Have you ever noticed that if you’re in the market for a particular type of car or you’ve just bought one – you SEE them everywhere? An exception is a rare exotic – but I have been seeing more Astons lately.

Putting something on your own ‘radar’ helps our brains start seeking & searching for the answers you want. (Same thing with asking the right questions.) Right now I’m in mass gathering mode for the Maverick Business Adventures project and I’ve been adding stuff to my file folder.

Check out this article from Fortune:

The first one is about how to access high-level VCs and big-time entrepreneurs (like Sergey Brin & Larry Page, founders of Google). It’s about Kiteboarding (or Kitesurfing) and how these players hang out taking part in this extreme sport.

Hello?….Brain…are you listening?

So this one definitely went into my file. I mean it makes total sense about building more meaningful relationships in settings like these. Case in point – on my Baja racing trip I took in 06, I had the chance to hang out & build a relationship with the CEO of NASDAQ-listed company. We talked about our different adventures and he gave me tips for Running with the Bulls. And during the Players Run road rally I made friends with all sorts of cool entrepreneurs.

If I look at most of the best joint venture deals I’ve done the relationships have nearly all developed outside a seminar room or office. (Okay, truth be told – they were mostly at the bar!)

And another article I dug up that I saved was about Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards. (I admit it, I used to have a Burton snowboard T-shirt in middle school even though I’m a skiier – so I guess I was a poser.)

I really like this section of Fortune called “How I work” and inside the article it talks about how Burton really personifies being a Maverick entreprenuer. I really also loved how he gathered up his family and traveled the world for 10 months. Very cool! That’s inspiring.

On my mindmap I have people like Burton & the founder of Clif Bars, Gary Erickson because these are the kind of Maverick entrepreneurs I’d love to bring onto the trips to share and be a part of it. Plus, some of my friends like Frank McKinney, Cindy Cashman and Tim Ferriss, who are into adventures and incredible experts in their own right. Hopefully, the lure of a unique group of business mavericks and a charitable contribution to their favorite charites would make it worthwhile for these guys to come along. We’ll see.

Speaking of the charity contribution, that’s something I’ve been doing for a long time (Secret #9) and I want to keep it going with this business. We’ll contribute 5% of our monthy GROSS sales to charities chosen by our members.

Once you start keying in on what you want – I think you’ll start ‘seeing’ it everywhere. Plus, like we talked about in (Secret #6) the fact that a decision is made will start the wheels turning to help uncover resources and introductions coming your way. Hopefully this VERY public decision will get it moving faster. (I’m open to help here from you guys – let me know!)
 

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under Marketing-O-Rama, Philanthropy, Ramblings, Start-up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.