Jeff Calloway

That is a law of life.  Look at history.  The Civil Rights movement was nothing until a man came along named Martin Luther King and said, “I have a dream” and he provided leadership.  The NASA space program was nothing until a guy named John Kennedy said, “We’re going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.”  A man by the name of Ray Kroc said, “I want fast food at a convenient price in a clean atmosphere” and he invented an entire industry called fast food. In your own family — you have family problems… nothing happens until somebody in the family assumes leadership and says, “We’re going to do something about it.”  Everything rises or falls on leadership.  Most problems can be traced to a lack of competent leadership.  The greatest problem today is a leadership shortage.  The greatest need is trained leaders.

I came across a verse in the Bible that is found in the book of Judges. As a matter of fact, it is the last sentence in that book. Not only is it the last sentence, it  also sums up the entire book.   The last verse of the book Judges 21:25 “Every man did what was right in his own eyes.  There was no king in Israel.” Where there is no leadership, people do their own thing.  There is instability.

A big car on a wet frozen lake goes nowhere. No traction, no motion.

A small bug working its way across a gravel driveway takes forever. Too much friction, too little motion.

If you’re stuck, it’s probably because one of these two challenges.

There’s not enough traction online. Too many choices, too few boundaries. It’s easy to get stuck because there’s nothing to push off of, no box to think outside of.

There’s too much friction in stuck industries. The walls have been expanded for so long, you just can’t get over them.

The power of online platforms is that they create traction. No, you can’t write more than 140 characters, no you can’t design any layout you want, no you can’t spam everyone with your inane sales pitch. You have something to leverage against, but it’s that thing, the friction, that makes it work.

The best marketers I know make up rules for themselves and they don’t break them. It’s very easy to surrender to the moment and walk over to the next hill. It’s more productive to climb this hill instead.

-Seth Godin