In a previous post I mentioned one of my favorite success secrets has been creating authentic connections. And one of the things that gets the ball rolling is being distinctive.

At the recent Underground® 6 seminar I got handed 2 of my favorite business cards. (Trust me, in a room of marketers it’s not always easy being distinctive without being going over the line.)

The first is from Lt. Prescott Paulin. Prescott is a well respected marine who is a founding father of the Marine Corps non-profit organization Semper Fi House SemperFiHouse.org. And he’s also the founder of www.Your.vu – which successfully launches products in the Internet space.

Now get this – Prescott’s card is a real 2-dollar bill!

Okay that’s unique by itself since we don’t often see those but what really made it stand out is Prescott has folded the 2-dollar bill into a shirt, origami-style. Take a look:

And then when you open up the shirt you get his contact info that looks like a shirt tag. Wow!

Ok so who’s going to throw that away, right?

And then the second card is an example of a really cool way of building on a personal brand and truly being distinctive. It’s from our esteemed event photographer, Jared Polin.  If you were at the Underground® 6 you’d definitely remember Jared because of his massive hair.

Here’s Jared with one of our young entrepreneur scholarship winners, David Orr. (I’ll give you 3 tries to guess which one Jared is)

His wild hair is part of his “brand” which makes his business card so damn perfect.

So what is his card? It’s a hair pick – Kablamo!

The thing is Jared has some serious photo credentials going on tour with rock stars like Perry Farell (I was a huge Jane’s Addiction fan growing up) and bands like Cold Play. We were lucky to have him do some of the shots for our event.  If you need some high-end photography contact Jared at www.JaredPolin.com.

As you may know I’m a huge fan of lists and especially, what I call, Ultimate BIG Life Lists. (You can see a lot of my list on the right-hand side of this blog actually.) I’ve put together a cool new eBook to help anyone start their own list with a bunch of fill-in-the-blank subject templates. I find it a lot easier to just jot down your “Top 5″ adventures or whatever than to start from scratch.

So please download the free ebook (there’s not even an opt-in required) and tell a friend. I’d love to hear your comments on the eBook and drop me a note when you get some of your coolest items checked off.

P.S. I just completed another item on list by doing an Aquarium Dive at the Baltimore Aquarium. Pretty cool experience. This is a pic of me pouring sand on the fish in the Atlantic Reef exhibit – they loved it because it cleans their scales! They just float there – very neat.