Have you ever been in the presence of someone that is an absolute master at what they do? Can you remember how it felt?

Trying to describe how I feel when I’m watching a master work is hard for me. How do you describe such admiration, respect, craft, legacy, and awe? How can you summarize the tools, the hours and years spent practicing, the broken fingers, the callused skin, and the breadth of knowledge?

You can’t.

You can only see it in their face. You can only see it in their work. You can only see it in their confidence.

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” – Albert Einstein

That’s an interesting quote: “Mastery demands all of a person”. When watching a master in action you can see them consumed in their craft. You can literally see the passion flooding out of them with every swing of the hammer, every stroke of the key, and every swipe of the brush.

Everything has purpose. Everything has singularity. No step is unnecessary and the process is gospel.

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo

There’s your advantage. People love to witness mastery. They love to taste it. They love to own it. They love to experience it. But the number of people willing to sweat and bleed to attain it are nearly nil.

What will you master?

In the next year I believe we will see a major leap in the maturation of the web. At approximately seventeen years old, the web as we know it hasn’t even had sex yet.

The past few weeks alone have produced App.net and now Medium.com both of which are poised to be paid platforms. This isn’t a new concept or space, but I think the timing of seeing paid networks is upon us. I think the web is mature enough now.

It’s hard to understand just how young the web is when everyone is head down in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or Pinterest but we have to remember what Yahoo, Geocities, MySpace and AOL used to look like.

Now that the web is now stronger off of the desktop than it is on it, we’re going to see the next major growth stage in the life cycle of the web. It’s already with us everywhere we go, yet people are almost blind to the effect it is having on our society and lives.

We haven’t even seen the beginning.

Stop and take the time to reflect on the web. Remember what it was like and what it is today, and hold on.

We’re staring the future of the paid and fluid web right down the barrel.

This is gonna be fun.

I have a lot of heroes. So many people that I see online impress me with great work, thoughts, and creativity every single day.

So much so that I spend more time in admiration and thought than I do in creation. This is backwards and unproductive to say the least.

I think it’s a good thing to study and admire the work of others, but I think it’s counter-productive to have heroes. I say “Kill Your Heroes”. The people that we look up to are no different than we are. They still wake every morning with their own routine and their own ambitions for the day. They have the same fears, challenges, set backs, and epiphanies.

The difference is that they ship. Even if it’s something incremental, the people that we admire ship some form of work almost daily. They write, code, build, make, paint, draft, and anything else related to producing something of note.

The irony of all of it is, that once you start to be known as someone that makes, ships, and creates, your heroes will eventually come to you.

If you have no body of work there is nothing more than the potential discussions of one-way flattery.

Build something great.

Then you’ll have something to bring to the discussion.

Kill your heroes. Their work is great but it’s no more than you’re capable of.

This morning it dawned on me. With a few exceptions, everything I’ve ever done has gotten me to the point where I am right now, in this very moment, at this place on the map.

This past week I’ve had the privilege to join the organization that taught me how to code. Treehouse is a startup poised to change the education system and the way businesses operate in the future.

When you spend four years and over $100,000 on a degree that leaves you ill prepared and grossly in debt, the system is broken. $25 at Treehouse and some invested time could land you a six figure job. This changes everything.

If you own a company, the prospect of having a cross-trained staff that can code and is web savvy, would put you in a position that is nearly impossible to compete against. All for a fraction of most corporate training programs.

If you can’t tell yet, I’m extremely passionate about this topic and this company.

Anytime I undergo a major shift in my life I always take the time to reflect on the steps that got me to this point. Over the last few weeks I decided to leave the consulting world and take my chances on joining an organization that is capable of international change on a grand scale.

After several offers from companies, that honestly I never thought I had a chance with, I chose Treehouse for their team, their mission, and their superior product. I believe in them and their fearless leader Ryan Carson, who is a genuine person and well known in the startup success world.

But I ask myself, “how did I get here?”. What in my life has led me to where I am today? I look at everything that has transpired “Up to this point”.

My childhood, growing up in an entrepreneurial household, being there every step of the way of our business’s growth, learning to love the web, taking the chance to consult and build web platforms for clients (when I wasn’t confident I could), hitting the pavement when it made me uncomfortable, and continually trying to learn everything under the sun, have all trained me for my new challenge at hand.

I say all of that to say this: If there is something you’re passionate about, even if it seems impossible or you’re not wired to do it, go for it. Go for it with everything you’ve got. If a boy from small-town, middle-of-nowhere North Carolina can do it you sure as hell can.

Just remember to be honest with yourself and admit that everything you’ve ever done has gotten you to where you are “up to this point”.

It seems that the most successful product of our time is fear. It’s being sold everywhere in the news, newspapers, TV, and even in everyday conversations with loved ones.

Fear has been used to manipulate people since the beginning of time and it’s been the precursor to many religions, scams, placebos, prescription drugs, and countless other mass marketed, industry-based ideals.

Fear is once again creeping it’s ugly head in the form of world-collapsing economic meltdown. Money is no longer worth anything and industries are falling. Should we buy gold or silver? Should we buy $45,000 worth of dried beans to stack in our bomb shelters?

These stories of the end of times have also been with us since the beginning. I recently read an article from the fifties that stated the exact same things that our news is ranting about today.

Will there be an end to all of humanity one day? Probably. After all, doesn’t everything have an end, a cycle? If we do come to an end, I’m sure it will be our own doing, but I digress.

I would like to propose that our economic collapse is nothing more than a failing industrial age. Just like the other ages that preceeded it, the industrial age is seeing its end.

Mass-marketing and mass-production are products of an industry that has only existed for the past 50 years, and I for one am glad to see it go.

In my opinion, it has led to the demise of families, the demise of individuality and taste, the demise of craftmanship, and the rise of the Jones’s.

The death of the factory system and the industrial age is going to look very painful just like it did in every other major economic shift, but aren’t you tired?

Aren’t you tired of an educational system that doesn’t work? Aren’t you tired of shopping at Walmart and eating food that tastes like plastic and that’s bad for you? Aren’t you tired of having over a thousand dollars worth of car payments every month?

The new age will be drastically different. Rich won’t mean “what you own”, it will mean “freedom of choice”. The new wealthy will be those that are smart enough to create lifestyles that afford them the luxury of making their own decisions on their own time.

We’ll start to see small tribes forming that allow us to find the groups that are just like us. No matter how weird or strange we are, it’s okay. The internet will help you find your peers.

Are you an eye doctor that also likes the novelty of the twenties? It’s cool, there are tons of hipsters and individuals that would love the experience of that kind of office. Are you a paralegal that loves to collect Smurfs? There is no doubt a subculture and yearly tradeshow for that.

No matter how weird or temporarily painful this down economy may feel, take a breather. Be confident in understanding what might really be happening. An industry-based existence that is only 50 years old is on its way out. It came in powered by the ad agencies on Madision Avenue and it completely changed the way we lived.

But that way of living sucks.

We’ve got the best opportunity we’ve ever had to get back to being who we really are.

Don’t buy into the market of fear.

The majority of small businesses out there are in industries where the market is flooded. Remember the days when people knew you as the town physician, the baker, the handyman, the insurance guy?

Where did those days go? Now I have to choose between hundreds of doctors, bakers, dentists, repair shops, gas stations and coffeehouses. Now I go to the coffeeshop for young, hip, professionals. I go to the dentist with the portrait of Elvis Costello hanging on the wall. I go to the baker that has the closest outlook on life as I do, and a passion for the basics and latest trends.

Why? Because I can.

If I’m going to build a relationship with anyone, it might as well be with someone with the same outlook on life, worldview, and taste in music. After all, relationships are built by conversation, and I don’t really want to gab with someone about Lionel Ritchie.

But what does this have to do with business? Everything.

Once you realize that people have organized themselves into tribes, you’ll start to see more and more why a combination of a general business and a flooded market will leave you in revenue limbo.

Do you have a tribe behind your business? Are you a member of a certain passionate type of people?

Religious individuals are good at this, but even they have sub-niches. Tiny communities are good at this, but even the barber runs the risk of a young buck taking over “kids these days”.

Now, for the first time in history, you get to drop the professional speak. You finally get to forget about acting like someone that gets along with everyone. For the first time in business history, the death of mass marketing means you get to be exactly who you are and find the tribe of people just like you to serve.

This is both exciting and scary, but you’ll have to do it. Soon, you’ll have no choice.

As business owners, we have to look at the same problems that our customers, industries and competitors have been looking at for years, and see them differently.

In my line of work, I’m hired to examine a client’s business and industry, that they’ve been involved in for over 20 years, and to create something that they’ve never seen before.

That’s why true innovation is so invaluable. If you can train yourself and your team how to see things differently, the possibilities of creating something industry-breaking are endless.

The first thing you can do is put yourself in the shoes of your clients. You can take this literally and do like I do and strap a flip cam to your head and go through all the motions your customers do, or you can interview and observe them in the real world.

You can also look at what’s worked in other industries. Schlitz Beer hit it big a few decades ago by being the first brewery to explain the process of making their beer. Every beer was made the same way, but by being the first to educate people they were able to grab market share.

A few years ago, a lumber company borrowed this same philosophy and described in detail their process for kiln drying their lumber. Not only did they dominate the lumber business, but they made a fortune teaching other lumber yards their process.

Another way to see things differently is to continually seek out the problems people face everyday and see if you can tie them into your business. We all want the same things, be happy, healthy, wealthy, sexy, purposeful, etc. If you’re constantly focused on the needs and wants of people around you, innovation will show itself.

Looking at extreme users on both ends of your client spectrum will also give you insight on where you can find innovation, and often times visiting the exact opposite of what your competitors are doing will open up new doors for you.

Whatever your goals are in business, training yourself to see things differently will be an advantage for innovating in 20 year old industries that all of your competitors thought couldn’t be changed anymore.

The trick is doing it everyday.

Stuck trying to figure out what to make next? Maybe you’re looking for something new to add to your company, products or services?

The recipe for discovering and making new things is simple. If you want to be inspired and effective with new “things” build a product that solves the simple problems that you have, find the people that are like you, and do your damnedest to enchant them.

With so many people in the marketplace, chances are the problems that you have are shared with a large enough population to support and finance your efforts. The trick is to be aware of your most pressing problems, identifying them, and creating a simple solution for them.

Then hit some forums, online groups, local hangouts, and wherever else people like you would be conversing. After you’ve developed a working prototype of your solution ask people to try it out and give you feedback before you spend the serious money to develop and ship it.

Rinse and repeat and you’ll have a recipe for making new and remarkable things.

An interesting thing to always remember about clients and customers is the fact that they’re irrational.

As much as we would like to think it’s smart to give them logical reasons for buying from us, we have to remember that people love to be entertained, they love to be cool, and they love the unexpected.

We’ve all justified a car purchase, a new iPod, or sleek new jacket saying it would lead to more business, it would be better on gas, or it would save us time, but let’s face it… We bought them because they were cool.

How can you appeal to what people really want?

How can you make insurance, real estate, banking, accounting, or going to the dentist, cool?

Remember to always have logical data to support your cause, but always understand that it’s the illogical things that make people buy.

As with all things in life, business is coming full circle.

With the Internet being all the rage in business an interesting thing is happening. The Internet has made business so transparent that we’re going back forty years and abiding by the small town rules.

If you’re building a business and someone goes online and gives you a bad review it’s exactly like Bill’s second cousin saying that you’re corn meal was bad.

In a small town forty years ago, you couldn’t treat anyone badly or you lost business, integrity and referrals. More recently businesses feel like there are too many fish in the sea to worry about individual customers.

Now, companies are finding that survival means abiding by the small town rules again.

So the challenge then becomes, “how do I simultaneously look ten years into the future and forty years in the past?”.

The answer is understanding and leveraging the new rules of business with the old rules of the past.

This is a beautiful time to be in business.