Perry Marshall
This great newsletter came through to me yesterday from my mate Perry Marshall and is well worth a read. With Perry’s permission I have reproduced it here for you all to read. Enjoy!
Ed,
I just returned from Maui Hawaii, 100+ customers from a dozen countries face to face and palm to palm for 3 days. It was immensely energizing to
shake everyone’s hand and hear war stories and spend time together.
In that conference room you heard every kind of story you can imagine. There were people there who literally made a million dollars last month. There was probably somebody who LOST a million dollars last month. I have no doubt.
I know of one guy who was literally down to his last twenty dollars. A trip to a pricey seminar was his last wing and prayer. There were many businesses that have grown 400-500% in the last 12 months.
Welcome to the knife fight, to the rough and tumble world of being an entrepreneur. A universe of extremes. Work hard. Play hard. High highs. Low lows. Humiliation. Exhilaration.
When I moved from Nebraska to Chicago 17 years ago, there was a part of me that somehow just needed to flee safety and comfort. In pursuit of action and adventure.
Nebraska is a safe, genteel, polite, nonthreatening, mannerly place. And… it’s kinda boring there. I don’t have very many customers from Nebraska.
It’s just not a “Planet Perry” kind of place.
Here in Chicago we have the Chicago Bulls and Bears. Michigan Avenue and the Gold Coast. The Hancock Building and Navy Pier and yachts and hi-rise condos. O’Hare airport and tollways and commuter systems and Broadway shows and vast urban sprawl.
And gangs and drugs and hour-long commutes and gapers delays and starving artists and the West Side and the South Side and Joliet Federal Prison and crime and poverty and housing projects.
In Chicago, you get it ALL. From the ridiculous to the sublime. That’s why I love it here. My friend, there are some of us who are just BORN to thrive in extremes. You crave the WHOLE enchilada. You want access to the whole box of chocolates. You want the CHOICE to grab that nugget of mystery out of the box and get whatever you get. And reach for another and another.
It’s hard, but it’s better than the SAFETY of having someone else skim off the gourmet stuff and feed you stale 8-month-old Hershey bars. 150 years ago if you preferred the Wild West to a 3 bedroom condo and 3 square meals everyday, you were surely a little bit INsane.
Today, if you prefer the Wild West to institutional mediocrity, it’s probably the best possible assurance that you ARE sane… that the world hasn’t yet pounded every last ounce of adventure out of your soul. That you don’t want to sit in a cube under buzzing fluorescent lights and follow the car ahead of you to oblivion every day. You don’t want to gulp down antidepressants and watch TV from 5pm till bedtime.
If you thirst for greater things, if you dream of accomplishing something really big and daring in your life (and I’m NOT just talking about money by the way) then I’m here to tell you, you’re in good company.
If you’ve failed and failed and failed again…. or if you’ve achieved modest success only to have a monsoon wipe out what was so promising…. if you’re constantly dodging the snakes and arrows…. you’re in splendid company. It’s never too late for a comeback.
It may be lonely in your particular corner of cyberspace on a particular Tuesday afternoon, but I’m here to assure you, you’re not the only one. One more thing:
There is no such thing as a great person in history who was a “perfectly reasonable guy.” We’re all a little bit unreasonable, a little shaky, a little insane. And driven by an inner fire that won’t go out. Passion is the fire that lights itself. If you have that Passion, give thanks for it, honor it, and press into it. Harder. Not everybody has it. But you do. And you know it. So write it in blood. Put it in an obvious place so you never let yourself forget it.
The entire history of your life culminates in the present moment, and all the possibilities that it holds. Right now.
Every hour, every day…. …seize the day.
Perry Marshall
P.S.: You’re awesomer than you think you are.