What’s Your Idea of Fun?

I’ll admit it, I’m a dork: for me, “improvement” is fun.

The kids are out and I’m home alone on a Saturday afternoon painting a door that I’ve been meaning to paint for, literally, years (home improvement). I’m also listening to Corbett Barr go deep into Marketing 101 on Fizzle (self improvement). I have three hours with no family around (a rarity). I could do whatever I want. I could watch TV and eat Vegetable Korma. What do I think is fun? Improving my life, learning ways to make my lifestyle (and business–they’re related after all) better. Also, getting things off of my To Do list. That’s fun to finish … but maybe less so to be in the middle of.

OK, perfect example. I actually don’t mind painting. Why not? Because it has such tangible results. When I’m done with the door, it’s going to look better than it did before, I did it myself, and I’ll enjoy it every single day (I see this door extremely often). But how can you combine that with something you really enjoy doing?

How can you make a middle-of-the-road fun activity more fun?

I could just paint. But I’ve been meaning to brush up (little painting pun there) on my Marketing 101 for my businesses as well as for clients. I like learning. No, rephrase: I live for learning. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what I like more. When traveling, we’re learning. When meeting new people or developing relationships, we’re learning about others. We’re learning about our kids as they grow up. We’re always learning. But we can passively learn or we can actively learn. I want to learn and I make an effort at it. Painting and Podcasts, maybe I’ll start a Meetup …

Corbett drives home one of his favorite marketing pillars, the Universal Selling Proposition. Basically, how do you stand out? How are you different? How is your business–or product or website–different (or better or cheaper or at least more something) than the competition?  Why should they visit your site rather than another? It’s an important question–maybe the most important.

Stop and Smell the Fun

I know, I know, stop and smell the roses, carpe diem. Yeah, yeah. But do we know? In my opinion, and I have a strong one on this point, we don’t know, we don’t do it. So much of our lives are routine: day in, day out, waiting for the next day. When do we have those moments where we’re supposed to stop? That’s the trick. Isn’t it? They’re everywhere, they’re all the time, we just have to pluck them down from the sky and hold onto them–if only for a few seconds or a few minutes. Sure, life is safari and marriage and kids, but it’s also painting the office door with a stellar podcast rolling, a huge glass of sparkling water with a slice of lemon, and my dog sleeping on my drop cloth on a Saturday afternoon.

That’s my USP. That’s my fun. What’s yours?

“Fun” is so incredibly subjective. For me, today, it’s painting and listening to podcasts.