All the news stations are #1 in town.  All the sightseeing tours offer the best views.  All the grocery stores have the lowest prices on fruit.  All the car dealerships have the lowest financing available anywhere, ever.

Except they don't.  Because they can't all be the best or have the lowest prices or offer the best selection.  In order for there to be a best, there has to be a worst.  And folks in between.

So stop lying.

Are you the best? Or are you the worst? Or are you in between?

You're hiking in a dense forest and there's a large leaf lying on the ground a few feet in front of you.  You heard from someone once that such large leaves usually cover very deep holes.  The group behind you says all the large leaves they've ever encountered have been safe to walk across.

Do you walk across the leaf?

Everybody is telling you what to do.  They're the expert, they have the results, they know what you should be doing.

But do they really?  They might.  Their advice might make you a millionaire.  It might make you an idiot.

The difference is the degree to which you question.  Do you accept everything you see and hear as true?  Or do you actively question what's going on and learn from it?

People like to complain.  It's really easy and requires very little effort.    But it's not productive at all if you're not actively trying to change the situation.

Simply complaining and not trying to do anything about what's wrong is pointless.  But actively trying to alter what's happening and suggesting new ideas is productive.

Complain all you want.  But be productive and try to change the game.  Otherwise you'll just come across as annoying.

Are you being pointless or productive?

I went to Best Buy about a week ago to get a digital converter for our other TV.  The guy in the TV section said he was pretty sure they were all out.  After all, it was a day or so after the digital transition date.

He checked with some people on his walkie talkie and informed me they were indeed out.  No biggie, makes sense, everyone probably ran out as soon as their TVs stopped working.

As I approached the exit of the store, the guy working the security desk motioned for me to come over.  He said the girl at the customer service desk had a converter for me.  I look over at the customer service desk and sure enough, the girl is smiling, holding a converter box, motioning for me to come over there.  Turns out she had been holding it for someone but they never showed.

These three Best Buy workers took it upon themselves to go the extra step to help me.  And I didn't ask them too.  They could have left it at "sorry, we're out, we can't help you" and I could have been on my way.  That was fine with me.

But they didn't.  They cared.  And while I've had plenty of bad experiences at Best Buy, I'll remember this one.  It's all about the small things.

Do you care about the small things?

At the end of the day, it's not about how many business cards you collected or how many followers you have or how cool strangers think you are.

It's about surfing, sailing, soup kitchens, documentaries, road trips, wildlife, campfires, rock-n-roll, flea markets.  It's about keeping it real.

Are you keeping it real?

You want to be comfortable but not too comfortable.  Too comfortable may encourage you to become lazy, slow, and unmotivated.  You may gradually stop yearning to innovate and learn.  You may just settle.

And if you settle, you become like every other company on your block.  Happy with the hum drum, the average, the grey walls, the drop ceilings, the cubes.

Are you too comfortable?

Everyone wants a community.  They're the thing to have these days.  All the cool kids have a community.  How do you get one?

Start by understanding what a community is.  Richard Millington has plenty of excellent ideas and advice on what a community is.  Spend some time reading his thoughts and you'll walk away inspired and equipped.

Determine what kind of community works for you.  There's a community of 20 Something Bloggers.  That community is much different than the one that comments on YouTube videos.  And the YouTube community is a whole different ball game than a band of Harley enthusiasts.

A community doesn't just land on your doorstep.  And if one does happen to just show up overnight, you're welcome to question their intentions.

A community develops, grows, and evolves.  Most importantly, a community fits.  Members feel comfortable, appreciated, at home.  You don't buy a community.  You earn a community.

Have you earned your community?

The honeymoon's over.  The companies that succeed now are the companies that stop staring at the shiny object and grab it instead.  The folks who grab it and use it for real.

Forget the tools.  Twitter is great.  But if only 6 of your customers use it, maybe get a live chat for your website instead.

Blogs are informative and great to read.  But if you have nothing to write about and nobody to write that nothing, do something else.  Maybe attend more events related to your industry and wear a really big name tag.

Try listening less to what everybody's saying you should be doing and start doing more of what works for you.  If they happen to be the same thing, then great.

But if only 15 of your customers use Facebook and 314 use Yelp, get on Yelp.  Who cares that Facebook has 200 million users?  Yelp has 314 that are waiting for you.

Are you doing what works for you?

Despite how much you know and how much you've learned, there are still things you cannot control.  There will always be things you cannot control.

So you have two options.  You can sit around and pout, complaining about how things shouldn't be this way.  Or you can adapt.

Pouting and wishing you had control gets old quickly.  The faster you accept the situation and adapt to it, the faster you can be on your way.

Do you pout or adapt?

The other day, as I was pouring a cup of water, I looked straight down into the cup.  As the water started to near the top of the cup, I stopped pouring.  Didn't want it to spill over.

As I stepped away and looked at the cup, I realized there was still a long ways to go until the water reached the top.  What I saw from the top was not the same as what I saw from the side.  Same cup, totally different view.

Are you looking from the top or from the side?

To focus a camera, you must first unfocus it.  You must go just past the point where the image is clear, to the point where it's just out of focus.  Why?

Because if you don't know what the image looks like out of focus, you don't know what it looks like in focus.  You could guesstimate and be almost there.  But you'll never have the image perfectly in focus.

Of course this idea applies beyond focusing your camera.  Sometimes you need to go just beyond the true focus of your work to understand what it is.

Are you in focus?

Remember that night you were having dinner and drinks with four other people at a small bar in downtown Chicago?  You were all discussing everything from the names of towns in Ohio to the wilderness of the Appalachian mountains to having to bike through pouring rain.

You looked at the time and realized 3 hours had passed.

Remember that night you were exchanging a few quick words with 738 other people at a large convention center in downtown Chicago?  You were asking them how the weather was, quickly passing over your business card, and concentrating on getting over to the next person you saw across the room.

You looked at the time and debated whether or not to try and quickly talk to 323 more people before you had to leave.

Which night do you remember more?

I met Carlos and Joe from Real Geeks Ride one morning on the bus at South by Southwest.  They were staying down the street from my hotel.  They're both geeks at heart who knew little about biking.  But that's quickly changing.

They're biking across the country this summer.  Literally.  From New Jersey to Portland.

From May to August, Carlos and Joe are visiting all sorts of towns and meeting all sorts of folks to encourage people to bike to work.  So far, they've been through thunderstorms, steep hills, flat tires, and biked over 1,000 miles.

Check out their blog for a daily update on their crazy adventures.  They're also tweeting from whatever road/trail/path they happen to be on.

Let's show these guys some love.  After all, they're doing something awesome.

Everybody's offering Facebook webinars these days.  And Twitter classes that will get you 16,000 followers before Superbowl Sunday.  Everybody knows all the tricks you need to succeed in internet marketing.  Whatever that is.  They'll help you create a truckload of fans with a limited recession style budget.

You can create one of these classes right now.  You can get hundreds of people to sign up to hear you dribble on about how they need to be using "social media" to reach their target audience and provide an excellent return on investment.

You can probably make a pretty penny doing so.  After all, the people you're teaching know very little about the subject.  They're at your beck and call, ready to swallow whatever you're feeding.

Or you could be the one person on the block that actually has something memorable to say.

Do you have something memorable to say?

Teams work best when each team member tries their hardest.  When each team member really wants the team to succeed.

Successful companies are often made of teams of employees who all believe in the company's vision.  They enjoy working toward the greater good of the company and helping the company reach its goals.  They believe.

What does the person in charge do when the employees stop believing?  How do they restore morale?

On the flip side, what do they do when the customers stop believing? After all, if nobody wants to buy what you're selling, haven't you just lost?