The more I thought about this, I wondered, was that a stupid question? Now, bear with me. I know everyone says that there is no such thing as a stupid question. And I am in no way implying that the lady herself was stupid.

But come on, might that be a stupid question? She’s offering me the same meal for a cheaper price. I am in no way inconvenienced by this change in the transaction. I do not have to wait any longer. My order is not altered in any way, other than how it is rung up and charged to me.

Can you honestly think that there is ANY reason that I would say no? If there is NO reason that a customer should object to our adding value to a transaction, should we even ask? Or is asking a marketing a tool? Is it a way of communicating an increase in value and making the customer aware that we’re looking out for them?

If that’s the case, maybe it wasn’t such a stupid question after all.

This got me to thinking about reasons that people don’t comment on posts. Maybe they aren’t moved to do so. Maybe the content in my own blog posts and those written by others aren’t worthy of people’s comments. Maybe some people read the posts, think they’re crap, and move on. In all fairness, everyone’s entitled to his own opinion.

I’d be lying if I said that I commented on every post that I read. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t have time. Sometimes I feel as if I have nothing to contribute. Sometimes it’s hard to say something other than “I agree” or “Great post.” And if you hate the post, you need to say something more than “This sucks.” That’s not helping anyone.

But I think there’s another group of non-commenters. I think that there are those who feel that they have no reason to say anything. They feel that they have no credentials. No expertise.

If you’re in this class of people, stop thinking like that. You have every reason to speak up. You’re a person. You have a voice. Use it.

Especially on my blog. If you think you have no credentials to talk on my blog, I have no credentials to be blogging. So we’re even.

If you’re waiting for permission to speak, consider it granted. On any blog at any time.

After all, it ain’t social media if you don’t say something.

If you were writing a term paper and needed someone to go to for help, I was your man. I knew the rules of the English language and taught them at every opportunity.

As I read more and more fiction by authors like Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and Hubert Selby, Jr. (Last Exit To Brooklyn and Requiem For A Dream), I realized that it was not their perfect grammar that drew me into their stories (because, to be perfectly honest, neither author has/had perfect grammar). I realized that they broke many of the rules that I had learned about English. Selby’s punctuation was very unusual; he often used slashes instead of apostrophes (example: it/ll instead of it’ll). And Irvine Welsh’s characters hardly spoke proper English. When he quoted his characters, he didn’t write the English language; he wrote the Scottish dialect, the way it was truly spoken.

And then I looked at my own writing, so perfect and intentional, yet so boring and completely lacking in authenticity. And then I realized that, in order to write anything worth a damn, anything true, I was going to have to break the rules. Or maybe you could argue that the rules of the term paper do not apply to fiction writing. And they damn sure don’t apply to the rules of my blog.

Rules are made to be broken (at the right time).

Rules are very rarely absolute. Just look at the English language itself.

i before e except after c. That rule’s kind of weird. Weird, huh, look at that. That word doesn’t follow the i before e rule.

For all of you business students earning your degrees right now, the rules of big business that your professors are teaching you don’t apply to the rules of small business. So, unless you work for a Fortune 500 company, you’ll most likely have to break or disregard those rules that are being drilled into your head as you sit through those lectures.

If you had a boss who left you in charge of his shop and said, “I’ll be out of town; don’t call me,” I’m sure he’d appreciate a call if the place were to somehow burn to the ground. Maybe that example was a little obvious, but it’s not up to me to judge.

So, to close, ask yourself from time to time if you need to break some rules. Are the rules that you’re following truly absolute? Can they never be broken?

What are some other rules that need to be broken at times? Share!

That something is inspiration, I suppose.

I’ve asked this question numerous times and at different places: What inspires you?

Or where do you find inspiration?

But, today, I realize that I’ve been asking only half of the question. Something to ask yourself too, is Who inspires you?

I understand that that may seem like a no-brainer. After all, if music or a book inspires you, then it should be easy to realize that the artist or the author is the person who inspires you, right? Maybe it’s so easy for you, but I can get lost in the simplest concepts sometimes.

I recently unfollowed some of the social media superstars, both on Twitter and on my RSS feed. I’m not declaring a personal vendetta against them and asking you to do the same. I am not declaring that they are frauds, I am not saying that their information is useless. But something happened that forced me to unfollow and unsubscribe.

They stopped inspiring me.

I can’t say why. I can’t say that I’ve passed them up. By no means do I claim to know more about social media than they do. I’m just an enthusiast. I do not truly utilize social media with a purpose as they do. I cannot claim to be more knowledgeable than these people who have made social media their careers.

But, I think that maybe I outgrew them. There was a time when I ate up everything they said as if it were the social media gospel. Their words and their philosophies seemed to be my own, if only I could have thought of them before they did!

But I find myself being inspired more by the people who aren’t quite superstars. The people who are still using social media to meet their goals but maybe aren’t in as big of a spotlight. They’re smart people with good ideas and great ways of expressing themselves. And for whatever reason, their works touch me more than the superstars can now.

The best message and advice means nothing if you’re not inspired to take action or at least inspired to listen and let it sink in. I understand that sometimes, especially when you’re first getting into something, you feel obligated to pay attention to the big names. And you may feel that you would be crazy to stop paying attention.

But again, if you’re not inspired, what’s the point?

If your opinion of who is inspirational and deserving of your time differs from others, don’t be afraid to let it be known.

I think many people credit The Beatles as being the best band of all-time because they hear it again and again. You’d be crazy to argue otherwise, right?

So many people call Michael Jordan the best basketball player of all-time, and that’s cool. He certainly has an impressive set of credentials. But I remember being more inspired by Peja Stojakovic than I ever was by Michael Jordan. Jordan was much, MUCH more accomplished by Stojakovic, I don’t care about that. Jordan may have a special place in many sports fans’ hearts, but Stojakovic has a place in mine. And that’s what I care about — what matters to me, not what matters to others.

So, stop worrying about who influences others. Who influences you? And if it’s not the big names that you constantly hear being thrown around, should you ignore them and turn your attention to the little people who actually inspire you?

If it isn’t obvious to you, I think you should.

How often do you analyze your friendships and relationships? Do you ever sit back and ask yourself why you’re friends with a certain person? There may be instances when you can’t exactly put your finger on it, but chances are there are also times when you know exactly why you’re friends.

Maybe you work together. Or you share the same political or religious views. You like the same arts and entertainment. You’re both dog lovers. Or dog haters.

There are so many ways in which people can connect with each other. And often, when we connect with someone, it’s due to similar interests.

How often do you befriend someone who often disagrees with you? How often do you befriend someone who challenges everything you believe, someone who’s willing to challenge the world as you know it, even if he does so only with words? Do you openly allow others to contest your assumptions?

Some people choose to challenge messages even though they agree with them. They like to take the other side, just to see what kind of conversation can stir up. You may know these people as devil’s advocates.

Some of us shy away from devil’s advocates. Why? One reason may be that we simply don’t like to be challenged. After all, most of us surround ourselves with like-minded people. People who believe the same. People who won’t cause any friction. People who are less likely to piss us off. If this reminds you of yourself, you likely don’t have many devil’s advocates that you call “friend”.

Another reason we may avoid devil’s advocates is because sometimes they have good points. Sometimes they expose the weaknesses in our ideas or plans and reveal what they truly are — underdeveloped and doomed to fail. Many of us see this scenario as a threat, rather than seeing the positive in this situation. If your devil’s advocate has shown the weakness in your idea or plan, chances are that someone else will see the weakness as well. And then another person will. And another, until virtually everyone sees it and refuses to accept whatever it is you’re trying to sell or change.

Also, a devil’s advocate who is willing to look at the other side of an argument can show you angles and points of view that you never imagined. And people who share your worldview and agree with everything you say are not very likely to see these angles either.

Of course, there’s a civil way to go about disagreeing. Yelling and cursing and name-calling is not the most effective way to get a message across. But if you can find someone who can calmly debate with you, I see no harm in befriending him. In fact, I see a great opportunity. I see benefit.

In case you didn’t already know, I love shoegazer music. Think of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, A Place To Bury Strangers, The December Sound. You could probably fit The Jesus and Mary Chain into the mix. Shoegazer is saturated with distortion and effects pedals. Often, the vocals are low, to the point that you can barely make out anything that’s said.

Shoegazer. Wall of noise. Noise rock.

Whatever you want to call it, I love it.

And I fully admit that it’s a bunch of noise. But it ceases to be noise when you turn it into something that people want to listen to. Lady Gaga might be hot on the charts right now, but if I don’t like the way her music sounds, it’s noise.

A billboard on the side of the highway is noise. But receiving an email for a “Buy One, Get One Free” or “50% Off” offer from one of your favorite stores is not noise.

There’s a lot of noise out there. But shoegazer is more than that. When done right, it’s art.

With whatever we’re doing, how do we turn our noise into art — into sweet, sweet music that others want to hear?

I don’t have the answer. It’s just something to think about.

A profile has a purpose. It is meant to be a summary of you, a little snippet that gives people an idea of who you are. Your profile is supposed to make you interesting and attractive. In the social networking world, your profile is one of the most basic marketing tools you have.

However, I hate making online profiles. The only exception is Twitter, because I just throw in a few keywords and interests and wait for people to connect with me. But on those other networks, I struggle to build a proper profile. Why? Because whatever I say sounds silly to me.

One reason is because, as I’ve said previously, some people wrongly perceive certain aspects of their personalities. Because of this, certain words and identifiers have been bastardized and sound desperate when used. Think of a term such as perfectionist. There are so many perfectionists out there, yet there are so few. My best friend, a graphic designer, truly is a perfectionist. However, if he identifies himself as such, everyone would laugh at him. Who isn’t a perfectionist? Isn’t everyone? Yeah. And no.

I recently ranted about this to an old friend, and he said he’d define me as truly being “outside of the box”. Even if I wanted to, I could never use such a statement. Who doesn’t think he’s outside of the box? Who doesn’t think he’s brilliant and creative? Who doesn’t want others to think that about himself? And so that phrase means nothing.

When I see a profile that says something like I have a fun personality or I’m really easy to get along with, I wonder if such statements are true. Such statements are greatly overplayed and don’t truly add any value to your profile. They don’t tell me anything about you.

And there are those phrases that pretty much apply to everyone.

Phrases like I’m a really nice person until you piss me off. Sure, there are some people who are assholes 100% of the time. But such people are few, and even fewer of them would actually admit it.

Or phrases like I get pissed off at people who hurt my friends. Yeah, most of us do. And even if we won’t rush to defend their honor, we’re likely not going to admit otherwise.

To me, it’s just like the person who says: “If you ever need anything, give me a call. If you go to the bar and get drunk — I don’t care if it’s 3 o’clock in the morning – call me, I’ll come pick you up.” I’ve never uttered such a sentence because the truth is that I’m not that guy. If you call me in such a situation, I might have the intention of hopping out of bed and coming to your rescue. But the reality is that I’m more likely to go back to sleep and forget you ever called. And I’m probably more likely to be pissed that you disturbed me during my beauty rest, especially if I have something to do the next morning (like work).

I know such a statement is absurd, so I don’t even try to fake it. I don’t want to paint myself as something I am not.

But how are people supposed to get to know you? How will they ever know who you are?

I’d prefer that people observe my interactions on these networks.

Don’t worry about what I say about myself. Worry about my actions, because they speak louder than words. What kind of content do I share? Do I interact with others? That will tell you so much more than a paragraph or two in my profile section.

And do this with others. And also, do this offline.

People can tell you whatever they want. And sometimes they may tell you how they’d like to be perceived, rather than tell who they actually are. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to insult your intelligence.

I am what I am, not what I say I am. And the sooner I allow you to see that, the sooner you can accept me for me.

While we can’t afford to get stuck in our own past — hanging on to the days of high school and college or the days when we were the captain of our sports teams or cheerleading squads — we also should not allow ourselves to completely ignore the past and the offerings of previous generations.

For example, I hate when young people say they dislike something because “it’s old”. If it’s bad, then it’s bad — and that’s fine. But to discount something because of its age? That is not acceptable. That is no better than an older person not liking something because it’s new.

This discrimination is usually found in music. Many kids, if they can’t remember the day the song was released, don’t care to give it a chance. I listen to new music and I listen to older music. Many of my favorite bands were formed before I was born or were popular before “my day”. When people argue that there’s no good music out there today, I’m quick to remind them that it’s there, but they have to search through more bullshit than they used to. But it would be unfair if I said there was only good music out there today. There’s good music from every decade, every generation.

The same is true of literature. Movies.

And advice.

What if I’d never read How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie because it was originally published in the 1930′s? I would have missed out on so many great stories and so much wisdom and priceless advice that is still relevant today.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is old. Centuries old. Millenia old. Yet it’s still a significant reference for generals in the 21st century. As complex as war may be today, the fundamentals, as identified by Tzu, are still relevant.

I don’t believing in hailing the classics only because they’re older and you feel pressured to appreciate them. But I also don’t believe in ignoring them just because they’re not the “freshest”.

When it comes to art and advice and wisdom, age truly is just a number. And relevance is in no way tied to age.

That goes for all of us, both young and old. And for those of you who may feel that you’re somewhere in the middle.

That might sound like a strange question to ask yourself, but take a second to truly think about it. In his book Tribes, Seth Godin says this is a question you must ask yourself if you are ever going to lead a tribe of any kind. He echoes this point again in Linchpin when he argues that people are scared to stand out and become indispensable because attempting to do so attracts criticism. Keeping your head down and following the status quo is safe. No one notices you when you do this. Therefore, no one criticizes you. The concept is pretty simple, right?

I have to admit that I have unintentionally bought into this mentality. I didn’t realize it until Seth Godin made the point so clear to me.

People think it’s fear of failure that keeps them from being brave and breaking norms. But it’s really the criticism that accompanies failure that keeps us from trying something different. (In all fairness, Seth Godin may have made that point also, so credit to him if necessary).

Failure wouldn’t be nearly so bad if people wouldn’t constantly criticize you and remind you of how you went wrong…

Quitting your job and starting your own business didn’t work out so well, did it? Don’t you wish you’d stayed where you were?

That book you spent two years writing didn’t get published. What a waste…

I guess you’re an okay guitarist. I mean, you’re no Jimi Hendrix.

Yeah, criticism like that can hurt. I feel your pain because I’m not nearly as thick-skinned as I wish I were. But even Seth Godin admits that he’s vulnerable to criticism.

When you do something different — when you’re criticized — for some reason, you’re making an impression on someone. You’re standing out in some way. When you fail to push the envelope, you don’t get noticed and you don’t get criticized.

I’ve realized that I need more critics — scratch that, I need more haters — in my life. Rather than doing everything we can to steer clear of the haters, we need to do what we can to get them doing their thing — hatin’. When you do something meaningful, you’re going to have haters. You can count on it. But when you have no haters, no one deterring you from your goal, that’s when you really need to worry. Because that means there’s no chance of failing. And that means there’s no chance of achieving anything worth talking about. No one sees you as a threat, no one is bothered, no one is paying attention.

Again, I want you to take a little time and think about a question: Do you have enough haters in your life?

When this realization hit me, I thought of this quote that has found its way to me on multiple occasions:

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” — Tony Robbins

I am in no way endorsing Tony Robbins; frankly, I have no idea who he is. But that doesn’t make that quote any less true.

Questions need to be asked, even if they’re completely rhetorical and theoretical and can never have one true answer.

How can we provide solutions if we’re never aware of the problems?

It seems that, at some point, many of us stop asking questions. Is it because when we ask too many questions as kids, our parents say “Because I said so”? Is it because when we question the fairness of a situation or judgment, people tell us not to worry about it and that it is what it is?

This is another question that I don’t have the answer for.

But that won’t stop me from asking. And I hope it won’t stop you either.