I try and explain that if I followed everyone who followed me, I’d never read anyone’s posts, and it would achieve instant pointlessness. So I follow a handful. I add a few more each week. It keeps it manageable. It also keeps me entertained, intrigued, informed, and, when it comes down to it, interesting at parties. A lot of people have asked me how I choose who I follow. So here are my five rules of why I might be following you.

5) You’re interesting to me by being totally different than me, and teaching me interesting things outside of my comfort zone. I don’t know much about child psychology, but I do know that learning about child psychology usually tends to teach us about adult psychology. Dr. Jennifer Hartstein is a child and adolescent psychologist, and a contributor to the Early Show. (Full disclosure, she’s also a friend.) Point being, I read her tweets, and it sparks ideas in me for how to deal with clients, how to teach people to use social media, and generates new ideas.

4)You’re interesting to me because the information you provide helps me in real-time. Time is money, money is power, therefore, time=power. And if time=power, the more you know that helps you manage your time, the more powerful you are. Right? Very few tweets go to my mobile phone – But NotifyNYC does. Provided by NYC’s Office of Emergency Management, they tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it. Trust me – If you live in NYC, nothing sucks more than being on the A train, stuck underground for three hours because of a track fire, EXCEPT knowing that you could have avoided it, but didn’t. There are similar accounts for any major city – Find yours, and save yourself some time.

3) You’re interesting to me because you help me know things I didn’t know before, that I’d have no need to know if not for you. I can’t name more than two of the cast of the Jersey Shore. I also have no idea who the Kardashains are, except that they tend to sound annoying. But, I try and keep up on the most pressing issues in the entertainment world. I do that by reading my stream. I place people into my stream who can offer me that information. The Twitter stream of I Don’t Like You In That Way is one great example. In 15 seconds, I know what happened in the world of entertainment. Plus, they’re great writers. What don’t you know about that can better “round out” your life?

2) You’re interesting to me because you make me laugh. Without humor, I would have been dead countless years ago. If you make me laugh in my otherwise hellish day, I will follow you, and I will thank you.

1) You inspire me. At the end of the day, we all need to be inspired.

I immediately got about 100 or so retweets saying “right on!” or “Hell yes!” or similar.

Now as you all know, I’m pretty much the most approachable person in like, the history of forever. Email me – I tell people every day. Got a quick question? Happy to answer it. I put my damn cell phone number in the sigfile of every email I write. There’s a big difference between “Peter, would you use Facebook or Twitter to reach teenagers?” and “Peter, I’d like you to do six hours of work for me for free in exchange for a hot dog, and it won’t be considered work, because I call it “picking your brain” and it sounds much nicer that way!”

Within a few hours, Kami Watson Huyse, APR wrote a blog post, telling the world that my tweet was a pet peeve of hers. She believes I’ve gotten too famous for my own good. She didn’t include my name, but of course, it took about 20 seconds before someone pointed out the post to me. Hey, her opinion, no worries there. But… To counter her post, I submit the following email to her, and then ask the question – Still think it’s about me being a douche?

Kami:

I’d like to take you to lunch. I have no intention of paying for said lunch, (we can go dutch!) But I’d like to get at least an hour to sit down with you, probably closer to two hours. During that time, I’d like to show you (and make you read) my business plan for my new startup. I’d also like you to not only comment on it, but tell me what exactly I should do in the marketing section of it. I’ll need it back by Thursday, but you’re welcome to take it home and send it back to me by email as long as it gets to me by Thursday.

Once you do that, I was wondering if I could call you or email you at least once a week with another question.

I know that you consult to Fortune 100 companies and give them the same advice I’m asking for, for lots and lots of money, but I’m asking you to do it for me, multiple times, for free. You’re nice, so I know you’ll say yes, right?

That sound good?

If you don’t get it to me in time, I’ll probably just email you every few days to see how it’s going, then start calling you on your mobile. Maybe even at home.

So – Yeah – If you could get that all to me, (did I mention for free? I did, right?) that’d be great.

OK? Thanks.

You’re so awesome,

-Peter

PS: A good friend of a friend of mine is looking for a job. Any chance you’re hiring? I’ve included her resume, and also given her your phone number so she can call you directly. Thanks again, you’re a peach!

So Kami – Does my tweet make a little more sense now? Feel free to call me – Let’s have lunch and talk about it. I’ll even pay.

5) Read different things. If the only places you get your news and information are the same places you’ve been going for the past year, it’s time to find some new spots. Check out Newsmap as a start, and go from there. Also find some new blogs that you’ve never checked out before. Essentially, find the opposite of what you’re used to reading, and go from there.

4) Start getting down and dirty with some stats. Fact is, we get tons and tons of stats from our social networks, and 99.9% of them we ignore. Start looking! Right now, go look at the number of followers you have. Then look again on Friday, and see if you notice a difference. Less? More? If you lost them, what did you do to bring that on? If you were retweeted, why? Something interesting? Funny? Learn your audience and you’ll know how to better talk with them. TweetStats is a great place to start, as is FriendorFollow.com.

3) Countless studies have shown that we focus better if we’re utilizing the tools that work the best for us. For me, that’s texting and email. For you, it might be a phone call. Start molding the people to whom you talk into your way of communicating – My outgoing voice mail message tells people NOT TO LEAVE ME A MESSAGE, but rather to text me or call me – They’ll have a much better chance of getting in touch with me that way. And it works – I get maybe one voice mail a month. I turn questions into answers much better if I’m typing – and as more people realize that about me, the more they realize that if they provide me the question in the right way, I’ll return the answer that much quicker. Everyone wins. Are you using the right tools for your job? If not, fix it.

2) Get a pro-bono client. I’m not taking anything away from the Benjamins we all must make – but seriously – take 5% of your time and give it to a pro-bono client. It’ll balance your chi, and besides, you never know who you’re going to meet who’s also doing the same thing – who can wind up being a new paying client. It’s happened to me more than once.

1) Get the hell out of your office. I get a lot of crap whenever I suggest this – “Oh, we all don’t work from home, we all can’t just leave our offices whenever we want.” I’m not suggesting you leave whenever you want. I have meetings almost every day that prevent me from working from Phuket, Thailand this week. But – There are times when I don’t. And there are times when YOU don’t. And your job is to show your boss, or the powers that be, that you’re trustable, you can work without someone watching over you, and you’ll be just as productive whether you’re on a beach, at a park, on a plane, or at your desk. Once you get them to let you, work even HARDER, and prove their fears unfounded. Then you’ll have the ability to do whatever you want. And that’s where the fun starts.

Did I miss any? Leave them below.

He’s right – It’s the new Norwegian Epic – the aptly-named mega-ship, on its maiden voyage.

Note the THREE water slides.

This is one huge-ass ship. As I was looking at it, I heard my mom over the phone in the background “I’d never want to cruise on that – We’d be lost in it!”

She has a point. Bigger is better in a lot of ways – car engines, bank accounts, some porn stars… But is bigger really better?

Top Five reasons to think SMALL.

5) Small rocks in the customer service world. People want to buy a mobile phone from Verizon, since they have the biggest network. But they want to know that Bill at the Verizon store is going to help them when they have a problem. Be global, act local.

4) As mom said, big means lost. No matter how much you grow, remember how you acted when it was just you and a cat, and never lose that. Your customers who started with you in the very beginning will notice if you become “too big for your port.”

3) Small equals love. Ever walk into a wholesale club and can’t find what you’re looking for? Good luck tracking someone down to help you. Answer your own emails, post your own Facebook updates, tweet your own Tweets. Small means true. True means transparency. Transparency means social media.

2) No matter how big you get, never forget that you’re still just one person. Think back to when you were smaller. Things were easier, right? You handled problems yourself. Try doing that again. It’ll give you a rebirth.

1) Remember that bigger doesn’t always equal better. It’s good to strive and have goals, and it’s good to grow. We should all strive to grow. But in the end, the world still runs entirely on protons and electrons. It’s usually the smallest things that have the most power. We all have that power. Let’s not forget that as we get bigger.

Here are five easy ways to help increase that hustle.

1) Talk to three people you haven’t spoken to in a while – Hint – Facebook makes it super easy. Simply look to the right of any page, and you’ll see this:

Simply say hi to three people in your network. Doing this every day guarantees that you’re talking to your entire network, and not wasting those connections. It also promotes top of mind presence, which makes people think of you when they need something – which leads to more work for you, which translates into more revenue – i.e., upping your game.

2) Get off your ass. Get up 30 minutes earlier tomorrow and go outside. Run around the block. Walk if you’ve never run. Go grab your bike out of the garage, dust it off, and ride it for 30 minutes. I don’t need to go into the obvious health benefits of doing this, but here’s something you may not know – A 30 minute workout can boost your endorphins and dopamine levels (the happy chemicals in your body) for up to six hours. That’s six hours of happy-you at work. Result? You do more, manage your time better, and are in a better mood. People respond to that – It ups your game.

3) Go drop some money on something cool. Yes, we’re all taught to save. But never underestimate the game-upping power the hot new phone, or camera, or laptop has for you and your business. Just the simple act of owning it helps – You know how good you felt when you got your new laptop? Same thing. You want to use it more. So you will. More work = game upped.

4) Change the scenery. Work from somewhere else tomorrow. A different block, a different city, a different country. Do what’s 1% out of your comfort zone. If you’re comfortable working from Starbucks, head to the park. My favorite? Go find an airport, and park as close to it as you can without getting arrested – so you’re just outside the runway and in the flight path. Then sit on the hood of your car and work wirelessly on your laptop, making sure to look up every three minutes and watch these multi-ton behemoths fly overhead, just inches from your skull. Loud engines up your game.

5) Take on a pro-bono client. Nothing like doing some good to up your game. Not only will you feel good, but people notice people who volunteer for good things. You’ll wind up helping a ton of people, and as important, your name will get out there to people who matter even more so. Game: Upped.

There are tons of other ways to up your hustle, thereby upping your game. What’s your favorite? Leave it in the comments.