Adii Rockstar

Rockstars need to remember to leave the reacting and responding to their competitors.

Watching your competitors and their every move, in a stalker-like fashion, and then consistently responding is not very Rockstar. Deep competitor analysis is old school; that mountain of inconclusive data is poison to unique ideas and strategies.

Rockstars aren’t responsive; we’re not followers. Instead we are proactive – we trust in our own ideas, choices and abilities. We don’t jeopardize these by basing all our decisions on the existing actions of others in the industry. It’s not healthy or time conserving to constantly second-guess all choices and strategy.

Pursuing a dream is risky and a Rockstar requires a certain amount of arrogance and an inability to be influenced.

This doesn’t for one minute mean that you should completely shut down. Knowing what competitors are doing is important but, in the short term, changes in this sphere should not lead to a response or a change in tactics.

Instead Rockstars should look at developing a process where a vision, with certain contingency plans, is developed and tweaked (more regularly for volatile industries and less for minimally fluctuating industries).

This approach allows you to stick to your unique ideas and strategy and, at the same time, have options available should specific changes occur with your competition or within your industry environment.

(Note: This is an extract from my upcoming Rockstar Business book.)

Inspiration really happens at random and unexpected times. And this post is no different…

So this past Friday evening, I was spending some time with my little sister (she’s 16 now) and she told me that she didn’t know what she was gonna do after school (she finishes high school next year and thus needs to apply to varsity in the next couple of months). She continued by stating a bunch of careers that she was interested in and I could sense that she had already spent some time thinking about the pros & cons of each of these careers.

Now, what advice to give someone of that age, considering that their decision at this stage in their lives, will ultimately influence the first part of their careers. So it’s a significant decision to make… My advice to her? The most successful people in life make money from their passion.
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This is an adapted version of an unedited chapter from Rockstar Business. I’m telling you this, because I’d like to give you an idea of what the book will feel / read like…

I like to consider myself an entrepreneur, even though it is a rather generic term (“Adii Rockstar” sounds much cooler than “Adii Entrepreneur”, right?). But considering that I’m still a far way off of really establishing an definition (at least one option for it) for the concept “Rockstar”; entrepreneur has much wider appeal.

One thing that I’m not entirely aligned with though, is the way that entrepreneurs are generally regarded and what kind of characteristics are associated with the label. So whilst I’ve been busy writing Rockstar Business, I’ve really considered the ways in which a Rockstar is similar to an entrepreneur and decided that being a Rockstar is simply a new (alternative) way of being an entrepreneur.

A recent post by 37Signals however prompted me to write a blog post on the topic… (more…)

Whilst I’ve been writing draft chapters for my upcoming book – which is totally built around this “Rockstar” concept – I’ve been asking myself whether I’m actually qualified to write a book preaching good lifestyle & business choices. I know that supposed self-doubt is not generally something that you would associate with my persona, but I think it is worth me asking these questions…

The thing is, that until now I’ve been rather successful and had a pretty “smooth” road in establishing my two businesses. I wouldn’t label say that I’ve been lucky in any way, but I have been very blessed. But being successful isn’t really the question here…

My question is: Is it easier to promote this “rockstar” way of doing business when one is successful? Or can one only validate these theories once you can show that they work in both good and bad times?

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A couple of weeks ago I posted about about the rockstarbusiness.com domain that I had bought and would be implementing soon. Back then (makes it sound like ages ago), I wasn’t in the position to really share any details for this little side-project, as I had to confirm them first… Today however I can share some more exciting news in this regard.

I’ve always had the ambition to write a book sometime in my life and I believe that there’s really no better time than now. So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been planning and writing a new book called Rockstar Business. It’s a little earlier to box the book off with a specific definition, but in broad terms the book will look into how I have conducted my businesses and thus publish ideas on how you too can be a rockstar at what you do. (more…)