Let’s face it, we are all creatures of habit.  It is like pulling teeth to get us to do something that is out of our comfort zone.

However, those who go outside of their habits and outside of their comfort zones are the ones who succeed in life.

Now let’s be honest, I’m a lot like you.  I get scared when I have to go outside of my comfort zone.  I get scared when I have to say yes, but you know what “EVERY DAMN TIME I DO, I’M GLAD I DID.”

I’ve recently found myself having this conversation time and time again, when it comes to networking events.  How do I do it?  How do I find time to go to every single event?  Well guess what we all have the time to do this.   I encourage every one of you to go to a networking event.  Grab a cup of coffee with a total stranger.  You can often meet the most interesting people at them.  You will find middle managers, people looking for a new job, lost souls, other networkers, and even people like yourself…and you know what, these people will be some of the greatest people that you will possibly ever meet.

Going outside of your comfort zone and meeting new people is scary. It is for you and it still is for me…but the greatest achievements in life, happen when we do go outside of our comfort zone.  So I beg you, go outside your comfort zone, meet new people, and challenge yourself.

As I’m writing this in my apartment, I can’t help but think about but think about the age old argument of the work-life blend and where exactly I fall into it.  This is something that I think about a lot, as I often find myself working on projects beyond the 8-5 at a coffee shop or even at home.  Often times, these projects relate to something personal, be it a blog post or checking a social media network, but make no mistake THESE ACTIONS ARE WORK.  What you do online is not just a reflection of yourself but can be a reflection of your company as well.  Just ask ESPN personality Bill Simmons.  All of this is a part of your work-life blend.

Now if you’re not familiar with the work-life blend concept I would suggest for you to check out the WorkTalkShow.com, they discuss it there a lot. Basically it’s the debate of how you blend work & life in today’s tech world. The majority of us have smartphones where emails and notifications are coming at us all the time, no matter if we are in the office or not, so it’s important that we find the right blend to lead our lives.

The work-family blend means a lot, especially if you are a marketer.  Not only are we working for others, but often we can be found working on our own personal brands.  The ability to perfectly blend life and work in the 24/7 real time marketing cycle is something that I take very seriously.   With notifications and emails being easily available on our smart phones, it can be sometimes be hard for us to judge when we should put the work down.

Now being a single guy in a rather mid-size city, I might be a contradiction to everyone else’s schedule, I don’t have kids or a girlfriend that takes up a lot of my time, so I’m able to spend a few more minutes than the regular person checking email or writing a blog post.  As I do this, I often think am I overdoing this?  Am I actually doing something to hurt or help my career?  How does everyone else have time for all of this?  All of these are thoughts that I think about on an almost daily basis.

But let’s be honest, we all do the best that we can.  The challenge of living in this web 2.0 world is that we have to choose and decide when to log off and when to stay on.  It can be hard to get noticed in this great big internet world.  Yes, it’s hard and trust me I’d rather be playing that kick-ass videogame or out partying but to me this work is important.

The Passion

Why do I do this?  I do this for the passion and in my eyes passion is more important than skills, in today’s world.  I believe this and if you beg to differ let me know.  Love for work can easily be shown.  You will go the extra mile and you will probably think about it nonstop.  Yes, you will fail at times, but you will fail whether you have the skills or not.

Skills are great but remember if you don’t have the passion you will get bored easily.  Remember skills can be developed, but passion cannot.

You might not know it but we are all hackers.  We are hacking our bodies every day, not just to make it bigger, faster, and stronger…but to make us more talkative, more alert, and less shy.

I was grabbing drinks, with a friend recently who is an IT manager and the topic of the latest technology trends got brought up.  First we talked about the disaster that was Windows 8, but eventually the conversation got turned to wearable tech.  “Eventually we’re going to have chips installed in our brains. It’s the future,” my friend said.

Now hacking is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.  Ever since the The Verge released the following report, it’s been on this writer’s mind.  Hacking our brains is something that we do every day, even though we might not know it, we’re often trying to stay alert through a cup of coffee or calming our nerves with a calm beer….some of us even eat specific foods to get stronger, faster, and bigger.  There is only so much that the average body can do though and now with wearable tech in development from both Apple and Google…we will be able to hack our bodies in a whole new way.

Hacking is getting easier than ever before, as people continue to look for ways to cheat the system.  Look at Lance Armstrong.  Look at Alex Rodriguez.  Look at the coffee you had this morning.  We’re hacking our bodies every day and we don’t even realize it.

As a civilization be it sports, politics, or any other competitive situation, we’re always looking for ways to beat the system.  Now in a real time world, where technology is doubling every second…I’m interested to see where the future of technology and body hacking will take us.  It begins with the wearable technology…but where will it take us after that?