Project: Be Unpredictable

Sometimes you have to use multiple platforms and methods. Sometimes you have to hire to fill every C-Level position. Sometimes you have to be mainstream. Sometimes you end up losing a bit of spark from your original plan.

Worse case scenario, there are moments when people know what you are going to do before you do. That’s because sometimes being an entrepreneur turns into being cost effective. It turns more profitable than you could have imagined. 

But as risk-takers there comes a time you have to be unpredictable. You have to take several steps back to the drawing board rather than turn to the Board.

Yeah, you’re thinking, everybody has already done it before; you just have to figure out a way to do it differently, even if that differently means to speak it in your voice.

No one thinks the way you do; use it to your advantage.

So how can you be unpredictable? (Isn’t reading about that and planning for that predictable?)

Be Open to Timeframes – A company that is set in stone and has a rigid five-year plan will miss too many opportunities. Time, technology and we as humans are changing so rapidly we can’t plan too far in advance. Leave room for adaptability and you’ll leave room for unpredictability.

Be Open to Advice – Whether it’s good, bad, left field, right field, from the old or really young, it doesn’t mean you have to take it, but any advice will help guide you to who you really are and who you want to be. And once you intake advice you act – unpredictably – on which you feel is wisest.

Be Open to Failure – Although it looks right in your mind and on the drawing board, success doesn’t always transfer to real life or happen overnight. Out of failure comes resilience, the need to be innovative and the room to be unpredictable.

-The Green Couch

Project: The Bee’s Knees - RIP Burt Shavitz

He knows a thing or two on what it is to risk it all and lose it all. He’s had his highs and lows. Whether on his own or surrounded by one hundred fans, he knows who he is and what he wants out of life. This is the Burt Shavitz story.

What’s it like to wake up with no hot water but an endless sight of nature…and be okay with it? What’s it like to have a rendering of your grizzly face on beauty and toiletry items across the world? And yet feel inclined to hide from the world?

What’s it like to take risks, win some, lose a lot and come out knowing no matter what, you still like what you’ve done and made of yourself?

Although Burt is no longer with us, (May 15, 1935- July 5, 2015), he left a legacy that is worth emulating: “No one owns me, no one’s ever gonna own me.”

In other words, what I do? It’s none of your beeswax!

What are some practices in your life in which you practice a similar mentality? In which you stick to your dreams even when it is inconvenient.

• How do obtain your goal when the going gets tough?

• When there are more naysayers than cheerleaders, do you give up or give it all you got?

• If you realize you do not have the finances to see your project through, how do you pursue finding the appropriate resources?

• How do you cultivate your own beeswax?

Burt was a man that was dealt some hard blows. But he found a place on this earth that he loved more than the inside of a Burt’s Bees industrial warehouse. He didn’t need many luxuries; he didn’t need validation; he didn’t need money; he needed a chance to pursue his number one passion.

What’s your passion, and what are you willing to risk to find and cultivate it?

Burt will go down in history as the bee’s knees of a beekeeper. What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

-The Green Couch