advocate. I trust his musical judgment and his ear. When he tells me I should listen to something, I do, and I’m usually blown away that I had listened to it before.

I’m careful to not make this post about rededicating myself to embracing the singer/songwriter in me, but somehow there’s no way around that, that’s what this post is about. I don’t want to be surfing on premature inspiration that can’t be sustained in the long term once my confidence and inspiration dissipates, but nevertheless, like with the Piano Journal, I’m putting it out there with the hope that the drive to do it can come from in me and “out there.”

A wise man once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step… I’ve been doing a lot of shuffling about as a singer/songwriter over the years, it’s time to get walking…