Rewarding Mediocrity

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We reward children for things that never required a reward in the past. In early childhood sports, everyone gets a trophy and a pat on the back whether they win or lose. People bribe their children with money and gifts to clean their rooms. Are we teaching our kids that life rewards mediocrity?

A tough reality is headed their way – or so we might think.

Adults now are being rewarded for mediocrity as well. Last week Facebook Places moved towards offering businesses the opportunity to offer discounts and specials to people who checked in at their locations. The GAP company jumped on that and offered free jeans to people who came out and checked in.

It’s hard to gauge the future impact of rewarding children and adults for doing things that really required no effort (or reward in the past). But the fact is rewarding mediocrity has grown up, and from a consumer perspective, you’ll hear no complaints.

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Permission to Learn

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If you’re like me, when it comes to learning, you want to get to the source and not beat around the bush. It’s one of the reasons why college annoyed me. I was interested in business courses, yet I wasn’t able to take them until I completed courses like bowling. To me that made zero sense. It also didn’t make sense to people like Steve Jobs, president of Apple. In his speech at Stanford he talked about his decision to drop out of college and start attending the courses he wanted.

From what I’m hearing and seeing online, the structure of education is being challenged. Do you really need four years to get equipped to contribute to society? How is the internet impacting how we learn?

Just about everything you need to know is available to you for free online. This takes the action of changing education out of the institutions hand and puts in yours. You can make the decision today to start learning something new. It’s a permission that you are in control of.

Free Children to College Curriculum
Free riveting talks by remarkable people
Free podcasts from entrepreneurial thought leaders

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What The TP Incident Can Teach Us

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So this morning a lady walked into the gym and hopped up on the elliptical in front of me and began her cardio workout. As she began her workout I noticed something a little off. She had TP sticking out the top of her spandex in the back. It puzzled me for a bit, because I wasn’t sure if she had it there for a reason. (maybe sweat?) but as she answered her ringing cell phone and continued to talk while working out, I kept quiet. 10 minutes later she reached around and discovered what she obviously thought was left in the bathroom, hung up her phone, and continued her workout quietly.

If you know me, I like to take personal experiences and relate them to my industry, so here we go!

Here’s what this mornings incident of the Public TP tangle can teach you about your marketing 🙂

1. There’s a strong possibility that the image you think your brand is portraying is quite different from what people are seeing

2. Just because people don’t saying anything about what you’re doing wrong with your marketing, doesn’t mean there isn’t anything wrong.

3. If you’re not willing to give it all you got, then don’t waste your time. (If you can talk on a cell phone in your cardio workout for 10 minutes, you’re not trying hard)

4. If you want your brand to stand out at whatever cost, stick some TP in it and stand in front of people. (I can’t promise this will give a positive return)

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