So, for someone like myself that has some ridiculous goals along the lines of owning a vault I can swim in like Scrooge McDuck and one day having a heated metal drawer in my kitchen that is constantly stocked with fresh Wendy’s chicken nuggets, I’ve been fortunate enough to truly understand what holds us back from getting what we want.

One major problem: We’re afraid of wasting our time.

Time is just too precious and we’re genetically wired to avoid pain – especially pain that’s associated with (what we perceive as) failure. Failure such as:

• Reading up and spending time learning a topic to find out you don’t like it – (time wasted)
• Attempting something outside your current knowledge and not seeing results afterward – (time wasted)
• Not knowing how much time you need to invest in order to see the results you want – (doubt, fear of wasted time)
• Taking a chance and putting yourself out there and getting rejected (i.e. didn’t get called back for the job you applied for, didn’t make the cut, etc.) – (time wasted)

If you identify the beast (fear of wasting time) and reprogram your brain to only focus on the positives associated with taking action, than you won’t shut down when the above happens. And believe me, all of the above will happen over and over again.

Think of it like a muscle you’ve never worked out before. The first time you do it’s going to rip and tear and there’s a really good chance you’re going to be sore from it. In fact, that pain may not go away until a couple weeks of regularly working it out (and keep in mind you’re probably not going to see any results by then, either) which is where doubt kicks in.

Without the pro over our shoulder to tell us “Hey, are you kidding? You’re doing everything right! It’s gonna be a long ___ months/years but as long as you don’t quit, you’ll get there…” we are left to our own faith. Faith that’s very, very fragile (especially if we’re venturing into unknown territory). This is what shuts down most people from ever beginning to take action and many others from continuing to take action.

Try to remember the first time you learned to drive. Seriously, 20 mph seemed really fast. You wanted to slow down. Of course now it’s a no-brainer. It’s autopilot. It’s not fast enough. The more you drove as a teenager the more you gained confidence that you were pretty clear on the risks and what to expect. Apply that to ANYTHING you want in life and you can obtain it - if you stick with it.

Ok, so, enough analogies. Let’s get real. Here’s an example of something a lot of people want but most never do:

“I want to travel”

Top excuses why they don’t: I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. I can’t get off work. Those are some pretty good excuses. There may be others, but we’ll stick with those for now.

Steps to remedy:

• Step 1 – Pick a destination – Yeah, you’d love to travel the world, I get it. Pick one place. Fiji? Rome? South France? Most people don’t even get this far. They leave it at the ubiquitous “I want to travel” and never give it any more thought. Defining the where moves it from fantasy to plan. Want to go to a bunch of places in your lifetime? Write them all out. Then pick where you want to start.

  Personally, I’d like to go to Rangali Island. I googled the location, found the resort website, and decided the Executive Villa looks pretty bomb. With a quick reservation check on their site, I found out that for 7 days (I picked a random week 5 months from now) it costs $2,150 total to stay there (that’s before negotiating or shopping around, of course). Now, I would like to eat well out there so I’m budgeting $100/day for food. I went to Expedia and did a quick search for airfare… looks like it’s about $2,000 round trip if I fly to the closest airport to the island. Add a couple extra hundred for incidentals and my ballpark price for that trip is $4,500. That’s what it would cost me for an amazing, inspiring, totally baller trip to one of my dream locations (I priced all of that out right now while writing this… it took me 3 minutes).

  This makes it real. If I really want to go there, I know what it costs now. I know that I can negotiate and find ways to cut it down if I want to. I can gauge how much of a challenge it will be for me to get there. I can decide if I’d rather spend that money on something else and not go (or find a different destination). Do that for your location and you may find it’s way less… either way, this puts you farther than every single person that’s said they would love to travel… and doesn’t.

• Step 2 – Ask yourself why – So, why do you want to travel there? To relax from work? To experience new things? The why is really important here. You may find the answer isn’t compelling or attractive enough for you to take action and find a way to get there. On the other hand, it may strengthen your resolve and make it clear that this needs to be done, AND, more importantly, that it CAN be done. Picture yourself there. Like, if I was there, I’d be posting the most badass photos of me spearfishing to Facebook and taking video of the ultra-swank bedroom that’s 50 feet from the waves crashing outside. The reason why is what will drive you, not the where… this is the fuel that will get you through Step 3.

• Step 3 – Find the way – This isn’t a cop out step, promise. This is where nearly everyone starts when they first think about what they want and since they don’t have an answer to it, they don’t try it. This is what brought about the I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, and I can’t get off work from above. Those excuses are vague… How much time would you need? In my case it’s a week. How much money? I already covered that above. When would you need to take off work? Unless you work in a sweatshop chances are the longest you’ll have to wait to get time off is a year and for many of you it can be much sooner. If you don’t plan it now, would you ever? What will you miss out on if you don’t go?

  You know if you want that trip bad enough, you can figure out how long it would take to put that money aside. I’d have to stash $375 a month to hit $4500 in a year. Too much? What if you found a way to spend $100 less in groceries and $75 less by not eating out at restaurants as much? Then you’re only stashing $200 from your paychecks and just pocketing the other savings… get it? If you want it bad enough, you will find a way… or you’ll learn you didn’t want it that badly after all.

Some people will do anything to avoid the feeling of failure. Sure, if travel isn’t important to you than you may discredit the above and move on, but the formula stays the same regardless of what you want. If you want something… anything in life, you stick at it until you get it or you decide you don’t want it enough. Even if it’s years. Anything else and you’re just lying to yourself.

One thing is for sure, though, and that’s that nobody can give you a magic bullet that will get you through Step 3. All success can only be found by taking action (and therefore risking failure). You’ve just got to put the effort in, which is why everyone isn’t rich and traveling the world. We know this subconsciously – that you can’t lose weight without changing eating habits and working out; That you can’t make more money if you don’t take any action that could result in you making more money… you get the idea.

So to reiterate the point here: it’s to TRY, and keep TRYING until you get there… or decide you don’t want it enough. It’s not just how much you want it (while yes, that’s important to build fuel to keep you moving), it’s also what ACTION you take to make it real. Action that, amazingly enough, can be taken right now if you wanted to.

By the way… they offer a group discount if anyone else wants in on Rangali, just let me know =).

When talking with Didi, the owner of the amazing marketing agency I’ve been working with for some time now, I told her that after a year of diving headfirst into the unknown (i.e. launching Phoenix Activewear) I had just come to the realization that I’ve being going into battle blindfolded, with one hand and one foot tied behind my back, and expecting to win. She was quick to add “That’s true. And you also had no idea where the battle was, either.” Mental picture of me showing up for battle to an empty field, blindfolded. “Let’s do this!”

The Beginning of the Year – Building the Company

I started Phoenix 12 months ago in January this year, and I had a couple of clearly defined goals:

• I wasn’t going to tell any friends/family that I was starting this company until it was ready to launch – Until 2011 came I’d been notorious for coming up with ideas and never seeing them through. I was spread out in 2010; my focus was 10 miles wide and 10 feet deep and I knew I had to reverse that. I needed to pick one idea and see it through all the way. Of course, I had little idea how far that rabbit hole goes. I succeeded in this goal, and many people did not learn about Phoenix until production in mid-summer, when it was too late for anyone to give their opinion on whether I should or shouldn’t do it, because it was already done and in motion.
• Make a beautiful product and inspiring brand – Being creative, this was at the heart of what I love to do, and the process brought new and exciting challenges that I enjoyed facing. I researched dozens of websites, purchased hundreds of dollars of competitor clothing, and carefully thought out each detail to make a product that was great quality and a brand that was definitive and unique. I feel I succeeded here, however I left out a few very important elements to the equation, which we’ll get to below.
• Make sales and profit - This goal… well, let me tell you. This one’s not so easy, lol. My initial goal was to make back my investment. In one year I put in over $30k to design, manufacture, and market the line, which, in the grand scheme of things really isn’t all that much. In reality I spent on things I later learned I shouldn’t have, so I probably  could have saved about a third of that at least (in hindsight, of course). Still, I went into this venture knowing full well that I may never make back that money, which is why I was just a little down at the end of the year as opposed to devastated =). See, I know how to make a beautiful, quality product. What I didn’t know is how to sell a product. I didn’t know what channels, what markets, how to distribute… blindfolded is an understatement.

The Second Half of the Year – Making Moves

Luckily, with every “failure” I fell forward, not backward. I kept my head up and kept moving forward… always open to trying the next thing. Here’s a quick FAIL recap =)

• Phoenixactivewear.com – There’s no denying, the site is beautiful. Arguably better designed and more intuitive than many of the huge, multimillion dollar clothing companies out there. I spent months meticulously designing, coding, and refining the site to get it where it is. Only problem is a great site with zero visitors nets you nothing. By the time I realized this it was late-summer/early-fall and had no idea how to get traffic to the site, let alone how to sell clothes (that typically need to be seen in person, tried on, and felt ) online. I got involved with a very talented SEO guy from Rochester and invested some money but it’s a mountain of a battle to compete for keywords in the yoga/athletic apparel market. This was tough to cope with. As of writing this post I have not made a single sale through the site from someone that I didn’t know personally or was referred by a friend I know. Ultimately I decided to shift my energy off the website and focus on other avenues to pursue initial sales and then use the site as a tool to build brand loyalty and customer retention.
• Brand Ambassadors – Taking a grass-roots approach of outfitting trainers and group instructors that have weekly exposure to your core demographic was a major factor in building Lululemon’s growth (they’re the Apple of the athletic/yoga apparel market, in case you haven’t heard of them) so I found a handful of amazing women, explained the objective, and hooked them up with a bunch of free clothes. Only problem was I never followed up. I was too busy looking at 10 other balls in the air that I neglected my ambassadors. Without my guidance, how were they to know what to do? In the end, one of my best ambassadors ultimately lost interest and “stood down” from the ambassador position (which, sadly, was never even clearly defined by me) and I lost a friend as well as several hundreds of dollars of clothes. The lesson here was that you can’t half-ass a tactic like this. It needs to be clearly thought out and then followed through with, or else you waste people’s time and money (as well as your own). Luckily I still have a couple of inspiring and enthusiastic women that truly want to help – they’re just awaiting my instruction. Without my instruction and direction it will never transform into product sales. It’s just free clothes.
  
• Social Media – Wanting to leverage Facebook and Twitter to expand my customer base, I spent time building out the page, uploading photos, and delivering messages to my fans. I even had one of my ambassadors as an admin who would post regularly to keep it current and helpful. The problem here was that I only have 176 fans, and half of them are my friends from Facebook (which is great support-wise, but they’re not really customers). It also has zero growth when left on it’s own. The company has no momentum, so to move it forward I need to throw my time and money at it to make it budge. When I stop, it stops. This is the name of the game until you start gaining traction and the customers can help it build. You just need more than a few dozen customers to get there, though =). I experimented with some Facebook ads which got me some more likes but ultimately never resulted in any sales, so with money beginning to dry up, I decided to move my focus elsewhere.
• Public Relations – Realizing I wasn’t going to get anywhere without awareness (as well as not having any idea how to build awareness), I started getting desperate. I wanted the company to gain momentum more than anything and thought if I hurl money into it (i.e. find a professional company to get my name out there) that would be the catalyst I was looking for to get it off the ground. I shopped around, had a bunch of meetings, and found an extremely impressive company called Elle Communications to partner with. What I didn’t realize here was that I’m the only catalyst of my company. Nobody else can do it for you, unless you give them the company, of course. I quickly realized that Elle would indeed follow through, getting me exciting placements in national magazines, TV shows, celebrity photos, and websites… but none of that directly affects sales and the bottom line. Those things are excellent for slowly and steadily building a solid brand foundation but they’re just not the change agent I was looking for.
• Trade Shows – Late in the year I decided to try my hand at trade shows… my first opportunity to put my product in front of strangers and see how it held up. I did two trade shows: THREAD show, which was a smaller 1-day show in LA targeted to new and unique upcoming companies, and UNIQUE LA, which was a much larger 2-day show exclusive to Made in the USA companies. I was the only athletic wear company at both shows so it looked promising. I scoured the web to pick out and purchase clothing racks, wooden hangers, tables, bags, and everything I’d need to run my booth. I applied for and bought booth space at both shows and went in with tempered hopes. Unfortunately, I lost money at both shows. I didn’t make enough sales to even cover my booth space at either event, which doesn’t factor in the money spent on materials, travel, and help. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. On the contrary I got hands-on interaction directly with customers and quickly began to learn how to inform, not sell, and capture email addresses for later. Most importantly, I attribute the failure to being at the wrong show as opposed to having bad product. The product and pricing was extremely well received, however only a fraction of the entire show audience was in my demographic. From now on I’ll only do shows at athletic/trainer events.
• The Demographic – This was my final epiphany where I realized I had truly missed the mark when appealing to my demographic. I’d produced great clothes that were really built for fit, sexy 20-30 year-olds while completely missing the health-conscious, body-conscious 35-50 market. Also, since the clothing is high quality and expensive to make, the pricing was just too much for that younger market to purchase regularly (or at all). Another one of Didi’s fabulous quotes: “You’re hunting squirrels, Rob. You need to go after the elephants; the women that are established, care more about fit than they do price tag, and shop once a month, not once a year.” Spot on advice. When it finished sinking in I realized I had a lot more work to do to right the ship =).

Next Year – Taking the Blindfold Off and Moving into 2012

Despite the string of bad I just recanted, my spirits are higher than they’ve ever been. Realizing that you had no idea what you were doing gives you the opportunity to take a step back and come up with a new game plan. A smarter game plan.

• Table the sale-lust; Focus on the plan – I was focusing too much on getting sales. But I don’t know how to get sales. I’ve shelved that feeling of “omg I should be making steady sales by now” and replaced it with “I need to find people that have proven success in my market and learn from their experiences.” I need to locate the battlefield, clearly define my battle plan, and ready the troops for war.
• Team up with experts – I don’t need to go it alone. That takes too long and costs too much money. Instead I need to work with those that know this industry inside and out and find people that are inspired and interested in sharing my vision.
• Get the product where it needs to be – Sure I missed the mark on my demographic, but that’s no reason to quit. With 20/20 hindsight the next batch will be exactly what the older demographic is looking for. Also exploring new and innovative ideas that may even put Phoenix clothing in a market category of it’s own.
• Decide on distribution – The shotgun approach to success didn’t work very well at all. I’m trading it for a sniper rifle and going to hone in on the best distribution methods so I can concentrate my efforts directly into achieving end results.

When you can untie your hands and take the blindfold off you get the clarity needed to drive forward. Doubt shuts you down – hell, it shut me down more than once this year – but it’s not permanent. There’s a lot of work to do in 2012… I’ll be sure to check back on how it worked out. See you on the other side =).

• Website front-end design
• Copywriting
• Branding