The World According to Mitch Fanning

The last 3 months have been quite an adventure.

Here are some highlights and firsts:

• On April 23rd, I got married on Anini Beach (Kauai) by officiator (Koko Kanealii), who co-starred with George Clooney in the Oscar nominated movie “The Descendants,” which was partially filmed on Kauai in 2010.

• Learned how to surf.

• Went snorkeling off the Napali Coast.

• In May, spoke at Landord WebCon and Mesh Conference.

• Fruition Interactive Inc. became certified agency partners with HubSpot.

In addition to reaching some major milestones in my life, I’ve also had some personal insights and transformations I feel are worth sharing.

Vision Boards

I’m a big believer in Vision Boards.

Here’s why…

Basically, vision boards, are cork boards with images of things you dream of having, achieving, but most importantly, doing in the near future.  I got the idea years ago after reading the book The Secret.

Below are two images.

The picture on the left is a generic image I found on the Internet, which I had on my cork board for years.  The picture on the right is of Kari and I on our wedding day (in Kauai).

Look familiar?

Some dreams really do come true.

Pivot (or Persevere)

While reading the book, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (highly recommend), I came across the concept known as the “pivot” (or the strategic pivot as I refer to it).

Simply put, a “pivot” is a change in strategy without a change in overall vision.

What I found liberating was the fact that we all sometimes feel like we need to persevere.  Once we start something we need to finish it. What most people don’t realize is that making a course correction is not giving up. Well known web companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Groupon have all made pivots.

Your vision doesn’t need to change, only your strategy (or tactic) does.

As author Eric Ries, puts it,

there is no bigger destroyer of creative potential than the misguided decision to persevere.

So true.

Here’s Eric Ries explaining what a Pivot is in his own words (For some reason, if you can’t see this video, going to full screen solves the problem)

What’s Your Personal Legend?

I just finished reading The Alchemist by best-selling author Paulo Coehlo.

In short, have a quest, follow your heart, and have a Personal Legend. Doing so will lead you to treasure (i.e happiness). In Coehlo’s words, “a Personal Legend is something you have always wanted to accomplish or do.”

A couple interesting things to mention here. First, when Coehlo wrote The Alchemist he was a “nobody” (at least in the book publishing world).

By writing the book he, in fact, was pursuing his own Personal Legend, which was to write and become a writer.

Second, this was the first non-fiction I’ve read in about 20 years. Most of the books I read are non-fiction. I read the book every night just before going to bed, which helped to cleanse my brain of any random thoughts I had of the day just before going to sleep.

So What’s The Point

Dream big.

Have a vision (or maybe even a vision board). Having a dream makes life interesting. That said, if things aren’t working out, don’t be afraid to “pivot” from your original strategy or assumptions as you move towards your vision.

Remember, when you make the decision to pursue your Personal Legend, you (as Coehlo puts it), dive “into a strong current that will carry you to places you’ve never dreamed of when you first made the decision” (The Alchemist, page 70).