Facing criticism and cynicism is something that anyone on a creative endeavor will have to deal with on a constant basis. I know I’ve dealt with a lot of it for my other projects and even for this blog, new as it may be. It is something that you’ll be facing if you’re doing something worth doing.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly”

When you’re following your pasion, when you are daring to make something on your own you can bet your ass that people will be not only critizicing you but ridiculing you. My take on it is that when you get critiziced or ridiculed that’s a day to celebrate. That’s a clear sing that you’re reaching people, that they care enough about what you’re doing that they’ll come out and talk about you, even in a negative light.

It might even be the case that your first critics will be either family or friends trying to get you back into your senses or get your feet on the ground, etc. They’ll imply you’re crazy (which you are, but that’s ok), that you’ll never make it, that there’s already dozens of other people or companies doing what you want to do. Believe it or not they are actually saying this out of honest concern, but they are also saying it out of fear. So how should you cope with all this negativity? Here’s a few points which should help you overcome it.

Understand Your Critics

Unless the criticism you’re getting is evidently constructive there’s really only one reason for criticism: fear.

Critics are trying to put you down because you’re trying to upset the status quo and that is scary. Critics are trying to put you down because you are doing something they want to but dont dare to do, and that’s scary. Critics are trying to put you down because you are proving that anyone is able to control their own destiny, and that’s scary as hell.

That last one is specially true for those close to you, they feel your projects and adventures as you leaving them behind and that can scare the living crap out of anyone.

Get Wiser From It

All criticism is reactionary, it’s happening because you did something. It’s Newtonian. Take a minute to see why it happened, there’s always wisdom to be gained out of critics. I’m not saying that you should find out how to please all your critics, not at all! I’m saying that the reason people are taking enough note to criticize you might not be evident to you and yet it may be something that you’re doing right! Don’t just try and replicate what evidently pleases your core audience, what’s pissing off your detractors might just be another of your strengths.

In The End, Haters Gonna Hate

When you are doing something right and you are staying true to your pasions you will never please everyone and that’s a good thing. When you try and please everyone you quickly go down the path of blandness and mediocrity. You and whatever you do are not meant for everyone, don’t focus on the wrong crowd of critics, haters and cynics, focus on your core audience. Realize that as your audience grows so will that small percentage of people who hate your guts. It’s as much a measure of your success as anything else.

As the meme goes, haters gonna hate. You just gotta keep moving on.

It has been months since the last post on Ivanismo, I’ve missed it a lot. Just a few days ago I left my Job, it was not an unexpected decision, just one that happened a few months sooner than I had expected. I will miss the people and the work I did a lot but the lessons learned and the mistakes made will forever enrich my life.

Without going into unnecessary detail I left my job because I was no longer happy in it and it was turning me into someone I didn’t want to be. It is never, never too early or too late to pursue better things. While I prepare myself to find my next adventure in life I’m retaking focus on my passions: public speaking, storytelling, leadership and problem solving. I’ll be writing a lot on these subjects in the coming days. It is not that I’m exceptionally good at any of these, it’s that I’m captivated by the way they make me feel and the power they can have to change people’s lives.

One cant have happiness without truth and truth is ever-changing, following them takes courage and a little love for chaos. I don’t know about courage but I do love chaos. The journey continues, who’s with me?

The world thrives on entrepreneurship, in business, art, science and even spirituality. All the great names written in history, famous or infamous, were of entrepreneurs. Those who felt compelled to do more and better.

But what lies at the core of that complex and elusive quality in life? In the heart of the entrepreneur lies conflict, a never-ending struggle between what is and what could be. An everlasting urge to do more, to do better. It’s a gift, for it propels you to better yourself and what you do. It is a curse because a true entrepreneur will never feel comfortable, his urge will never leave him alone, it dictates a self-imposed fate that they must fulfill.

This is specially true for those who, because of fear or doubt, try to escape this voice of fate. The entrepreneurial urge will not give them peace, it will slowly drain them of their spirit until they heed the call or until they succeed in ignoring it. Those who succeed at ignoring the call will be rewarded with a feeling of unaccomplishment and a subtle sadness because of what, for their will, never was.

You, you feel this urge, don’t wait a moment more. Every second you ignore your entrepreneurial spirit is a second you feel you die a bit inside.

Lets not be naive, entrepreneurship’s other name is greed but greed is what makes us better as individuals, as communities and as a species. Greed is neither inherently bad nor good, it is simply a drive for more, for better. When pointed inward greed is destructive, those who want power for the sake of power, those who amass money to measure self worth. Successful as they may be, these characters are never satisfied with what they take. When pointed outward greed becomes be the most constructive force of mankind. It is the urge to give more, to do more, to make things better, not only for ourselves, but for our community, whichever that may be.

The entrepreneurial spirit is destined to chase a moving target, a never-ending uphill battle against itself. Those who use their urge selfishly will forever feel like they are losing the battle, successful as they may be, they can only derive fleeting contentment from their physical gains. Those who use their greed to serve will discover that their entrepreneurial spirit derives happiness from the wellness and betterment they leave behind in their journey.

In the end though, no fate is worse than those who never dared follow the call.

Not everyone is an entrepreneur and the reason for that is an entirely different subject but for those who are, and you know who you are, the message is clear: follow the call, fulfill your self-imposed destiny, pursue happiness in your journey and never, ever, give up.

The other day I came across a new company called Get Satisfaction. Its basically a place where users can start forums for specific companies, products or services and discuss them or get support for them. Any user can start a forum for any company and some companies are joining in and giving official support on Get Satisfaction.

There’s a very clear message here, in this age, if you don’t talk to your customers they will talk among themselves, if your official support sucks they will make one better. They don’t need your permission and you cant ignore them anymore. You can either join them in their conversation and give your customers the love they deserve or you can try to stop them. Guess what smart companies are doing?

Wired has an article on its April issue titled How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong. It tells the story of Apple’s management style, how while in Silicon Valley management is going for the open route, being empowering and comforting to its employees, Apple is going the opposite route. Its corporate culture values extreme secrecy, empowerment is a dirty word at the company and micromanagement is on the menu everyday.

At the top of it all is Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and fearless leader of the company. Colleagues and employees describe him as “totally in the zone”, he inspires both zeal and  fear in every employee. Jobs oversees every aspect of the company and of every product. If the curves of a letter in the iPhone’s font weren’t to his liking it had to be changed.

This old-school management style is reminiscent of a communist dictator, the fearless leader. A former senior executive at apple even likened Apple’s internal management to a terrorist cell scheme. Yet it works, against all common sense of today’s management practices, Apple’s management works and it has propelled it to the top of the tech market.

But for how long? Steve Jobs may indeed be a genius and its true he is rarely wrong but Apple isn’t Steve Jobs. What happens when the genius is no more? Is Apple so dependant on Jobs’ magic touch that it would collapse in his absence? That’s exactly what happened when Jobs left apple in 1985. Great management should serve the company, not the other way around. Is your company under the rule of a fearless leader? Is it ready for the future?

Ever since they crammed us with resume formulas back in high school I knew they were little more than a waste of paper. If you’re comfortable with representing all you are worth and everything that makes you remarkable into a formulaic document then there’s not really that much that’s remarkable about you. The few times I’ve sat down to write a resume I felt completely inadequate.

How do you express your passions into a resume? How do you engage your prospective employer with brilliant storytelling? Most importantly, how can you show how genuine you are by following a formula? I, for one, cannot. How ridiculous is it that we still use a method that turns humans into facts to then try and find humanity in those facts. This needs to be changed.

Inspired by this post on Seth Godin’s blog

Circuit City has been in hot water as of late, its place behind Best Buy in the electronics market is only overshadowed by its massive continuous loses over the past years. Their latest plan to turn things around is rebranding as The City. With a concept of smaller stores, interactive demonstrations of their products and store “guides” equipped with tablet computers, the company hopes to regain ground.

But there’s something wrong.

A job posting on Monster to work at The Citysays:

With a focus on putting our guests first, Circuit City is launching a new store concept called The City, which truly transforms the guest experience.  In The City, we treat guests like they matter by providing a personalized shopping experience that, with the help of enabling technology, expertly answers guests’ questions and meets their needs.

We treat guests like they matter? Like they matter? That’s the problem right there, you’re doing your best to pretend your guests matter. No matter how much effort you put into pretending it will never substitute a real culture of providing great customer experiences. Circuit City has been pretending to care for their customers for over a decade and ever since they’ve been lagging behind more and more.

Pretending never works as well as the real thing, just like it didn’t work back in high school, it doesn’t work in business, it doesn’t work in life. When you are not genuine people will call you on it, if you are lucky. Usually they will just stop caring about you.

Good ideas are overrated, even great ideas are overrated. When was the last time a good idea changed the world? Ah, Edison, you say? Einstein? Adam Smith? Marx? Tesla? I bet a dozen other names are popping into your head right now, but you’re wrong, dead wrong.

It was not these people’s ideas that changed the world, it was passion. The passion these people had for their ideas changed the world. Good ideas are a penny a pound, they born often in your mind. You know the feeling, a new idea smashes into your head and you just know it would work, even if it’s unusual, you know in your heart that it would work, but do you go for it or do put it away? I ask you, did you act upon your last great idea? How about the last ten than came before that one?

Don’t kid yourself as a would-be genius, that great idea you just had was already thought up by someone else before you and if not it won’t be long until someone does. The only difference between you and the next insurgent that changes the world won’t be a great idea, it will be passion.

An idea on its own is nothing more than a nice puddle of fuel, but passion, the drive to act upon what you believe and take on the world; that’s the true spark of change and when that spark lights up that fuel your idea catches on fire. That fire is inspiration, it grows and spreads to others and before you know it your world will be ablaze.

That good idea you just had? I don’t care for it, its harmless, its weak. It’s even weaker than the status quo. But your passion? Your passion makes me turn my head, it makes me react. There are sparks near that fuel, watch out! A fire’s about to start!

So what will you do when your next great idea strikes? Will you simply swallow it like the rest and get drunk on it as if it were alcohol? Or will you dare to be passionate and light up a fire that changes the world?

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire!