Comments

Without you there would be no Youtube and without me, there would be no brooklyn accents.

Posted by rocky balboa at December 19, 2006 12:25 PM

Great picture!

Posted by Leonard Klaatu at December 19, 2006 12:34 PM

Absolutely spot-on on both accounts. This year's is a great selection and yes, it's damned hard work being me (or You) and keeping up let alone leading the way. Time to reinvent--again!

Posted by Ed Di Gangi at December 19, 2006 1:10 PM

Yep! You were ahead of the trend once again. Operating in a Brand You logic is a hell of a lot of work and yes it is exciting every step of the way. I have been trying to apply your good lessons for the past 24 months; it does take time to implement (at least for me) some of the stuff you recommend and there are required adjustment for the European space, but overall having Brand You, the PSF model and striving for WOW in the projects I do for my customers is a fantastic recipe... So perhaps you Tom should actually be person of the year... but then again if one asked your readers that would happen every year, so it would end up killing the suspense ;-)

Merry Christmas to you and to your loved ones and may 2007 be a year full of WOW!

Posted by alex at December 19, 2006 3:23 PM

Tom

Celebration time... Dilbert is dead! Long live YOU! Gartner researchers observe that You are the center of the universe - especially for Generation Y... BUT and here is the rub they do not have to brand themselves anymore.. Why? Because they do not want to, try to, intend to, need to, or are willing to "stand out" in the crowd.. Why? They (ie YOU) are the crowd.. They are the new "virtual crowd" who live, work, and play in a virtual world.. They meet and greet each other in an infinite space - MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc... In their virtual world they co-operate rather than compete... There the very best is always FREE... There they have no need to compete... As Alvin Toffler said way back when (now there was a guy who did predict things) they are "prosumers" - they help to produce what they consume.. In their new world of life, work, and play they converse, share, network, create, collaborate, etc. without leaving home... They have no need to congregate.. They have no need to reinvent anything because they have already invented the new world of work.. They are providing the world with a revolution that is far greater than what Henry Ford did a century ago - simply because this one is globally inclusive(plus Space Station for that matter)... Competiting, branding, looking after the company P/L, etc is based on "the exclusion principle" as Richard and Peggy Musgrave explained a long time ago... In the wonderful new world of "YOU" everyone is a FREE-rider.. Branding and marketing as we learned to love it throughout the last century is now becoming irrelevant... What is replacing it rapidly is Relevance, Relevance, Relevance....

Recruit some 14-24 year old non graduates Tom for a new and a truly innovative Tom Peters adventure... Then hang on for dear life because they will take you to places you have never been before - even in your wildest dreams... Brand You is dead long live You....

Merry Christmas to you and yours Tom

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at December 19, 2006 5:53 PM

Branding You means understanding and embracing all that is new. Youtube, MySpace, Linkedin and a hundred other websites and applications.
Sure, a million copy book title or CD will make you famous in one fell swoop, the same affect can be achieved with a thousand small pings over a longer period of time.
Talk about your long tail!

Posted by Jack at December 19, 2006 5:59 PM

After 35 years working in a ‘comfort blanket’ of healthcare in our UK national health service and now working freelance and independent I REALISED TODAY what ‘you’ really means.

Being grilled by 3 high fliers in the academic world at a UK University about some work I had done for them made me understand that when working for myself there just is no place to ‘hide’ in a management structure. Accountability now is to the guy in the mirror and joy upon joy it works!! Happily the outcome was positive for me today – the contract was won – hence the bottle of Red Wine we have just consumed :-)

Liberation means no more ‘hiding’ in a complex management structure designed to protect its incumbents - long live ‘you’ – respond or die!

Happy Christmas!

Posted by Trevor Gay at December 19, 2006 6:25 PM

Good to see the mainstream is catching on to the new world of work. We need to keep living it!

Posted by Tim Bursch at December 19, 2006 7:52 PM

Now we have to encourage all people around us to exercise their power, to make things happen, to dream and execute as fast as they can.

Posted by Ricardo Lopez-Herrera at December 20, 2006 12:27 AM

1. 62% of USA young people find role models in the ranks of "celebrities, movie-types, and sports-heroes."

2. And 60% at USA universities admit to cheating on a regular basis. [Latest "polling"]

3. The "You" youth Tsunami is different ... most anything goes to gain "riches"

4. Time and "You" are 10 years behind the times

TP, Richard & Trevor - nevertheless your points are well taken ... hard is soft & easy once programmed in ...

Life is easy -

1. try easier in '07 - AND

2. lower expectations - AND

3. say Yes to everything - especially WEALTH and it shall beat down your door

Posted by $ean at December 20, 2006 9:34 AM

Hi Sean - Although I am sure the research is correct (and the same in the UK) I think it is very sad that young people see the way to achieve things is through 'fame' and 'celebrity'

I then look at 'famous' people who admit they are unfulfilled. I highlight in particular George Michael and Robbie Williams here in the UK. Lyrics from one of George Michael’s songs (Freedom 90) include the lines:

'Well it looks like the road to heaven
But it feels like the road to hell'

I think I will stick with my role models and try to aspire to them. My role models realise, and more important admit, they are vulnerable, imperfect and fallible.

Nick Gumbel puts it wonderfully;

'What matters in life is not what you do but who you are.'

Best wishes to all in this Festive Season.

Posted by Trevor Gay at December 21, 2006 6:36 AM

A. Merry Christmas Richard, Trevor, Mark & TP & Cathy - wonderful bonus $$$ to all!

1. It seems "capitalism" is an outdated word - in that ideas and their implementation are NOT easily defined as capital - Richard & Mark I agree that NEW wealth is perhaps - more FAIR than ever before if I catch the drift ... easier to dream it

2. Historically - capital for the few - NOW for the "intellectual 3.0" class [for those with high energy to make it happen]

3. Wealth to me is organic in that one must stay healthful & high energy to earn it and maintain it and enjoy it

4. "Health care" oxymoron - seems though if one has high-energy health - that is the OPTIMAL bonus and free enterprise gift of all time?!

5. Bonus '07 to me is try easier - enhance & savor healthfulness

Posted by sean_free at December 21, 2006 12:19 PM

Sean

Totally agree with your comments and especially with your sentiments ... I have been blogging about this "mindset" all year...

Try easier - get into the flow... Enhance and savour healthfulness - choose wellness over illness... New wealth is "fair" because it goes to those who dare to "dream it up" (Google et al) and have the energy to pursue it (AVG, Firefox, Skype, etc)it accumulates at a rapid pace for those who step out of CAPITALISM... Health is the key to the enjoyment of wealth... Wealth is everywhere for those who are willing to stop being victims of their life events...

I tell my two boys "there'll be days like this" - days when for no particular reason everything you do goes well, everyone you meet you can improve their day, everything you work hard for is happening, everything you ever dreamed about is being delivered to you, everything.... I know they now believe that "true wealth" is to have more and more "days like this"...

My wish is for you Sean, Trevor, Mark, TP and everyone at Tom Peters! or on this blog to have at least 365 "days like this" in 2007...

Stay well and have fun!

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at December 21, 2006 6:14 PM

Great sentiments. A Happy Winter Solstice to everyone!

Posted by John O'Leary at December 21, 2006 10:46 PM

I work for an Indian IT consulting firm. Recently we crossed the US $ 1 Billion revenues (we are growing in double digit % YOY). When i joined the company 9 years back, we were posting revenues in the range of 2 million $...and for me, this 1 Billion $ milestone was a great accomplishment and called for a lot of celebration. I was very proud.

BUT ...here is something that really surprised me...We had absolutely no celebrations. We got absolutely no bonuses.

Recently we had our HR head visit us and we asked her why we were not rewarded for all the hard work.

Her answer - "The senior leadership felt 1 Billion $ was not something that we should be celebrating. We still have a long way to go..."

That was really frustrating ...

As more and more "brand you's" take over the corporate world, I hope we will soon have a system where all the stake holders (Investors + Associates) are fairly rewarded...for right now it just looks like the focus is "investor" delight and everything just revolves around that. Just give all the buck to the investor and forget the employee :-) get viagra prescription

Posted by NK at December 22, 2006 12:47 AM

"develop the discipline needed to become a minimalist"

Richard - please amplify if you are around - that [from your lovely website] for me & Trevor - love the minimalist concept plus minimal ecosystem impact is dancing with Mother Nature / Father Time.

1. Maybe phrase as "develop the programme to become a minimalist"

2. To me "the programme" makes life easy - programme in that one shall expend positive energy 17 hours a day to enhance Universal ecosystems ... makes it easy because then to sit idle is incongruent and impossible.

3. Experimented on our twins [now 28 year-olde lawyers] $1M net worth ea ... seemed to have played out in a fun way & they donate 30% plus have killer instinct ...

Posted by sean_programme at December 22, 2006 9:37 AM

Sean

Thanks for your kind comments about my website...

My site is first about "thinking" and second about "doing" - therefore it is about your mindsets, about your ways of thinking, about your ways of being, and about your ways of forming habits.

Culture is about "the way you, we, or they do things around here"... (As you gleaned from my website I am a "rusted-on" fan of Tom Peters, Jim Collins, and Seth Godin). Jim Collins is a great teacher who has developed "a brilliant insight into organisational cultures" - in Good to Great he lays out his powerful notion of "a culture of discipline".... It is a WOW concept.

Throughout 2006 I have written approx. 150 missives or riffs on my site about what I see as "a culture of discipline" for your mindset, your thinking, or your habits. I wrote them purely and simply as "prompts" or "primers" for my readers who wished to reflect upon and/or to improve their own ways of thinking, being, and doing(including to compile a 'stop doing list).

To answer your specific question if I understood it "What does 'develop the discipline needed to become a minimalist' mean?"

It means whatever you want it to mean - you are thinking with a bias towards action so you think of a "programme"...

It also means to develop (over time) "a culture of discipline" in your mind that will enable you to "think, be, and do" only those things that you absolutely must to be true to yourself (your values, principles, beliefs, etc) and to be true to your "real and current purpose" (see and do my 30-day trial on "disrupt with purpose" to better understand that statement as a minimalist proposition).

It also means to develop 'a culture of the mind' that ensures you are able "to think, to be, and to habitually act" towards yourself, towards your loved ones, and towards your environs in ways that enable you to have more and more "days like this"...

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at December 22, 2006 4:27 PM

Thanks Richard.

"Culture of Entertainment Life Worship" - in the free world seems more like it!

How do you define "minimalist"?

I think "discipline" and "programming" may be similar for us - except I'm a bit into NLP & setting up a programme to do use the more instinctual mind - AND to manage emotions since they are still less evolved then most people think! discount real viagra

Take care - best to your family!

Posted by sean_minimal at December 23, 2006 3:53 PM