Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Latest Gem by Perry Marshall
One of my favorite Internet marketers is Perry Marshall of Definitive Guide to Google AdWords fame and founder of the Renaissance Club. I love his no-nonsense approach to marketing.

Today, I got an email from him about a subject that is dear to my heart: overcoming the fears that so often stop us from being the success we want to be online. I'm reprinting it here. If you like it, check out his Renaissance Club. If you like the clarity with which he writes, you'll love getting 20 pages every month of similar insights on marketing, success, and life.

Marcus is eleven, and last summer I took him to father/son camp. Years ago Marcus' younger sister Andria lived with us for three months as our foster daughter. Marcus (a.k.a. "Tank") became my buddy from the inner city and has been ever since. So here we are with no electricity, no running water, 3 days on the Tahquamenon river and every day we do some daring activity like pole-climbing or the ropes course.
The ropes course is 25 feet above the ground and even though Marcus had a helmet, climbing gear and able assistants at every side, he was totally intimidated.
The first section was a sort of horizontal rope ladder that sorely tested his balance and stability. At long last he made it across. But then the next section was a tightrope walk on a single cable.... That's when Marcus lost it.
He looked down at the ground far below and shook with terror. "I'm afraid of heights!" Just to put one foot on that cable and put his weight on it took all the will he could summon.
When he got his second foot on the cable, panic swallowed him up. He melted into a crying, quivering, sobbing mess. He begged, he pleaded, 'please, please, let me go back.'
But... on the ropes course, you can't go back. Once you're on, you have no choice but to finish it. After awhile this became a real problem.
The camp counselors tried to soothe him and reassure him but to no avail. Their experience of helping hundreds of other dads and kids get across meant nothing in comparison to the yawning expanse of terror that lay below that cable.
But then one of the counselors had an idea.
She adjusted his harness and physically proved to him how far he would fall if he completely lost control, by making him sit down right there on the high-wire. He wouldn't even fall far enough for his butt to touch that cable. He sat there and realized how low, low actually was.
No matter what happens, Marcus, no matter how bad you screw up, you won't die. You won't tumble helplessly to the ground and shatter your bones into pieces. You'll be OK. That was the turning point.
He got a hold of himself.
He calmed down. He tested and re-tested his harness and realized, hey wait a minute, I can only fall about four feet, not 25. This harness really will hold me up.
He was still terrified - his emotions were still raging in a war with his mind - but he started putting one foot in front of the other and making progress.
I told the camp counselor, "This isn't one one-hundredth as dangerous as the neighborhood he grew up in, with drive-by shootings and crack dealers on the corner.
"But he doesn't know that." This reign of terror probably lasted 25 minutes. It held up a lot of other campers. But Marcus eventually made it all the way through the ropes course, including the giant rope swing that spans 100 feet (took him a full minute before he was willing to open his eyes).
Somebody at Camp Paradise took notice and decided to give Marcus some recognition. This wouldn't be a big deal to some of the other boys but it was to Marcus, it was a major victory. Maybe the grandest accomplishment of his 11 years.
At dinner the camp director announced that Marcus has triumphed over the ropes course and 120 men and boys gave him a round of applause.
He got high fives the rest of the day, and you should have seen his beaming smile. The most celebrated kid at camp.
I remember watching him during the worst part of the terror, thinking "Man, that's me, at a whole bunch of different points in my life. This isn't something that happens to you once in your life at summer camp. The Black Wall of Fear is something that you stare down multiple, multiple times. Especially if you're an entrepreneur.
And not just in business; The Black Wall of Fear obstructs your path in every sphere of life that matters. There will always be times when the lizard part of your brain is screaming at you, to retreat to safety and sanity.
Hey, isn't this precisely the thing that keeps millions of people locked in allegedly safe, secure Dilbert Cubes? Laboring miserably under buzzing fluorescent lights... going home to colorless nights washed down with a beer and a bag of Ruffles. Drowning the droning of their dreary, desolate lives with episodes of 'reality TV.'
Creating products or inventions or dreaming up things and never having the courage to step out and expose them to the harsh light of day.

Hey Marcus, don't ever forget this - you're going to confront this same Black Wall of Fear at every important transition of your life. You will always question your sanity and you will always wonder, at some level, if the bottom is going to fall out. If the other shoe is going to drop. If you're going to tumble to the ground and smash every bone in your body to bits.

Dear friend and subscriber, I only know of ONE way to defeat that black
Wall of Fear:

Punch your fist right through it and drive on.

Do it.