During some downtime on a recent trip to Mexico I read Purple Cow by Seth Godin. The book isn’t brand new but the overall concept is timeless.

If you haven’t heard about this book before, you may be thinking, “what the heck is a purple cow and why should I care?”

According to Seth, a purple cow is something remarkable.  When he was driving in the French countryside he was at first “enchanted” by all the cows grazing in the pastures.  But after a while they all started to look alike and became boring. But had there been a purple cow?  Now that would have been something to talk about.

Remarkable things are new, different, interesting, and often built-in.  Because standing out is probably the biggest key to success in anything we do.

Some of my favorite points he discussed include:

• We are taught to fit in, follow the rules, and play it safe from an early age. It’s no wonder taking chances scares us so much
• Criticism of the project is not criticism of you. The only way to avoid criticism is to play it boring and safe-which is failure in the end
• Remarkable things don’t have to be big in size. Getting in the habit of doing the “unsafe” thing- no matter how small- gives you practice at seeing what’s working and what’s not
• Find things that are “just not done” in your industry and do them
• You must create a purple cow.  You can’t afford to be boring

So, while we can easily appreciate remarkable things after they appear, how do we train ourselves to create something remarkable or at least recognize it when it’s still in the idea stage?

In my opinion, it’s how we approach challenges:

One question that I try to ask myself often is: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

Take a second to think about that.

From product inventions to campaign ideas, to mega brands to your personal brand;  ask how you can push yourself and ultimately surpass the boundaries to become something extraordinary.

Of course we can always find restraints and factors to blame:

“There wasn’t enough money in the budget…”

“We didn’t have enough time…”

“The client didn’t want to take the risk…”

But if you do one thing every day that scares you, I think you have the unique opportunity to train yourself to become more comfortable with risk and infinitely more likely to be and create something remarkable.

I’ll leave you with a final quote:

“Don’t refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase – that’s what wild geese are for.”  ~Author Unknown

Or in this case, a purple cow chase.

Check out this TED talk by Seth giving you a glimpse at what the book is all about:

Seth Godin – A purple cow from Urbane on Vimeo.

photo credit: whatsurplan.wordpress.com, TED.com