Executive Presence, page 2

Have you ever invested a ton of time preparing a presentation to a key executive only to leave after your precious 15 minutes was up with the COO agitated and misunderstanding what you had brought to the table? You vetted it, everyone with you plus the global team was on board except this one guy.

In his book, Executive Presence, Harrison Monarth gives you a clear view of how information is filtered and offers ways to ensure that you get the respect you deserve for your efforts. His advice is practical and his anecdotes help you to quickly grasp the meaning of the processes that impact and influence crucial outcomes.

Golden Egg

The power of developing presence

“Your presence communicates your self-worth and confidence as well as the level of respect you have for others and the occasion.” (Click to Tweet!) 

Executive Presence, page 26

There is something about your presence that sets you apart, that makes you some combination of brilliant, charismatic, empathetic, smooth, persuasive, strategic and full-on cool.

Simon Colwell of American Idol fame, who possesses only a few of those attributes, refers to the latter criterion as the “it factor,” and by implication one can conclude that you have it or you don’t. Although that may be true in entertainment and athletics, the business and corporate world remains a place where, genetics aside, you can acquire and evolve the attributes of a CEO-level executive presence the old-fashioned way – you can learn them.

Many of those in management haven’t learned how to leverage their assets by effectively representing themselves or communicating with others to the best of their abilities. You need to master a multitude of communication skills to create an executive presence and reach the top in your field.

These skills range from accurately reading people and predicting their behavior to subtly influencing the perceptions and behavior of those around you, from persuading those of opposing views to come over to your side to creating and maintaining a personal brand that broadcasts your positive reputation to a wide audience, and from managing and controlling your online reputation to performing effective damage control when things go wrong.

GEM #1

The path to perception

“‘To each his own’ has never been truer than it is when it refers to the way people filter information.”

                                                                                                                                Executive Presence, page 9

We are at our core a society of pitchers. Pitching – the kind that pleads a case and asks for the order that wraps an agenda within a message and ties a neat bow of sincerity around it – is the very essence of commerce, the lifeblood of law and politics and romance, the fundamental stuff of human interaction.

We pitch our qualifications at job interviews. We plead our case in courtrooms and at bars over drinks. We manage employees by pitching them our wisdom and our vision for the future. We are pitching when we sell, when we lobby, when we complain, and when we seek to be heard and understood, which for most of us happens each and every day.

The common denominator is being understood. But all pitches, and more aptly all pitchers, are not created equal, and the most persuasive among us know something the rest of us don’t.

Consistently successful communicators – whether they are sales professionals, politicians, lawyers, managers, parents, partners, or coaches – know how to manage and influence the way they are perceived. More than that, they understand that it is perception, not intention or even content that dictates the outcome of an agenda that resides at the heart of each and every pitch we make.

The way we are perceived by those who experience what we say or do or even our mere presence is the product of a specific neurological process whose outcome can take any number of forms. Information is taken in by one or more of five sensory portals – the senses – and then is filtered or processed by a suite of specific mental mechanisms that assign meaning and nuance to what has arrived through the senses, each with very different criteria and experiential rationales.

The line between input and output is anything but straight and is not remotely simple. This is the source of our opportunity as communicators, because if we know what we are doing, we can be architects of that line.

GEM #2

How to communicate for maximum impact

“If awareness is your social radar, authenticity is playing to the social radar of others by being genuine, honest, and respectful. Phoniness and bluster, no matter how proficiently conveyed, are easy to spot and consistently off-putting on several levels. The concept of honesty goes beyond telling the truth; it embraces conveying the truth about yourself as well.”

Executive Presence, page 26

The collective memories, experiences, values, and beliefs of the person to whom you are delivering a message may seem to be a significant hurdle, and rightly so. That means your goal should not be so much to change people’s minds as to use their existing thought modeling to your advantage. In other words, the most effective approach is not to challenge the audience but to play to the audience. If you can make your pitch about them and the effect that your content will have on their lives rather than about you or your priorities, you may be able to end a belief system that seems less than pliable.

You are left with two primary strategies. First know your audience. Do what you can to understand the way the members of the audience will filter your message, which includes biases and preconceptions that are firmly in place before you utter a word. Work toward understanding the underlying values and belief systems on which those biases and preconceptions are based. The more you speak their language – particularly in the terms of context and framing – the better off you’ll be when it is time to tell them something that challenges or stretches the status quo.

All this falls into the category of content, and by now we’ve established that style occupies an equally high place in the hierarchy of effective communication. This means that the nature of your delivery is the second tool you must optimize, including the pace and tone of your words, the nature of your body language, and the visual presentation that packages it all.

This book is an excellent guide for anyone aspiring to take their career and communication skills to higher levels. With the right timing, delivery and with spin that optimizes your chances because you’ve done your homework, you’ll have given your message the best shot it can have at success.

In the comments below, let us know….

Have you experienced the power of presence in your communications?

 The As If theory suggests that the opposite is also true:
You smile — You feel happy
You run away — You feel afraid”

The As If Principle, page 11

Modern self-improvement texts universally direct us to change how we think in order to change how we behave.

Dr. Richard Wiseman, Britain’s only professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology, shows in The As If Principle that instead, we can focus on actions which will change how we think and feel. We get the same results, only faster and, according to Wiseman’s studies, more consistently and reliably.

Acting as if we already have a quality will produce it.

Golden Egg

Acting As If You Feel (Or Don’t Feel) Something Will Make It True

“If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.”  (Click to Tweet!)

William James, quoted in
The As If Principle, page vi

Ever heard of a laugh club? People get together and laugh. Not at something or someone. They just laugh.

And it makes them happy.

We know that when we’re happy we smile. But can smiling make us happy?

It turns out, it does.

And behaving as if we’re not in pain reduces the amount of pain we feel.

The connection between our actions and emotions is usually thought to be one-way: emotions cause actions, including facial expressions.

Extensive research has revealed that this connection goes both ways. Behaving as if we feel (or don’t feel) an emotion will cause that genuine emotion.

This is not psychological trickery, faking it ’til you make it. Acting as if we feel an emotion produces physiological changes.

GEM #1

Your Brain Can Change Your Body

“Ekman’s findings showed that behaving as if you are experiencing an emotion does more than influence how you feel; it also has a direct and powerful effect on your body.”

The As If Principle, page 18

When we’re happy, we smile. When we’re angry, our brow constricts and our mouth shape changes.

At the same time, changes take place in our body. Pulse, respiration, temperature, perspiration, all change subtly.

When we act as if we feel a certain emotion, the very same physiological changes occur. A real change is taking place; it’s not all in our head.

Taking simple actions can change how we feel, including creating persistence and willpower.

Some examples you can try for yourself:

• Overcoming procrastination — Act as if you’re going to do the task by making a start. Get the supplies you need together. Even if you had no intention of doing the task right now, you’ll feel a strong motivation to continue.

• Persistence in the face of a challenge — Sit up straight. Cross your arms. In research, those who adopted this pose stuck with a challenging problem twice as long.

• Willpower — Tensing your muscles boosts willpower. When you’re feeling tempted, make a fist (and, if you like, shout loudly “You’ll never take me alive!” though not if you’re in a library or police station.)

GEM #2

Influencing Others: Start With Their Actions Instead of Their Thinking

“On each occasion, behaving as if believed a certain argument achieves what a hundred rational reasons couldn’t, quickly changing their attitudes in favor of the position they were asked to support.”

The As If Principle, page 160

When we’re responsible for guiding others, in work or in life, we’re constantly looking for buy in, for that moment when they believe in what they’re doing, and no longer need external motivation. We try every possible form of persuasion.

It’s far more effective to simply get them to take action. Even a small action can lead to new thinking.

Want employees to sign up for a new program? Spend less time trying to convince them. Instead, ask them to pick up the forms, whether they’re considering signing up or not.

Behaving as if they’re the kind of person who’ll sign up for the program vastly increases the likelihood they will.

Want your child to keep their room cleaner? Select one area (their dresser, or the space in front of their bed) or item (socks, books, blue toys) and ask them to manage that.

Behaving as if they’re neat makes it far more likely they’ll become neat.

Wiseman knows these concepts are highly counter-intuitive. They’re the opposite of what most of us believe. He includes techniques and experiments throughout the book to allow you to prove to yourself that if you want a quality, act as if you already have it.

How could you use the ‘as if’ principle to address your greatest business or personal challenge?

Disney U, page 53

Growing up just 12 miles from Disneyland, I was thrilled to visit “The Happiest Place on Earth” during its grand opening and several times a year thereafter.  By the time I returned for D-land’s 50^th anniversary, Walt Disney’s vision had mushroomed from a single 85-acre theme park into a global conglomerate spanning the globe on land and sea.

Yet one Disney feature has remained constant throughout the years–its world-renowned customer service.  With fluctuating markets and changing leadership, how has the Disney brand consistently managed to maintain this world-class act, generally regarded as the gold standard, for over half a century?

In Disney U, Doug Lipp provides the answer:  Disney University, which assures that all employees from Anaheim to Paris, from janitor to COO, are committed to delivering stellar customer service.  In this insider’s view of the evolution of Disney U, Lipp weaves together anecdotes and lessons of the legendary Van Arsdale France, to create a model for other organizations who would like to achieve a similar reputation for service.

Employee development programs are not extras; they serve as company health barometers, Lipp asserts.  Organizations who want to flourish will find his book a welcome resource for adding some Disney magic to their training.

Golden Egg

Consider Employees Your Most Important Customer

“The best way to offer outstanding service to our guests is to offer it to our employees.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Disney U, page 11

Should a serious business care about the happiness of its employees? The answer is a resounding “yes” at Disney.  In creating “The Happiest Place on Earth” for park visitors, the Disney team learned the vital importance of training and developing the cast and crew that stage the “show.”  Management appreciates that what happens “on stage” is a direct consequence of what happens back stage.

Handpicked by Walt to train the first “cast members,” Van France, along with Dick Nunis and others, revolutionized the concept of employee training to the demands of a rapidly growing organization with theme parks on three continents.  Thus from the start, Disney U has enjoyed unwavering leadership support, allowing for the evolution of a comprehensive approach to the development and care of all employees.

What began as simple employee orientations morphed into broad programs that have enabled the company to prosper even during massive changes and economic downturns. Even in hard times, while other organizations trim training and development budgets, the Disney approach is to enhance and leverage them in order to remain successful.

The wisdom of this approach has been affirmed several times over as Disney U came to the rescue to meet challenges of growth, engagement, and culture, saving the brand and profitability simultaneously.   It is a valued part of the organizational culture.

By sharing insider stories of how the company survived major challenges through training innovations, Lipp supports his assertion that a company is only as strong as its employee development program.

GEM #1

Model the Behaviors You Want Employees to Learn

“Quality is essential in guest courtesy, in showmanship, and throughout our backstage activities as well as those on stage.” 

Van France, as quoted in
Disney U, page 160

Disney envisioned Disneyland a huge stage, and accordingly, it became all about putting on the best show.  Disney U Dean Van France was determined to have employees committed to creating Disney magic for park guests at every turn.  For example, he insisted that clothes must be spotless. Everything should gleam. Front-line employees— “the cast”—must learn to smile and to gesture with an open palm, never pointing a finger.  In short, Snow White must never have a bad day, and the rides must never break down.

To instill the Disney commitment to superlative service, its training programs needed to model—not merely preach—that cultural value to employees.  “Do as I say, not as I do” was not and still is not acceptable.

Thus Disney U trainers walk the talk:   the training rooms are impeccable, with chairs neatly aligned—even after breaks.  Instead of rushing around before lessons start, beaming trainers focus warmly on trainees as they arrive.  Even back stage areas, e.g., the tunnels that cast and crew use between park areas, are kept painted and well lit to maintain morale.

GEM #2

Instill pride rather than servility in employees

“Everyone picks up the trash.  No one is above pitching in and helping.”

Disney U, page 155

Disney fosters employee engagement by taking the servility out of service jobs.  Van France understood at the deepest level the importance of creating pride among employees as he created a movie-based terminology for success which has been copied around the world.  Thus park employees are “hosts and hostesses” or “cast members” who wear “costumes” rather than “uniforms,” while the visitors are not customers but “guests.”  “Crowds” are called “audiences.”

“I wanted people to feel they were involved in something more important than parking cars, serving food, sweeping up popcorn, that they would be creating happiness for others,” Walt Disney explained. 

Top management stays in contact with the day-to-day realities faced by park staff. No one is too high and mighty to do front-line duty now and then. This is not just a coat of paint, Lipp notes:  “Everyone picks up the trash” is a lived cultural value at Disney as even executives are known to stoop over to pick up litter, don costumes, and greet guests.  And front-line employees are encouraged to make on-the-spot decisions to resolve problems, e.g., to replace a child’s spilled popcorn free. This “popcorn empowerment” costs but pennies and is worth its weight in gold in producing staff loyalty.

Nor is anyone too low to have their voice heard.  Employee feedback sparked the tunnel upgrades, an employee park, and other recreational opportunities that enhance retention.

During its first fifty years, Disney University adapted to company needs and will continue to do so, Lipp concludes.  At the same time, its twin core values of caring for employees and customers serve as a beacon to other organizations seeking success and sustainability.

As I see it, breaking out of the old HR box where employees are treated as interchangeable widgets rather than important partners is good for business.  Disney U belongs right next to Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness and Wagner and Harter’s 12:  The Elements of Great Managing as more testimony to the value for creating environments in which employees can flourish.  Lipp’s book also reminds us that Disney U has been putting that wisdom into practice for over half a century.  When will other organizations catch up?

In the comments below, let us know… 

Consider employee engagement in your organization:  Does management treat employees as the most important customer?  Does everyone “pick up the trash?”  What changes would you recommend for creating happier employees?  What steps could you take on your own?

James Allen, as quoted in
How Successful People Think, page 123

John C. Maxwell makes the case throughout How Successful People Think that the difference for what we want out of life is pulled only from our mind.  If you want to change your life, change your thinking.

Golden Egg

Think! Don’t merely conform

“What luck for rulers that men do not think”.

Adolf Hitler, as quoted in
How Successful People Think, page ix

Thinking is, pardon the pun, something that we just do not think about.  Have you ever found yourself on the internet, surfing along only to realize that 15, 20, 30 minutes have gone by, and for what?  What good thinking has occurred during that time?  Or have you ever just read something from a magazine, book, or blog and thought “that must be true, they wrote it!”?  As the quote above states, the greatest power we turn over to others comes when we do not actively engage our minds in the discipline of thinking.

The 11 Thinking Skills Maxwell lists in his book are all actionable and deserve a GEM for each, as the depth he provides is equally insightful and challenging. But for me, I was most inspired/challenged by two skills in particular: Big Picture Thinking and Reflective Thinking.

GEM #1

Think Big to be Prepared

“There comes a special moment in everyone’s life, a moment for which that person was born…when he seizes it…it is his finest hour.”

Winston Churchill, as quoted in
How Successful People Think, page 6

The power of big picture thinking: does the quote above send chills down your spine?  If not you might want to check your heart to be sure it’s still beating!  There is a reason that we are all put here on this Earth, and regardless of your spiritual background, this is something most people agree on.  And to think, when that moment comes, will you be ready?  Will you know what to do?  Maxwell would say yes…if you engage in Big Picture Thinking.

Do you ever find yourself “caught up” in the seemingly mundane aspects of life?  Tonight, for example, I came home, painted the bathroom with my wife, grilled a meal, held my daughter during a crying spell, changed a diaper, and wrote this summary.  All small, trivial, mundane actions.  However, what is the bigger picture?  I love my wife and want to spend time with her helping on a project.  I want to live a healthy lifestyle, so we grilled lean meat and vegetables rather than running to get fast food.  My four month old is growing up, and she will never be four months old again.  Is some crying really going to ruin my night?  And on and on it goes.  The seemingly mundane, trivial, and oftentimes just plain annoying aspects of life all fall into perspective when laid against the backdrop of the Bigger Picture.

The actionable step many of us can take is to focus on bigger things rather than just the diaper in our hand or the work left to be done.  What do each of these actually mean in the grand scheme?  Through that lens, even the most menial of tasks can find value.

Some days, though, life can just be life, moving at a speed where we look up and ask ourselves, “WHAT did I do today?”  In times like these, you can employ another of Maxwell’s thinking skills: Reflective Thinking, which we will discuss below.

GEM #2

Look back to appreciate what comes ahead

“William Shakespeare wrote, ‘Experience is a jewel, and it need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate’.  Yet, experience alone does not add value to a life…it’s the insight people gain because of that experience.”

How Successful People Think, page 74

To quote a wonderful philosopher, Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  This is the power of reflective thinking.  As we continue to move at even more breakneck speeds in the world we live in (I can’t have 3G, I want 4G!  No, even more, I want LTE!  No, give me 100GLTE+!!!) taking the time to sit, pause, stop, and reflect is lost in the never ending shuffle of daily tasks.

To combat this Maxwell recommends setting a time, place, to just stop to think through your day.  What went well?  What didn’t?  What would you change?  What are you going to do better tomorrow?  What do you want to do again?

The overworked and under-slept among us will cry out with shouts of “Not possible!  I already don’t have any time for anything else, how can I possibly do this?”  To which I would simply offer: If it is important to you, you can make time for it.  Perhaps that means no Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, blogs, etc.  As Maxwell goes back to over and over again, is the return from those activities paying off?  If not, why do you engage in them?  Invest in yourself, and think reflectively to find ways to continue to grow and become.

Let me leave you with this final thought, a quote from Maxwell’s book.  ”Economist John Maynard Keyes, whose ideas profoundly influenced economic theory and practices in the 20th century, asserted, ‘The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones’”.  Thinking, good, bad, some, or none, will ultimately make you who and what you want to be.

In the comments below, let us know…

What are areas you can change you thinking for the better?

The Trust Edge, page 3

What is the foundation of success? Trust. But how do you become worthy of trust? David Horsager quantifies it in The Trust Edge. Warning: If you are hoping for a quick fix, it doesn’t exist. Building trust is like growing a forest. Many seeds are planted, nurtured over time and then with one small match, destroyed.

So how do you plant and nurture those seeds? Horsager teaches us how to build 8 pillars of trust. Trust is the natural result of thousands of tiny actions, words, thoughts and intentions. Gaining trust is work! Every interaction has the potential to increase or decrease trust. What is the benefit to all that work? Those who embrace the 8 pillars will enjoy better relationships, reputations, retention, revenue and results. He shows us how trust, not money, is the currency of business and life!

Golden Egg

Crisis of Trust

“In spite of the importance of trust in our business world today, few leaders have given it the focus it deserves.”

The Trust Edge, page 28

We are in a crisis of trust. A study by Datamonitor found that 86% of the consumers in the US and Europe were less trusting of companies than they had been just five years ago. Another study Horsager cites suggests that fewer than 2 out of 5 employees today have trust or confidence in their senior leaders. In my area, pharmaceutical companies have fallen from being Fortune magazine’s most admired industry (Merck for 7 years in a row) to now where we are ranked alongside tobacco companies! Why? Trust—or rather lack of it.

Despite this, people seldom talk about trust as a competency to learn and practise!

The good news is that the trust edge is built on habits that can be formed. The development of habits implies consistent work over time. Is it worth it? YES! The benefits are tremendous. The lower the trust, the more time everything takes and the more things cost. The higher the trust, the faster the innovation, the greater the creativity, freedom, morale and productivity! Trust can accelerate growth while mistrust destroys it.

GEM #1

How to Grow Trust

”Trust has become the world’s most precious resource.”

The Trust Edge, page 2

Horsager teaches the 8 pillars of trust, attributes that put leaders like Warren Buffet and companies like Google on top. He also includes practical ways to live those attributes. The 8 pillars include:

1) Clarity: People trust the clear and distrust the vague. Show people the “what” and let them create the “how”. Communicate the vision frequently.

2) Compassion: Caring leads to trust. Listen, appreciate, recognize, serve others.

3) Character: Integrity builds trust. Ask yourself “Is this the right thing to do?” Demonstrate character through: humility, principles, intention, self-discipline, accountability.

4) Competency: Create a plan for staying competent. Stretch your mind with new ideas, fresh thoughts and different viewpoints. Be intentional with your downtime. Prioritize learning.

5) Commitment: Without commitment from the leader, the team can not win. Passion is the essential ingredient for commitment.

6) Connection: Relationships build trust. Ask great questions and listen. Care about others. Be genuine. Be grateful. Avoid complaining. Apologize sincerely.

7) Contribution: Deliver results. The more you give the more you receive. Choose difference-making actions that are focused, clear, quantifiable, realistic and consistent with your main vision. Don’t delay decisions; it increases confusion, clutter and stress.

8) Consistency: The track record of trust is built over time. Action, not words, builds trust.

GEM #2

Lots of Choices – Pick Just One!

“There are some circumstances beyond our control, but for the most part, we are the result of our collective actions and decisions.”

The Trust Edge, page 227

I chose the Consistency pillar to expand upon because while all the 8 pillars are important, if they are not done consistently, they will crumble. Similar to lessons from Darren Hardy’s The Compound Effect, Horsager suggests it is the little things, done consistently over time that makes the biggest difference in sharpening the trust edge. What are those little things? Horsager suggests that if you do the following over time you will see dramatic results:

1) Take the stairs instead of elevator
2) Eat healthy food
3) Read good books
4) Find a mentor/be a mentor
5) Write in a journal
6) Plan getaway time
7) Drink water instead of soda
8) Volunteer
9) Pray/meditate
10) Exercise
11) Cut TV time
12) Be around great people and imitate them
13) Write thank-you notes
14) Listen to good music or messages
15) Take time to think and dream
16) Go out on a date with your significant other
17) Be grateful

I was reading this book on the airplane to Jamaica for our family’s March break. After investigating the resort I said to the kids, as I averted them from the elevator to the stairs to head up to our room on the fifth floor, “We’re stairs people”. Everyday we raced up and down those stairs. The kids reminded me at the end of one particularly hot, long, adventurous day, with my arms laden with sand toys, towels, books and bags (read: Mommy was tired!) that “We’re stairs people, Mommy!” Right.

What one thing from the list above could you do consistently for the next ninety days? How would it change your life for the better?

I don’t think anyone would argue that being trustworthy is key to business and life success. Then why do we not spend time learning how to cultivate it? Something with this much benefit is certainly worth the expenditure of much effort! You can begin by reading Horsager’s book. This review summarized just one pillar. There are 7 more…. Enjoy!

Mindfire, back cover

You’re curious.

Do you know how I can tell? You’re reading this summary. Something is driving you to want to know what I’m going to say. That’s curiosity. And if you use it, you’ll learn big things in life, especially if you read Scott Berkun’s book, Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds.

Even though it is a collection of essays that have been published elsewhere, they represent a decade of effort and have been edited, washed, pruned, and organized into a powerful little book that was made to challenge your mind and get you thinking on a new level.

The essays are organized into three parts: Gasoline, Sparks, and Fire, and are meant for ‘intelligent provocation’.  If you’re not familiar with Berkun’s work, this is a perfect starter. If you are a Scott Berkun fan, repeat study of his best work will fire you up again and keep the flame burning.

You’ll learn things like ‘How to be a free thinker’, ‘Should you be popular or good?’, ‘How to make a difference’, ‘Creative Thinking Hacks’, and ‘How to convince anyone of anything’, along with much more. Berkun’s no-nonsense attitude and honesty will keep you engaged and turn your curiosity into action.

Golden Egg

Things Worth Doing Require Undivided Attention

“…time will always be our most finite resource, and it crumbles when split into tiny little pieces.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Mindfire, page 149

Scott Berkun is a great writer because he spends undivided time writing. “There isn’t a single great work in the history of civilization – no novel, symphony, film, or song – that was completed as a one-fifth time-slice between web browsing, text messages and television,” stated Berkun.

I like to think of myself as a pretty grounded person, who doesn’t spend a lot of time flitting from one thing to another, and who’s able to accomplish a lot of things.  But I know my weakness. It’s not Facebook or twitter or Google+ (ok sometimes). It’s email.

After not too much time has passed I get this feeling that someone is waiting for me to answer them.  The feeling is hard to shake. “I’ll just take a second and see what’s happening in my inbox.” Famous last words. Many seconds later I have forgotten what I was doing.

My new goal is to change this habit.

Berkun shares the Law of Lost Attention: The value of something you spend attention on, is dependent on how much attention you spend on it.

Treating very intimate things like relationships, sports, conversation with split attention will inevitably make them non-intimate and unfulfilling. “If you only spend a fast food amount of attention, you will never have a five-star dining experience.”

He’s not saying that fast food isn’t good sometimes; we should just try to keep a healthy balance.

 (What’s hilarious is that I started writing this section while watching a TV movie, and realized the grand irony. Of course, after a good laugh, I couldn’t continue, so I wrote the rest later.)

GEM #1

How To Learn From Your Mistakes

“Admitting a mistake, even if only privately to yourself, makes learning possible… Wise people admit mistakes easily. They know progress accelerates when they do.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Mindfire, page 103

I realize it’s a mistake to not spend focused time on the things that matter to me, so I plan on using wisdom from Berkun’s essay #22.  He says that the reason people give up on their goals is because of the culture of shame around making mistakes. Throughout our lives we’re taught to avoid failure, but what we forget is that the more challenging the goal, the more setbacks we’ll have. So, your ability to accomplish big things will depend on how well you can learn from your mistakes.

He says learning requires three things:

1. Putting yourself in situations where you can make interesting mistakes.
2. Having the self-confidence to admit them.
3. Being courageous about making changes.

Berkun says that the way to gain a more diverse perspective than just your own is to involve other people. Professional investigators do this; journalists, policemen, detectives always question as many people as possible to get the most accurate view. You can do the same by listening to what other people say about your mistakes if you’re willing to listen.

The second part of this approach is to have the self-confidence to be able realize that you are allowed to make mistakes, and that it doesn’t mean you will always make mistakes. A good way to know if you’re feeling this way is if you can laugh about your mistake. A good sense of humor helps you to not let the mistake infect your psyche.

GEM #2

Creativity Is Being Fearless

“One way to think of creative people is that they have more control over their fears – or less fear of embarrassment…” (Click to Tweet!)

Mindfire, page 123

The reason people are more creative is because they filter out less ideas.  This is why people feel especially creative when they’re drunk, using drugs, or late at night, because these are times when their inhibitions are low and they allow themselves to see more combinations of things.

But I don’t have to drink or do drugs to be creative. I can just be a little more fearless and open myself up to considering more crazy options.

If I want to figure out how to get more undivided attention in my day so I can focus on important things, I will have to break out of the current thinking that keeps me in my unproductive work habits.

Berkun says that creativity is personal. “No book or expert can dictate how you can be more creative. You have to spend time paying attention to yourself: when do ideas come easiest to you?”

To help me figure this out, I’m going to pick out at least three of the following tactics Berkun suggests:

• Start an idea journal
• Give your subconscious a chance
• Use your body to help your mind
• Inversion
• Switch modes
• Take an improvisational comedy class
• Find a partner
• Stop reading and start doing

So, to help you (and me) implement that last step, I’ll end here and let you start doing.

Mindfire will challenge your mind and throw some big ideas at you. If you’re open to thinking new things and applying them in your life, then you’ll have a mind on fire and no one can stop you.

Your first step might just be to cultivate your curiosity. You were curious enough to read this entire summary. That means you have a curious mind. And that’s the kind that will take action.

How will you use your curiosity to be more creative, learn from your mistakes and create more undivided attention?

                                                                                                                Be Excellent at Anything, page 5

Without even citing the litany of studies and piles of data that prove it, I think we can all agree that today’s workplaces and work culture don’t set anyone up to thrive and be at their best.  How many people do you know (including yourself) who “never get anything done” at the office, who are on their handheld device 24/7, who live in fear of “missing something” and who constantly feel run down, tired, stressed and lacking any kind of energy (creative, intellectual, emotional, physical)?  But if we all agree that something – everything – needs to change, how can that change happen?

A basic principle of leadership is, in my view, the idea that “leadership of self” must come before “leadership of others” is possible.  And that ”culture” is everyone, not just the person at the top (although their influence is critical).  So what if there was a system, a collection of ideas, a “how-to” that could guide individuals towards healthier, more sustainable high performance behaviours and that could be extended into the organizations in which they work and lead, such that those same transformations occur broadly?

Enter Tony Schwartz.

I first encountered Tony’s work through The Power of Full Engagement, where he and co-author Jim Loehr transform Einstein’s energy equation into a formula for professional and personal sustainability by showing us how to convert energy into productive activity.  Mr. Schwartz has continued to do research into sustainable high performance and offers Be Excellent at Anything as his road map for individuals and organizations seeking true competitive advantage.

Mr. Schwartz and his team have studied a variety of arenas including the arts, business, health care and law enforcement across many different cultures in numerous countries.  Be Excellent at Anything posits that there are four keys to transforming the way we work and live that emerge consistently across all of those arenas and cultures – four energy needs that must be met in order for high performance to be possible – and outlines a detailed process for understanding and addressing those needs, both for individuals and for organizations.

Golden Egg

Find the Pulse and Ride the Wave

“The higher the demand, the greater and more frequent the need for renewal.” (Click to Tweet!)

                                                                                     Be Excellent at Anything, page 51

If you connect with one concept in the book, if you adopt just one new practice in hopes of impacting your ability to perform, the idea of “sprints” and “waves” of work and renewal is the biggie.  Rooted in the understanding that our physiology operates on rhythms and pulses, the idea is that our bodies AND our minds are designed not for the marathons we tend to attempt every day, but rather for a regular “pulsing” between expenditure and renewal of energy.   Based on meeting the need for physical energy (“sustainability”), Schwartz and his team have identified 90 minutes as the optimum amount of time we should work before taking a renewal break.  Specific recommendations include mid-afternoon naps (!), exercising in the middle of a workday (rather than early morning or end of day), frequent healthy snacks to stabilize blood sugar, going to bed early to ensure sufficient (7 – 8 hours) sleep and taking regular vacations.  Worthy of note is the idea that the key to effective renewal is not how long we do it but how well we do it – like anything else, we get better at it if we practice systematically.  I personally am very much in favour of practicing sleep and vacationing until I’m really good at both.

For leaders, the adoption of the “pulse” idea organizationally includes potentially huge culture shifts such as no longer evaluating contribution based on time spent, scheduling shorter meetings, creating space for lunch and mid-day breaks, and actually encouraging people to go on vacation (without staying connected to the office, because if they’re still on email they’re not on vacation).

GEM #1

Say Thank-you

“…the feeling of being personally criticized…appears to take the greatest toll on our bodies and on our ability to think clearly.”

Be Excellent at Anything, page 138

Based on research into the human response to negativity, disrespect and exclusion, Schwartz and his team identified the second need – emotional energy, or “security” – and the suggested practices for both individuals and organizations that can help ensure that need gets met.  Awareness is the first step – noticing the triggers that cause physical responses to negativity such as rapid heartbeat, queasiness or muscular tightness.  From there he suggests analyzing the difference between the facts of a situation and the “story” we tell ourselves about it, in order to discover what’s real about the threat and what we’ve fabricated.     Extrapolate those practices into organizations and consider the impact of criticism, crisis thinking, territory battles and gossip on productivity and performance.

Schwartz encourages direct and timely handling of difficult situations so the effect of stress is minimized – a practice rarely well-developed in organization, in my experience. Beyond that, Schwartz cites the practice of appreciation as being one of the key behaviour changes he encourages when working with executives.  Connecting with our own sense of gratitude has inward benefits, and communicating that gratitude benefits others, making the practice incredibly powerful.  What if you were to adopt the practice of making a gratitude list at the end of every day?  Or sending a thank you note at least once a week? Schwartz suggests that these small, simple practices can be transformative.

GEM #2

Use Your Whole Brain

“…no factor influences productivity more directly than people’s capacity for absorbed attention.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Be Excellent at Anything, page 36

How often is your automatic response “busy” when you’re asked how you’re doing?  If we’re constantly reacting to urgencies and stimuli, what are the chances we’re bringing our best intellectual and creative capabilities to bear?  The third need that we have to meet in order to be fully energized, according to Schwartz, is the need for mental energy – “self-expression”.  The route to getting that need met involves turning off email for focus periods, understanding and creating circumstances where we can work in “flow,” getting clear on priorities and cultivating higher quality attention.  Developing a reflective or meditative practice can be part of increasing your ability to focus, as can working on your listening skills and doing creative exercises to work the less-used right side of your brain.

The fourth energy need is the hardest to meet, particularly in business.  Spiritual energy, or “significance” requires paying mindful attention to your values and working in alignment with those values as much as possible.  Being part of a community helps, as does the knowledge that you’re working on something beyond your own self-interest.  At minimum, committing to doing the “right” thing rather than the “expedient” or “easy” thing can support getting this critical and tough to meet need handled.

It would have been easy to write this summary with a dozen or more “GEMs” – there are that many big ideas and actionable recommendations in the book.  That said, so much of what Schwartz outlines seems so obvious and so necessary, it seems illogical that so many find it so difficult to live and work the way he suggests.  So what really is in the way?  And how risky would it be to change some of our habits towards those that have been deeply researched and proven to just make more sense for anyone who wants to live and work at their peak?

Evil Plans, Introduction

Business and personal development books generally fall into one of two categories. First, there are those based in science and research. The Heath Brother’s Switch, Dan Ariely’s The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and Jim Collins’ Good to Great are all examples of books that use data, facts, and figures to shine a light on new opportunities or help you better understand the reason a particular obstacle continues to stifle your growth.

Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination by Hugh MacLeod is in the other category. You won’t find much science. He doesn’t cite any research or psychological studies. He doesn’t need to. He’s one of those authors with the unique ability to build a compelling case without science, spreadsheets, or control groups. What makes it even more powerful is it feels like he’s talking right to you. With each page, each chapter, you’re wondering how he knows so much about you, your dreams, and your fears. And by the end, you are pondering not only the decisions you’ve made, but more importantly, the ones you need to make.

Golden Egg

One Powerful Word

“Decide.”

Evil Plans, chapter 7

Is it possible to distill this book down to one word? Yes. Definitely yes!

Drafting and executing your own Evil Plan starts with decisions. You get to decide what’s important, what matters, and what makes you feel alive. You get to decide how you want to contribute and who you want to collaborate or work with.

And for the many, many millions who’ve never felt they had the resources, ability, or connections to decide to carve their own path, MacLeod challenges those assumptions and assertions at every turn. Much like Seth Godin, MacLeod points to the power of the connection economy (though he doesn’t specifically call it that) as the catalyst that has made “world domination” a possibility for anyone, regardless of your location, your niche, or your perceived limitations.

And while there are no scientific studies or research to support this position in the book, there are countless anecdotes from both MacLeod’s personal experience and the stories of others that demonstrate what’s possible.

So rather than answers or formulas, the book leaves you with more questions than answers. For example:

What Evil Plan have you been putting off until the stars are completely aligned? (For the record, they will never be aligned perfectly.)

Are you making the best use of the brief amount of time you’ve been allotted on this Earth?

What are you really afraid of?

GEM #1

Embrace the Unknown

“Failure’s easy. Success isn’t.”

Evil Plans, chapter 13

Now that you’re all pumped up and ready to go, there is a bit of bad news. Please don’t decide to build your Evil Plan because you think it will be easier than whatever you’re doing now. MacLeod explains, and I can personally attest, that this is not likely the case. In fact, chances are it will be harder–much, much, harder.

Following your Evil Plan requires the ability to move forward with no guarantee of success. You can’t shy away from words like uncertainty, unknown, mistakes, and risk. The road to world domination is full of highs and lows. Yes you will have some victories, but you have to be ready to fight for them. You have to be flexible and able to make adjustments on the fly. You need to embrace feedback, criticism, and rejection.

And while there will hopefully be financial success along this path, that is not the only reward. It can’t be the only reward. The real satisfaction is in knowing that you are building, or selling, or creating something that matters. The real sense of accomplishment comes from building real connections with the people who embrace your Evil Plan.

Real success is when “People aren’t merely buying your product, your Evil Plan; they are buying the story you are telling … a story that’s not just about you, but about them, and what they could be.”

GEM #2

Average Is So Yesterday

“Mediocrity has had its day. That day is so over.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Evil Plans, chapter 8

Our economy no longer supports mediocrity. Mostly because we don’t have to settle for it if we don’t want to. Access to something better – more stable software, more durable furniture, more competent employees – is only a click away. But I sense MacLeod’s quote above refers to a different kind of mediocrity.

He’s talking about us, you and me. More and more people are deciding (there’s that word again) they are no longer willing to accept living a mediocre life, spending 10 hours in a mediocre cubicle, for mediocre pay.

He suggests that few valid reasons exist for postponing your Evil Plan. The time may never come when you “have an answer for every possible contingency” or “know enough about the industry….or where it will be in five years.” But the good news is you don’t need to know it all to start.

These summaries are intended to be actionable. If you’re stuck in a rut, a job you don’t like, or doing work that has no meaning, stop. If you know that you will look back and regret the chances you didn’t take, you can change that starting today. Taking action is a personal choice.

MacLeod explains it this way: “That’s all I ever wanted: my best self, playing my best game.”

WorkQuake is an essential book for anyone struggling to figure out the best way to impact their team, anyone trying to figure out why things aren’t working as well as they were, and employees who are trying to figure out how they could do it better.  Written in short (often two page) sections, each chapter of WorkQuake focuses on how to fix either an operational issue or a personal performance/productivity issue, and it’s Glover’s writing that really makes this a must read.  He writes with humour throughout, speaking from the heart and giving great wisdom.

Golden Egg

You CAN Handle the Truth

“Many bosses believe employees who interact with them to get work done are telepathic… because employees have learned that most bosses react adversely when asked to clarify or explain the incoherent request or order they just issued, most employees don’t ask for any clarification or expectation…”

WorkQuake, page 6

The main theme running through WorkQuake is communication.  Which shouldn’t be that surprising – communication is something we do constantly and also one of the hardest things to do right.  Whether it’s communicating bad news, issuing or receiving feedback, or innovating new ideas, author Paul Glover suggests that communicating with your team, asking them questions, and listening to their opinions is the answer.

In fact, although communication is only a subject of two chapters, it’s a theme that runs throughout.  Communicating with your team can tell you whether recognition is working, whether expectations are realistic, what the rumour mill is saying, and ways to improve products or services that only those working with customers or products directly would know.  Glover suggests scheduling regular 15-minute one-on-one sessions with employees just to talk about things, but he also marks the importance of being present where employees are – especially when times are tough.  Your physical presence by the water cooler shows that you’re not hiding out – you’re on the front lines just like them.

GEM #1

Stop Trying to Teach the Pig to Dance

“Stop trying to teach the pig to dance… it’s a waste of your time and it irritates the pig.”  (Click to Tweet!)

WorkQuake, page 20

A main theme running through WorkQuake is the reality that not everyone on your team should be there – and to try to change those people (to teach them to dance) will never be effective.  One of the most powerful and effective things that you can do as a leader is to recognize which of your team is “The Others” – those who will not “ever improve their performance, regardless of how much time, energy, and resources a company expends on them”.  Rather than focusing on improving The Others, spend time focusing on Core Employees (the portion of the workforce who will always give 100% no matter what) and team members with potential (Glover calls these “Temporary” – they’re trying to decide whether to be Others or Core Employees.

Not sure who on your team is an Other?  Glover suggests that your employees do, and communicating with them is the key to figuring it out as well as taking action.  Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, Core Employees will expect you to take care of the problem of the Others (as Glover suggests: awareness + knowledge = expectation).  It is important that before taking action, you ensure that expectations were clear all along the way, employees were trained in meeting these expectations, and employees are rewarded for meeting expectations.  If this is the case and employees aren’t meeting expectations, then they need to go.  Glover’s final statement here is key: if a Temporary Employee sees one of The Others not meeting expectations and not being reprimanded for it, “it becomes acceptable for them to perform at that same low level.”

GEM #2

Learn to Delegate

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere” (Click to Tweet!)

Ronald Reagan, as quoted in
WorkQuake, page 133

This is not the first time someone has suggested the necessity to delegate.  But Glover focuses not only on why you need to learn to delegate, but also on what you are giving to the employee you are delegating to.   Make sure that the tasks are worth doing (if they don’t need to be done, you really shouldn’t be doing them), and focus on delegating tasks that you are good at (because you’ll be able to train someone else quickly) and tasks that you aren’t good at.  Finally, Glover instructs to never delegate “motivating, teambuilding, praising, or reprimanding”.  Delegation is not just in clearing off your plate – it’s also in giving others responsibility that allows them to grow.  It is important when delegating to keep the communication open – by clearly communicating expectations beforehand and regularly checking in, you ensure success in delegation.

Regardless of the challenges that you are facing in your organization, you will find applicable lessons within WorkQuake.  Glover’s writing style – short, to the point, and often humourous, – allows him to say things that many other management books don’t have the guts to say.

The Power of Unpopular, page xiii

Why do so many business owners run their businesses trying to please everyone when it’s a full-on guarantee that you’re going to be pissing off plenty of people in the course of doing what your business needs to do? Blogger and digital strategist, Erika Napoletano makes the case in The Power of Unpopular that too many business owners waste too much time trying to be popular that they lose a vital sense of what they are about. “Doing good business”, being self-aware enough to ‘fly your freak flag’ means there’s no reason to fear not being popular as long as you’re serving your customers and the people who make up your market.

Golden Egg

Being Popular Sucks

“If you build a business in order to be popular, you’re going to fail – and fail the same way every time.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 The Power of Unpopular, page 8

Author Napoletano presents the idea of re-thinking of the word ‘popular’ in business by digging into five key concepts that are the engine in ‘the power of unpopular’:

• Personality
• Approachability
• Sharability
• Scalability
• Profitability

Personality is being authentic and putting a human face on every aspect of your product and how you do business. There are four parts of brand personality. ‘The Who’ (making everything you do human), ‘Growing a Pair of Balls’ (have a strong, courageous opinion), ‘Emotional Aspects of Brand Personality’ (how to acknowledge what’s important), and ‘Practical Aspects of Brand Personality’ (the visual representation of your brand). Approachability means that your messaging and interactions with your customers and prospects transmits: “Hey! We understand you. We’re here and we hear you! Come on inside, and we’ll take care of you.” Sharability is creating a ‘brand advocate army’ that empowers your audience to share your message through your marketing activities and having a website that “gets over itself and embrace(s) that 80 percent of your messaging should be about everything except your brand…only 20 percent of what you put into the business should be about your company.” Scalability discusses being able to rachet up your business to respond to growing demand. Finally, profitability covers understanding the value that you bring to your market and having the foundations of being profitable at every stage of development.


GEM #1

Being Popular Just Isn’t That Important. Got It?!

“We spend so much of our lives worrying about who likes us and what people think of us that we miss out on the most beautiful things along the way…and remember how fortunate we are to get live our dreams.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Power of Unpopular, page 191

The foundation of the book’s “unpopular is good” premise provides some of the most powerful points of having a business centered on its purpose. We start off on our entrepreneurial journeys reflexively, unthinkingly looking to reach as many people as possible and scale in order to make a fast grab at market share. In fact, being popular is the last place you want to be for the market that you serve. The core truth is that markets are transformed and moved by the implementation of leader companies’ “secret sauce”. Understanding your company’s secret sauce is vital for success. “Finding that something particular that attracts one group and repels another to get to the point where you develop solutions that are different and better than the ones currently available in your market.”

“The audience you think you serve and the audience who actually wants what you have can be very different creatures.” Napoletano drills the point home by quoting the late virtual reality researcher, Randy Pausch: “The size of the audience doesn’t matter. What’s important is that your audience is listening.”

GEM #2

Build For Those Who Will Love You – No One Else Matters

“The people who will never love your brand are the greatest gift you could ever receive as a businessperson.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Power of Unpopular, page 31

The above ‘gem’ statement is a paraphrase of the subtitle of the book. For me, thinking through the meaning of fully serving an audience and being passionately focused on serving their needs provided a powerful “a-ha”! Getting clear on the target audience that your business serves and kicking huge ass for them is the starting point. “Figure out what you want and hang out with the people willing to push on you to do more of that.” Understanding ‘the power of unpopular’ is fully accepting that your best friends are your customers and prospective customers. Making them fiercely loyal and loud advocates is going to bring profits…and meaning to your business operations and activities.

“It all begins with giving failure a big, fat hug.” Stop focusing on pleasing the people who are “never going to like you, your product, your service” and then “learn about the ones who already do (and just don’t know it).” For Napoletano’s clients, she counsels that to build a successful business, one must follow the five concepts covered above, pummel and push all your energies and efforts “building a business for that audience instead of spinning your wheels on the myth of universal popularity.” Bottom Line: being ‘unpopular’ inside your market can be a key strategic advantage with not only distinguishing your brand from your competitors but in transforming your market into something that truly matters to the people your efforts serve.

The Talent Code, page 6

“What is the secret for getting really good at something?” Genes? Luck? What if talent was not a luck of the draw approach but rather something that could be systematically broken down into a manageable approach? The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, explains that, “greatness isn’t born, it’s grown.” While many of the examples the author uses relate to athletics or music, he defines talent broad enough that the concepts are universally applicable. Talent in this case is “the possession of repeatable skills that don’t depend on physical size.”

To crack the talent code, Coyle traveled to a handful of places around the world he calls “talent hotbeds.” These locations vary in industry but all exhibit the same results. They are relatively small, low-key, operations but each produces extraordinary disproportionate results. For example, Coyle visited the rundown facility in Russia with a single tennis court that over a three-year period produced more top twenty professional tennis players than the entire United States. How do these places produce such phenomenal results? As Coyle explains, it all starts with a foundation of deep practice.

Golden Egg

Delve Deeper with Deep Practice

“[deep practice is] the feeling… of being a staggering baby, of intently, clumsily lurching toward a goal and toppling over. It’s a wobbly, discomfiting sensation that any sensible person would instinctively seek to avoid. Yet the longer the babies remained in that state—the more willing they were to endure it, and to permit themselves to fail—the more myelin they built, and the more skill they earned. The staggering babies embody the deepest truth about deep practice: to get good, it’s helpful to be willing, or even enthusiastic, about being bad. Baby steps are the royal road to skill.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 The Talent Code, page 94

Deep practice is a deliberate and focused effort to improve, a targeted effort that allows for a biological process called myelination to accelerate the growth of skill. Coyle explains: “Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electric signal traveling through a chain of neurons—a circuit of nerve fibers. Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy. The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our movements and thoughts become.”

Deep practice harnesses the benefits of myelination through three principles: chunking, repetition, and recognition. Chunking requires you to break the task down into smaller, more manageable pieces so you can tinker with them individually and strive to understand what you are trying to build. Once you have a blueprint of what you are trying to build you must repeat the action. Finally, you need to learn to recognize when you are in a state of deep practice rather than merely practicing. Growing talent is not a matter of simply putting in the hours; it is about investing time to correctly build your circuits.

However, for your deep practice to be the most effective it must contain one specific element.

GEM #1

Target the Struggle

“Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways—operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes—makes you smarter… experiences where you’re forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them—as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go—end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it.”

The Talent Code, page 18

Deep practice accelerates your learning because you are teaching circuits how to properly fire again and again. Think about a narrow forest trail overrun with vegetation, which can still be used but with difficulty. Now, if those that use the trail begin to travel along the edge, with each pass not only does the vegetation recede but the path becomes wider and easier to use. This example, while juvenile in nature, highlights two important points about targeting the struggle: (1) it requires increased effort, and (2) it will be uncomfortable.

While you want to focus on the struggle you must go deeper than that. You need to be deliberate about struggling. Coyle offers a pattern:

1. Pick a target.
2. Reach for it.
3. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach.
4. Return to step one.

From now on, seek out the slippery slopes.

GEM #2

Do Something  Today, Tomorrow, and the Day After That…

“There is, biologically speaking, no substitute for attentive repetition. Nothing you can do—talking, thinking, reading, imagining—is more effective in building skill than executing the action, firing the impulse down the nerve fiber, fixing errors, honing the circuit.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Talent Code, page 87

So you now understand the rules of deep practice, and have an area you want target. What now? You must act; none of this will work unless you do! It seems quite obvious, but I’ve found that action is often a sticking point. My father-in-law says, “To know and not to do is not to know.”

Actually firing the circuit is critical, as incredible as all the myelin and science is, it won’t develop without work. Coyle labels myelin as “meritocratic” in that the circuits that fire are the ones that become insulated and faster. There is then no way to cheat myelin, no shortcuts to mastery, either you practice or you don’t.

Deep practice and the process of myelination are simple, deceptively so, but they must be repeated over and over. It is easy to be enthusiastic about your first sales call, but what about the 423rd? Deep practice requires energy, passion and commitment spread over a long time. This is why even though it appears simple you must take action today, and again, and again, and again, for the myelin to work.

I recently had the opportunity to teach a 45-minute lesson at my church. Traditionally, I’ve prepared elaborate outlines that helped me feel prepared. But the outlines served as a crutch because I would only process the material I was teaching superficially since I could rely on the outline if I stumbled. With The Talent Code fresh in my mind I decided to target the struggle and limited myself to a single 3×5 notecard outline. The limited space forced me to learn the material on a deeper level and while there were uncomfortable moments where I scrambled, the practice left me an improved teacher.

Next time you want to become good at something remember The Talent Code. Break the task down into chunks and fire your circuits correctly. Then deliberately seek out the areas of struggle and make frequent investments in your efforts.

In the comments below, let us know how…

How do you plan to use deep practice to develop your talents?

“The dynamics of buying and selling in the second decade of the new millennium demand a new paradigm, a new frame of reference, and a new way to understand and maintain readiness to buy.” (Click to Tweet!)

 What Got You Here, page 23

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There in Sales!, by Marshall Goldsmith, Don Brown, and Bill Hawkins, outline the sales habits your customers want you to give up and the methodology to create lasting change. The authors detail the changing nature of the customer-salesperson relationship, identifying empathy (emotional intelligence) as the new key differentiator in sales.

As they dissect the nature of modern communication and the ways technology has changed our interpersonal interactions, the authors advocate for a return of connection in our business and personal relationships. Beyond the accepted schools of thought (Solution Selling, Relationship Selling, and others), Goldsmith, Brown, and Hawkins have created a sales methodology for our generation.

Golden Egg

The Era of Empathy: The X Factor in Sales

“The belief that you understand and acknowledge a person – that you not only viscerally understand but care about that person within the context of your business interaction – already exists almost without your trying.”

What Got You Here, page 27

From birth, “we naturally connect with others both emotionally and physiologically and usually do so without trying.” It’s in our nature to connect with others, to experience their feelings, even physically, and to care. In contrast, a career in sales requires a strong ego and the ability to persuade and convince others. The challenge in our new era is to balance this powerful ego with empathy, which fosters connection and caring.

The authors outline sixteen habits that impair our ability to connect with our customers in meaningful, empathic ways. And they’re habits our customers are desperate for us to break:

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There in Sales! dissects these habits and how they affect our ability to sell. We then learn how to identify one habit and break it – by stopping the behavior and engaging in follow-up coaching.

GEM #1

The Rules of Change Are Different for Successful Salespeople

“The first step in change for successful individuals is to own it, to recognize that the issue isn’t about the customer, the market, or even the product – it is about you. Second, you have to want to change.”  (Click to Tweet!)

What Got You Here, page 127

A personal desire for change is the single best indicator for success in changing any of the sixteen habits. But successful people, in particular, have challenges in self-selecting for personal change. As the authors note, “‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ doesn’t apply to helping successful people change.” The very nature of being successful in their careers, may lead salespeople to avoid change.

It then comes down to the Natural Law – people will only change if it is in their own best interest (as defined by their values) to change. And for salespeople in particular, there are four factors that inspire change: money, power, status, and relationships. Determining which factor means the most to you provides the necessary motive to change.

GEM #2

Getting Help, Getting Ideas, Getting There

“Behavioral change is not something you do alone. It requires two people: one to change and one to notice it.”

What Got You Here, page 137

Perhaps the most difficult challenge to affecting meaningful change is the need for accountability. And it’s often at this point where we resist change – successful people especially fear the embarrassment and vulnerability of asking for and accepting help with personal improvement. An outside stakeholder, however, provides the ability to be on the outside looking in, offering feedback and suggestions, and cheering you on. The key here is selecting a trusted individual who you won’t want to disappoint and who will want to see you succeed.

The authors go on to outline the FeedForward method of soliciting and accepting suggestions for improvement. Outline what you’d like to change, request two ideas for making that positive change, listen silently, then say thank you. With this quick, future-focused, judgment-free script, Goldsmith, Brown and Hawking provide a way to help successful people become who they want to be.
The most valuable portion of this book, for me, was the focus on and importance of follow-up with the chosen stakeholder(s). Most, if not all, professional salespeople have been subjected to a wide variety of sales training and sales methodology, usually a once-a-year event. We’re given our marching orders and sent back to the field, where everything we learned and planned to change is quickly forgotten in the course of our busy work lives. But behavioral science shows that follow-up coaching is the connection between training and performance improvement.

Asking for input and ideas to change just one habit, accepting those suggestions without rebuttal, and then following-up later provides a powerful means of coaching that is non-confrontational and helps to ease the vulnerability of making meaningful change. It’s also nice to have encouragement and support on this journey.

In the comments below, let us know…

What about you? Do any of the sixteen habits resonate? What would you like to change or improve? Is there someone you trust as a coach and encourager?

                                                                                                                                           Epictetus, quoted in A Guide to the Good Life, page 52

In his treatise on Stoicism, William Irvine provides insight into the Stoic philosophers, covering their basic beliefs and motivations, tools for living a tranquil life, and tips for living a more philosophically sound life. The book covers many misconceptions about Stoicism, including the misinterpretation that Stoics eliminated all emotion from their life.

Stoics were keen on helping people live harmoniously and at peace, and they encouraged the experience of positive emotions and enjoyment of life’s pleasures. The emotions they worked to minimize were negative emotions like anger and envy; emotions that threaten our tranquility. A Guide to the Good Life provides us with a variety of ways to learn to appreciate today while working to improve the future.

Golden Egg

Developing a Philosophy of Life

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Marcus Aurelius, quoted in
A Guide to the Good Life, page 59

In a sweeping statement, Irvine suggests that his book is about setting “a grand goal for living”. Rather than answering the question of what do you want in life with specific things (e.g., big house, loving wife and children, high paying job, etc.), Irvine suggests that we should answer that question by stating how you want to live your life. That is, you should develop a life philosophy. Without a coherent life philosophy, Irvine argues that when you look back on your life, you may realize that you “wasted your one chance at living”.

In the case of the Stoics, their grand goal for living is to experience as much “tranquility” as possible. One should minimize experiences with negative emotions (note that the Stoics did not say to suppress all your negative emotions, just to do your best in limiting the impact they had on your peace of mind). A complete life philosophy involves both a grand goal for your life and tools/strategies for helping you achieve your goal.

GEM #1

Negative Visualization

“He robs present ills of their power who has perceived them coming beforehand.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Seneca, quoted in
A Guide to the Good Life, page 65

The thoughtful person will, periodically, reflect on potential bad things that may happen to them. Irvine argues this is useful in the sense that by understanding where threats may come from, it gives us the chance to eliminate them, and that, should bad things happen to us (as they do to everyone), we will have lessened their impact on us through thinking about these things beforehand.

In addition, negative visualization helps reset our insatiable appetite for more: more fame, more money, more material goods. Comparing our desire for more with being on a treadmill, Irvine argues that we start with a goal in mind and work extremely hard to achieve that goal, but when we achieve that goal, we start to take it for granted and begin focusing on the next thing that will satisfy us. The key to getting off this treadmill is to value what we already have. We learn to do this by practicing negative visualization.

To practice negative visualization, the Stoics recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost things that we value. What would life be like, for example, if you were no longer on speaking terms with your best friend? What about life without your job? Sit and actually think about what life would be like without your best friend. Who would you call when you wanted to share good news? Who would you call when you needed a shoulder to cry on? Who would you call when you faced a difficult decision?

Imagining what life would be like without the people and things we value in our life helps us appreciate those things more. We will not take our loved ones for granted when we periodically reflect on what life would be like without them.

GEM #2

The Trichotomy of Control

“Our most important choice in life is whether to concern ourselves with things external to us or things internal.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Epictetus, quoted in
A Guide to the Good Life, page 85

Fans of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits will recognize this Stoic method of focusing our efforts as distinguishing between our “Circle of Concern” and “Circle of Influence.” In short, Stoics consider it pointless to worry about things over which we have no control.

But it is a false dichotomy to say we either have control over something or we don’t. In fact, the large majority of the goals we set out to accomplish are things that we have some, but not complete, control over. For example, one of my goals as an academic is to have my work published in peer-reviewed journals. This is an end-goal that I ultimately have incomplete control over.

Stoics suggest that rather than setting an external goal of having someone publish my work that I should, instead, set an internal goal of writing high quality articles that are of significance to my field. By setting internal rather than external goals, my tranquility will not be disturbed if an editor decides not to publish my work.

As an additional benefit, Stoic writers noted that concerning yourself with achieving your internal goals greatly increases external performance. By internalizing goals, we can preserve our tranquility while working in areas in which we have incomplete control.

Philosophy as it was known in Ancient Greece and Rome is no longer in favor today. We no longer have philosophical schools that search for deeper meaning from life or debate the finer points of living a good life. Instead, philosophy today is more about debating semantics. A Guide to the Good Life provides an excellent primer on one ancient school of philosophy, and for those of us who are interested in enjoying our lives, it is a book I recommend.

This Year I Will, page 13

Every New Year’s Eve friends and family gather to party like it’s 1999. Whether or not you actually make a New Year’s resolution, we all march into the New Year hoping for something epic to happen: greater health, greater wealth, and more happiness. But, for those that actually take the extra step beyond mere hope, the statistics are dismal.

According to a Marist Poll, four out of ten Americans (40%) planned to ring in 2013 with resolutions to be thinner, exercise more, spend less, and save more, or some other proclamation of becoming better.  Of those that made a resolution, roughly two-thirds will keep it for at least part of the year. But only 8 percent will actually succeed.

The question is, where do broken resolutions go? Can they find their way home? The answer to these questions and many more are answered by M.J. Ryan’s book, This Year I Will. Within the pages of this book, you will unlock how to bridge the gap between the excitement of new resolutions and the resolve required to achieve those goals and objectives.

Golden Egg

Don’t do things that suck!

“If you are serious about succeeding…you’ve got to get your emotions on your side.” (Click to Tweet!)

This Year I Will, page 28

More pleasure, less pain. We want easy and there is no shame in that! Our minds are pre-wired for fun. Anything that gets in the way of our fun will be destroyed; it’s just how we work. Ryan explains that there are three very powerful components of our brain that play a vital role in the level of success that we are able to achieve. These ‘three brains’, as the author refers to them, must work in unison in order for you to achieve your goals. The first brain (cerebellum and brain stem) repeats behaviors over and over with the goal of preserving our life at all costs. The second brain (limbic system) is the emotional brain, which propels us toward pleasure and away from pain. If the emotional brain is not on board with your desire to change, it will sabotage your efforts in favor of immediate pleasure or perceived safety. The third brain (neocortex) is the part of our brain capable of reasoning. The emotional brain will override all reason and logic if your brain associates pain, no fun, or fear to the desired change. The more you can find what’s fun and enjoyable about what you want, the more your emotional brain will cooperate.

GEM #1

You’re all mixed up…and it’s okay!

“Don’t overvalue the nagging whispers to stay in the cozy corner of the-way-it-is-now…you don’t have to be 100% committed, only 51.” (Click to Tweet!)

This Year I Will, page 32

There is one part of you that says, “I want to lose 20 pounds so that I can be sexy again” and there is another part of you that says, “Give me a honey bun and a bag of flaming hot Cheetos, NOW!” The author says that ambivalence is normal. It is simply a reminder that your emotional brain loves easy. The important first step to getting over this hump is to recognize that it’s okay to feel ambivalent. The second step is to accept the challenge of doing something new, and then take action. The next step to overcoming ambivalence is calculating the price of not changing. This is your so what, it defines the consequence of not taking action and determines if you care enough to put in the effort required to succeed. Every decision has a price but it is only when you realize that the consequence of not changing is worse than whatever you have to go through, that you will put in the required effort to succeed.

GEM #2

What’s at your core?

“The emotional and spiritual payoffs for your inner mining are enormous.”  (Click to Tweet!)

This Year I Will, page 158

You are committed. You repeat a motivating mantra to yourself every morning; “I am smart enough. I can start my own business and I will do it because I really want to.” You’ve even gone so far as to create a list of SMART goals that paint the picture of your future self as you see it in your mind. Yet, for some reason you haven’t done what you said you would do. According to Ryan, you are probably more committed to something else that you are not consciously aware of that prevents you from creating forward momentum. Maybe you are more afraid of failing then you are committed to starting your new business. Under that commitment to avoid failure is a core assumption, a belief you formed very early in life that is driving your behavior without your knowledge. Core assumptions are always dire (no one will buy your product), untrue (you never come up with good ideas), and usually have a familiar ring to them (I’ve felt like this before). These core assumptions are beliefs created in childhood to protect us. They represent a child’s notion of what we need to do to be safe. In order to break free of these beliefs you must:

• Identify your core assumptions
• Look for evidence that proves it to be false
• Explore the history behind your assumption
• Challenge your assumption.

Change requires you to grow beyond your limiting beliefs and develop a new consciousness that is free of these invisible constraints.

This Year I Will is a very powerful book. It gives you insight into what you need to do to accomplish your goals and explains why you are in the way of your state goals and objectives. Everything comes down to your mindset and the way your thoughts make you feel. I remember talking to my co-worker and explaining that I would rather die than continue working for someone for the rest of my life. It was in that moment that I realized how much my goal of being a business owner meant to me. My mind started to associate pain with being employed rather than the safety I was previously conditioned to believe in. That is not to say that I am not afraid of being self-employed, because I am. The difference is I am learning to find more pleasure in the freedom of being completely in charge of my life. It was this transformation in thought that also gave me the courage to walk away from fourteen years in the Air Force when others urged me to stick out the last six years until retirement. The thought of being subject to military obligations for another six years became painful. The fear of walking away from the service I have known since age eighteen was immense but the pleasure in taking control of my life was greater. Your goals need to be sticky. Sticky goals really matter to you, evoke positive motivation, and their accomplishment is a must (no equal alternative). They need to compel you on multiple levels in order for you to persist and work through your emotional sticking points.

In the comments below, let us know…

Have you created a list of goals that are sticky? What will you do epic this year?

If you are starting a business or are looking to start using the internet to grow your business, then Stephanie Chandler’s Own Your Niche is for you. A no nonsense, simple, structured approach to establish your expertise online and gain some exposure without the hype.

Golden Egg

Start A Blog On Your Own Site

“A Blog is hands-down one of the most important elements of a successful website”  (Click to Tweet!)

Own Your Niche, Chapter 6

There are some key takeaways here which I will get into – the Golden Egg is not only to start a blog, but what and how to do it.

1. Make sure it is hosted on your own site. Example: www.YourSite.com/Blog

2. Your web developer can take an existing blog platform (WordPress, Blogger,…) and host it on your site. The key benefit is that you get more traffic to your site than if it is hosted at Blogger or WordPress.

3. Google LOVES fresh content. Updating your blog on your site will help your search engine rankings.

4. Visitor Engagement – people can comment on your posts so it turns into a conversation which makes people feel that they are a part of and connecting with your brand.

Developing content for your blog is key. How you ask? Chandler gives us 22 ways of which I thought the top three were:

1. Keep a notepad with you at all times. This struck me as such a simple idea, but I wasn’t doing it and I should have been. My blog has a very specific audience and a very specific topic, but I find myself staring at a blank screen when it comes time to write. I use Evernote for capturing notes electronically on my phone, tablet, and computer. I made a note (file) called “Blog Posts” and already have a dozen topics, all of which came to me when I was not in the office.

2. Keep it short and sweet. Blogs shouldn’t be full length articles. Break them up into parts and link between posts (Google likes that too). I know some popular blogs I read religiously that should heed this advice because I don’t always have 10 minutes to read one of their posts. I think that this is one of the many reasons people like Seth Godin’s blog – you can read each one in under ninety seconds.

3. Write ahead. Most blogging platforms have a scheduling option (see GEM #2). When you are in the groove, bang out several blog posts and schedule them to post in the future.

Chandler makes a great case for every business starting a blog.  She is correct in that it can be tiresome and sometimes make you think that it may not be worth it, but stick to it – it pays off.  You will eventually have enough posts and information to fill a book, which some bloggers have already done, Seth Godin is the king of this.

GEM #1

Study Your Competitors – Start a Swipe File

“When I was in software sales in the Silicon Valley, we were urged to study competitors. This helped us position our strengths against their weaknesses, while also allowing us to prepare answers when asked about potential advantages the competitors had.”

Own Your Niche, Chapter 1

Create your niche by studying what your competitors are doing. You need to be able to be crystal clear in how you offer something different than them.  You can easily research your competitors online these days; Google Alerts is one way to do this. Easy to set up, Google emails you a list of any mentions on any keyword (your competitors name for example).  http://google.com/alerts

Start a Swipe File. In the marketing world, every marketing firm has what is known as a “Swipe File”.  This is where you can keep ideas from other businesses – postcards, sales letters, or attention grabbing marketing.  The idea is not to simply copy them, but to use them as an inspiration to help spark some new ideas.  They don’t have to be ideas from your competitor, but from any business that you can apply to your own business.  I started a file in Evernote (Pocket is another capturing tool) to put in the great marketing ideas that I come across.  I really like Evernote because you can add images, notes, sound files, basically anything electronic and it is accessible on any device.

GEM #2

Using Twitter to Promote Your Business

“As with other forms of social media, there is an abundance of ‘noise’ … on Twitter, so if you want to stand out, share useful content, respond to your audience, and be interesting.”

Own Your Niche, Chapter 7

In my opinion, Twitter is still misunderstood and most people don’t use it to its potential. Chandler lays out some simple techniques to help you harness the potential of this social media giant.

1. Typically, people check Twitter at different times throughout the day and since posts are listed newest to oldest, if they follow a lot of other people they may only see the last few minutes of tweets. There are free sites (HootSuite is one) that allow you to schedule your tweets to post at specific times. Looking for a template to schedule Twitter posts? Chandler gives you that too: http://goo.gl/0YkNN 

2. Tweet links back to your blog posts many times over the next few months for better exposure. WordPress has a great plug-in called Tweet Old Post, which will assist you in automatically posting your content in the intervals that you set. Add the hashtag #Archive to an old post to differentiate your new posts from old ones.

3. Shrink your links. You only have 140 characters (120 really – see next point), so each one is valuable. You can use free link shorteners like Bit.ly or Goo.gl. They also allow you to track clicks as well.

4. Leave room for others to re-tweet. This is another area that I find people don’t understand. If I am going to re-tweet you to my followers, I need to be able to add “RT” and your Twitter handle. Keep tweets closer to 120 characters so others can comment and re-tweet easily.

If you are brand new to social media, the book can be somewhat intimidating because it is packed with ideas and techniques.  While most techniques are simply a sentence or two, there are a lot of them.  Chandler has more than 175 links to resources in the book.  She mentions right off the start that you can’t do everything in the book, but you need to find what works for you.  That first step is the most important.

If you are a veteran of social media and think that you have a good handle on things, you will find reassurance that you are doing the right things with this book.  But, you never know, you may pick up a few new techniques as well.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution, page 6

Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling, authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution, are definitely on to something when they pinpoint “the whirlwind” as the main detractor of execution success. And they spend the entirety of their excellent book detailing just how to avoid the trap of the daily grind. Achieving your “wildly important goals” through mindful execution is key.

Their combined business experience is impressive. All leaders at FranklinCovey with decades of business know-how, these guys “completed more than fifteen hundred implementations of the 4 Disciplines (4DX) before they were ready to write this book” and they have created a set of tools that can be useful for a single person, small business, or large international company.

It doesn’t hurt that “4 Disciplines” is a #1 business bestseller recommended by The Wall Street Journal. Or, that the book leads with pages of endorsements by the likes of author Stephen R. Covey, and CEOs of companies like Kroger, Wegmans, and the Campbell Soup Company, and even Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mohammed Yunus. This is an impressive book, years in the making.

What I particularly liked about this book is that it is about taking action on your strategic goals, not developing more theory. There are four clear roadmaps to help you overcome the “whirlwind” of the day-to-day work that keeps leaders, and teams, from executing the programs that drive real change.

The Four Disciplines are:

Focus on the Wildly Important
Act on the Lead Measures
Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
Create a Cadence of Accountability

So, how do you begin to create the mindset that will help you take action on the four?

Golden Egg

Understand: The Whirlwind of your Day Job Keeps You from Acting on Wildly Important Goals

“Important goals that require you to do new and different things often conflict with the ‘whirlwind’ of the day job, made up of urgencies that consume your time and energy.”           (Click to Tweet!)

                                                                                    The 4 Disciplines of Execution, page 7

Why so important?

While your day-to-day tasks are important for today’s success they will not help you progress or prepare for what is needed to succeed tomorrow. This book gives you the tools to help you execute your “most critical strategy in the midst of your whirlwind”.

This point cannot be emphasized enough, and the authors do a great job of underscoring what needs to change. It is so easy to say “I am too busy,” “too overwhelmed” or “what I am doing right now is more important”, but you are selling yourself short. By focusing only on today’s goals you are setting yourself up for failure tomorrow. This is why so many businesses suddenly find themselves struggling to meet the goals that will help them succeed for the long term. You must carve out time for the WIGS (wildly important goals).

How do you successfully deliver your day-to-day work while also concentrating on the WIGS?

GEM #1:

Focus on one or two goals for optimum execution

“Focus your finest effort on the one or two goals that will make all the difference, instead of giving mediocre effort to dozens of goals.”  (Click to Tweet!)

                                                                                    The 4 Disciplines of Execution, page 23

The key is to simultaneously manage your day-to-day whirlwind, often filled with many tasks, while also implementing only the top one or two WIGS. If you attempt too many WIGS you are setting yourself up for failure. Your goal: Manage the urgent of today while also executing the wildly important goals that will shape your tomorrow.

How do you implement?

GEM #2

Hold a Weekly WIG Session to Drive Accountability

“This meeting, which lasts no longer than twenty to thirty minutes, has a set agenda and goes quickly, establishing your weekly rhythm of accountability for driving progress toward the WIG.”

The 4 Disciplines of Execution, page 79

Holding a weekly WIG meeting can help drive accountability. During this meeting you will review your WIGS. But you also need a clear structure, on which to track the progress of your WIGS, including specific measures you have put in place to help you monitor your progress and achieve your goals.

The authors present “lead” and “lag” measures, providing a useful set of tools through which to monitor progress. They offer clear examples, throughout the book, to help you understand and develop these measures. For example: “While you can’t control how often your car breaks down on the road (a lag measure) you can certainly control how often your car receives routine maintenance (a lead measure). And the more you act on the lead measure, the more likely you are to avoid the roadside breakdown.”

There are many scenarios, and dozens of company examples presented throughout The 4 Disciplines. There is even a chapter on “rolling out 4DX across the organization.” As you read the book, I suggest you focus on what is relevant to you. This way you can focus on your personal situation and implement the great suggestions in a way that best suits your needs.

4DX is “for driving behavior changes that have to happen” whether in your personal life, small business, or large corporation. This is a roadmap that works across your life.

In the comments below, let us know…

How could the approaches and measures mentioned above help you?

Affinity, page 51

In Affinity: Beyond Branding, Martin Goldfarb and Howard Aster share their wealth of experience observing and understanding consumer behaviour via a fascinating mix of market research and social anthropology.  Through their unique ability to tap into underlying cultural values, we intriguingly learn to unlock the secrets behind hugely-successful brands.

While many corporations strive to constantly re-create their image, branding “stars” attach themselves to consumers and propagate memorable values.  The end result is that people want to hear their stories repeatedly – plus return to those products year after year.

Golden Egg

Affinity Trumps Branding

“You need to think differently in order to do things differently.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Affinity, page 62

As defined by the authors, affinity is about feelings and bonding… a “magic” that forms the epoxy between buyers and products (as well as politicians, given Goldfarb’s long-running stint as official Liberal pollster from 1973-1992).  Think “chemistry”.

Branding, on the other hand, is a deliberate set of strategies to create recognition.  It consists of numerous elements – management, image, identity, personality, and promise.  The only thing is, brands come and go.

Solely – affinity keeps relationships tight, lasting, and enduring.  It’s the charisma of marketplace dominance; a force of attraction.  

GEM #1

Get Really Good at Story-Telling

“Story-telling creates indelible memories…that is why stories endure.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Affinity, page 21

Advertising is story-telling in a dramatic, concise fashion.  An eloquent expression captures the essence: “Advertising is the poetry of our times.”  People reveal themselves in their tales; they reflect society’s values.  In turn, stories tend to be told by means of advertising.

Another clue to understanding culture derives from studying its artifacts.  More than objects, they embody dreams.  They bring meaning, satisfaction, and self-definition.  Humans absorb their power and character.

Evidence the story and “totem” of Wonderbra.  Searching for novel ways to conceptualize “foundation garments”, late-1960’s San Francisco interviews in hotbed topless bars birthed a new signature brand called “Dicey”.   A risky proposition, the sheer bra packaged in a cube captured an evolving culture.

What Wonderbra learned (and the best story-tellers know) is that listening to people is key.  The market researcher’s art is to discern not only what’s being said but also to interpret the drivers beneath what YOU think, what YOU see, how YOU perceive your conditions…  Like a children’s legend endlessly requested, the iconic message (supported by commercials and advertising) of “We care about the shape you’re in” endured for two decades and even today remains embedded in many a long-term memory.

GEM #2

Learn From the Best

“You cannot be an agent of change unless you are willing to change.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Affinity, page 17

Citing an example men and women can relate to – diamonds – DeBeers built upon pioneering work crafted by the Ayers Agency in 1933 defining, “diamonds are forever”.  1987 study results proposed associating the anthropological concept of a “potlatch” with diamonds, whereby the gem became central to at least four life-stages celebrated.  A public display of wealth became tied to occasions like the 16^th birthday, engagement, marriage, ten-year anniversary and 50^th birthday.  The stories woven were emotional – and resulted in the phenomenal success of more diamonds sold!

Whether it’s Apple delivering a succession of innovative products (iPhone, iPad) that appeal to customers’ sensibilities and intuitions by helping them feel part of an exclusive community (even tribe)…or a hallmark of a truck brand that has survived since 1979 in the form of “Built Ford Tough”…or Petro-Canada taking advantage of Canadian nationalism at the height of the 1973 oil crisis and becoming a galvanizing sponsor of the 1988 Calgary Olympics…there’s a story here for everyone!

And that’s the beauty of this volume.

Affinity extends beyond branding because it involves “stepping out of the ordinary” into the next stage of consumer awareness and thus pushes the frontiers of global consumer consciousness.

It captures the value structure of a time, transforms product lines, creates leadership and followers, alters behavior, and redefines an aspect of our culture.

More than once throughout, marketing is described as a force for changing society.  Never thought of it that way! What an inspiring big picture!

Together the business school professor (Sheth) and the expert practitioner (Sobel) look at the world’s best lawyers, management consultants, recruiters, accountants, and political advisers to determine what separates these “all stars” from the pack.   The duo does an effective job of drawing correlations from history’s iconic advisors such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Marshall, Drucker, and Kissinger and to amplify their conclusions on what makes today’s truly effective and in-demand advisors indispensable.  Clients for Life examines 7 key areas that great advisers excel including independence, empathy, broad expertise, seeing the big picture, judgment, conviction and integrity.  Packed with solid definitions and plenty of examples, each one of these areas is extensively discussed and helps the reader create actionable steps to improve in each.

Golden Egg

Change or Perish

“…expertise sold by professionals is becoming easily replicable, more widely available, and increasingly cheaper in our internet-speed, technology-driven economy.” (Click to Tweet!)

Clients for Life, page 27

It was my expectation when I started this book that I would learn more about what makes a great consultant, what clients expect, and how to get there, all of which Clients for Life profiles in spades.  Examining the 7 key areas that advisers excel is a worthwhile endeavor.  What I didn’t expect was to experience a near panic attack when I read the above on a flight to Chicago!   This book is about 12 years old and although time has shown that some of the “successes” may not have endured (AOL!), the flattening of the world and time passed has only confirmed Sheth and Sobel’s caution in this regard.

I am not naive and I understand that if you are not innovating you die.   Consultants are often focused on solving problems for others and sometimes do not pick their head up long enough to understand what the threats are to our own businesses. (Ironically, focusing on the big picture is a key differentiator between the “good” and the “great” in the professional services world.) The threats to our professional services businesses are real, present, and need to be often considered.

GEM #1

Know More

“I once asked Sir Hugh Rigby, surgeon to King George V, ‘What makes a great surgeon?’  Sir Hugh responded. ‘There isn’t much to choose between surgeons in manual dexterity.  What distinguishes the great surgeon is that he knows more than other surgeons.’  It’s the same with advertising agents.  The good ones know more.”  (Click to Tweet!)

David Ogilvy, as quoted in
Clients for Life, page 87

Experts are valued in knowledge-based businesses.  However, Sheth and Sobel report that the world’s best advisers know more.  They are not mere experts, but acquire broad knowledge and become “deep generalists”.  This journey from expert to something more is a trip that is rarely taken.  Experts are usually recognized as such, but how quickly things can change.  What Clients for Life shows us is that the expert may be unaware that expertise is quickly commoditizing (see my Golden Egg!) or worse – becoming irrelevant.  Building that broader knowledge base in order to engage clients across a spectrum of issues is an imperative that enduring consultants must develop.

GEM #2

On Your Honor

“In hindsight, bad judgments always seem particularly egregious and good judgments appear especially brilliant; but in fact the quality of judgment is extraordinarily difficult to evaluate”  (Click to Tweet!)

Clients for Life, page 145

At my firm we say clients pay us for our judgment.  This requires one to evaluate a variety of incomplete facts, synthesize disparate information, consider culture, understand the personalities, and get it right!  Clients will continue to pay us for great judgment.  Sheth and Sobel give practical advice relative to the pitfalls that cause us to make bad judgments and provide a framework to make good ones. For me this means not falling into the trap of over simplification of an issue and to endeavor to dive deeper with clients instead of assuming that I know the answer.  Overconfidence is one of the 5 traps of bad judgment that the authors highlight.  Others such as starting out on the wrong foot, confirming what you want to see, making new inappropriate commitments based on previous commitments, and believing it is us versus them might apply to you.  To help sharpen your judgment, know what are your most likely traps and work to avoid them.

Providing advice and counsel to those who need it is a worthwhile and rewarding career.  To truly thrive one has to extend beyond expertise to creating long lasting relationships with clients.  The ultimate arbiter of these relationships will be the client themselves.  Clients for Life is a solid roadmap for this journey.

In the comments below, let us know…

Do you know what it is that makes you valuable to your clients?  Will your fate be that of the commoditized expert?  What will you need to do transition from an expert to an adviser who develops Clients for Life?

ConnectAbility, page xi

Drawing from the powerful lessons of emotional awareness and relationship dynamics, ConnectAbility promotes a sophisticated yet simple method for developing superior partnerships guaranteed to create quality results on a consistent basis. Even the best intentioned team players too often focus more on communicating their own ideas than hearing and understanding what others have to say. ConnectAbility changes all this using eight steps to foster optimum communication.

David Ryback Ph.D., along with Jim Cathcart and David Nour, share practical ways people and organizations are using to adapt to this workplace cultural shift.

Golden Egg

Bottom Line Benefits of ConnectAbility

“…there seems to be a movement…in which the status-loving, jet-setting, deal-making celebrities of the 1990’s are being replaced by awareness-sensitive leaders who are more performance oriented and less egocentric.”

ConnectAbility, page 33

For over a decade, studies at organizations that adopted an awareness culture noticed an impact on results through:

• Increased sales
• Less turnover
• Greater merit increases and job satisfaction
• More effective leadership and management skills
• Higher overall job success and team performance

Overall there seems to be a shift in the corporate mind-set from status-oriented, hard-driven, personality-cult, top-down leadership to more relationship-oriented, collaborative, communication-based types. The hierarchy-based Status Factor with its domineering leaders is giving way to the hierarchy-independent Awareness Factor with consensus building and a priority for grassroots sensibility.

Executive management mindsets and behaviors set the pace of whether it will be an awareness or status driven organization.

In the absence of ConnectAbility, the only apparent release for such frustration may be for those higher on the organizational chart to lord it over those in the lower ranks, creating the delusion that power is the ultimate reward rather than real contribution to the common goal. Such an organization promotes status as the manifestation of power, stifling each level of the hierarchy in turn, from top to bottom. Contribution to the common goal becomes a low priority, since each individual is now busier protecting his or her turf than being meaningfully productive.

There are many benefits to focusing on contribution. Most importantly it changes the way you see things and that in turn affects your choices and actions. During times of uncertainty, knowing the difference you are making helps you to sleep at night. Energy is invested in doing what is right for the business instead of pleasing certain leaders.

GEM #1

Increasing Your Team’s Sense of Fulfillment at Work

 “[Question] How does a boss encourage his or her team to overcome what initially seems like a paradox: assuring good output while at the same time maintaining personal meaning and satisfaction on everyone’s part?

[Answer]  By staying aware of what’s under the surface:  others’ feelings. Just as a ships’ use of radar avoids low-lying icebergs, your awareness can be used to pick out and avoid emotional turmoil.”

ConnectAbility, page 76-77

We’ve all heard stories of the doctor with or without a bedside manner. The authors’ point out that ConnectAbility is just as important in professional private practice as it is in corporate environments. Those medical doctors with ConnectAbility, for example, have much better relationships with their patients. Among medical specialists in the United States, the Awareness Factor benefits not only patients but doctors as well.

According to one study, medical doctors who lack the Awareness Factor are much more likely to get sued for malpractice. To determine what the difference was between surgeons who were sued for malpractice at least twice by those who hadn’t been sued at all, Wendy Levinson and her colleagues conducted a study. They found a small but remarkable difference. Those who weren’t sued, it turned out, spent somewhat more time with their patients and, even more important, were much more likely to be experienced as empathetic and understanding. They engaged in active listening and were more likely to share something humorous.

There was no indication of any difference between the two groups in terms of experience or skill in surgical practice, merely the difference in the skills of awareness-based listening.

GEM #2

Overcome Failure through Acceptance

“Accept when a situation or interaction has gone wrong and reframe it to discover the ‘silver lining.’ Instead of becoming overwhelmed by anxiety, permit yourself to experience the emotion in the moment by focusing on it and labeling it accurately, allowing yourself to return to a state of inner calm (or mindfulness). Only then will you regain your self-confidence, integrity, and ability to be more persuasive and generally effective with others –colleagues or customers –at work.”  (Click to Tweet!)

ConnectAbility, page 125

Three ways of reframing bad outcomes are:

1. Finding the “silver lining”
2. Focusing on solving the problem
3. Appreciating the moment, with what it has to teach us—even when bad things happen move ahead, creatively garnering support from your helpful associates

Mindfulness, or the ability to stay calm in the light of extreme challenge, is one aspect of agility skills. To use it you must focus intently on the present moment, particularly on the emotions you feel, but from a calm, detached perspective. We can control our emotions, but only if we learn to be highly aware of them and choose to adapt to changing circumstances quickly and decisively.

This is a process that can be used as a self coaching technique. It is easy to incorporate the authors’ three steps into a written reflection to quickly restore your clear thinking and know with certainty what your appropriate course of action needs to be.

I believe the authors have drilled deeply into what employees and leaders need to put into practice in today’s rapidly evolving work environments. Their advice is relevant in a world where employees are becoming managers much earlier in their careers and executives find themselves having to unlearn outdated behaviors and mindsets.

Whatever you pay attention to will transform. There are some great ideas that will help you and those you work with meet higher accountability expectations and expand your sphere of influence.

In the comments below, let us know…

Have you worked in both a “status generation” and “awareness generation” culture?

If so, which do you prefer and briefly explain why?

The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 12

Some books have changed the world’s thinking. This is one of them.

If The Art of War was written to help you win your battles and if The Prince will help you win them without even having to fight, The Art of Worldly Wisdom will help you survive and thrive between the ideologies of the two. Three hundred years ago, one of Spain’s greatest philosophers combined shrewd observation and crafty, bruised idealism to produce a book that would help guide leaders who wanted to rise to positions of power and yet behave ethically.

Monk, scholar, researcher, and thinker, Baltasar Gracian combined his keen wit with worldly insight, irony, and jaded humour to produce a timeless handbook of practical and elegantly crafted maxims that will help all leaders and influencers think, judge, act, live, and achieve more.

Widely considered to have had a craftier and nuanced understanding of human nature than Machiavelli himself, Gracian’s works are too delicious to ignore. Reading a few maxims a day and reflecting on them will help readers bridge time and space to think like a person with several years more maturity, experience, and wisdom than themselves – an endless asset if your work requires you to interact with people, gauge their intentions, and work with them to achieve success.

It’s not always easy, especially if they don’t have your best interests in mind, and it certainly makes sense to leverage all the help you can get.

Golden Egg

Think like a king but move like a pauper

“Don’t outshine your boss. Being defeated is hateful, and besting one’s boss is either foolish or fatal. Superiority is always odious, especially to superiors and sovereigns.”

The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 4

Nuanced indeed, with bosses you can help them, joke with them, work harder and better than them, but never make them feel stupid.

If anything, these days you may not lose your head for such transgressions, but perhaps your reputation will take a beating. In any case, the higher you are in the echelons of power, the more it pays to think like a power-player but behave as though you are in danger of losing everything with your next move. Think cautiously, consult Gracian and if you really can’t make the right decision, try to behave ethically.

GEM #1

Create and immerse yourself in networks of information

“Associate with those you can learn from. Let friendly relations be a school of erudition, and conversation, refined teaching. Make your friends your teachers and blend the usefulness of learning with the pleasure of conversation.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 6

Examine the lives of some of the most successful people in history and you’ll find that at any given time they went out of their way to cultivate meaningful relationships with individuals and personalities who were more intelligent than them in some way, and would work hard to keep them connected with each other, and with themselves to create a network of influence and knowledge that they could always seek refuge in.

Building a network like this around themselves which they could feed, expand, and enrich with new personalities meant that they could dip into it for advice, information, and solutions to the challenges they faced and for the decisions they had to make. By befriending intellectuals and by cultivating friendships with teachers, they also ensured that they were never bored, and could always learn and teach at the same time without being afraid of alienating or insulting others in turn.

GEM #2

Keep your storehouse of knowledge well-stocked

“Be well informed. The discreet arm themselves with a store of courtly, tasteful learning: not vulgar gossip, but a practical knowledge of current affairs. They salt their speech with witticisms, and their actions with gallantry, and know how to do so at the right moment. Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than through grave teaching. The wisdom passed along in conversation has meant more to some than the seven arts, no matter how liberal.”

The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 13

Didn’t George Bernard Shaw write, “If you’re going to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh. Otherwise they’ll kill you.”? Haven’t the great scholastic traditions handed down to us from the ages emphasized the value of debate and conversation in the learning process?

Here are some ways you can keep yourself in the game:

• If you’ve built your network, engage with it. Milk it for information. Renew it and rejuvenate it with praise and favours. Contribute to it, prune it, and curate it. Continually seek new personalities to add to it. Your network is a living, breathing information library – if you can keep it that way.
• Read more widely than those around you. Cut down on sleep if you have to.
• Make an effort to read and apply lessons and information from other disciplines within your own.
• Combine information and lessons from different disciplines to improvise solutions for your present challenges.
• Aspire to read more widely than you’re actually able to.
• Every time you read an article, pause after you’re done and try and summarize the key concepts of the article mentally with just three brief bullet points.
• Read more than one newspaper every single day, and try to read different viewpoints to challenge yourself and shake up your thinking.
• Clean up your Facebook and Twitter feeds so you’re only following news sources that you are interested in and can interact with. If it’s too late to do this, create new profiles that will allow you to do this.

These are all some of the ways to keep your storehouse of knowledge well-stocked, so that you will never be left clueless in any conversation.

At the same time, learn to also develop the art of conversation and of asking questions that will help you get the answer that you want quickly.

It’s reflected in the old adage that I learned when I was younger: If you see a carpet-weaver weaving a carpet in the street, don’t ask him what he’s doing. It should be obvious that he’s weaving a carpet, and now you’ve wasted some of his patience and your time. Ask him instead to show you how he weaves his carpet, and learn from him. In the process of the conversation ebbing back-and-forth, you’ll learn why he weaves carpets, what he sees in his designs, and how he wants to improve his craft. Such a conversation will be more enriching, and will likely allow you to relate his stories to your own so that you actually learn something as a result.

There’s plenty more to learn, as handbooks go – it pays to keep a copy of Baltasar Gracian’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom in your bag or briefcase, when you’re travelling or looking to kill time. Reading it is not only time well-spent, but certainly an investment that can generate endless returns over the course of your lifetime.

Monday Morning Choices categorizes the choices we make in three overarching categories:

1) Character Choices ask us to examine and affirm that we choose not to be victims, that we have passion, and that our values are in check and our integrity is appropriately framed.

2) Action Choices challenge us towards creating a bias for action, to never give up, to display appropriate enthusiasm and to embrace adversity.

3) Investment Choices challenge us to develop meaningful relationships, seek and learn from criticism, consistently face the truth and build you legacy.

Cottrell suggests a “slow read” approach and advocates creation of a discussion group to give readers the opportunity to share their thoughts.

Golden Egg

Focus on Failure

“Successful people learn from failure.  In fact, most successful people fail faster and more often than the average person.  They learn from failure to become successful.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Monday Morning Choices, page 89

In my daily life things go wrong all the time.  The myriad of ways in which failure occurs can range from a work project blowing up to a personal relationship that sours to almost anything in between.  One of my core competencies is being able to deal with these failures in a way that contains the problem.  I am a capable firefighter and will not get derailed by something going sideways.  Like many of you, I focus on the solution, not the problem.

As I consider how to apply the “persistence choice” in my daily life, I have realized that the solution focus may not be the right choice for me.  I need to think more about the root cause and systemic issues that create this “sideways” scenario.  A more critical look at my failures may present opportunities to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

GEM #1

Build Powerful Relationships

“By surrounding yourself with others who choose commitment and passion, you’ll find yourself making more progress.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Monday Morning Choices, page 22

When considering our passion choice, Cottrell asks us to find those who share our passion and commitment.  He logically points out that those with a shared passion feed off each other and are in a position to achieve more. I need to focus on finding other avenues where I get connected with others that share my passion to excel and discover.  I am going to leverage my networks and social media to create the group approach to rereading Monday Morning Choices that Cottrell suggests.

GEM #2

Optimism and Passion

“We have an opportunity to choose our attitude for each decision everyday…”  (Click to Tweet!)

 Monday Morning Choices, page 100

Cottrell reminds us that we have the opportunity to choose our attitude on a daily basis.  It is entirely up to us.  We need to consider that there will be challenges but a proactive and optimistic approach is in all of us.  As a firefighter my attitude tends to what is required to fight today’s fire – I’m incredibly reactive.  I am going take 10 minutes on Monday mornings, to reflect on the week ahead and establish my attitude.  I will work not to get sidetracked during the day.

Monday Morning Choices poses important questions to consider and brings some of those unconscious choices we make into the spotlight for new examination.  Additionally, David Cottrell has provided an excellent tool to guide you in the reexamination of these choices.

In the comments below, let us know…

How often do you examine the choices you make?  What framework or tools do you employ for such an examination?  The author of Monday Morning Choices suggests reading and discussing this book in a group setting – would this work for you?

CrazyBusy, page 5

Consider a typical greeting.  It used to go something like this: “How are you?”  “Fine.”   Now it is often “How are you?”  “Busy” or “CrazyBusy”.

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., treats people with Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD).   In the 1990s he noticed an increase in the number of people wondering if they had ADD.  Most didn’t.  However, Hallowell believes that the speed, technology, and activity of modern life has created culturally induced ADD.

CrazyBusy describes the situation and impact in detail.  It also offers solutions and tools to managing your life.

What if you love being busy?  Hallowell acknowledges that if you’re busy doing what you love or doing what matters most to you, being busy is bliss.   CrazyBusy will resonate most with those who relate to the subtitle:  Overstretched, overbooked, and about to snap!

Golden Egg

Better technology = more work

“Labor-saving devices thus create more labor.   By shortening the time and energy it takes to do any one thing, these devices free up time and energy to do more things.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Crazy Busy, page 61

Let’s start by looking at the situation.   We have tools and technology that make it faster and easier to do things.  So we do more things!   Have you joined Facebook?  If so you’re probably now staying in touch with more people.  But are these relationships truly satisfying?

Written communication used to be sent by mail.    A letter would take a week.  Now, if you don’t reply to an email right away, you might get another email asking “Did you get my email?”

We receive messages on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email, voicemail and text.     When a question comes up in conversation and we don’t know the answer, we’ll whip out our iPhones and Google it.   If we’re bored for a moment, we’ll grab a tablet and start reading, surfing, or playing.

This technology allows us to get more work done.  According to research by Juliet Schor published in 1991, the average American was working an additional 160 hours per year than in 1960. That’s an extra month of forty-hour work weeks.

What’s the impact of all this connectedness and busyness?   One impact is “culturally induced ADD”.  Could you be suffering from this?   Symptoms of true ADD include:

• Tendency always to feel in a rush; impatient
• Tendency to have many projects going at once, trouble with follow-through
• Tendency to want to cut to the chase or get to the bottom line immediately
• Trouble getting organized
• A feeling of being overwhelmed by daily life

If you relate to any or all of these symptoms, it doesn’t mean you have ADD.  You may simply be CrazyBusy.

Stop and think for a moment about the impact being too busy has on you and those around you.  For you personally, you may feel stressed and tired.  For your family, there’s less time together enjoying true human connection.  For your community, there’s less focus on contribution because everyone is too busy with their individual lives and problems.

Being too busy saps energy, stifles creativity, and creates alienation.

So, why do we keep so busy?   

• We overcommit
• Being busy is a status symbol
• We can avoid everything that is difficult that we don’t want to do
• Everyone else is busy
• We are afraid that we will not keep up our standard of living unless we are SuperBusy

Recognizing the impact and comparing that to the reasons for keeping busy, something doesn’t add up.  It doesn’t seem worthwhile to be distracted and pulled away from what matters most, just because being busy is easy or looks normal.

GEM #1

Decide what matters most

“In the rush of today’s world, you need a plan to make sure you stay genuinely connected with living humans you know and like.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Crazy Busy, page 39

First, we must decide what’s most important to us.  Next, we have to schedule it.   Only then will the important activity take place, such as time with our children, spouse, or best friend.

Many couples have recognized the benefit of having a “date night”.  If we assume time with our significant other will “just happen” in between all of the other activities we’ve committed to, we may miss out.  This can result in feelings of disconnection and ultimately, dissatisfaction in the relationship.

Scheduling time with loved ones is an example of the solution that Hallowell proposes.   Key tips to managing your busy life include:

1. Figure out what matters most to you.
2. Create a system to manage your time. Organize just enough and make the system based on your own preferences.
3. Deliberately pay attention to how you invest your time.
4. Identify and control sources of distraction.
5. Delegate what you’re bad at.
6. Slow down, stop and think.
7. Play.

GEM #2

So long, (screen) suckers!

“A modern addiction, screen-sucking is like smoking cigarettes: Once you’re hooked, it is extremely hard to quit.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 Crazy Busy, page 164

What is screen-sucking?  Screen-sucking is a word Hallowell invented to describe wasting time engaging with any screen, including computer, television, computer game, iPhone.   This idea is also hilariously described in this article by the Onion: Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.

Do we really need a new word for this?  Surely many of us can relate to the phenomenon without a specific name.

However, once the word “screensucking” was in my head, I started to notice how often I was doing it.    In my office, I’m often sitting looking at my screen, even during lunch when I’m not working.   On the streetcar, I’ll alleviate boredom by playing Angry Birds.  In the living room, I’m often checking my smartphone for new messages, whether or not I’m expecting important communication.

Of course, the first part of solving the problem is realizing there is a problem.  Why is it a problem to waste time on screens?  Personally, I’ve noticed that when I have time away from screens, some of my best thinking and most creative ideas happen.  To create that space, I need more breaks from screens.

A few ideas to break the screen habit:

• Move the screen to another room
• Put a timer next to the screen – set a time at which you’ll stop using the screen
• If most of your work happens on a screen, make a habit of taking “screen breaks”

CrazyBusy will help you to identify if being busy is getting in the way of doing what matters most to you.  You’ll discover areas where you allow yourself to get distracted or overloaded.  Realizing the impact that this has on you may be all you need to make important changes in your life.  And, if you need ideas about how to get it all under control, CrazyBusy provides that too.

In the comments below, let us know…

What matters to you?  And what strategies do you use to make sure you spend time on what matters most?

Learned Optimism, page 8

Al Capp’s satirical comic strip Li’l Abner introduced an iconic character, Joe Btfsplk. Joe walked around with a dark cloud over his head — literally. He brought misfortune everywhere he went. In one sequence, he escaped his cloud, but took it back, accepting that was just who he was: the little guy with the dark cloud over his head.

It’s common to believe that some of us are born with a sunny outlook and others are doomed to life under a dark cloud.

It’s not true.

Optimism can be learned and pessimism overcome.

A pioneer in the field of positive psychology, Martin E. P. Seligman has spent decades studying negative and positive thinking, developing practical methods to transform the former into the latter.

Whether we are pessimistic or optimistic depends on whether we see adversities as

• permanent
• pervasive
• personal

or

• temporary
• specific to these circumstances
• not our fault

Optimism, it turns out, is a skill each of us can learn.

Golden Egg

Optimism is a Learnable Skill

“What if optimism is a learned skill, one that can be permanently acquired?”  (Click to Tweet!)

Learned Optimism, page 14

Seligman’s team studied pessimism by inducing helplessness in dogs. These dogs learned that nothing they did turned off the mild shocks in their cages, so even when they could escape, they didn’t.

About a third of the dogs, though, never succumbed. They couldn’t be forced to feel helpless. What if this immunity could be learned?

When helpless dogs were pulled back and forth over a small divider, repeatedly shown they could escape the shocks, 100% unlearned the helplessness.

Unlearned it so well that they were inoculated against helplessness for life.

Experiments with humans, using frustrating puzzles and noises, produced identical results. Helplessness could be learned, and it could be unlearned. Once it was unlearned, the effects were permanent.

GEM #1

Changing Our Belief About Adversity Changes its Consequence

“We have found over the years that positive statements you make to yourself have little if any effect. What is crucial is what you think when you fail, using the power of ‘non-negative thinking.’”  (Click to Tweet!)

Learned Optimism, page 15

Knowing a positive perspective in the face of adversity was based on beliefs, Seligman’s team created a process to learn optimism by exploring different beliefs using a system Seligman calls ABCDE.

When you suffer some Adversity, if you analyze what you Believe about it you’ll see the Consequences as a logical result.

What if you change your Belief?

For instance, the boss asks you to rewrite the conclusion of your report (Adversity.)

If your Belief is “The boss is looking for an excuse to fire me” the Consequences will be bad feelings and poor performance.

If you changed your Belief to “This report must be extremely important upstairs” the Consequences could be determination and an excellent job.

That’s ABC: Adversity, Belief, Consequences.

D is Disputation: reasoning ourselves into accepting another Belief. I’ll cover this in more detail in GEM #2.

E is Energization: what we’re motivated to do because we’ve Disputed a pessimistic Belief.

For the next two weeks, every time something goes wrong, write down the ABCs:

• What was the Adversity?
• What did you Believe about it?
• What were the Consequences (feelings and actions)?

Once you’ve recognize those ABCs, it’s time to inject some Disputation into the process.

GEM #2

Disputing Negative Thinking by Analyzing Evidence, Alternatives, Implications, and Usefulness

“Learned optimism works not through an unjustifiable positivity about the world but through the power of ‘non-negative’ thinking.”

Learned Optimism, page 221

The Disputation process involves another acronym: EAIU, for Evidence, Alternatives, Implications, and Usefulness.

• What does the Evidence say? The most effective way to dispute a negative belief is to realize it is factually inaccurate. In the example above, if you have Evidence that, in fact, the boss values you and there are no plans to park you at the curb, it’s easier to change your belief.
• Is there an Alternative explanation? Most adversities have multiple contributing factors. Focusing on those which are changeable, specific to the current circumstances, and non-personal leads to optimistic beliefs.
• What are the true Implications of the adversity? In a process called decatastrophizing, when we consider that the most likely negative consequence is relatively minor compared to the “end of the world” scenario we first conjured up, our beliefs lead to more optimistic consequences.
• Finally, what if it turns out our belief is, in fact, true? Does that automatically make it Useful? Maybe blowing your diet (adversity) makes you think you’re a glutton (belief). Even if that were true, is it helpful? It’s more helpful to focus on what we can change (“I need help with my eating habits.”)

Should you decide the belief is true, and there’s nothing you can do about it right now, distraction techniques can keep you from ruminating on the adversity, which is a prime cause of pessimism and depression.

Seligman’s research began in earnest about the time I was 15 years old. If I’d known that someone somewhere was researching how we could choose to be optimists, I would have rejoiced. Also, I would have found them and forced the answer from them and changed my life.

During the past 10 years I’ve read dozens of books based on Seligman’s work and its practical application. I’ve taken a long slow road from severe pessimism and depression to a life of great optimism.

Learned Optimism is a shortcut. Using the ABCDE and EAIU tools, in a short time (I short-circuited a powerfully negative thinking pattern out of my life in less than a week) you can learn optimism.

What do you think? Is a negative perspective simply a natural consequence of a difficult situation, or can we learn to be optimistic despite our circumstances?

Creative Strategy, page 5

Creative Strategy uniquely contributes to the body of innovation literature by answering the toughest innovation questions of them all: How?  How do you get innovative ideas? How do you decide on which ideas to pursue?  How do you bridge from analysis to execution? How exactly?

In his previous book, Strategic Intuition, Columbia Business School Professor William Duggan laid out his case on how innovation works in our brains: flashes of insight that combine knowledge and experience (stored in our brains and in the world around us) to create new, innovative ideas. He left us with a 4 step mental process to generate innovative ideas and a team tool, the ‘what-works’ matrix, to use in a group setting.

In Creative Strategy, his follow-up book, Duggan goes into more detail on the steps of his proposed methodology and provides an extensive workbook on the process of how to apply strategic intuition to the real world.  That process he calls creative strategy. His book succeeds in motivating the reader to take the tangible and confident steps needed to use creative strategy in business and personal life.

Golden Egg

Marrying Creativity with Strategy

“…analysis and creativity work together in all modes of thought. You cannot have an idea without both.” (Click to Tweet!)

Creative Strategy, page 2

Traditionally, we have held that creativity is open and strategy focused – generating from two separate parts of our brain. We manage them separately and then try to combine the results in some way at a later stage.  Creative Strategy makes this a one step process by marrying creativity (the generation of new ideas) with efficiency (based on what we already know is working elsewhere) and strategy (addressing only the key elements that are at the core of our challenges).  The fusing of these domains into one guided process provides the missing piece for many innovation efforts. 

Most importantly, Creative Strategy could spawn even greater corporate acceptance for more organized innovation efforts as it is a more “prudent way to experiment”. Following the what-works matrix and process will allow you to explain why your new idea is worth a try since it is a creative combination of past elements that have worked. Creative Strategy essentially provides a potentially better ROI – return on ideas – for management than random “try anything” notions, “wild ideas” or purely imaginative flights of fancy.

Further addressing efficiency, and backed by neuroscience, Creative Strategy as a methodology and thought process closely follows what we now know about optimal brain functioning. The “learning-and-memory” brain model has replaced the “two brain” (left brain-right brain) model as the current working basis of human brain functioning. “In this model, analysis and intuition are not two different kinds of thought, in two different locations, but operates throughout the brain as is proven by neuroscience”. It should follow that the methods of strategy and the methods of creativity have a connection and there is no need for conducting two separate sessions. Creative strategy offers a formal method that mirrors the way the brain works.

GEM #1

Break the paradigm

“The most common mistake in methods of innovation, creation and strategy is to rely on some type of formal or informal brainstorming to fill the gap between analysis and planning.”

Creative Strategy, page 73

Duggan is not a fan of brainstorming as it “relies on ideas just popping into your head in a matter of minutes”. Brain connections (good ideas), on the other hand, take time. Standard advice of brainstorming is to “encourage wild ideas”, “go for quantity”. Creative Strategy is very different: “look for pieces of the puzzle that someone, somewhere has already solved to some degree”. It is a treasure hunt that goes for quality.

Duggan states definitively that the what-works matrix and scan exercise create a better process for groups to work with. They focus, fine tune, and direct thinking toward definitive solutions, not just a lot of random ideas. Participants are being very selective, looking for exact examples needed that address particular elements of the problem, then combine them into new ideas that target the specific challenges at hand. Duggan characterizes it as “being a detective, spending time searching for solutions, not studying the problem.”

It’s important to break the habit, the corporate “inertia”, of following the “classic mistake” of focusing on elaborate analysis followed by conducting brainstorming sessions to “generate solutions”. “This yields strong analysis and weak solutions” and follows the old left brain/right brain model.  Replace this standard course of action with his creative strategy phases of:

1. Rapid appraisal: Break the problem into parts (most important elements)
2. What-works scan: Search widely for sources/examples of previously successful actions that address each element
3. Creative combination: Allow the brain to have flashes of insight in finding new combinations of elements.

GEM #2

Slaughtering sacred cows

“Creative Strategy comes much closer to how innovations actually happen.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Creative Strategy, page 107

The second part of the book bravely dedicates itself to pointing out the flaws of the major business methods being used and touted today and explains how to alter them to make room for creative strategy. Duggan reviews a cross-section of creativity methods such as design thinking, Dragon’s Den, mind mapping, play, time off and TRIZ. He dissects strategy methods such as Blue Ocean, case method, systems thinking, SWOT, and gap analysis. He takes on Bain & Company’s annual survey of most used management tools, and a wide range of management and creativity staples like Jim Collin’s Good to Great, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s Execution, Clay Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma & Innovator’s Solution, Ed de Bono’s Six Hats Thinking and Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy. It is quite an undertaking.

On his review of creative methods, he points out that many of these methods try to “stir up the pot of your mind so creative ideas pop out” which amount to “stimulating the right side of your brain “, not producing a strategy. You wind up facing a universe of possibilities and no guidance at all for how to decide which one to choose.

On his review of strategy methods, he warns that they are incomplete methods.  They help organize your thoughts – how to analyze a problem, but do not help you find a solution. You take an analytical framework that describes your current situation and “then have to make a magical leap to fill in the framework for the future you desire”.

The actionable item here is to actively use Duggan’s book as a way to challenge your thinking and your sacred cows.  The first step in being more innovative starts with a cold, hard look at what you are currently doing and what are your guiding beliefs. Creative Strategy becomes a singular book offering a different lens to review the major management, strategy and creativity processes in vogue today in relation to innovation creation.  This activity may help you expand or fine-tune your  innovation toolkit.

Creative Strategy is a brave work, like innovation itself, standing up to challenge status quo thinking. It deserves attention as it provides a much needed innovation creation process that strongly addresses real world constraints.

In the comments below, let us know…

What process do you use to ensure you come up with a novel idea? How well does it work?

Stand and Deliver, page 25

If you want to get only a little better at public speaking then don’t read Stand and Deliver: How to Become a Masterful Communicator and Public Speaker, as it’s designed to make you a truly great communicator. And if that sounds a bit OTT (over the top), when you see the name Dale Carnegie in the title you know that you are going to be in for a treat. Dale Carnegie wrote the renowned book How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936 – a milestone that spread his principles across the globe. Dale Carnegie Training writes this one, a service I was ashamedly unaware of before seeing this publication. Founded in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has evolved from one man’s belief in the power of self-improvement to a performance-based training company with offices worldwide. They focus on giving people in business the opportunity to sharpen their skills and improve their performance in order to build positive, steady, and profitable results.

This book is just engorged with good stuff, like a big juicy red pomegranate ready to explode its seeds of insight. Don’t be a PowerPoint presentation puppet, read this and gain recognition and kudos in your field using the banquet of tricks and tools offered here. This is a succinct master class for beginners and will also delight regular speakers with its joyful enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Golden Egg

Know Your Stuff!

“What are the principles? The first is actually quite obvious and maybe that’s why so many speakers seem to forget it. It can be stated in a single short sentence, know what you’re talking about.”

Stand and Deliver, page 3

Yes, simple enough, but have you ever considered writing out at least fifty questions about your topic? Fifty is described as the minimum and you are advised to think of as many as possible over a twenty-minute period. This is a bit of a brain storming exercise that enhances whatever it is that you know.  So what, you might be thinking, I could do that easily.  And that is precisely the point. Everything in this book anyone could do easily.

Mr. Carnegie believed that speakers should know forty percent more about their topic than they shared in a presentation. And he was probably right! The onus is put fairly and squarely on you to do your homework and master the information for your presentation. Then when you have digested all the tips on being your very own expert the book goes on to develop your ability to DELIVER!

GEM #1

Colourful Communication

“Even a raw beginner can manage a successful opening by using a story to arouse curiosity.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Stand and Deliver, page 122

There is something about the pace and tone of the book that encourages you to be involved in the process and engage with the teacher. Simple advice is the name of the game and we are all enabled to take a look at what we do now and how we can improve it. Starting with the preparation, there is a logical progression through to questions, answers, and reflection at the end. It is apparent that while you are learning some real top tips on overcoming stage fright, using humour, and motivating your listeners you are really learning much more about becoming a polished communicator.

The book consistently gives you ideas, like begin with something interesting in your very first minute, not the second. Not the third. The first. An example is shared from one of their students that begins with the sentence Eighty two years ago, and just about this time of year there was published a little story that was destined to become immortal. And in the next paragraph there are various facts given with the reader continuing to tease you until you, the recipient, are guessing but ultimately really curious about which story is being referred to – which incidentally for the record was Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The point being made is who is not susceptible to curiosity?

And if you want to hugely increase the impact of what you’re saying, simply mention that you read your information while you were on an airplane. It’s almost like magic but it’s true that just associating your message with certain settings and experiences has a major amplifying effect.

GEM #2

Creativity and the Magic Formula

“In just the short time required to read this chapter, you can learn an absolutely surefire method for making your talk memorable for your audience and lead them to make immediate and positive changes based on it. All this is made possible by the speaking technique that Dale Carnegie called the Magic Formula – and once you start using that technique you’ll see that it is a magic formula.”

Stand and Deliver, page 177

This book acknowledges that many of the examples and case studies refer to icons of the past, however it also tips its cap to the present. The magic formula offered in Chapter 10 acknowledges how the old advice—introduction, middle and end—is still relevant and to be respected. Somehow though we need to accommodate our ENTERTAIN NOW CULTURE. The Magic Formula is a technique for creating connection, motivation, inspiration and action for your audience in the shortest time when necessary, and here it is.

1. Describe a personal story that describes a positive change in your life.
2. Ask for action and do it right now.
3. Refer to one specific benefit to the audience.

The Magic Formula is described as a framework for public speaking that has served thousands of participants in the Dale Carnegie organization. It is said that this formula will make you into a polished speaker in the shortest time. The emphasis on creativity and finding ways to improve your thoughts while observing all the markers given to you is relentless.

There are no excuses accepted if you want to be a great public speaker; the map is given to you in full colour, post codes and all. You are invited to take just one hour a day five days a week and devote that hour to your development as a public speaker. The most important thing the hour accomplishes is to deeply embed your goal into your subconscious mind. The message is clearly you can accomplish this.

Nothing in this book is rocket science but it is firing on all cylinders rocket fuel. It will help you power your way to the front of the queue when top performance speakers are needed. Make sure you have a monster notebook to draw out and retain the bountiful ideas that are leaping off every page. This is an ideas manual that you can return to many times ultimately helping you to develop your own signature style. I will end with a quote from the great Dale Carnegie himself, which says ‘There are always three speeches for every one you actually give. The one you practiced, the one you gave and the one you wish you gave.” Is he right about this too?

The Ultimate Question 2.0, page 1

If you want to impact people and increase sales simultaneously and you suspect that being customer driven is key to your success then read on! In this summary I share my three key takeaways from The Ultimate Question 2.0 and I also recommend you read the book since there are many more lessons to be had!

Let’s start with what a ‘Net Promoter Score’ is for those who have not yet heard of it. If you have ever been asked “How likely would you recommend us (our product or service) on a scale from 0–10?” then you have been served by a company that has benefitted from the wisdom of Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey. In 2003 he shared the Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a new way to measure how well an organization treats its customers and how well it builds relationships that lead to loyalty.

While at first I questioned why an entire book was required to explain one magical question, I was delighted to learn that the question is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more we can learn! Reichheld and Markey share lessons from those who have gone before us and had tremendous success transforming their organizations based on the NPS.

Thousands of innovative companies (Apple, American Express, Allianz, Philips, GE, eBay, Facebook, LEGO, and Southwest Airlines) began using Net Promoter scores to track loyalty, engagement, and enthusiasm of their customers. They liked how easy it was and how it focused everyone on one inspirational goal – to treat customers so well that they become promoters.

Though the science is still young, users have evolved it such that it has become a management system, an entire way of doing business. The initials themselves, NPS, have come to mean Net Promoter system rather than just Net Promoter score.

This system of management helps executives focus the entire organization on turning customers into promoters; customers who come back for more and bring their friends. Who doesn’t want that? A great side effect from that outcome is that employees are energized because they feel proud of how they’ve treated their customers.

Golden Egg

The One Sure Path to Success: Delight Your Customers

“The only way to grow is to treat customers so well they come back for more, and tell their friends about us.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Andy Taylor, CEO of Enterprise,
as quoted in The Ultimate Question 2.0, page 36

These days there is more emphasis than ever on customer centricity. And it’s no wonder. The internet empowers customers to not only find all the information they need but to share their experiences. They are in charge.

Additionally, good leaders understand that most talented employees want more than a J-O-B. They want to pursue a mission, a purpose that transcends profits and shareholders. Being customer centered creates more meaning and satisfaction for the employees.

Have you ever felt however that your organizational leaders talk out of both sides of their mouths? They claim they want to be customer focused yet the culture remains staunchly profit-centric, ruled by quarterly financial objectives and accounting metrics.

Despite all the talk companies have had about being customer focused and creating a purpose for their people, the vast majority haven’t made much progress. Reichheld shows us with many examples of companies that have grasped the Net Promoter System are finding their way.

GEM #1

We want to be customer driven… but how?

“If organizations take seriously the goal of turning customers into promoters, then they must take seriously the need to measure their success.”

The Ultimate Question 2.0, page 123

Are you ready to be obsessed with your mission to be customer driven – to enrich the lives of your customers? Here is a snapshot of the necessary steps to obtain measurement consistently.

1) Use the question: “How likely would you recommend us (or our product or service) to your friends or colleagues on a scale from 0–10?”  You can follow it up with “What is the primary reason for the score you just gave us?”

2) Categorize the results:

1. Scores of 9-10 – Promoters. These people are suggesting that their lives have been enriched by their relationship with you/the company. They are loyal and may talk up the company to their colleagues. They represent good profits and sustainable growth.

2. Scores of 7-8 – Passives. These people are passively satisfied and not loyal. They wouldn’t likely talk enthusiastically to others about you. They have not been “delighted” yet.

3. Scores of 6 or less – Detractors. These people are dissatisfied, disaffected or even dismayed by how they are treated. They may talk badly about you/the company. This represents an opportunity to discover the problem, apologize and solve the problem.

3) Close the loop – Shortly after the score is obtained, managers should engage passives and detractors in dialogue around their experience that led to the score. They could ask “What is the most important improvement that would make you more likely to recommend us?”

4) Celebrate success and share best practice – Managers should share the promoters’ comments with all to acknowledge great work and teach others through example. This stimulates the journey to customer centricity.

GEM #2

Learn from those who have gone before us: 3 keys to success

“Becoming truly customer-centric and turning customers into promoters is a very long journey. ‘It’s as much about culture change as it is about organizational design and metrics.’ Says Guerrino De Luca, chairman of Logitech.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Ultimate Question 2.0, page 224

We can benefit and learn from those who have walked before us. Reichheld discovered that in virtually every successful application of the system, whenever NPS helped produce extraordinary improvements, the following three characteristics were prevalent:

1) Senior leadership teams and specifically the CEO made it a mission-critical priority. They embraced the improvement of customer loyalty through NPS. Why? They understood that being customer driven is morally imperative and creates profit simultaneously.

2) They wove NPS into the fabric of daily and monthly priorities. NPS customer feedback was hardwired into key decision processes up and down the organization.

3) Companies organized the NPS initiative as a long journey of cultural change and growth rather than a short-term project. They understood that NPS had to touch every part of the organization for it to generate profitable, sustainable growth.

Everyone wants to make a profit and many want to leave a legacy. The real magic happens for those who realize it’s reversed. Create a legacy of caring about customers and employees, a legacy of enriching the lives you touch and the profits with follow. Once you accept this and want to achieve and measure it, learn everything you can about the Net Promoter System. It’s not just a way of thinking but a practical guide; a blueprint for long-term growth and success. It’s indispensable.

In the comments below, let us know…

Is it important to you to delight your customers? If so, how do you measure whether you are delighting them? How could you discover the answer to the ultimate question “How likely would you recommend us (or our product or service) to your friends or colleagues on a scale from 0 – 10?”?

SPIN Selling, page 8

No one except for those in sales can relate to the feeling of helping guide a customer to a “yes” decision.  For anyone who professes to be in the art of sales, this paragraph should ring truer than the sound of the sweetest bell while simultaneously irritate like nails on a chalkboard.  You may, and should, be thinking, “Come on, is that really all that this is about?”  And the answer, according to researcher Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling, is yes, yes it is.

When your prospect sees that what you have to offer is something of value and benefit to them they will act.  Think about your own personal buying experiences.  Were they not all in one way shape or form connected to the fact that you would be willing to give up resources in exchange for the benefits that they offered, as long as the benefits outweighed the costs?  That is what Rackham is not only proposing, but proving through his scientific studies of over a period of 12 years.

The SPIN Selling process centers around four types of questions designed to build up perceived value from the customers’ perspective: Situation Questions, Problem Questions, Implication Questions, and Need-Payoff Questions.

For those of us who profess to make a living through salesmanship, Rackham’s 12 year study on selling should be a required reading.  If you are involved in the single call sales environment, where after an initial meeting with a prospect you have the order and no follow up or additional services are offered, feel free to stop reading now as this book will not apply to you.  For the other 99% of the sales people out there, read on to learn several gems from the SPIN Selling sequence.  This book is about major sales, the types with multiple calls, meetings, and interactions with a customer.

Golden Egg

Build value by turning implied needs into explicit needs

“It’s almost perfect -> I’m a little dissatisfied -> I’ve got problems with… -> I NEED TO CHANGE IMMEDIATELY!”  (Click to Tweet!)

SPIN Selling, page 56

Of the four questioning types in the SPIN sequence, the most critical to success in large sales comes from the INVESTIGATING portion.  This is the stage “with the strongest influence on overall call success…”

At the heart of the investigating stage are the questions that you are asking the customer.  The goal in this sequence is to uncover needs that the customer not only wants to solve, but needs to solve for their benefit.  And everyone who has been through Sales 101 just rolled their eyes thinking, “Great, anything else we should now?”  While this is not a revolutionary concept, the process of moving from implied need to explicit need is the challenge that separates those who are truly successful in selling to those who simply do sales for a living.

The difference in the two needs comes from the customer’s overall perspective.  To the customer, an implied need is just a statement of a problem, difficultly, or dissatisfaction.  “It’s not great, and could be better, but it’s not the end of the world” would be a statement you may hear.

The explicit need is when a customer states a specific want or desire.  “I need to have a touchscreen, with 4G LTE capabilities” would be an explicit need for a cell phone.

Success in the large sale depends, more than anything else, on how implied needs are developed, and then how you convert those found needs into EXPLICIT needs that you can help the customer in solving.

GEM #1

Pre-call Planning – Know your game!

“Before I go into a call, I ask myself, ‘What problems can I solve for this customer?’ The clearer I can be about the problems I can solve, the easier it is to ask effective questions during the discussion”            (Click to Tweet!)

SPIN Selling, page 94

The planning stage of anything is often with salespeople the least anticipated part of a call.  Generally hard charging and flying at the seat of our pants by nature, this is an area of true discipline when it comes time to making sales calls and scheduling meetings.  However, if you are truly going to find needs a customer has, you will want to sit down and think through what it is about this potential customer that you can solve, and how you can do that.

Rackham suggests a three step process to review as you head into your next sales calls to allow you to develop implication questions, which will lead your customer to explicit needs:

1. Write down a potential problem your customer is likely to have.
2. What difficulties may arise from this problem?  Write at least four.
3. For each difficulty, write down a question it suggests that you can use in your call.

This will get your mind thinking in terms of “implications” that are causing your customer issues, and allow for them to state those back to you as well, giving you the explicit needs you can then solve!

GEM #2

Objection! Did I do that?

“Objections, contrary to common belief, are more often created by the seller than the customer.”       (Click to Tweet!)

SPIN Selling, page 118

Many of the salespeople Rackham researched in this book were taught the value of “creating” objections.  Rackham, in his professorial style, politely points out, “Why would you want to create objections?”  One can almost see him slapping his forehead with a quizzical look on his face as you read this section of the book.

Rather than teach salespeople how to handle objections, Rackham suggests we teach how to prevent objections.  How do we do this?  By going back to the value of explicit needs in the sales process.  “The customer has raised the objection because he didn’t perceive sufficient value from the (solving of the problem)”.

If this is happening in your sales process, go back to investigating and asking questions about the customer.  The more you know, the more you can develop implied needs, and the more you can turn them into explicit needs that you can solve for the customer.

“It means the becoming actual of what was potential–turning something into practical usefulness as opposed to theoretical elegance. Entelechy – the becoming actual of what was potential – turning something into practical usefulness as opposed to theoretical elegance.”

SPIN Selling, page 147

Rackham closes this book with several words of encouragement on the inevitable frustration one can feel when attempting to make a change.  Be sure that when incorporating SPIN into your sales processes, you do not go for the fire hose approach and expect instant success.  Rather, pick one piece at a time, master it, and then move on to the next, and so on.  In this way you can truly experience the benefits and results that come from satisfying both your customer and yourself.

In the comments below, let us know…

How can investigating with your next potential customer allow you to turn implied needs into explicit needs?  What questions can you ask that will help you to truly serve your customers?

Mindset, page 5

The other night I was watching Oprah’s Next Chapter which featured actor turned humanitarian, Sean Penn. Through his non-profit J/P HRO, Sean Penn has joined the on-going Haitian Disaster Relief effort. His group has a camp that serves 20,000 displaced Haitian earthquake survivors. While taking a tour of Sean Penn’s School of Hope, Oprah met one of its star pupils. She introduced herself to the young girl and turns to the teacher and says, in front of entire class, “So, I hear this is the smartest girl in the class.”

The teacher confirms Oprah’s statement by replying, “Yes, she is one of the star pupils of the school.” And my heart went out to all the other children in the class who were not recognized as “smart” because of their current performance in class. This is where it all starts, the labeling of who is smart and who is not.  These labels are then often internalized and transformed into thoughts about how much success one can “realistically” attain. The thoughts you have about your intelligence, talent, and personality develop into your belief system.

Can people become smarter and more intelligent through experience, training, and personal effort? Carol Dweck tackles this question and many similar thoughts about success in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. She asserts that there are two basic mindsets: fixed and growth. The fixed mindset focuses on permanent traits and creates an urgency to prove one’s self over and over again while avoiding risk and effort that might reveal inadequacies. The growth mindset, on the other hand, focuses on development and the cultivation of one’s basic qualities through effort.

According to Dweck, instead of singling out this one child as being smart, Oprah probably should have said something like, “So, I hear you are the hardest working student in the class.” Focusing on effort rather than perceived intelligence allows for thoughts that encourage the cultivation of intelligence. This is opposed to something that is fixed and set in stone.

Fixed messages about intelligence and potential can have grave consequences and damaging effects on your self-image. Throughout her book, Dweck provides case studies that show how the fixed mindset has had a catastrophic effect on relationships, corporate culture, and athletic and personal achievement. These examples illuminate the fact that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable). Dweck states that, “It’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training. “

Golden Egg

Magic vs. Art

“The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Mindset, page 6

Is life about the “magic” or the “art”? The magic is effortless, endowed by the gods, flawless, and perfect, much like the fixed mindset. Magic is special, perfect, and its prowess must be validated in order for it to be real.  Magic is dismissed when it fails to hide the coin behind the ear or make the lovely assistant disappear. Magic is or it is not. Art on the other hand allows for imperfections. It is driven by passion and requires constant honing in order for it to be perceived as beautiful. Art is found in da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as well as the squiggly lines of Jackson Pollock. Much like the growth mindset, art is fearless in the face of imperfection. Art lusts for feedback and desires only to resonate with the soul.

The fixed mindset adheres to the magic of the comfort zone, which can prove to be very constricting. As the fixed mindset permeates one’s thoughts it allows for complacency in one’s actions and justifies shunning anything that challenges one’s current beliefs. The growth mindset thrives in the art of the possibilities that lay outside the box. It encourages risk taking and facing challenges with an open mind. It allows for the cultivation of one’s desired results.

The author says that most people view drawing as a magical ability that only a select few possess, and only a select few will ever possess. This view is widely held because people don’t understand the learnable components of drawing, such as the ability to perceive edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and the whole. Each component is a learnable skill that is combined into the process of drawing. The same is true for the view adopted for life. There are two choices: embrace the art of success and learn to master its components and the process involved (growth) or wait for something magical to happen (fixed).

GEM #1

The Deception of Amazing: Get Outside Your Comfort Zone!

“Everyone, of whatever age and circumstance, is capable of self-transformation.” (Click to Tweet!) 

Mindset, page 141

You can change your intelligence, personality, thoughts, and behaviors. The real question is, will you? Dweck points out that “people often like the things that work against their growth…there is tremendous risk in leaving what one does well to attempt to master something new.” Everyone loves the magic that lies within them; their strengths and talents that effortlessly yield amazing results.

To combat this natural tendency to favor “the magic” over “the art” one must:

1. Believe in human development and constantly try to improve
2. Surround yourself with people that challenge you to grow
3. Look squarely at your mistakes and deficiencies
4. Proceed with confidence grounded in facts not fantasies about your talents

Success does not have an expiration date. Learn and practice the strategies that will help you succeed.

GEM #2

Beware of the words you use: Failure is not an adjective!

“Beware of success. It can knock you into a fixed mindset.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Mindset, page 210

Days after losing 2011 NBA finals Lebron James said that “losing was the best thing that could have happened to us.” His loss was a very humbling experience that forced him to re-evaluate himself and train harder to create a cohesive union amongst his teammates; it was his reality check. Embracing failure as an action (I failed) that can be corrected, as opposed to an identity (I am a failure), is a crucial aspect of the growth mindset. Equally important, is recognizing that fixed beliefs such as “I won because I have talent. Therefore I will keep winning” are just as destructive as assigning failure as an identity. The defeat made the superstar human again. In his humanity he found humility and a new resiliency.

After reading, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, I became more aware of my thoughts and behaviors. Primarily I have a growth mindset (most people won’t admit to having a fixed mindset) but there are moments when I fall victim to “the magic”. This book has helped shaped my approach to parenting, relationships, and business. When my son favors doing things that don’t challenge his ego I am now better prepared to help him embrace “the art”. In business, I am better equipped to face my fears and accept the challenges. Your mindset is the greatest determining factor in your ability to achieve your true potential.

In the comments below, let us know…

Do you believe in magic or the art? Are there areas in your life that you might be able to make a breakthrough if you changed your mindset?

Getting Change Right, page 1

Everything changes.

…or needs to change, especially organizations. And without a true understanding of how positive change really happens in a large corporation, you’ll either be running in place or causing damage like a two-year-old at a glass sculpture art gallery.

Seth Kahan, an international consultant, and practicing expert on the subject of large scale change, offers a practical, hands-on guide for managers or anyone responsible for change efforts within an organization. He shares proven strategies that will help make change stick and be supported by all stakeholders.

Do you know how to communicate so people get it and spread it? Interactions that create more interactions are the kind that catapult an idea to the masses and increase the speed of change. Seth shows you how to engage people at multiple levels.

Do you have performance communities? These are self-organized communities focused around a common set of goals that break down organizational silos and provide a forum where people can safely collaborate and learn from each other. Cultivating these groups clears more roadblocks to effective change.

Those are only a few of the key concepts. More juicy strategic details are covered as the author leads you through every possible step of implementing a large change initiative.

Golden Egg

Build Social Construction

“Getting change right is less about producing communiqués and more about cultivating relationships. This is a true paradigm switch – from a model in which you design and assemble messages to one in which you till, plant, nurture, weed, and harvest affinities.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Getting Change Right, page 33

The old model is dead. Unfortunately, people are still using it. And then they wonder why it’s not working.

I’m talking about the standard communication model that was originated in 1949 by Shannon and Weaver in The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Kahan explains that this model, which played a great role in the information revolution, is completely inadequate for helping people make meaning – a critical element in the rapid spread of new ideas. It states that you have an information source that develops a message that is sent using a transmitter. The signal travels and encounters noise on its way to a receiver where a subsequent message is delivered to a destination.

Although this model is great for sending digital signals, it doesn’t work too well for humans trying to make sense of the bombardment of messages they receive.  Making meaning is much more complicated, and it’s why we need interaction with others if we want to truly learn or understand something.

These interactions help us develop our ideas, place them in context, and make them relevant to our experience. We construct our understanding through a collective project, so Seth calls it ‘social construction.’

Social construction is a way of looking at how people build a common understanding and negotiate their way into the future. Some core principles are:

1. How we understand the world is based on relationships
2. We do not all interpret the world in the same way
3. Challenging our assumptions is vital for improving performance

Without social construction, your communication is dusting off an old model, where your signal, transmitter, and receiver are just creating static.

GEM #1

Lead Conversations that Engage

“…it is absolutely critical that first contact is made by listening and learning, not propagating an agenda.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Getting Change Right, page 36

Throughout the book, Seth Kahan explains how to engage people individually. His tactics always make complete sense. But they take effort.

Seth describes three steps he always uses for initiating contact as part of a big change initiative.

1. Seth’s sponsor introduces him as a neutral party by email and asks for 15 to 30 minutes of their time to fill him in on the situation.
2. Seth makes contact with each to arrange a time to speak, never sending a mass email, but makes it personal in order to build a relationship he can leverage as they work together.
3. Once in contact he tells the person that the goal is to do the right thing with the initiative, and tries to best understand their point of view, asking questions and reflecting back what he hears.

This is a strategy that I plan on doing more often, even if I’m not part of a big initiative.  I know when I connect with people individually, I get much more of the story, where they are coming from, their opinions and dreams, and I build the relationship and rapport. People like to be heard. It’s fresh air in a large corporation.

Conversations that engage happen when people contribute because they want to. When enthusiasm spreads on its own, you know you’ve made a connection.

GEM #2

Accelerate the Speed of Buy-In

“Your job as a change leader is to enter the worlds of your stakeholders, learn what they value, and find ways for your idea to help them achieve that as quickly as possible.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Getting Change Right, page 20

Kahan tells the story of how he brought two opposing groups into a room together and asked why they were there. After a lot of silence, they began to open up and share their true feelings. This cleared the air and allowed each person on the team to see how they could add value, which then led to committed action.  This volunteer action, based on alignment with the purpose, is pure buy-in.

Among Seth’s ‘13 Techniques for Accelerating Buy-In’ are:

• Create a team of change agents
• Replicate your team
• Distribute easy-to-understand teaching tools
• Build a web of thought-leaders and partners
• Follow enthusiasm and commitment
• Create time to talk to others
• Dedicate space for conversation

Lasting change isn’t about answering to authority, it’s about getting people to make the changes on their own because they believe it’s the right thing.

Getting people to believe is a lot more difficult task then just having them change the way they do things. Much of the ‘belief’ required is the belief that they can actually change things and make a difference in a large corporation. Many people will feel the same way about a policy, but because they don’t connect or know how many other people believe the same way they do, they don’t speak up.  Accelerating Buy-In is making this belief pervasive first, then spreading the specific change that is built together by all the stake holders.

There are many ways to change things within an organization, but getting it right means that the change is sustained, no matter what forces bear their influence. And what sets a change deep into the daily operations are the people and relationships that bind them together.

In the comments below, let us know…

What changes have you seen stick and can you say why?

Success Built to Last, page 4

Success that lasts is created when you have a mission that matters, a calling, a cause.  That’s what the authors of Success Built to Last learned when they interviewed 200 people who’s success has endured time and changing circumstances.  Almost every page includes direct quotes gathered during the interviews – immediately usable insights illuminating these enduringly successful people’s specific definition of success.

After interviewing the 200 people who fit the criteria of enduring success, the authors saw three essential elements of lasting success: Meaning, Thought Style, and Action Style.

1. Meaning – Enduringly successful people had something so meaningful that they lost track of time while engaged in it, they were willing to endure criticism about it, they recruited others to do it, and they couldn’t be paid not to do it.

2. Thought Style – People who have lasting success have a style of thought that matches their particular situation and keeps them on track to persevere.

3.  Action Style – Jack Jia summed up the enduringly successful style of taking action as one that’s relentless. “If you refuse to do something you believe in your mind it will never leave you alone. You might as well get on with it even if it won’t be perfect.”

Imagine each as a circle and that lasting success is the intersection of the three circles. But without a conscious and sustained effort, the three drifted apart.

Golden Egg

The definition of success

“Why am I not doing what really matters to me right now?”  (Click to Tweet!)

Success Built to Last, page 32

To create success that lasts you have to know your journey matters so much that you stay the course year after year – always with zealous overconfidence about your mission.

Ah, and here’s the rub.  What if you don’t have a mission, a calling, a purpose?  We all do but just haven’t put words to it.  Ask yourself what’s so important to you that you wouldn’t care if people criticized you, that it wouldn’t matter if you were famous for it or got paid a lot of money for it.  In fact, the authors discovered that this goal, this mission is something you don’t retire from. It is your essential being. It is why you breathe.

I loved Sally Field’s suggestion for how to discover what matters to you: “if you say ‘I don’t have anything I love’, you have to sit down and say ‘why don’t I have anything I love?’ ‘What in me walks way from every inclination that I had that I find something, something that sparked me, something that was for me and I didn’t do it?’ You have to go back, just recount every moment in life, what it was, what was that one thing that I did that I loved.”

GEM #1

If you don’t love what you do, you’ll lose to someone who does

“People who have found success that lasts pursue their goals because they matter to them, often despite popularity and recognition.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Success Built to Last, page 96

And it’s not always what others think you should be committing to.  The traditional definition of success (wealth, power, fame) doesn’t describe what success means.  At least not the success described by those that are enduringly successful.  People who have success that lasts have a life that matters. Their definition is “a life of personal fulfillment” and the authors found that enduringly successful people won’t settle for anything less.

The interviews made it clear that it wasn’t just about achievement as when achievement came without meaning then the success didn’t last. Many examples in Hollywood, government, and the business world are given for very short-lived success and in each case the person had no clear mission that mattered to them. Just a short-term goal.

The past few years I had not been “loving what I was doing”. So, that explains why for two years every proposal I wrote got turned down! I was, however, actively figuring out why I didn’t love it, putting plans into action as I discovered the answers and slowly coming to where our company is now – starting to be noticed as the thought leader instead of as the doer and getting projects based on that.  Same mission as always, just implemented differently.  My whole adult life I’ve been doing things that others didn’t think I should be doing (giving away advice as a marketing tool) and not doing things they thought I should (making money at all costs). Does success have to mean struggling to survive? No, but if it’s really enduring success then I’ll take it any day over the fleeting kind.

If you don’t feel an ounce of excitement for your current work, you can take time to sit down like I did and figure out why you don’t love it.  From there, figure out your plan to transform your work.

GEM #2

Builders harvest their failures and successes as data they can use to improve their effectiveness

 “Builders generally did not blame others for their circumstances, but instead focused their attention on actions within their control that they could take to solve and manage the problem.”

Success Built to Last, page 9

Many times ideas in books confirm for us that we’re doing the right thing and I was pleased to see that the way I handle failure is the same as the enduringly successful people.  I never blame others – I’m too busy fixing the problem to have time to blame. Then I’m too busy figuring out how to prevent it from happening again. Actually it never occurs to me to blame others as whatever I’m involved in I take responsibility for and therefore get the benefits of what I learned from fixing it.

But then, and this hit me like a ton of bricks – Ed Penhoet, recounting the early days of his business, said that the pressure was so high “sometimes I had to stop and throw up in the gutter on the way to the office.” I realized the instant I read this that I used to thrive on the problems and the pressure that came with the commitment to follow my path, but now I hate it. I hate even the pressure of the drive to the airport wondering “will the traffic and the weather allow me to make it on time, will the flight leave on time so I’m not late to the client in the next city, etc.”  So, did this mean I’m no longer success driven? I no longer look for the failures to learn from because of the conflicts and inevitable pressure that comes with it?

The 200 enduringly successful people interviewed for the book don’t love to fail, don’t love the pressure – they’re just willing to persist because what they believe in matters so much that they summon the courage.

Maya Angelou said, “The reward for the doing must be the doing.” Why? Because of the pressure, because of the failure, because of the criticism, because of the length of time it may take to achieve the mission that matters, because of the new directions you may need to go in order to achieve.

After struggling with the thought that I was no longer successful and all the years of the mission that mattered were wasted, I now realize that what I’m doing right now matters the same as always – I just advance that mission now in a different way!

“Choose a path that you love for better or worse. Only then will you have the good hearted stubbornness to stretch for your full potential and survive the inevitable slings and arrows that await you on your bold journey.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Like a Virgin, page 18

Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, shares advice that he has gleaned after four decades of running one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Starting out with a small group of friends publishing a student magazine out of their apartment, Branson’s (and, subsequently, Virgin’s) goals have never been about profits, but rather to serve their customers and provide them with a bit of fun where they least expect it. They just hoped they’d have enough to pay their bills every month.

To be as successful as Virgin has, there obviously is more to it than merely having fun, and Branson’s book is full of tips and thoughtful advice for entrepreneurs just getting started.

Golden Egg

Your Most Important Business Relationship

“The credit for Virgin’s enduring and varied success is often attributed to me, but it’s actually due to the employees themselves. My biggest contribution has always been to give our people autonomy, responsibility, and encouragement to take risks and just get it done.”

Like a Virgin, page 194

“The customer is always right” is a maxim that has led to the downfall of many misguided entrepreneurs. While customer service is extremely important for businesses, it is also essential to give employees the autonomy to handle customer complaints in an appropriate manner. Overstepping your position as CEO and choosing the side of the customer over your employee creates resentment among the staff.

It would be much better for the CEO to act as the “Chief Enabling Officer”. Leaders should provide direction and exemplify their desired service levels through their own behavior, while allowing employees to decide how to best live up to the service ideal.

GEM #1

The Importance of Branding

“Brands always mean something. If you don’t define what the brand means, your competitors will.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Like a Virgin, page 70

The Virgin Group has taken brand extension to new levels. To the untrained eye, Virgin’s businesses (trains, planes, banks, cell phones, music, fitness centers, etc.) are so distinct it hardly makes sense to keep them all under the same brand name. But to Branson and his stakeholders, Virgin is highly focused. It’s about the Virgin experience. The Virgin brand is a guarantee that you’ll receive a high-quality experience and get more fun out of your purchase than you expected.

The Virgin Group has a unique process for deciding what types of business to invest in; does it pass their brand test:

• Could the opportunity potentially harm your brand? If yes, don’t do it.
• Is there a chance to shake up the industry and make an immediate impact?

We can apply the lessons of branding to our lives either as individuals or as leaders of a company. The first step is to define who we are; the second is to look for ways to grow our brand through opportunities that align with our values.

GEM #2

Always Protect the Downside

“If it means taking a hit, then take it on the chin. Don’t even think about it again. Just move forward.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Like a Virgin, page 199

If one word were to describe Richard Branson and the Virgin Group, it certainly would not be conservative. On the contrary, Branson takes large risks, but he always does so with an escape plan in mind.

Virgin’s ability to figure out very quickly why things went wrong and make changes is a key component of protecting their downside. As Branson says, “there’s nothing wrong with mistakes as long as you don’t make the same ones”.  Branson believes in taking risks, and empowering employees to take risks as well, but he wants to ensure that they think of all the things that could go wrong and plan for that, too.

We can apply these lessons in our lives by analyzing opportunities before we take the plunge. If you’re considering a new career or starting a new venture, it would be wise to take some extra time and look at all the potential pitfalls, planning your own escape hatch in case you fall into one.

Richard Branson’s career has been anything but conventional. The advice he offers in Like a Virgin helps explain many of the decisions he has made over the course of four decades in business, and it might just help you last that long too.

Becoming indispensable, Samuel explains, requires that you consistently exhibit the following ten behaviors:

1. Be in service to others without expecting anything in return.
2. Be dedicated to the highest standards of performance, teamwork, and communication.
3. Be open and adaptable.
4. Keep commitments and agreements.
5. Expand your role to support your organization, community, or family.
6. Be a valued resource to others.
7. Be dedicated to self-improvement and professional development.
8. Use obstacles and challenges as opportunities for improvement.
9. Engage and include others when making decisions or changes.
10. Acknowledge and value the contributions of others.

Of utmost importance to becoming indispensable, however, is commitment to exhibiting these behaviors and then holding yourself accountable to that commitment (thus the subtitle of the book, “The Power of Personal Accountability.”)

Holding oneself accountable, according to Samuel, is a matter of making the right choices throughout the day, every day.  He offers guidance for those who wish to become indispensable in the form of six fundamental life choices.

Golden Egg

The choices that lead to being indispensable

“We make an infinite number of choices each day, but there are six fundamental choices that will dictate our life experience.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Making Yourself Indispensable, pages 19 – 20

The six fundamental life choices that lead to being indispensable serve as guides to daily living.  They are choices between the following:

Being driven by a purpose or driven by a goal – Have you ever encountered a customer service agent who truly listens to you and works hard to satisfy your needs?  That agent is most likely driven by a purpose (e.g. “Be in service to others.)  Have you ever encountered a customer service agent who is clearly reading from a script and ends your interaction by reading a canned statement indicating that their company values its customers? That agent is most likely driven by the goal to read their script with each and every customer.

Choosing to play big or play small – Playing big is about choosing to generously share your skills, talents, and gifts in service of others.  Conversely, playing small is about being selfish with your talents and abilities.

Being adaptable or being rigid – In our quickly ever-changing world, being adaptable is critical.  Being rigid and sticking with “the way we’ve always done things around here” will quickly make you dispensable.

Being WE centered or ME centered – As Samuel points out, “unless you are a hermit, you are connected to others around you”.  Making decisions and taking action in service of others and in full awareness of how it impacts those connected to you leads to being indispensable just as surely as consistently choosing to act only in service of yourself will lead to being dispensable in the eyes of others.

Being focused on priority or activity – Of course you’re busy.  We’re all busy.  There are way too many things on your list for you to ever truly get everything done.  So, Samuel advises that we be ever-mindful of what’s most important when choosing which tasks to check off our never-ending to-do list.

Valuing others or disregarding others – Indispensable people acknowledge others’ contributions while helping others grow and develop.  Dispensable people are threatened by the growth and success of others.

GEM #1

Recognize when you’re on the Victim Loop

“The Victim Loop is a way of life in which ‘stuff’ happens to you.  You don’t seem to have a choice.  Since we all visit it at different times in our lives, the question to ask yourself is not, ‘How do I prevent myself from going there?’ but ‘How fast can I get out of there?’”

Making Yourself Indispensable, page 50

Samuel’s roadmap to success depicts two loops (i.e. paths) that we all traverse and have access to: The Accountability Loop and The Victim Loop. Following The Accountability Loop leads to becoming indispensable.  Following The Victim Loop leads to being dispensable to others.

Samuel frequently acknowledges that as a human being, I am not only likely, but am absolutely guaranteed, to bounce back and forth between the two loops.  He also acknowledges that I might not always realize that I’ve switched to The Victim Loop.  And so, he devotes time to describing six phases of The Victim Loop so that readers will recognize when they’ve made a choice that places them on it.

You know you’re on The Victim Loop when you exhibit one of the following behaviors:

• You ignore a problem or issue.
• You deny any responsibility.
• You blame a problem or situation on someone or something else.
• You devote energy to rationalizing my response to a situation.
• You resist the situation or problem (sometimes by throwing a tantrum.)
• You hide from the situation or problem.

Once you realize that you’re on The Victim Loop, Samuel recommends that you leap onto whichever phase of The Accountability Loop that makes the most sense given the details of your situation.  There are six phases on The Accountability Loop, and the one that resonated most with me involves taking ownership.

GEM #2

The power of taking ownership

“While it is obvious that when we are the cause of a problem we need to fix it, there are many situations in which we are merely involved in a problem or ‘see’ the problem.  We still have the ownership to surface it, contribute to fixing it, and support others in fixing it.  This is taking full dominion over the problems impacting your life.  This is the step of empowerment.”

Making Yourself Indispensable, page 99

Taking Ownership is the second phase of The Accountability Loop.  It’s what you do if you’ve chosen to play big and become indispensable in an organization.  While it requires courage and effort, the reward is empowerment and it’s one of the first steps towards making a difference.

Samuel’s list of places we can take ownership at work is especially helpful.  These are seven areas where I think behavior from The Victim Loop runs rampant.  The seven areas he lists and challenges the reader to take ownership are the following:

• Ownership in meetings
• Ownership of surfacing and resolving issues
• Ownership of breaking down silos
• Ownership of staying focused on priorities
• Ownership of engagement at all organizational levels
• Ownership of responding to business trends
• Ownership of creating a safe work environment

Making Yourself Indispensable delivers on Samuel’s promise of providing a roadmap for success.  While none of what appears in the book surprised me, or struck me as especially new, Samuel managed to keep my attention.  In fact, throughout the day I find myself asking if I’m being driven by a purpose or a goal, choosing to play big or small, being adaptable or rigid, being WE centered or ME centered, being focused on priority or activity, and valuing or disregarding others.  And, as a result, I find myself taking ownership of more and more.

Despite differences of opinion regarding the definition of success, at the end of the day, everyone wants to be successful. But with everyone measuring success by different standards, it becomes difficult to know how to get there. Just take a look around the business and personal development sections of your local book store or even browse one online. The number of titles can be overwhelming and leave you feeling more confused than ever.

Thankfully, with his book The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill offers a comprehensive guide to becoming the best possible version of yourself and to becoming successful on your own terms. Without gimmicks or short cuts, Hill offers common sense laws that anyone, no matter where they are in their journey can and should implement.

Useful whether you read the book cover to cover or spend time jumping between the different laws you think apply the most to your life, the book is broken down into 15 sections with each section dedicated to a specific law.

Golden Egg

Success is a direct result of many laws working together in harmony

“A thousand electric dry batteries, when properly organized and connected together with wires, will produce enough power to run a good-sized piece of machinery for several hours, but take those same cells singly, disconnected, and not one of them would exert enough energy to turn the machinery over once.”

The Law of Success, page 81

If you take a look at the most successful people in your life, it is very unlikely that they are successful by accident. Chances are they are successful because they have mastered or have a good grasp on most of the characteristics Hill mentions in his book—and they employ them simultaneously.

By thinking about success like a well-conducted symphony, we begin to understand that each of the laws plays its own important part in our journey. Like the harmony of many instruments playing at once, it is almost impossible to tell where one law ends and another begins.

Take for example the importance of having a definite chief aim, the first of Hill’s 15 laws. How does one determine what their definite chief aim will be without first using their imagination and having enthusiasm about what the future holds? And is it possible to have a definite chief aim without the self-confidence that you can do whatever you put your mind to?

GEM #1

Chart your course and live with intention

“The man who labours without a definite purpose that is backed up by a definite plan for its attainment, resembles the ship that has lost its rudder. Hard labour and good intentions are not sufficient to carry a man through to success, for how may a man be sure that he has attained success unless he has established in his mind some definite object that he wishes?”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Law of Success, page 80

When looking to determine whether you are successful in your life, it is imperative to have a purpose, or what Hill refers to as a definite chief aim. The reason living with a purpose or discovering your definite chief aim is so important is because without it, it’s nearly impossible to know whether you have been successful. If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

As Kid President said in a recent viral YouTube video pep talk, “This is life people!” It’s time we decide how we are going to live our life, and what we are going to live for. We owe it to ourselves to find our passion and purpose and to start living with intention. Life is too short not to follow our dreams!

GEM #2

Surround yourself with people that won’t let you fail

“This also, is another common error made by men in all walks of life – that of failure to work in unison, in a thorough spirit of co-operation.”

The Law of Success, page 201

Despite the fact that most success stories start with one person and their determination to accomplish something for themselves or for the greater good, at the end of the day, their success generally relies on the help and involvement of other people.

Throughout The Law of Success, Hill repeatedly refers to Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie as some of the biggest success stories of his time. Despite their differences, the one thing these men all had in common was the ability to rally a team of people around them who would help them to accomplish their greatest goals.

If the old adage “you are only as good as the company you keep” is true, then it is all the more important to surround yourself with people who will support, motivate, and help you reach your potential. In such an interconnected world it is impossible to be successful alone and if you don’t surround yourself with people who are willing and able to help you reach your destination, you may miss out on something unique and special – the law of the mastermind. But that my friends, is another story, and one that should be left to Mr. Hill himself.

Despite the fact that The Law of Success was first published in 1928, the 15 laws described are still as relevant as ever, proving that there are some universal truths that do not change regardless of how many years pass.

As an avid reader of personal and professional development books, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I gained from reading this book. Take it from me: Even if you don’t pick up another book on development in 2013, Napoleon Hill has you more than covered with The Law of Success.

The Sociopath Next Door is a chilling and fascinating book because it talks about a subject most of us with a conscience have little or no knowledge and we believe it will never happen to us. Sadly, sociopathy is more prevalent than anorexic eating and schizophrenia disorders. A whopping four percent of the population (or 1 in 25 people) is a sociopath with little or no conscience. Mental health professionals refer to the condition as “antisocial personality disorder”, a non-correctable disfigurement of character that is incurable.

Sociopaths today are difficult to identify because they are chameleons and blend well into society. They are charming, well-mannered, well-dressed and strive to infiltrate positions of authority, influence, and respect through a myriad of lies and deception. They are skillful at appearing unduly kind and interested in people with a conscience.

They have a strong need for stimulation and take frequent social, physical, financial, and legal risks. Their goal is to manipulate the society’s social contract to their advantage that the rest of us follow. They are obsessed with more status, power, wealth, or ego for themselves.

Golden Egg

Conscience: The ‘Seventh Sense’, is something we feel

“I believe that all people of conscience should learn what the everyday behavior of these people looks like, so they can recognize and deal effectively with the morally weak and the ruthless.”

The Sociopath Next Door, page 45

Martha Stout, a consulting psychologist at the Harvard University Medical School has studied sociopaths for more than 25 years. She wrote the book to help those with a conscience better cope and deal with sociopaths they encounter.

Stout’s inspiration for the book involved a conversation with Bernie, a fellow psychologist colleague. He was overwhelmed by the events of September 11, 2001 and was unsure he could provide the emotional support a patient needed at the time. In a moment of despair, he said to Stout, “You know, sometimes I wonder, Why have a conscience? It just puts you on the losing team.” Stout asked, “If you had a choice, I mean really, literally had a choice — which you don’t, of course—would you choose to have a conscience like you do, or would you prefer to be sociopathic, and capable of . . . well, anything at all?”  Bernie reflected for a moment and said,  “You’re right”. “I’d choose to have a conscience.” Stout asked for a reason. He confessed saying, “You know, Martha, I don’t know why. I just know I’d choose conscience.”

Like Bernie, the overwhelming majority chooses conscience.

GEM #1

How can I tell whom to trust or conversely, whom not to trust?

“Apart from knowing someone well for many years, there is no foolproof decision rule or litmus test for trustworthiness, and it is extremely important to acknowledge this fact, unnerving though it may be.”

                                                                           The Sociopath Next Door, page 222

Stout says there is good news and bad news. The good news is that at least ninety-six out of a hundred people are bound by the constraints of conscience – they have a high standard of decency and responsibility. The bad news is there are individuals who have no conscience and cannot be trusted.

Stout says sociopaths “are nearly always invisible to us”, because they willfully pursue positions of respect and authority. They use flattery to manipulate, telling us what we want to her. We like to think our education prevents us from being fooled.  Yet, the most people are unable to identify a sociopath in their midst.

Stout says, the single most valuable clue in identifying a sociopath is the pity play. The most universal behavior unscrupulous people display is not of fear but to appeal to our sympathy.  Good people let certain individuals they view as pathetic get away with murder. Sociopaths, fully aware of this, repeatedly play on the pity card to great effect.

Stout recalls an opportunity in graduate school, where she interviewed a court-referred ‘sociopath’.  He was not violent and preferred swindling people out of their money through investment scams. Stout asked him what was most important in his life? She thought he would say, “making money” or  “not getting caught and going to jail”.  Instead he said, “Oh, that’s easy. What I like better than anything else is when people feel sorry for me. The thing I really want more than anything else out of life is people’s pity.”

What can you do?

Stout cites 13 rules for dealing with sociopaths in everyday life.

Rule number 9 is to question those who appeal to your pity too easily. She says, more than fear, more than admiration, pity from good people is carte blanche. When we pity, we become momentarily defenseless and emotionally vulnerable. Those without a conscience are waiting to seize the opportunity.

She says pity should be reserved for innocent people, experiencing genuine pain and misfortune. She says chances are likely 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath if they regularly appeal to your sympathy, while consistently hurting you or other people.

GEM #2

Avoidance is your trump card

“The only truly effective method for dealing with a sociopath you have identified is to disallow him or her from your life altogether.”

The Sociopath Next Door, page 336

Psychologists rarely recommend avoidance as a solution. Here, Stout makes an exception. While sociopathy has no cure, sociopaths almost never want to be cured.

The victims profiled in the book express tremendous relief when they can finally end contact and communication with a sociopath. While it is not always possible to end all communication, the author recommends minimizing contact. While family and friends may sympathize with a sociopath, it is important to remember that sociopaths do not have feelings to hurt. Avoidance is the best policy.

Example: Stout cites many examples of different types of sociopaths, one of which is Luke, a soft spoken and charming sociopath. Sydney is an accomplished academic and consultant who meets, marries and later divorces him. Luke ignores her soon after they are married. He later ignores their son and uses him as a bargaining chip to gain access to the house and pool after the divorce. One day when Luke is at the pool, Sydney asks him to leave. Luke starts to cry in front of his son. His son also starts to cry and says to his mother, “Oh no. Poor Daddy. Do we have to make him leave?” Luke’s eyes turn ice cold after he realizes he got away with it again. Sydney recognizes Luke’s deception and that the manipulation will never stop, so she moves to a different state with her son, ending Luke’s surprise visits.

The Sociopath Next Door is an important book because it offers a clear glimpse into the mind of a sociopath as well as effective coping tools. The author believes the best weapon against sociopaths is to lead a good life but do so with the blinders off. The author ends the book on a positive note believing that having a conscience blesses individuals because their lives have meaning every day. Those without a conscience cannot feel, cannot love and do not care about anyone except themselves. Their lives usually follow a downward spiral where they end up alone and without status, power, and authority – all the things they worked so hard to rob from others.

What steps can you take to be more mindful about the quality of your personal and professional relationships?

Moonwalking with Einstein, page 7

Most people know very little about their own memories. One of those people used to be Joshua Foer, a journalist, who while at the U.S. Memory Championships, was challenged by the contestants, who claim that if he put enough time towards training, he could be a serious contender next year. So he did. Moonwalking with Einstein tells the story of how Foer started from scratch and developed his memory to the point where he not only competed the following year but set a new American record in speed cards. In the process, he also learns a lot about the history of memory.

Memory used to be important. Since there was little written record of events, morals and ideas (and even less access to what record there was) it was very important to be able to recall that which you learned. Even the earliest writing was used primarily to help its author recall an earlier thought. With the dawn of the printing press and the shift to a literate culture, this need no longer existed. One just needed to remember where to find the information/idea/quotation. Now, with the internet and powerful search engines at our disposal as well, we just need to remember what it’s called.

And yet, there’s a certain extent to which we want to improve our internal mental capacities as well, much as the invention of cars haven’t made people stop running marathons or even stop walking as an end in itself.

Golden Egg

The OK Plateau

“Regular practice simply isn’t enough. To improve, we must watch ourselves fail, and learn from our mistakes.” (Click to Tweet!)

Moonwalking with Einstein, page 171

This applies not only to memory but to any skill with a measurable sense of “better”. At a certain stage in his training, Foer realizes that his scores have flatlined—he’s not getting better. He contacts K. Anders Ericsson, the psychology professor who is studying his progress, and is told that he has hit the OK Plateau.

There are three stages to a learning a skill. In the first stage, the “cognitive stage”, the skill is performed consciously and manually. This is when the brain is developing new strategies to do it more effectively. At this stage, there is improvement in fits and starts because the brain is monitoring performance and removing errors. The “associative stage” is then when the brain stops strategizing and just becomes more efficient. Finally, you reach the “autonomous stage” where the behaviours become automatic and the improvement stops. This is called the OK Plateau, and it used to be considered the upper limit of a person’s ability. Now we know that it’s possible to improve far above it.

Autonomous performance is very important—having a conversation while driving a car would be impossible if speech and driving were not performed automatically, for example. However, when trying to improve a skill, it’s vital to continually make the process more challenging so that your brain can’t slack off. This is called Deliberate Practice, and is covered more detail in Talent Is Overrated.

GEM #1

The Memory Palace

“For your first memory palace, I’d like you to use the house you grew up in. [...] When it comes time to recall the list, all you will need to do is retrace the steps we’re about to take in your imagination.”

Moonwalking with Einstein, page 98

Do you ever find yourself at a loss because you have something to remember (a list, a phrase, a name, etc.) and no writing utensils or gadgets with which to record it? Before the invention of writing or electronics, people used to keep palaces devoted to memory. Not physical palaces, but mental ones. It turns out that the human mind, while able to forget words almost instantly, is profoundly good at remembering images. However, while imagining a giant carrot, some greasy bacon, and a bottle of blood-red ketchup will make it easier to recall your grocery list, it is very easy to omit an item, especially as the list gets longer. This approach also doesn’t work if the items need to be in a certain order.

The Memory Palace, also known as the Method of Loci, fixes these issues and more. Here’s how it works:

1. Think of a place you know well… a childhood home, perhaps, or where you live now.

2. Imagine walking up to that place, and putting the first object to remember right on the front porch.

3. Then, step inside, and turn to your left. What do you see? Put the second object on, in, or near that.

4. Repeat with your entire list, traversing as much of the house as necessary. Depending on what you’re trying to remember you might need multiple palaces.

One important tip: visually stimulating things are much easier to remember, as I alluded to earlier by putting adjectives in front of the groceries I mentioned. Go even further. Imagine that your entire armchair is covered in bacon. Imagine a grotesque fake-murder scene with empty ketchup bottles everywhere. Violent or sexual imagery can work very well for this. Absurd things too, as long as they’re relevant. Boring objects? Make them animate and talkative.

This technique, as described above, should be enough to allow you to remember thoughts that pop into your head during a conversation or lecture, or as you’re about to fall asleep. I would advise taking a bit of time to mentally prepare the place: revisit it, clean it up, and open the windows so you have a nice view of everything. Make sure you know the path you’re taking through the building. Ultimately, you can learn more about this, and use it to memorize everything from poems and speeches to digits of pi.

GEM #2

The Major System

“The advantage of the Major System is that it’s straightforward, and you can begin using it right out of the box.”

Moonwalking with Einstein, page 98

The Memory Palace is great, sure, but how would you actually memorize the digits of pi? It’s hard to imagine a really vivid 7389 laying in your bed. The major system allows you to convert numbers into sounds and thus words, thereby making them memorable. Each number keys to a certain kind of consonant, and vowels and some other sounds are unassigned. 1 is T or D. 2 is N. In the case of 7389, 7 is K/G/Q, 3 is M, 8 is F/V and 9 is P/B. Therefore 7389 could be represented as GuM-FiB, and you could imagine a child insisting to you that he isn’t chewing gum while clearly chewing it.

The Major System is based not around letters but sounds, so “enough” and “knife” would both code for 28. “Knife” would probably be easier to remember visually though. You may also notice that no matter what letter you choose, each number corresponds to essentially the same position for your mouth. If you want to go deeper, the Major System wikipedia article is a great place to start. The code is outlined below:

0   Z/S
1   T/D
2   N
3   M
4   R
5   L
6   ng/j/zh/
7   K/Gu/Q
8   F/V
9   P/B

Memory, and indeed most intellectual skill, is not fixed. Anyone, by using the right techniques and practising, can expand their mnemonic capacity beyond what many people would even think possible—an excellent party trick, or simple a useful tool to remember phone and credit card numbers. Practise even more, and you might even be able to compete against others at national or world championships.

Moonwalking with Einstein is not so much a self-help book as an exploration of memory, so I would recommend it to anyone looking to find out more about how the memory works. For specific training advice, I would look elsewhere.

Do you know of any tips for remembering things? Leave them in the comments below. I can also answer more specifics about these techniques if you have questions.

 The Hidden Agenda, inside cover

You pitch something every day.  When you have an idea. When you sell a product or service.  Have to convince someone to come alongside your thinking on an issue?  Well, you have to present your point of view in order to have it accepted.  The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following presents a framework to help understand what the prime motivators are that lie behind all the research and business jargon that results in winning someone over to your side.

Author Kevin Allen, a modern-day, jet-setting advertising ‘Mad Man’, maintains that there is presumption behind every business decision to buy where there is ‘an unspoken emotional motivation’ that can sway a success of the pitch and this is… ‘the hidden agenda’.

Golden Egg

What Lies at the Heart of Every Pitch and is Universal in its Application

“The Hidden Agenda is the unspoken, emotional motivation that resides in the heart of your audience.  This emotional core is the true motivator behind every decision.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Hidden Agenda, page 19

Lately, it has become fashionable to utilize the teachings of ‘persuasion science’ to connect, compel and motivate movement in the sales process.  “The Hidden Agenda”, while not rejecting the studies that support the importance of persuasion, gently pushes those findings aside to advance the idea that to establish a collaborative relationship with another we must create an emotional, human connection … and get to the heart of the matter.

By spending time to understand your prospects’ emotional motivations and digging deep into discerning the unstated motivations of the person, we can set the stage for a powerful and successful outcome that benefits all parties in the process.

While there are many different categories of hidden agendas, they can be grouped into three primary categories and understanding them will provide a foundation to unearth what the hidden agenda is for your prospect.   They are:

WANT:  This is based upon ambition. People in this category generally have an optimistic view of the future and will respond to bold gestures.  You must convince them that you understand their work, can see what they see and that you are excited to become part of their journey.

NEEDS:  This one is linked to fear and the prospect has a sense that ‘something is missing, is lacking’.  A feeling of urgency lurks and the call to action for the pitch revolves around a “call for confidence’’. These people tend to be more quiet, reserved, and cautious. Give them assurance that you can deliver.

VALUES:  These people are motivated by values that are connected to deeply held beliefs, which they continually connect an issue to.  Their actions are set, calibrated and measured inside their value system.  They will respond to your ability to connect an over-arching vision to those core values.

When you identify the hidden agenda and ‘connect your strengths, beliefs, and ambitions to this hidden agenda, you win.’  But so does the person you are pitching.

GEM #1

Uncovering the Hidden Agenda

“Uncovering the hidden agenda requires you to get close to your prospect and to listen carefully to read the emotional subject at hand.  It means asking questions that open the window to your audience’s emotional motivation.”

The Hidden Agenda, page 58

Here’s how you do it.  Begin with the connection.  Slow down, listen carefully, and raise your antennae to receive the signals the other personal is transmitting. “What is required is emotional insight, human sensitivity, thoughtfulness, empathy and very good listening skills.”

There are five key steps in locating the hidden agenda:

1. Prepare: Before the pitch, estimate what lies in the heart of the prospect and how you’ll respond to what’s there. You should arrive at any meeting with a hypothesis as to what category their hidden agenda might be.

2. Be Receptive: It’s not about your product or service, it’s all about them. The objective is not to show off what you are presenting but to get them to reveal and share the things you need to know about their lives. Be aware of the rules of good body language and look for an emotional vein that will lead you to their desire.

3. Think like a Shrink: Before the pitch, ask: “What makes them tick?”, “Who is this person?”, and “What kind of personality profile are they?”

4. Listen the Right Way: It’s the smart one who stays quiet. Through listening you can get to the core of a person. Develop ‘emotional x-ray vision’ by understanding that good listening skills are an act of generosity.

5. Ask the Right Questions: Functional Questions = Functional Answers. Ask questions that “invite the prospect to express {his/her} views, feelings, and instincts…the answers will reveal the elements of the hidden agenda.”

GEM #2

The Win Strategy – Leveraging Who You Are

“Winning occurs when a shared bond is created with your audience through connecting your leverage-able assets – your real ambition, your credo, or your core – to your audience’s hidden agenda.”          (Click to Tweet!)

 The Hidden Agenda, page 149

Let’s talk about the resources of who you are – what you bring to the party that can be leveraged to enhance the connection and quicken the success of finding the hidden agenda.  There are three core elements that can help uncover the hidden agenda when talking about your personal assets. They are your core, your credo, and your real ambition.

Your Core:  It is your essence, your special abilities that are used to connect to the needs of your prospect.  It is a deep understanding of all of your life experiences and how those add value in a way that people will listen to and then follow you.

Your Credo: Credo means ‘I believe’ and connects “to the values, because it is a belief system you and your audience share.” The credo represents a code of ethics, behavior and belief. Crystallize your belief system and you will forge a bond that will galvanize your prospect to align with you.  The actions that a person or company takes are a reflection of their credo.

The Real Ambition:  “The human desire to create something good where nothing existed before.” It is not a hope for, it is a will be that will be pursued relentlessly. Real ambition has a clear intent, it moves to achieve the impossible and it requires action along with the belief. It will make you feel nervous and excited, at the same time.  It is the engine of your pitch.

Though the book was written for the professional ‘pitch man’ and has a bias towards corporation concerns, it is easily read and applied to a small business and entrepreneurial orientation. The message for the person pitching is not ‘buy me’ but ‘join me’.

The Hidden Agenda is about emotionally bonding with your prospect by taking the time to figure out their unspoken, emotional needs and connecting your pitch to those needs.  The search for the hidden agenda is a search for desire.  Uncover these unspoken desires and what your prospects hold dear and they will follow you.  When you ferret out and indentify those needs, and then connect the pitch directly to them, you win and your prospect wins.

As the moniker suggests, the well-known author Brian Tracy compares goal setting with the routine process of filing a flight plan which all airline pilots are required to do.  As flight plans are filed they cover many, if not all, the areas one may encounter in the journey to a destination by air.  In-flight, we may encounter an emergency or a crisis, turbulence, failure, time delays, headwinds, rerouting, endurance, and even failure in reaching a destination that we have set out.

Similarly, while in pursuit of our goals, we may encounter some of the very same obstacles.  Tracy explains how simply writing a plan increases the likelihood of success.  Each chapter highlights the areas of planning and execution, and is a manual of sorts guiding you to properly design a plan and check it along the way.  The book highlights that once you have chosen where you want to go, you must then work towards your goal by preparing, taking action, and planning for any challenges while making course corrections along the way, just as an aircraft does.

Golden Egg

We are off course 99% of the time

“In life you will be off course most of the time.  No matter how carefully you plan and organize in advance, your life will be a series of two steps forward and one step back.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Flight Plan, page 4

What many fail to realize, in fact, is that an aircraft is also off course 99% of the time despite the smooth uneventful flight that (usually) occurs. In the attainment of our own goals we always expect that same uneventful experience.  By recognizing that we are off course 99% of the time, we are forced to realize that we must make constant course corrections to achieve our desired outcome.  Most experienced pilots know full well that a crisis may be around the corner and the only way to avert it is to be prepared for it.  Tracy highlights that this must be the same mindset that is required to ensure that we stay on track.  Failure to draw out a plan may result in the eventual arrival at an unintended outcome, or worse, a full blown disaster.

GEM #1

More than you ever imagined possible

“In order for you to reach this unlimited potential, your first and greatest responsibility to yourself is to become absolutely clear about what it is that you really want.  When you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you want to go, you will accomplish ten times as must as the average person, and much faster as well.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Flight Plan, page 8

This is a hugely powerful statement.  Very early on in the book Tracy gets right to the point.  He alludes to the fact that there is an unmistakable hallmark of success, which is, that when we decide to do something and take action we are embarking on a successful journey.

He also reminds us that we are capable.  If we take a menial task such as making a sandwich, we rarely fail in putting the ingredients together.  The reason is that each motor neuron that has fired in assembling the sandwich has, in fact, been perfecting itself for decades:  hand eye coordination, preference of ingredients, understanding of food safety handling, artistic flair, appliance knowledge, safe knife handling.  The list is endless and the execution is seamless.

This routine, however, can go drastically wrong with the slip of a knife, let’s say.  By planning and having everything in place, should an accident arise, we may mitigate the loss or change and also prepare for success.  The fact that we have the ability to achieve absolutely anything is true.  Once you break down the steps, as in making a sandwich, everything becomes clear.  The major stumbling block is when we fail to realize that each and every step requires a great deal of preparation and effort.  In order to accomplish the difficult things in life, break it down into baby steps.

GEM #2

Take off at full throttle

“If a plane went any less than full throttle, it would never reach takeoff speed.  The plane would keep going until it ran out of runway without ever rising into the air.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Flight Plan, page 60

Essentially, the book presents itself as a guide on how to simply plan and prepare for any goal.  The most obvious analogy is pointed out by using this Gem.  By failing to use all the power necessary in taking off, an aircraft would never take off.  Certainly, this is subjective in life, and by doing so Brian Tracy points out the difference.   Essentially, the flight plan calls for a series of events that need to take place in succession for a flight to be properly executed.  A huge part of this Gem properly illustrates, partially through the use of the flight analogy, that in order to get going one often needs to harvest huge amounts of energy or be forever stuck never taking off.  Next time you are working on a specific goal, ask yourself before you start: Am I all in?  If you’re not ready to invest all of your energy, it may not be worth pursuing.

The message of the book is that you need to spend every ounce of energy to ensure you have planned out your journey by knowing where you want to go and how you are going to get there.  The book, however, doesn’t stop there.  It really hits home that you must go after what you want and go at it with full force.

The book allows you to properly visualize the end of the flight after having reached your destination.  If you are looking to get somewhere, whether in your personal life, business life, or simply in order to reach an objective that you desire, this is the book for you.  Tracy illustrates that while being prepared for anything you still risk not being prepared for the unknown, and he directs the reader to believe that chance favours the prepared mind and that the key to victory is to plan for turbulence and to persist until you succeed.

Practice Perfect, forward

Contrary to an idiomatic expression, practice doesn’t result in perfection. Think about it, you shampoo your hair daily and have been doing so for decades. Yet, when was the last time your skill improved? How much closer to a perfect shampoo technique are you today than you were a year ago?

Practice Perfect, by Doug Lemov, Erica Wollway, and Katie Yezzi, sets out to address how you can use practice to improve. Specifically, the book outlines forty-two rules for getting better at getting better. While the primary audience is educators, the principles are universally applicable.

Golden Egg

Shift Your Practice Paradigm

 “Practice, in this framework, is perhaps defined not as a series of drills and activities and scrimmages but as the opportunity to invent or reinvent ourselves in whatever way we wish, by repeatedly doing these activities with strategy and intentionality.”

Practice Perfect, page 204

Practice often carries a negative connotation. Many people view practice as an unnecessary hurdle to clear before a performance. Rather than view practice as a tedious task, the authors suggest readers shift their paradigms to allow for a more expansive definition. This kind of practice is different than mere repetition. The goal is not to repeat an activity for a period of time, but to deliberately focus on a few isolated elements that will improve the finished product.

To generate effective practice sessions, specificity and detail are king. By avoiding generic descriptions and replacing them with specific activities, you can use practice to improve. For example, rather than work on a board presentation, instead plan to practice your board presentation with a coworker who asks a list of anticipated questions you want to be able to answer. The latter produces specific results. While this level of focus requires a greater commitment from you, the long-term gains will outshine the extra work.

Who should practice? Everyone. The salesperson who wants to close more sales, the manager preparing to give performance reviews, the rookie who has to present to the committee. Practice is not just for junior varsity players and aspiring musicians, but anyone who is interested in improving a skill or ability. You can practice preparing your company’s quarterly budget, how to plan your day, or even cleaning the garage.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of practice is it allows you to “encode success.” What does winning look like for this endeavor? You want to have better staff meetings? Think about what those would look like and then work to practice the necessary components. Practice doesn’t have to involve a stopwatch and a whistle. That is the appeal of a broader definition of practice: it can be molded to help you improve in a specific area.

GEM #1

Practice giving specific and actionable feedback

“Saying, You did that well. Great job! is nice. It motivates and inspires people. But we tend to think that’s it, that positive feedback motivates people by making them feel good. Ironically, that may be the weakest part of positive feedback.”

Practice Perfect, page 121

Feedback is a crucial element of practice. While the act of analyzing performance and determining what one can do better is good, it only solves part of the practice problem. Specific and actionable feedback provides the greatest value to the recipient. For example, your boss tells you to keep doing what you are doing, the project looks great, or a leader instructs her team that they need to give their all on this upcoming project—what is your all? Instead of telling someone to keep it up, explain precisely what “it” is, and how he could improve. The second example leaves the person with an idea of what he is doing well, how to replicate it and where else that skill may be beneficial.

Feedback should play a larger role if practice is to serve as a catalyst for improvement in your organization.

To assist in your feedback makeover the authors suggest building three statements into your feedback:

1. A statement of identification, “help them to see what they did right.”
2. A statement of application, “help them to do it again.”
3. A statement of reapplication, “help them to see new settings in which to apply their skill.”

In the future rather than telling your team to keep it up, construct your feedback from these three statements to make the feedback “a major muscle group of improvement.”

GEM #2

Make practice fun

“Who plays golf by raking one ball after another into the same place while hitting with the same club? Nobody, right? So why do people practice like that?”

Practice Perfect, page 155

Perhaps the ill will most people feel toward practice is its association with a sense of obligation and monotony as opposed to an opportunity to improve? By improving the way you practice through engineering it to replicate how you actually use the skills, it will become more effective and helpful, and chances are good it will be a lot less boring too.

UCLA basketball coach and advocate of harnessing practice to improve, John Wooden observed, “Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations.” So why is practice set up that way? As the authors point out, “Practice should not be a punishment.”

Do something to liven up practice, and people will be more willing to buy into your new paradigm of practice.

“Deliberately engineered and designed, practice can revolutionize our most important endeavors.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Practice Perfect, page 3

Start from where you are, and if you are not practicing, begin. If you are practicing, reengineer your practices to incorporate actionable feedback. But above all, make practice fun, something that will help you practice again tomorrow.

This alternative practice paradigm has helped me move from rereading my class notes Friday afternoon to simulating a mini exam; a change that forces me to break down the ideas covered throughout the week. By grading my answers I can see which concepts I’ve yet to grasp and reflect those needed topics in my study plans for the following week. While I am still working on making law school “fun”, I will say I prefer this approach to reading through notes without any sense of improvement.

In the comments below, let us know…

How you could improve with a new paradigm of practice?

 The Pumpkin Plan, Chapter 1

Almost every farmer grows ordinary, run-of-the-mill carving pumpkins.  Similar to how almost every entrepreneur runs an ordinary, run-of-the-mill company.  Imagine if you could change your ordinary company so that it got all of the press coverage and attention that the farms who grow those giant award winning pumpkins get?  Mike Michalowicz’s The Pumpkin Plan is the how-to book to walk you through it.

Golden Egg

Find the right seed

“Don’t waste your time planting seeds that may or may not work. Plant the seed that you know has the very best chance of making it, and then focus your attention, money, time and other resources on that tight niche until all of your entrepreneurial dreams come true.”

The Pumpkin Plan, Chapter 3

It was news to me, but farmers gather every year in Niagara Falls to attend the Giant Vegetable Growers Convention.  It is here where the prized vegetable seeds can sometimes fetch hundreds of dollars as they will produce the giants we see on the 6 o’clock news each Fall.

Michalowicz correctly identifies, and I completely agree, one of the biggest problems in small business – owners trying to please everyone. Small business owners sometimes take on projects that are outside their area of expertise.  Michalowicz explains that you need to really define your area of expertise and don’t stray from it – ever.  He describes this right seed as the sweet spot – the place where your best clients and the best part of your business meet. When you figure out the one thing that you do really well, it’s like the right pumpkin seed.

This is nothing new mind you…but he does an outstanding job of breaking it down in a way that helps you understand what the sweet spot actually is – the intersection of your top clients, your unique offering, and your ability to systemize it. 

GEM #1

Cutting Clients

“More is not better, people.  Better is better. You need to shift your mindset away from the quantity game.  You need to stop killing yourself for scraps.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Pumpkin Plan, Chapter 4

As each chapter progressed, I bought in more and more to The Pumpkin Plan.  I did have some difficulty with this one concept, but I believe it to be true.  You need to stop wasting so much time on the clients who are high maintenance, who never pay on time (or ever), the clients who always change the scope of the project, and the clients whose calls you dread.  Every small business has clients who drain energy and use valuable resources with little or no return.

Michalowicz suggests that you use an Assessment Chart (which he provides) to identify your best clients. Fire everyone else!  You can download the chart (and many other goodies) from the website – www.PumpkinPlan.com

A tough pill to swallow; talk about risky.  I can see the value in this though.  In a past business I owned, we fired a big client and it really worked.  We dropped a client who represented a third of our revenues, but used about 80% of our resources.  It was one of the most difficult but best decisions I had made as a small business owner. It allowed us to focus more on the clients that we enjoyed working with, and we were better able to service them. It also allowed us to generate sales and find more clients like the ones we wanted to work with. Michalowicz also gives you techniques to fire clients: Eliminate services, prioritize service calls (when good clients call they get serviced first), raise prices, and refuse to two-time – explain that you have an agreement with a major client that prohibits you from servicing them.  These may sound harsh, but can be extremely beneficial.

GEM #2

The Tourniquet Technique

“The beauty of the Pumpkin Plan is that once you kill off the diseased and unfit clients and shift your attention to your most promising clients, you have the opportunity to cut all expenses that don’t serve your top clients – everything from phone lines to parking spaces.  It makes cutting expenses so much easier.  You can see what has to go and because you’re trying to grow a massive, prize-winning pumpkin, you have the emotional leverage to get real with your P&L and stop the bleeding. I call it the Tourniquet Technique.”

The Pumpkin Plan, Chapter 6

Cash is the lifeblood of any business. You’ll never make it if you don’t have enough – and most small businesses don’t.  Michalowicz talks a lot about how we are always waiting to land the next client.  “This next one will change things. I just need that one huge client…”  But the problem is that IF we land them, we run out and hire new staff, get a bigger office, a new show room, a new car…  We spend what we earn, plain and simple. But when we run out of cash, the trouble begins.

The Pumpkin Plan requires you to cut the expenses that are associated with the clients that you just cut. Sounds easy, but it’s not because we are used to having an assistant, an office, the showroom, extra staff, and the support systems.  Michalowicz gives you a few ideas to stop the bleeding; going through your profit and loss statement line by line is the most relevant. Taking a good hard look at every expense is key.  Cutting staff, giving up the office, missing that national conference – really cutting costs is hard.  But you must.  Creating an org chart for each position is also valuable.  This helps eliminate any confusion and helps establish roles and responsibilities.

I really liked Michalowicz’s style.  He likes to throw around some language that isn’t for the weak of heart, but he’s smart in the way that he drops F-bombs to make a point. He’s someone who I could easily see myself enjoying several beers with while discussing business.  At the end of each chapter, he picks a business (Financial Planner, Artist, Tech services, etc.) and uses the Pumpkin Plan to revolutionize it.  He does so in such a way that you can better understand the techniques and apply them to your own business.  Whether you are thinking of starting your own business or have been in business for years and are stuck in a rut, The Pumpkin Plan is a must-read.

In the comments below, let us know…

Would you be willing to fire a majority of your clients?

The Checklist Manifesto, page 183

Best of, top ten, and to-dos. We are fascinated with lists – using them to organize our lives and organize information. But according to Atul Gawande, it’s the checklist we should pay closer attention to. In his latest book, The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande shows just how powerful well-designed and properly implemented checklists can be in reducing mistakes in fields such as medicine, aviation, construction, and finance. And he says we can all benefit from them, no matter what type of work we do.

Yet many of us resist the often mundane task of ticking a box or following a preset protocol. We see ourselves as intelligent, competent beings capable of relying on our own judgment, memory, or perceived thoroughness, especially when it comes to routine tasks.

But Gawande shows through several examples that even the most skilled among us miss critical steps that can lead to unintended and sometimes fatal consequences.

Golden Egg

How Much Are You Leaving To Chance?

“…Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided – and even enhanced – by procedure.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Checklist Manifesto, page 79

Gawande suggests that people tend to fail for two main reasons. The first is ignorance – having only a partial understanding of the task in front of us. The second is ineptitude – instances where we have the knowledge but we fail to apply it correctly.

But it’s not ignorance that leads to mistakes in today’s world. We have access to more and more information and our knowledge base is growing every day in every field. It’s the complexity of our world that is increasing, making it more difficult to deploy our knowledge predictably and routinely. Medicine is becoming more sophisticated – same with raising skyscrapers and responding to natural disasters.

As the complexity of the challenges, problems, and tasks we face increases, we can’t just rely on memory or our “routine” to help us perform at the highest level. Gawande points out that, “[checklists] remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They not only offer the possibility of verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.”

GEM #1

If You Build It 

“The fear people have about the idea of adherence to a protocol is rigidity. They imagine mindless automatons, heads down in a checklist, incapable of looking out their windshield and coping with the real world in front of them. But what you find, when a checklist is well made, is exactly the opposite. The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way.”

The Checklist Manifesto, page177

Intelligent, educated, and experienced people resist having tasks or procedures that seem routine reduced to a checklist. Want to avoid this in your organization?  Build good checklists. Bad checklists are long, impractical, and vague. Often they are designed by people with no real hands-on experience of the situation or the nature of the task. And they are often tossed aside.

Gawande offers some tips for building good checklists:

• Make them precise.
• They should be efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations.
• Do not try to spell out everything.
• Provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps – the ones that even highly skilled professionals using them could miss.
• Above all, make sure they are practical.

But no matter how good they are, remember, “By themselves, checklists cannot make anyone follow them.”

GEM #2

What’s Your Opportunity?

“We have an opportunity before us, not just in medicine, but in virtually any endeavor. Even the most expert among us can gain from searching out the patterns of mistakes and failures and putting a few checks in place. But will we do it? Are we ready to grab onto the idea?”

The Checklist Manifesto, page 159

Whether in medicine, customer service, or auto repair – predictable, repeatable results are the cornerstone of the most successful businesses. One of the simplest ways of achieving high performance is eliminating unnecessary mistakes, especially when pride is the largest obstacle.

Part of the beauty of checklists is their versatility. You can use them as a way to ensure proper execution or as a tool when things don’t go as planned. The airline industry is a perfect example. Pilots go through a number of pre-flight checklists to make sure everything is in order and no steps were overlooked. And for an issues mid-flight, they again refer to a checklist to take corrective action.

Here are three suggestions on how you can implement checklists more effectively:

1. Identify areas of opportunity: What areas of your business could benefit from a checklist? How could you begin to reduce the number of mindless mistakes that lead to unhappy customers, failed execution, or even something far worse?

2. Check your ego: Throughout the entire book, ego more than anything seems to be the largest obstacle to implementing checklists. Remember, they are not intended to undermine your intelligence or ability. They are a tool to combat the increasingly complex nature of our lives.

3. Curate: Not everything requires a checklist, nor are they effective for every situation. The key is using them only in the most essential places and to be diligent about making them practical and precise.

The Checklist Manifesto is a short, fast read. But don’t be fooled, its implications are great. As we continue to have greater access to information and the ability to acquire knowledge in various fields and industries, it will be those who can deploy it the most reliably who will succeed.

18 Minutes, page 37

In 18 Minutes, Peter Bregman breaks down the keys to finding our focus, mastering distraction, and getting the right things done. Beginning with a mental and emotional reset and reevaluation of our priorities and passions, he guides us on a journey to a more rewarding and fulfilling use of our time.

The key is in asking ourselves three big questions:

1. What is this year about?
2. What is this day about?
3. What is this moment about?

As Bregman delves into ways to find our focus, he also outlines tools to create meaningful to-do and to-don’t lists, suggesting behaviors and mindsets that help us avoid distractions, increase our motivation, develop boundaries, and master ourselves. His suggestions offer a powerful framework for a life well lived.

Golden Egg

Finding Your Focus

“So often we scramble to get a lot accomplished in a day, and succeed – only to realize, in retrospect, that those things we accomplished won’t get us where we want to go. It’s not lack of effort. It’s lack of direction and focus.”

18 Minutes, page 41

Bregman spends a solid third of the book dissecting the ways we can make the most of our abilities to live fulfilling lives. Taking time to reset our internal compass and examine what truly meets our needs becomes the first priority to getting meaningful things done.

He identifies four areas where we can build “the foundation of [our] success and happiness: leveraging our strengths, embracing our weaknesses, asserting our differences, and pursuing our passions.” It is in the intersection of these four elements that we discover our life’s passion, and with it, the ability to focus on what matters.

He also highlights a handful of roadblocks to our success in pursuing our passion. Tunnel vision keeps us from seeing our goals clearly. Fear of failure keeps us safe but stagnant. Paralysis prevents us from making decisions. And rushing to judgment blinds us to opportunities.

Fortunately, he also outlines an 18 minute daily plan to guidepost our thoughts and actions. Identifying what will lead us toward our goals and what will distract us from them is important. Self-knowledge is intrinsic to our success.

GEM #1

Evening Minutes

“Spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect. These minutes are the key to making tomorrow even better than today.”  (Click to Tweet!)

18 Minutes, page 143

Taking an intentional moment at the end of each day provides us a mental pause to review the day and think about what happened. Bregman outlines a set of questions to compare what actually happened with our focus, intentions, and goals: How did the day go? What did I learn today, about others and myself? What do I plan to do tomorrow, differently or the same? Whom did I interact with? Anyone I need to update, thank, ask a question, or share feedback? He emphasizes the necessity of maintaining and growing relationships and using the evening minutes to communicate with others, share feedback, ask questions, and simply connect.

GEM #2

The Ignore List

“Never before has it been so important to be grounded and intentional and to know what’s important. Never before has it been so important to say ‘no.’”  (Click to Tweet!)

18 Minutes, page 122

As important as it is to define and categorize what actions will move us toward our goals, it’s almost more important to ask ourselves what will keep us from getting there. Saying “no” is one of the most powerful tools to master distractions. It’s in determining those things which ARE distractions and consciously choosing not to do them that we free ourselves to do our most important work. We must ask ourselves: “What are you willing not to achieve? What doesn’t make you happy? What’s not important to you? What gets in the way?”

For me, changing the way I handle my to-do list has made a huge difference in my daily work. Writing down the areas of my life that I’m focused on this year provided much needed clarity, which, in turn, confirmed what actions will meet those goals, day-to-day. But what has revolutionized my focus has been the Ignore List. I use these distractions to procrastinate my important work. Deciding to avoid email and social media during my most valuable hours has made those hours productive. I’ve been leaving my desk feeling accomplished almost every day, which is refreshing and motivating.

In the comments below, let us know…

What about you? Have you taken time to define your focus? How do you handle your to-do list to get more of the right things done? Have you created a to-don’t list? Has it made a difference?

The Art of Explanation, page 31

Ever have one of those moments where you were trying to get a co-worker to understand your point of view? And remember a time as a child when you were trying to convince your parents that candy makes a great dinner?

Throughout our lives, there are hundreds of instances when we are given the challenge of explaining ourselves, our ideas, or our perspective to other people. In his book The Art of Explanation, Lee LeFever dissects what it means to explain something and provides readers with a road map for explaining their ideas. He also provides a useful definition of an explanation – describing facts in a way that makes them understandable – and underscores the idea that explanations should answer the question “why” and make people care.

LeFever hails from a corporate communication background and while the book is slanted towards business explanations, it is easy to see how you could apply those principles in non-business contexts.

Golden Egg

Explanations are an unrecognized skill we all have

“Explanation is a skill we can improve and put to work in achieving our goals.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Art of Explanation, page 5

Of all the tactics for communicating, explanations represent an unparalleled opportunity to make your ideas understandable to others. But the odd thing about them is that we don’t necessarily consciously think about it as we are doing it, and LeFever points out that because of that we never consider the possibilities for improving our explanation skills. Herein lies a great opportunity to leverage.

From his past experience, LeFever gives a number of examples where corporations missed an opportunity to make their ideas, products, or services understandable to their customers. If you think about all of the communications you come into contact with on a daily basis, it becomes very apparent that the memorable ones are the ones that provide a solid explanation of the company, product, brand, etc. I personally can think of dozens of websites that leave much to be desired because they don’t properly articulate who the company (or person) is and what they are about. As a business, this leaves you disadvantaged when it comes time to capture their attention again, or try to convert them to customers.

LeFever goes on to provide readers with systems they can follow to explain their ideas. He submits that a good explanation requires three steps: planning, presenting, and packaging.

GEM #1

Explanations can be a strategy in problem solving

“Looking at a problem through the lens of explanation can reveal challenges that may not have been visible before.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Art of Explanation, xii

This concept radically shifted my perspective about the function of communication and explanations. Fundamentally, they are attempting to solve the same problem. Both in personal and business settings we often face the dilemma of trying to get someone to adapt our point of view in order to take some action. The success of this really hinges on our ability to explain our perspective to someone else in a way that makes sense to them.

Understanding that this is how persuasion, marketing, etc. should be approached makes one realize the abundant strategic opportunities explanations present us with. Just imagine how different your next staff meeting could be if everyone understood how to effectively explain their ideas. Pretty radical, right?

GEM #2

Know your audience and empathize with them

“A single word can make your explanation fail because it lowers confidence.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 The Art of Explanation, page 27

This sentence really stuck out to me as I think this is where most explanations go awry. When you’re immersed in your craft, it can be a challenge to shift your perspective to that of your audience. But it is what you must do in order for your explanation to make sense to them. LeFever suggests that explanations commonly fail because the audience loses confidence in their ability to understand something new. Therefore, we must empathize with their perspective as we explain our idea.

LeFever states that your goal is to move someone from point A to point D with your explanation. In order to do this, you must really understand that person’s starting point. What do they know? What kind of context do they have for what I’m going to tell them? If I didn’t know x, y and z, what would I need to know to understand this idea? Once you’ve grappled with those questions, you can start to map out what they would need to know to reach point D. This ground work is essential for determining how best to present and package an explanation.

In the book’s epilogue, LeFever says his hope is that his readers will become “explanation specialists.” A very admirable goal and one I think he achieves by creating awareness in the reader’s mind and then providing them with a clear road map to creating a great explanation. Even if your job is not in communications, this book has practical applications for anyone because as LeFever points out, explanation is something we all do.

In the comments below, let us know…

What will you do differently the next time you are tasked with providing someone with an explanation?

 Strategic Intuition, Preface, page x

Is there a common way of thinking, or mental mechanism, at the heart of outstanding advancements across all fields and disciplines? It would be a hell of a thing if there was, right? Well, Columbia Business School associate professor William Duggan, offers an insightful book that makes a strong case that there is and that anyone can do it. He calls that mechanism “strategic intuition”.

While The Medici Effect, which I reviewed last month, describes external mechanisms for new idea creation, Strategic Innovation focuses on the internal mechanisms. Many books discuss innovation and creativity, but few delve into the actual details or offer suggestions on how those new ideas happen. Strategic Intuition explains how the mind takes huge leaps to the next “big” idea.

Golden Egg

Flashes of Insight

“By pulling together these various sources, we are able to arrive at a modern discipline that puts flashes of insight at the center of a philosophy of action across all fields of human endeavor.”

Strategic Intuition, page 1

The “various sources” Duggan refers to, in the line above, come from the book’s many innovation examples in the fields of science, psychology, business, neuroscience, education, social enterprise, and military strategy.  Strategic Intuition is a whirlwind tour of the history of innovation and creative thinking. This journey of discovery underlines and reinforces the consistency of a conscious, or unconscious process the innovators followed to develop their new ideas and successful endeavors – from Napoleon to Martin Luther King; Picasso to ex-IBM CEO Lou Gertsner; from Grameen Bank founder Mahamad Yunus to Thomas Kuhn, the great historian of scientific achievement.

In all the examples we review, none of the innovators began with a master theory. But, they all shared a pattern. Duggan reveals, through interviews and biographies, how Bill Gates & Paul Allen (Microsoft), Sergey Brins & Larry Page (Google) , and Steve Jobs (Apple) were successful , not because of any preconceived opinions, but through mixing successful elements around them that they saw were working through a “flash of insight”.  In most cases, these flashes of insight created something the innovators could not have foreseen otherwise. Microsoft, Google, and Apple are given as examples of companies formed out of a spontaneous recombination of successful elements spotted by the founders. They were more a “strategy of rearrangement, not invention”.

Why is this particular process so prevalent? Duggan offers that this recombinant activity is the way the brain works naturally and most effectively. He points to advancements in neuroscience that have been steadily charting how the brain functions. Key research came from neuropsychiatrist Eric Kandel who won the 2000 Nobel Prize for his work overturning the two brain – right brain, left brain – theory (even though that old brain model is still held by many management practitioners and trainers).  Today an MRI machine can “see” how a single thought sparks activity in multiple brain areas, including left and right sides simultaneously.

This newest working model of the brain recognizes that intuition and analysis, the creative and the logical, are together in all modes of thought. Neuroscientists have observed more of a “mosaic” or “intelligent memory” model of brain functioning where the brain is recognized as “the greatest inventory system on earth” and that it takes information apart (parsing) and stores it in the “shelves of the brain”, readying it for future use. This structural mechanism in the brain is the basis for strategic intuition and it suggests that the brain is hardwired and maximally effective at developing new ideas through flashes of insight – combining old ideas and recent knowledge into new ideas and vision.

The extensive documentation, research, and examples given make a very strong case for the theory of strategic intuition and flashes of insight as a serious model to use for anyone looking for more innovation and creative ideas.

GEM #1

The four steps towards innovation (mind training)

“These four elements apply to all fields of human endeavor.”

Strategic Intuition, page 61

Strategic Intuition provides an actionable process you can apply to any challenge – the same mental process used consistently by many of history’s greatest and most successful innovators. Duggan outlines this step-by-step innovation system in the hopes that “by understanding how it works, you can do it more and better yourself”.

Duggan describes the non-linear, thought process of innovation creation as:

1) Start by building a strong knowledge base through extensive study of the issue at hand and its elements, both within and outside of your industry.

2) Drop preconceptions and clear your mind to be open to new possibilities.

3) Proceed to opportunistically combine and re-combine elements of the issue with sources discovered (history and what is working around you) until they come together in a new combination that addresses the problem.

4) Have the resolve to test and follow through the new idea to make it happen.

Take a problem you are currently working on and try tackling it with the above process to generate new solutions. See where it takes you.

GEM #2

Welcome to the Matrix (team tool)

“The operative assumption is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action – fast.”  (Click to Tweet)

Strategic Intuition, page 141

Developed at GE and heavily utilized by CEO Jack Welch and Chief Learning Officer Steve Kerr, the what-works matrix was used to solve all types of problems and challenges. The matrix mapped out the issue in question by stating, on the first line, your understanding of the situation or goal. Next, you identify and list all the elements you think are part of a good solution to the problem. Then, you ask yourself who has successfully solved any of these elements or pieces of the puzzle before and list those sources across the top. Now, “the treasure hunt” begins as you start exploring the sources and filling in the matrix with what could work.

To better understand, here’s an example of what a matrix model might look like:

The value of the matrix is that it generates a creative, visual exercise that a company or team could follow without it being bound by any single approach or bias. Essentially, it helps you piece together new ideas from a combination of old ideas from many different sources, industries and approaches.

Strategic Intuition wants you to think about where ideas come from and consider how your mind works. It is a fascinating exploration into how the human brain rearranges and connects experience and knowledge to create entirely new ideas in flashes of insight. It gives us the renewed confidence and the steps to take to address our biggest challenges.

In the comments below, let us know…

Have you had flashes of insight on solving a problem you have been working on? Share some with us.

Leading with Questions, page 1

The book covers the power of questions, how to ask questions effectively, and provides a guide for leaders. While the topic can be of use for anyone who uses conversation to further projects and relationships, there’s a specific focus on how leaders can use questions and in particular, how they create a questioning culture.

Questions are not only helpful on a one-to-one basis, but can help a team move forward, or help an organization to:

• Become more adaptable and ready for change
• Share responsibility
• Encourage learning

Golden Egg

Ask questions, even if it scares you

“Great leaders are humbled by the realization of all they do not know.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Leading with Questions, page 46

What’s in the way of leaders asking more and better questions, right now?

• We’re protecting ourselves – we look smarter if we don’t ask!
• We’re too busy
• We may lack skills in asking great questions
• We may work in environments that discourage questions

Corporate cultures can discourage questions. As leaders, we’re supposed to know everything. We may be afraid to admit we don’t know everything. But, if we’re afraid to ask questions, how will we learn what others can share in terms of new market information, fresh perspectives, or innovative ideas?

GEM #1

Better questions, better thinking

“Questioning leaders are confident and willing to challenge beliefs and assumptions.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Leading with Questions, page 59

As an extravert and a people person, I’m always willing to share my story, my ideas, and my perspective (perhaps a little too willing at times!). This book made me realize that not everyone feels the way I do.   Some people are waiting to be asked for their ideas. Cindy Stewart, a former factory worker, shares a story of overhearing the management team discussing a bottleneck problem on the factory floor. As they wrestled with solutions, Cindy thought “I wish they would ask me.” Imagine what a difference it would have made if they had asked. Cindy’s managers missed an opportunity to learn, to empower a staff member, and to quickly find a workable solution.

By asking great questions, leaders can develop their team members and:

• Cause people to focus or stretch, for example: “What are you trying to accomplish?”
• Create deep reflection, for example: “How is this supported by our core values?”
• Challenge taken for granted assumptions, for example: “Why do we do it this way?”
• Generate positive and powerful action, for example: “How can you take a leadership role in resolving this issue?”

What questions could you ask, that will take the conversation beyond the routine? Consider your next opportunity to take the conversation to a new level during you next meetings or telephone call.

GEM #2

The art of questions

“The search for great questions is never completed.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Leading with Questions, page 76

Here’s the action: keep looking for questions that will open doors, challenge assumptions, and promote creative thinking. So, what makes a great question?

Start with asking open-ended questions that allow others to tell their story.  Questions that elicit a short response, like yes or no, give others limited room to share their perspective.  Open-ended questions on the other hand help to establish, gather information, and expand understanding.

Asking open-ended questions is natural for children, who love to ask: “Why?”  Let’s take a leaf out of our own childhood books and ask that question. As leaders, when we ask why, it forces people to look at cause and effect.  Continuing to ask the question allows us to dig deeper into the layers of the situation and generate insights.

When using questions to open doors, it’s important that your team feels it’s safe to answer. Here’s where mindset comes in. Do you have a learner mindset or a judger mindset?

The learner mindset tends to be optimistic and presupposes new possibilities, a hopeful future, and sufficient resources. The learner mindset asks: What’s good or useful about this? How can we stay on track?

Conversely, the judger mindset focuses on the past to apportion praise or, more likely, blame. The judger mindset asks: Whose fault is it? Why can’t you get it right?

Considering the need to ask questions that are open and have the learner mindset, here are some examples of questions you might use:

• What other options can we think of?
• How do you feel the project is going?
• Tell me more about…
• What resources have we never used?
• Can you elaborate on why this is happening?
• What would success look like?

Questions can empower or constrain. Questions can open up or shut down conversations. You can use questions to create a culture of learning or a culture of defensiveness. As a leader, the questions you ask can not only create benefits for you, but for your whole team and for your organization.

In the comments below, let us know…

What are some examples of great questions you’re planning to ask in your business or organization?

 The Decision Maker, location 56

When it comes to making decisions, whether it is in strategy, product development, budget, service, or compensation, there are endless examples of the decisions we have to make in the business world on a daily basis. Then there are thousands of case studies that business students at prominent schools use to train themselves in the art of decision making, the key responsibility for any business manager.

But what if these case studies that thousands have studied are missing some crucial steps? What if the way we are taught to make decisions is missing a critical aspect? Dennis Bakke, in the book The Decision Maker, is challenging the way we make decisions in business. The book is a business fable loosely based on his own experiences in the business world where he rose to CEO of AES, a fortune 200 global power company and now as co-founder of Imagine Schools.

The idea that Bakke presents is simple and the results have been powerful in practice: when leaders learn to put real control into the hands of their people, they tap into incalculable potential. Bakke shows us that “decision making is the best way to develop people; and that should not stop at business school.”

Golden Egg

The Decision Maker Process

“You’ve got a lot of power when you decide who to send into the game, even if you’re not the one with the ball.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Decision Maker, location 1699

The entire principle around the Decision Maker process is simple: identify the person closest to the situation and let them make the decision. Told you it was a simple process, but why does it not happen?

In classical business practice, the process for decisions is a Top-Down approach where the “leader” makes the decisions. Each person in the process makes what they assume to be the best decision for them, their team(s), and what they perceive to be for the greater good of the business.

Dennis challenges that in using the Decision Maker Process, there is tremendous potential to unlock the success that each decision we make could have on the company, team(s), and the people involved in the process.

The process is as follows:

-The leader chooses someone to make a key decision (The Decision Maker)
-The Decision Maker seeks advice (including from the leader) to gather information
-The final decision is made not by the leader, but by the chosen decision maker

How do you know how to choose the Decision Maker? Start by looking at who is close to the issue, who is well acquainted with the context and details, and who understands the big picture of the decision to be made. Next consider their perspective. This can be just as valuable as proximity, as sometimes the Decision Maker may be someone from the outside as well.  Also, consider their experience in the situation and decision-making—have they had similar decisions to make? Lastly consider their wisdom as well. Have they made good decisions in the past? Do you and others have confidence in them?

GEM #1

The Advice Process

“When people are asked for advice, they start to feel ownership…everyone who offers advice works for the success of the project as if it is their own.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Decision Maker, location 1780

One of the first roadblocks many may incur when implementing this process is making sure the selected Decision Maker does not exclude groups or miss information somewhere.  The way that you can avoid this is to include the Advice Process.

In the decision-maker culture, the Decision Maker makes the final call but must ask for advice. So how does the Decision Maker know whom they should approach for advice?  They should look for the following in people:

- Experience: Has this person had experience with the circumstances that require the decision to be made?

- Position: People in different positions see things differently. The Decision Maker should seek out a leader, a peer, or someone who works in a position below them in hierarchy – and even, if the circumstance allows, seek advice outside the company.

Creating this process in your culture will have immediate impact. It reduces the time needed to get buy-in and can reduce risk by exposing potential risks that the Decision Maker overlooked. It may take a few decision-maker processes to get everyone bought in, but you must hold them accountable to speaking up and participating.

GEM #2

Basic Assumptions in a Decision Maker Culture

“Building your business on these assumptions, using these simple but powerful techniques, can transform a business – and people’s lives.”

The Decision Maker, location 1754

Another tool that changed the way Dennis ran his business was in the way he viewed people. It is game changing to the culture when people are viewed as individuals. Here are a few of the examples of assumptions that Dennis recommends we use:

- People are unique. Fairness is not treating everyone the same way. We need to treat everyone as individuals; this will unlock each person’s unique motivation and potential.

- People can learn. People do not stop learning, but they do lose the motivation to learn more, so creating new challenges for them will encourage them to educate themselves.

- People are fallible. Everyone will make a mistake or two. When they are wrong, coach them through the process and lift them up.

- People want to contribute. Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than them. When they can use their unique gifts to help grow themselves and others we are making positive impacts in the world that have limitless potential.

In making these assumptions of people in this culture, we start to see them for their unique qualities and the value that they bring to our organizations, not as just another cog in the machine.People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.   We need to give them a chance, and the Decision Maker culture does that.

What I loved most about this book was framing my own leadership style around a concept that was already happening in my own team. I was able to refine my skills in decision making to look for advice from others around me freely; I was able to pull in the team members I manage daily into decisions and use it as a great coaching option. Once or twice they even surprised me by showing me an option I overlooked—OK, it was more than once or twice.

Business leaders should learn from sports coaches that we cannot play the game from the sidelines. We need to trust our people, coach development and skills, and know who to put in the game at the right times, and we cannot play every position every minute. When we begin to let the players around us play their position, make the shots or passes as they see fit, and hold them accountable to those decisions, we will have a Decision Maker culture.

The Icarus Deception, page 219

Most of us grew up in a world where everyone had a job. A world where publishing a book meant being picked by a publisher, where recording a music album meant being picked by a record company. School was a place you went Monday through Friday from 9 to 3 where you were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. You were also taught to sit still, follow instructions, color inside the lines, and fit in.

Above all, you were taught to fit in.

That world is over. Though it lingers, the future, the very near future, belongs to those who are willing to stand up, stand out, and turn anything they do into a remarkable work of art. This idea is the basis of Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?

Golden Egg

The Danger Is Not Flying Too High, But Flying Too Low

“If you become someone who is uncomfortable unless she is creating change, restless if things are standing still, and disappointed if you haven’t failed recently, you’ve figured out how to become comfortable with the behaviors most likely to make you safe going forward.”

The Icarus Deception, page 5

Whether you’re painting a picture or serving lunch in a diner, writing a book or writing marketing copy, Seth Godin believes anything can be art and anyone can be an artist. Art is not what’s created, but how it’s created.

As we move toward a world where more and more items are commodities rather than luxuries, we move toward a world where connection, humanness, and caring are worth more than quality ingredients or quick delivery.

In the back of your mind or the depths of your heart, you have a secret dream of the thing you’d do, if only it were more practical, less risky.

In an unusual move for Seth, he offers two practical tools for peering into our own artistic soul to see how we can disabuse ourselves of any pointless fears about that secret dream.

GEM #1

What if the Solution is Sitting Right Next to You?

“[A]n unsolvable problem is almost as good as a solved one.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Icarus Deception, page 181

Tactic #1: Write down your single biggest challenge, the Great Big Problem that’s keeping you from moving forward. State it clearly and succinctly but with enough detail that someone else can understand what you’re facing.

And then, hand that description to someone you trust, someone who might have a clue, and give them five minutes to read it, and write down a solution.

Here are the benefits:

1. Stating the problem clearly is often enough to show you the solution.
2. What if they really do have the answer? Are you ready to act?
3. What if they don’t have an answer? In only five minutes, it’s entirely possible. Are you ready to call the problem unsolvable? A problem that can’t be solved is just about as good as one that’s already solved. If there’s no solution, you’re free to move on, to find the next thing, to try another route, or an entirely different destination.

What if the solution is sitting right next to you?

GEM #2

Connecting with 3 Artists Will Raise Your Game

“When you know that you need to meet every two weeks and look a respected artist in the eye and tell her what you did (or didn’t) make, it will raise your game.”

The Icarus Deception, page 181

I’ve seen the power of appropriate accountability in my work, over and over again. When we know we’re going to have to look someone we respect in the eye and tell them “No, I didn’t do what I said I was going to do” it’s a powerful motivator.

Find three other artists, who work in different fields, come from different backgrounds, and have different goals, and connect on a regular basis to talk about the process of your art. (Keep in mind that “art” is simply the thing you’ve chosen to do to stand up and stand out, to make a difference.)

Knowing that you have three people expecting to hear your progress is powerful. Having three other artists to learn from is priceless.

I think these paragraphs from the back cover are a better conclusion than any I could write:

An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it (all of it, the work, the process, the feedback from those we seek to connect with) personally.

Art isn’t a result; it’s a journey. The challenge of our time is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.  (Click to Tweet!)

What will you do to raise the stakes with your art?

Why Managing Sucks, page 26

The working world today is broken.  Organizations are asking employees to do more with less, we waste hundreds of hours commuting at the worst times of the day, and we lose too much time in endless meetings.  We continue in this mode as many others have for generations, and wait for the day when we can retire and finally get some sleep.

Good news – there is another way to work. 

In Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It, authors Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler challenge us to redesign the way we work with the creation of a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), a workplace model they invented over ten years ago while working at Best Buy.  They want us to focus on the results, and not worry about the how, when or where of work.

In the five years since they published their first book, Why Work Sucks, their model has now been successfully implemented in many organizations, and these companies are realizing tremendous business outcomes as a result.  This isn’t a fantasy description of a “fun place to work” – this is a new model for how work should be.  They believe flexibility shouldn’t be provided to a chosen few, it should be ingrained in a changed corporate culture that provides employees with “improved ability to manage their whole lives in a healthy and happy way.”

The essence of it is that employees, not managers, need to own the work.  They alone should determine where the work should be done (whether office, home, or coffee shop), when the work should be done (start at 2 pm? end at 2 pm?), and how the work should be done.  Managing becomes a coaching, measurement and issue support role, ensuring that targets and objectives are clearly defined and revisited often.

Not convinced?  Read on . . .

Golden Egg

Wake Up! We Need A Better Way

“We’ve learned that when people have complete control over all of their time, they begin to use it wisely to optimize every aspect of their lives, including work.”

Why Managing Sucks, page 6

We see countless studies on employee engagement, with employees who are frustrated by inconsistent work practices, combined with increasing financial and family pressures.  They are overwhelmed and unable to contribute fully to their work.

The authors argue that we are over-managing the work schedule by insisting on set times and places to work (with employees focusing on face-time with the boss or colleagues), and seeing poor productivity from our efforts.

Still not convinced?  Here’s how it can work.

GEM #1

Don’t Manage The Hours, Manage The Work

“one of the biggest, most dangerous management traps is focusing on time”  (Click to Tweet!)

Why Managing Sucks, page 72

For managers and employees, it is much easier to manage by the clock.  If the employee is at their desk at the expected time, both parties may choose to believe that success will follow.

In a ROWE, employees decide how, when, and where they will get work done.  If you’re thinking “we have a flexible work environment so it must be a ROWE”, flex work policies simply confuse the issue.  The control is still with the manager to set guidelines, ensure the policy is followed, and employees are “checking in” from their home office during business hours.  In a ROWE, there’s no set schedule, no check in – you focus on getting the work done.

Managing by time doesn’t help us get the right work done.  It’s easier for managers to work this way, because they can see their employees and may believe that means they know the work is getting done, but as the authors tell us, we need to manage based on clear, measurable outcomes, not by time.

“An authentic ROWE is, in its essence, a contemporary work culture built on the foundation that we hire people for clear, measurable results.”

Why Managing Sucks, page 3

Hmm, no set schedule? If you’re thinking that this feels like you will be expected to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, guess what?  Most employees already are.  The difference with ROWE is that “every day feels like Saturday”.  You manage all of the aspects of your work and your life, and you are in the driver’s seat.

Well, does ROWE = anarchy?  On the contrary.

GEM #2

No Results, No Job

“Everyone was hired to do a job. They need to be clear about their measurable results. If they can’t meet results, no job.”

Why Managing Sucks, page 30

All this time, we’ve been focusing on the wrong thing.  We’ve been reprimanding employees for being late, and avoiding conversations about outcomes.  Or worse, we’re unclear about what exactly is required, leaving everyone to work in ways that aren’t driving business results.

One of the biggest challenges for managers in moving to a ROWE is they now need to set clear goals, and deal with performance issues quickly.  Employees need to understand that they are responsible for getting the work done, and managers must focus on ensuring outcomes are met. “HR should be coaching managers to be results-focused and objective, and not to cling to old subjective beliefs about what work should look and feel like.”

They are clear to say – this is “disruptive social change.”  Implementing a ROWE in its truest form won’t be easy, but it is the only way to address the significant workplace issues we face today.

The book is packed with ideas, client testimonials and suggested tactics for starting to make ROWE-like changes immediately, even in environments like education, healthcare, and manufacturing.  If you lead people or have a boss, this is a book to read as a team and start to explore how you can create a ROWE for your organization.   Studies show ROWEs have significantly higher productivity and employee engagement, and can be a marketplace differentiator.

I am excited about sharing this book with my clients.  With Why Managing Sucks, managers and employees can really start to picture a different way of working, in an environment that meets the needs of managers and employees alike, by focusing on the results.

In the comments below, let us know…

Have you worked in a ROWE?  Can you imagine working in a ROWE organization?

 Taking People With You, page 4

Have you ever wished you could be a fly on the wall to find out how successful organizations train their top talent? Wouldn’t it be great to hear the CEO teaching his most prized lessons?

David Novak is the chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, Inc., which operates in more than 117 countries and employs 1.4 million people. Haven’t heard of them? Bet you have purchased something from them! They are the world’s largest restaurant company and own the brands of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. They have experienced extraordinary success including 13 percent growth for each of the last nine years.

Novak spends several weeks a year teaching his leadership program to thousands of managers. He believes there is no skill more important in business than learning how to “take people with you” as he calls it, or influence others. And now, you can benefit from his teaching too. He has packaged his program into a great book called Taking People With You and on top of that, is donating all author proceeds to the United Nations World Food Programme.

Golden Egg

Celebrate!

“A recent study of soccer players, for example, found that the team that celebrated goals with the most enthusiasm typically won the game.”

Taking People With You, page 203

Throughout the book, you get a sense for what it’s like to work for Novak. You would be recognized, affirmed, awarded, and trusted. He says he is best known within his organization for casting a shadow of recognition and positive energy.

He warns us not to wait for the wins or until your cross the finish line. If you just drill people about performance without pausing to celebrate the small victories, you will wear them out.

He cautions us to be careful when celebrating victories so that you are measuring the right thing. For example, it’s not the number of sales calls that are as important as the degree to which the customer was influenced in the sales call. It’s not achieving expectations that deserves celebration but achieving measurable, tangible results.

He assures us that recognition and awards don’t have to be expensive. He shows us that the celebrations don’t have to be a trip to Hawaii. When he started giving out awards he decided they should be more memorable than the typical plaque or pen so he gave out floppy rubber chickens. Each leader followed suit and took the time to personalize awards so the recognition was more meaningful and fun.

And the celebration needs to be at the basic level of showing appreciation. He says that to truly motivate people, you need a positive work environment where all members know they count and feel appreciated and respected.

GEM #1

Always Be Learning

“… when people ask me what I look for when hiring someone, an avid learner tops the list.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 Taking People With You, page 55

If I were to ask you if you wanted to grow and be your best self you would undoubtedly say “Of course”. Novak suggests the best way for you to do that is to always be learning. He believes that being an avid learner is the single biggest thing that separates a good leader from a great one. (Good for you for prioritizing your learning by reading this!)

Have you ever noticed that when you are around someone who loves to learn you feel inspired by his or her passion and curiosity? This person can energize a team and bring new ideas. Look around you – is it true that the best in your industry are always learning, always raising their game, always in a high performance mindset where they are open to learning how to get better and reach the top?

While Novak admits there are many people out there smarter than him, he attributes much of his success to prioritizing knowledge and ideas over ownership and ego. As an added tip he suggests that just by telling people you would like to learn from them, you can open doors.

He created a culture of commitment to always be learning at YUM!. As a leader, he suggests you need to seek out opportunities for both yourself and your team to expand your knowledge about your business.

GEM #2

Believe in People

“I also believe deep down in my bones that all people, when given a choice, have an inherent desire to do the right thing, to contribute, and to make a positive difference through the work that they do.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Taking People With You, page 64

Novak says he is absolutely convinced that it is crucial to have this mindset in order to get the most from your team. He sees his role as a leader to unleash each person’s potential. And by firmly believing they want to do the right thing, he inspires them to do just that.

How do you see people? Which quote resonates with you more?

A)     “Give people an inch, and they’ll take a mile.”

or

B) “Believe in people, and they’ll believe in you in return.”

When you put faith and believe in people good things happen. They:

• do things even they didn’t know they could do
• become more invested in their work
• rise to the occasion

So, go to work everyday trusting that people want to contribute. Have you ever trusted someone who doesn’t trust you? Show people you trust them. After all, 99.9 percent of them want to do good and try hard. Don’t go looking for the 0.1 percent who want to mess things up. It starts with you – give the trust and you will receive it.
If you want to “take people with you”, where do you begin?

Before Novak embarked on teaching leadership, he looked long and hard in the mirror to determine exactly what was key to taking people with him. He investigated how he was able to get people on the same page and marching to the same drum. He concluded that getting inside the head of those you need is the starting place to take them with you.

You can never make big things happen unless you know how to take people with you. And maybe your first step should be to read Novak’s book!

In the comments below, let us know…

How can you create a culture of learning, trusting, and acknowledging in your organization…. What will you do to start with you?

“A business is only alive to the extent that there is commitment.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Commitment Engine, page 1

There’s a very simple equation at play here: the opposite of commitment is apathy, apathy leads to irrelevance and, in this hyper saturated world of ours, irrelevance is the kiss of death for any business.  Commitment is not a nice to have, it’s essential.

So when we talk about “commitment” to a business, who are we talking about?  Employees?  Shareholders?  Partners?  Clients?  Yes, to all of the above and anyone else who engages with your business in any way.  In the words of John Jantsch, author of The Commitment Engine, “Getting noticed these days is less about shouting and more about sparkling.” We sparkle when we stand for something – something so clear that anyone who comes in contact with our companies can’t help but understand it and get caught up in the movement we’re creating.

The Commitment Engine is a book for business leaders about how to create that sparkle.  How to connect with the driving purpose of our businesses and share it in such a way that people connect with it and want to play a role in supporting it.  Through a well crafted and idea-filled book, Jantsch gives us practical ways to infuse every component of our businesses with the characteristics that drive engagement:

1. Inspiration
2. Innovation
3. Play
4. Community
5. Convenience
6. Simplicity
7. Surprise

One of the best ways to drive engagement, Jantsch shares, is through the power of story.

Golden Egg

It’s all in the story

“You’ve got to find symbols and stories and metaphors that invite and allow every part of your business eco-system to embrace the strategy.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Commitment Engine, page 68

There’s nothing engaging about aloof businesses and dry corporate speak.  If you want people to truly connect with you, your company and your brand, you need to let them see the human side of what you do.  The best way to do this over and over again in an engaging and enlightening way is to become a collector and sharer of stories.  As Jantsch explains in The Commitment Engine, there are four story types that all business leaders need to understand:

The Passion Story
As a leader, this is your story; the story of why you were compelled to start this business in the first place, and what it means to you.

The Purpose Story
This is the story of the change you want to see in the world.  It’s your company mission, or a story about the clients you serve and why the work you do matters.

The Value Proposition Story
Why you?  What are you doing differently/better/faster/smarter/cheaper that explains why people who believe what you believe should do business with you?

The Personality Story
What can people expect when dealing with you?  Are you efficient or are you friendly?  Are you scrappy or are you smooth?  If people were to compare your company to a song, what would it be?

Picking one story isn’t really enough.  In order for people to understand your company so well that they become committed to your success, you need to tell all four stories, and you need to do it again and again and again.  We all love a good story.  What stories are you telling?

GEM #1

The Customer Story

“Imagine taking your best, most loyal, most vocal customer with you on your next sales call and asking her to simply explain the real benefits she’s realized because of the work you’ve done for her.  That’s the power of customer-generated content when done right and that’s why you need to routinely find ways to acquire it.”

The Commitment Engine, page 210

Your customers – especially your best customers – already know your story.  That’s why they’re buying from you.  Do you know why they’re buying from you?  I suggest you find out.

Whether it’s through feedback surveys, client roundtables or (imagine this) actually asking them, you need to find out what part of your story resonated with your client enough that they would buy from you.  I actually recently just went through this exercise of asking some of Actionable’s best clients why they chose to purchase Actionable Workshops and I can tell you from personal experience that it’s an incredibly eye opening experience. This is by no means gospel, but here’s what I asked them:

1. What initially attracted you to [our product]?
2. What’s your favorite thing about using [our product], now that you’ve been using it for a while?
3. What would you like to see removed, added, or improved?

Three questions + 5-10 minutes on the phone = amazing customer insight.  I highly recommend it.

One other thought for you on collecting customer stories  – what could you automate to collect stories moving forward?  How could providing you with stories actually add value to your customer’s experience with your company?  Food for thought.

GEM #2

The Sales Story

“Think of it this way: the sale is not complete until the customer is so happy
that she confidently makes referrals.”  (Click to Tweet!) 

The Commitment Engine, page 197

Making a sale is exciting, I don’t care how big a business you are or what you sell.  (And if it’s not exciting, I think that’s worth looking at.)  I love Jantsch’s reframing point, though, on not thinking of the sale as complete until your client is confidently making referrals.

In The Commitment Engine, Jantsch suggests looking at the sales process from “the end” back to the point where the client’s never heard of you and thinking through what you want them to experience at each stage of the process.  The new thinking here though is that you would start well after the sale has been made.  For example, what do you want the client experiencing six months after the sale has been made?  Then work back to two or three months after the sale is made.  What about after one month?  Seven days?  Immediately after purchase?  The stuff leading up to the purchase is usually where we spend most of our time and mental energy and that’s important.  But the sale’s not complete until the client is happily making referrals. Time to extend our thinking.

John Jantsch is a fantastic writer.  His passion is obvious, his examples are excellent, and his exercises are highly actionable and thought provoking.  In this book in particular, I love how easily he moves from employees to customers to partners and back again in his exploration of the power of commitment.  This is a book absolutely worth reading –  for small business owners in particular, and anyone looking to re-inject their professional lives with a little bit of purpose, in general.

“Before we start, let me ask you this: what’s going to change in your business and your life if you continue to operate in the same manner you always have?”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Commitment Engine, page 32

  The Fire Starter Sessions, xxv

Every fire needs some heat … you ready to turn up the temperature?

Before The Fire Starter Sessions was crafted, the original Fire Starter, writer, and business strategist Danielle LaPorte, spread her spark o’ genius by convening with fellow freedom seekers in living rooms, boardrooms, and even pole dancing studios across North America to discuss the collision of business and the creative soul.

The fiery aura of those live sessions was captured in Danielle’s book, along with inflamed inspiration and actionable insight.  If you are feeling unclear about your conscious calling, allow Danielle to kick you in the tush – lovingly, of course. This maven will challenge you to up your game and bump your career and lifestyle vision up a notch or three.

If you’re ready for a blast of clarity, a surge of heat, and finally, a reevaluation of what success means to you – light your torch and read on, my friend.  You’re a Fire Starter now.

Golden Egg

Bring your Whole Self to the Game

“If you try to keep your most sacred ambitions off of your calendar and your most genuine traits off of your resume, then you’re missing out on the power of real integrity.”

The Fire Starter Sessions, xxvii

When’s the last time you celebrated your idiosyncratic-isms?  It’s been a while, eh?

We live in a world where it is normal to Photoshop our eccentricities out of photos and relationships.  We hide weaknesses.  We gloss over insecurities.   In the workplace especially, we cover up tattoos with Oxford shirts, steer clear of controversial conversations that may close doors, and worst of all, we hide our true passions – right under the dusty fax machine.  Who faxes nowadays anyway?

Your contradictions make you gorgeously multidimensional.  If you want to live boldly and spherically, take your whole self into the future, without hiding integral elements of your life – your faith, your scars, your light.

As Danielle says beautifully, “When we integrate all of the aspects of our beings, we expand. Cosmic love and worldly ambition, consciousness and cash, high standards and compassion – this is where it all comes together.”

So how do you show up in the office?  What about your home?  If you’re showing up as two different people, you may be hiding pieces of your whole self.

GEM #1

Crushing Competency

“If it doesn’t light you up, you’re not the right person for the job.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Fire Starter Sessions, page 23

I used to believe that being well-rounded equaled mega success.  I was even voted Best All Around in high school because that’s what I thought mattered the most.  Barf.

Let’s be real.  If you are “good” at something, it doesn’t mean you should saturate your life with it.  And if you’re reading these words, you’re probably good at many things.  Maybe you’ve even tricked yourself into believing you enjoy the work you’re good at doing.  After all, your boss goes gaga over your analytics reports so maybe you should learn to love data…

It’s an easy trap to fall into and can lead down a dark path far distant from the actual things that make you feel like a supernova.  Like writing.  Or cluster ballooning.  Or problem solving. You get the idea.

Letting go of our need to be competent in multiple areas of our lives is the first step needed to move closer to our true calling.  How many tasks that you’re “good” at completing (even though they infuriate you) can you eliminate?  Even if you can’t outsource all of these elements in your life, at least stop striving for perfection in them. As Danielle used to tell her staff, “Be careful what you’re good at – you could end up doing it for years.”

Allow yourself to unabashedly shine in the core areas that truly make you feel electric.  Ditch the rest.  Be ridiculously inept at Excel.  Stop trying to act like Martha Stewart even though entertaining makes you want to curl into the fetal position.  Allow yourself to burn lasagna … and then laugh about it, of course.

But push, push, push forward with your desires.  Your passions.  Your light.  If you’re used to the well-rounded life, this new drive and perspective will lead you into unchartered territory: the new masterful you.

GEM #2

Choosing Ease 

”The easy way is a direction that leads to spacious places.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Fire Starter Sessions, page 78

No pain, no gain, right?  That’s what I always believed until reading this enlightened lesson.

If you’re hitting a ginormous brick wall every single time you work on project X, maybe it just isn’t into you.  In other words, if you have to try really hard to be good at something, you’ll never hit Rockstar levels of success.  And isn’t that what we are all aiming for?    

If you follow the metric of ease and tap into your true strengths, you will have the ability to feel powerful and create work of mammoth proportions.  Let it be easy.  Allow your energy to focus on the work, not the battle.  Ask yourself these questions: Does this come easily to me?  Or, does this make me feel weak?  These questions will guide your work and daily purpose.

Of course, this philosophy does not give you permission to slack off and watch reruns of Seinfeld on the couch – just because it’s easy.  You still need to work your buns off on the work that matters, the work that makes you stronger, the work that will make a difference.

Yes, crushing competency and choosing ease are important, but there are numerous other valuable lessons in this book that have resonated with me.  They will probably resonate with you as well.

Nowadays, I find myself trying to embrace my eccentricities, focus on ease, and allow myself to be a complete failure in things like cooking.  Luckily, my husband makes a killer risotto.  

Keep your fire ablaze, fellow Fire Starter.  Spread the spark.

In the comments below, let us know…

What would your life be like if you did only what was easy?

  Think Like Zuck, page 103

When Mark Zuckerburg founded Facebook in 2004, he was a teenaged Harvard student fascinated by the possibilities of using technology to connect people.  In 2012, “Zuck” was still firmly at the helm of Facebook, now valued at over $104 billion with over one billion users.

How did “the new Internet Prince” pull off such an amazing feat—and what lessons can aspiring entrepreneurs learn from his story?  Intel social media innovator Ekaterina Walter turns her practiced eye to the Facebook phenomenon and shares her insightful analysis in Think Like Zuck.  Along the way, she highlights the striking parallels between Zuck and other contemporary entrepreneurial legends, from Apple’s Steve Jobs to Zappos’ Tony Hsieh.

Walter’s advice in a nutshell:  Entrepreneurs who hope to create similar social impact and financial wealth need to integrate five critical elements:  purpose, passion, product, people, and partnerships. 

Golden Egg

Put Your Passion at the Heart of Your Business

“Build what you believe in.”  (Click to Tweet!) 

Think Like Zuck, page 33

 Passion must serve as the heart of your business.  Everything follows from that, Walter asserts, starting with your own understanding of who you are and what your purpose is.  From there you can craft your ideas, define your creations, mold your products, and propel innovation.  “Align your business with your personal philosophy,” she advises.

For Zuck, Facebook marks the sweet spot where his dual passions for software and social connections overlap.  From that wellspring flow all the continuous innovations in engineering and services that have propelled the company to global dominance in social networking.

Zuckerburg has committed himself to connecting the world, not to getting rich. “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services,” he declared in his IPO letter.  Walters finds that this kind of passion to “make a ding in the universe” (as Steve Jobs once said) characterizes truly great entrepreneurs, naming not only Zuck and Jobs, but also Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and a host of others.

Your passion will provide the perseverance needed to build a great company.

GEM #1

Passion Fuels Purpose 

“Great companies don’t just create great products, they create movements.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Think Like Zuck, page 41

A purpose with passion will even trump creativity, as Walter’s examples reveal.  You can borrow someone else’s idea and improve on it—but you need your own energy resources to push forward despite obstacles, rejections, and mistakes.

Zuck’s first attempt to connect college students via the internet, FaceMash, got him in hot water with Harvard officials for unauthorized use of college photos.  Undaunted, he forged ahead, adapting a user-permission policy in his next venture—Facebook.

He embarked on it with a passionate drive for creating great user experiences.  That’s the kind of commitment needed to transform an industry and even the world.  Consider the impact on our lives of such purpose-driven innovations as the iPod’s “1000 tunes in your pocket,” Southwest Airline fares, Ford cars, Starbucks coffee, Disney cartoons, Zappos’ “wow” customer service, and many more.

Even as the direction may change, the purpose stays the same in a great enterprise.  In 2006, Zuck stunned most observers by turning down Yahoo’s purchase offer of one billion dollars.  He wanted to stick to his purpose of connecting the world.

Walter invites you to build your passion, whether as an entrepreneur or an “intrapraneur”—and provides role models for every step along the way.

GEM #2

Get the Right People on Board

”Develop smart hiring procedures consistent with your cultural values that bring the right people on board.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Think Like Zuck, page 78

Your single most vital capital for sustainable success is human capital. If you can get the right people on board—the ones who share your cultural values—you will multiply the energy that can be leveraged for innovation.  Don’t think in in terms of filling slots—get the best talent with the right outlook, and then figure out where to put them.  “Hire for attitude,” emphasizes Walter. “Skills can be taught; passion can’t.”

For Southwest Airlines, that means looking for the “warrior spirit,” not airline experience.  For the hacker culture that defines Mark Zuckerburg and permeates Facebook, employees must share the commitment to improving user experience as the product is always being upgraded, and redesigned.  Experimentation and mistakes are embraced as a necessary part of the process. 

Talented people don’t need to be managed, they need to be empowered.  Creating an environment of trust unleashes creativity and motivation.  The policy of giving employees freedom to pursue their own ideas, pioneered by 3M, has been adopted by other celebrated innovative giants, e.g., Google and Apple.  Furthermore, the resulting flat management structures facilitate collaboration.

How much does hiring for cultural values matter?  About $1.2 billion, if you go by what Jeff Bezos of Amazon paid to purchase Zappos, renowned for its unique culture committed to delighting customers and employees alike.  Estimating $100 million in losses from wrong hires, Zappos began offering newly trained employees $4,000 to quit on the spot.

A great hire can compensate for weaknesses at the top as well.  Zuck wooed Sheryl Sandberg of Google to handle the operational side, setting a precedent for young founders of tech start-ups to hire a seasoned COO for balance.  Success in business is a team sport, and Walter cites other famous complementary partnerships that generated long-term success:  the Warner brothers in film, the Johnson brothers of Johnson & Johnson, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, and, less well-known, Sears and Roebuck.  “Success is a team sport,” Walter observes.

At the end of the day, if you are inspired to create a successful company culture and leadership team, you need to know both your strengths, i.e., the values and commitment you bring, as well as your weaknesses, i.e., areas where you lack expertise or experience.

Can you learn to “think like Zuck” enough to create your entrepreneurial success?  Greatness takes passion—and it takes action.  Ekaterina Walter offers you ample inspiration, challenge, and advice to help you dare to win.

In the comments below, let us know…

Where does your passion lie—and with whom would you need to partner to bring it to market?

Getting Real, page 2

We all know that it’s not about ideas – it’s about what you do with those ideas. Whether you let them sit on the Post-it note in your head, or take them for a walk in the real world.

So why is it that we have so many ideas, with so little execution?

And of the ideas we act on, why is it that our projects sometimes get delayed? And perhaps more importantly, how can you stop that, and just plain execute?

How can you just get your world-changing idea out there, in the real world?

Well, as software company 37signals would say, “It’s time to Get Real.”

Founders of the widely popular Ruby on Rails open-source web application framework, 37signals is known for not only generating ideas, but also executing on them successfully. The company is led by Inc. Magazine Columnist Jason Fried, and has launched six web applications since it was founded in 1999. The most popular of which is project-management tool Basecamp.

And in their book Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application, 37signals’ Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, and Matthew Linderman share the exact process they used to not only focus on solving the problem they actually set out to solve, but also how you can keep that focus throughout your project lifetime.

This process is called Getting Real and it all starts with embracing constraints.

Golden Egg

Embrace Constraints

“Let limitations guide you to creative solutions.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Getting Real, page 33

Wouldn’t it be nice to work on a project where there was no cap on budget?
Where you could hire as many people as you needed to get the job done?
Where you weren’t forced to meet hard deadlines?
Where you could spend as much time as you wanted on your projects?

Well, that might be a good thing if you didn’t care about actually bringing your idea into the real world.

Not so much if you actually do.

Having these constraints is actually a good thing. They not only force you to make decisions that move your project forward, but they also guide you throughout the project.

So constraints should be embraced. Not shunned.

“There’s never enough to go around. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough people. That’s a good thing. Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage.”  (Click to Tweet!)  

Getting Real, page 33

GEM #1

Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope

“Here’s an easy way to launch on time and on budget: keep them fixed. Never throw more time or money at a problem, just scale back the scope.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Getting Real, page 19

One of the biggest reasons for failure in any project – whether it’s a software project or not – is not a lack of boundaries and constraints, but rather a lack of commitment to these.

We set certain time and budget constraints when we start, but as we move forward, we can’t help but increase them. I know I’ve done this.

You want some more time to add that extra signup form on your blog.
You want to wait until you develop a mobile app to launch your web-based product.
You want to add scalability for millions of users right away (before you even have ten).

We have a habit of wanting more and adding more, and as a result, we have to increase our time and budget. But the sad reality is that if we wait until “we have it all ready”, we’re either not going to launch at all, or we’re going to spend unnecessary time behind features that might not even be used.

Those in the software industry will recognize this as Feature Creep or Bloatware.

So it’s important to keep your time and budget fixed, and stay flexible in scope (meaning, scope down) so you can launch on time and on budget.

“There’s always time to add stuff later – later is eternal, now is fleeting,” write the authors.

So what’s the best way to scope down? Start With No.

GEM #2

Start With No 

“Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child. You have to take your baby through the whole chain of events (e.g. design, implementation, testing, etc.). And once that feature is out there, you’re stuck with it. Just try to take a released feature away from customers and see how pissed off they get.”

Getting Real, page 51

Your best friend in fixing time and budget, and staying flexible in scope, is to start with no.
Anytime you come up with, or are presented with, a new feature, always say no first.

“Don’t be a yes-man,” the writers advocate. “Make each feature work hard to be implemented. Make each feature prove itself and show that it’s a survivor. It’s like ‘Fight Club’. You should only consider features if they’re willing to stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.”

This is one of the reasons why Steve Jobs was revered as a leader and innovator.

He knew when to say no. He knew that “innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”

“That’s why you start with no,” explain the authors. “Every new feature request that comes to us – or from us – meets a no. We listen but don’t act. The initial response is ‘not now.’ If a request for a feature keeps coming back, that’s when we know it’s time to take a deeper look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature for real.”

While Getting Real is primarily targeted towards web application development, anyone working on any kind of project can still benefit from the Getting Real practices such as Embracing Constraints, Saying No, Alone Time, and many more. But if you are involved in the development of any kind of software – whether you’re a developer or not – do yourself a favor and read Getting Real.

“Sure, Getting Real is about building great software. But there’s no reason why it needs to stop there. Take these ideas and try applying them to different aspects of your life. You might just stumble upon some neat results.”

Getting Real, page 170

The 8 Pillars of Motivation, page 377

Often we think of motivation as something we need before being able to do anything else, but as Farnoosh Brock explains in The 8 Pillars of Motivation, that is not so. However, some things do need to be in place to inspire the motivation to live the best life possible.  In aligning ourselves with these eight pillars, we can be capable of living a passionate life. The greatest takeaway from Brock is that if the correct habits are in place, you’ll never lack for motivation. It’s easy to think someday I’ll do such-and-such, but without key habits in place, you’re likely to continue on the path of least resistance.

Golden Egg

It’s All About the Attitude!

“The right attitude is the best and most obvious path to success and yet the least chosen one.”            (Click to Tweet!)

 The 8 Pillars of Motivation, page 480

While all of us have our good and bad days, some people choose to see the positive and carry on despite the disappointments they have had. The reality is, there will always be things that don’t go your way—your car breaks down, someone yells at you because they are also having a bad day, you spill coffee down your suit on the way to a meeting, etc. However, we each have the opportunity to react to each of these things positively or negatively. In fact, Brock encourages us to see something great in even the worst of these circumstances. Maybe your car breaking down will lead you to meet someone new. Maybe your listening patiently to the person who has had a bad day will cause them to rethink their attitude. You can’t force others to see the positive, but you can change the way you react to each circumstance, moment-by-moment, day-to-day.

“The things that go wrong can be the defining moments of your life.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The 8 Pillars of Motivation, page 457

GEM #1

It Takes a Village

“Engage in the right place and build the relationships and be sure to give, give, give and then give some more.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The 8 Pillars of Motivation, page 601

Sometimes just having the right support system in place can make all the difference. If you surround yourself with a lot of naysayers who tell you your ideas won’t work, you’ll likely eventually listen. However, if you cultivate relationships with people who encourage you to go for your dreams, you are much more inclined to try. Brock also tells a personal story about her grandmother that shows that just because someone doesn’t understand why you are doing something doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you. Brock was trying to explain her work in social media and blogging to her grandmother, which her grandmother in Iran did not understand, so she told her grandmother that she was happy and her grandmother accepted that answer much easier than trying to grasp what she did for a living.

Brock writes, “Often it is not that the people who do not support you don’t want you to be happy; they simply do not understand what it is you are trying to do.”

So find people who care about you and what you are doing and, at the same time, encourage others in what they are doing—even if you do not fully understand why they want what they want.

GEM #2

Have Faith

“Whatever it is you dream, simply believe that it is entirely possible. If you cannot believe that it is possible every day of the week, then believe that it’s possible on every Tuesday or every Friday.”        (Click to Tweet!)

The 8 Pillars of Motivation, page 621

I love this idea that even if it’s difficult for you to believe that something is possible all of the time, then to at least try and believe it’s possible as often as you can. There are times when I don’t let myself believe my dreams could come true, but this makes it much more doable. Once you believe that things are a possibility, you’re much more likely to put steps in place to accomplish them. For instance, maybe you don’t believe you could run a successful business, but maybe once a week, you set up an event on your calendar to work on that goal. During that time put aside your thoughts – that you don’t think it is a possibility – and act as though it is. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself by making it a reality with just an hour of focus a week or maybe, with time, you can increase that hour of belief into an entire day.

Put the eight pillars to use in your life, and you’ll be well on your way to never losing motivation again. From defining your purpose and direction to cultivating smart habits, you’ll be paving the road to your dreams coming true.

In the comments below, let us know…

What habits can you put in place tomorrow that will give you the motivation to accomplish your dreams ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road?

Happier is an easy book to read. It does a great job translating with rigor the science of positive psychology into bite-sized actionable ideas and exercises.

I heard about Happier from a psychologist friend, who works with students in areas of self-esteem and depression.  The book’s title piqued my interest.  Everyone – no matter how happy or unhappy – wants to be happier.  Ben-Shahar’s book is packed with exercises in the form of soul-searching questions. Taking a page from positive psychology, he wants readers to focus on more of the good stuff (self-esteem, optimism, and joy – instead of anxiety, depression and neurosis).

Ben-Shahar says society has become unhappier in the past few decades. Mental health statistics he cites for children and youth are alarming. “In the United States, rates of depression are ten times higher today than they were in the 1960s, and the average age for the onset of depression is fourteen and a half compared to twenty-nine and a half in 1960. A study conducted in American colleges tells us that nearly forty-five percent of students were ‘so depressed that they had difficulty functioning.’”

Golden Egg

How can I be happy now and  in the future?

“The ultimate currency for a human being is happiness”  (Click to Tweet!)

  Happier, page 53

Ben-Shahar identifies four archetypes of happiness decision-making using a hamburger analogy.

1. The hedonist lives by the maxim, “seek pleasure and avoid pain”. This archetype chooses the tasty junk-food burger without regard to long-term consequences.
2. The rat racer lives for future gain by sacrificing the present.  The rat race archetype selects a tasteless vegetarian burger made with the healthiest ingredients, with future benefit in mind.
3. The nihilist is someone who has lost his or her spark for life – both present and future. The nihilistic archetype chooses the tasteless, unhealthy burger because they simply do not care.
4. The ideal burger is the happiness archetype – a combination of a tasty and healthy burger. This group knows that activities they perform today at home, at work and in their communities will contribute to a fulfilling future.

Ben-Shahar says most people ask the wrong questions. For example, “At what point in life — at what age — can I stop thinking about the future and start being happy?”

As we have heard time and again, the journey is more important than the destination. But how many follow this?  The author says, “Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”

GEM #1

Express Gratitude Daily

 “Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Start with one experience and build on it.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Happier, page 129

Keep a gratitude journal. As simple as it sounds, how many people write a daily gratitude journal? The research from Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough is clear. Those who write down at least five things, for which they are grateful, enjoy higher levels of emotional and physical wellbeing. There is a cumulative effect in becoming mindful of our happiness by writing a short list of what we are thankful for daily.

Ben-Shahar believes the gratitude journal keeps emotions fresh in our memories as we experience the feelings associated with writing each item.  The benefit in doing the exercise consistently helps a person appreciate the positive in their life instead of taking it for granted.

I try to journal every day either early in the morning or before bed. My overall outlook and day-to-day relationships are more positive when I journal and express gratitude.  The experience of turning this activity into a habit instead of watching the news at the beginning or end of the day has been a pleasant surprise.

GEM #2

Simplify

 “The good news is that simplifying our lives, doing less rather than more, does not have to come at the expense of success.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Happier, page 153

More than a century ago, Henry David Thoreau said, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen.” Ben-Shahar says we place too many competing demands on our time, a limited resource.

Psychologist Tim Kisser’s research shows that having time affluence is a strong predictor of wellbeing, whereas material affluence is not. Time affluence allows people to personally pursue meaningful activities, to reflect more often and balance leisure with work. Conversely time poverty is associated with people who often use phrases like, “in a rush”, “jam-packed schedule”, “behind schedule”, “stressed and overworked”, “I have no time” and “I’m exhausted”.  Sound familiar?  Avoid time poverty by taking a moment to consider what you can cut out of your day to help free up extra time to just breathe.

After I finished reading Happier, I felt a sense of calm and excitement. The notion of “figuring out what happier” means for me, by working through Ben-Shahar’s coaching questions felt easier with a roadmap.  A great coach gets out of the way and gives us the space to do the work. Ultimately, we discover the answers for ourselves, in our own time.

In the comments below, let us know…

What, if any, internal and external factors are stopping you from becoming happier?

 Instant Influence, page 63

Instant Influence is a book about motivation. Don’t be deceived by the name — or the subtitle, “How to Get Anyone to Do Anything – Fast.”  It’s not about manipulating people to serve only your own ends. Michael V. Pantalon developed this practice over years of coaching practice, and in addition to being effective, it’s surprisingly simple. Essentially, Instant Influence consists of asking the person to be influenced (yourself or someone else) six questions:

1. Why might you change?
2. How ready are you to change, on a scale from 1-10 where 1 means “not ready at all” and 10 means “totally ready”?
3. Why didn’t you pick a lower number?
4. Imagine you’ve changed. What would the positive outcomes be?
5. Why are those outcomes important to you?
6. What’s the next step, if any?

These are not always easy questions to ask. The system is designed so that the individual questions are reworded to suit the situation, so “change” would be replaced by e.g. “pick up one piece of laundry” or “look up the number for the dry-cleaners.” Pantalon stresses that it’s important to keep the initial step extremely small, so that it’s easy to contemplate. This allows the “influencee” to think about the “why” without being burdened by the “what” and the “how”.

The other counter-intuitive aspect to this process is step 3. It seems odd to ask the person who just answered a “2” why they aren’t less motivated — rather than asking why they aren’t more motivated — but this paradigm shift is key: you’re now putting the person in a position to defend what (little) motivation they have, rather than defend their position of inactivity. This brings us to:

Golden Egg

The Law of Psychological Reactance — Reinforcing Autonomy

“We tend to react very negatively when our freedom is verbally threatened… [it] can be restored by such autonomy-enhancing statements as ‘It’s up to you,’ and ‘This is really your decision.’ If we’re motivating ourselves, we should remember that we don’t absolutely have to do anything.”  

Instant Influence, page 41

“Reinforcing Autonomy” is the second chapter, but I actually read it several months before the rest of the book; it stands so well on its own that a friend of mine lent me her copy to read that section. While this section is not directly part of the six step process, it is valuable on its own for the way it helps reframe questions of motivation.

The law of psychological reactance states that “if someone tells you to do something, you probably won’t feel like doing it, even if you might otherwise have wanted to.” Intuitively, we know this to be true of ourselves and others we interact with. Why then, do we continually barrage people with reasons why they should do something? This is related to reverse psychology.

GEM #1

The Five Whys

“You start by asking, ‘Why are those outcomes important to you?’  For every answer you get, you repeat the question, until you’ve asked it five times. Invariably, the answers move almost magically from the practical and impersonal to the heartfelt.”  

Instant Influence, page 93

For each of the six steps mentioned above, there are further details that help the steps work better, but this one is particularly powerful. It’s important to note that many people you’re talking to will get annoyed if you just keep saying “Why?” “Why?” so reword it to respond to what they’ve said, e.g. “And why is spending time with your family important to you?”

A key element here is reflective listening: rather than just probing, pause to understand what they’ve said at each level before delving deeper. Reflective listening isn’t taught as part of Instant Influence, but it’s definitely a complementary skill.

GEM #2

The Dead Man’s Rule

“Don’t try to motivate anyone to do anything that a dead man could do just as well.”  (Click to Tweet!) 

Instant Influence, page 87

This last point is simple: motivation works much better when it’s a motivation to do something, rather than to not do something else. For example, someone who is dead can very easily not yell at their spouse, whereas a dead man can’t use reflective listening. There are a few reasons for why this reframing is powerful:

1. Everyone is always doing something, so if you’re going to eliminate a behaviour it has to be replaced with a different one.
2. It is much easier to visualize — and therefore perform — a small specific action in a certain circumstance than it is to just avoid some behaviour altogether.
3. In general, positive framings of motives and aims have been shown to be several times more effective than negative ones in producing personal change.

Ironically, the wording used above doesn’t follow its own advice. If you want to reword it so it does, you could say “Only try to motivate people to do things, rather than to avoid things.”

I’d recommend Instant Influence to anyone interested in the science of motivation. The book walks through each of the steps here and provides many examples and exercises to help readers rethink their patterns of interaction.

I found it really profound to adopt an attitude of autonomy, both for myself and for others. In some of your future interactions with others (and with yourself!) try staying focused on the reality that everyone is autonomous and ultimately can and will do what they want. For others, this means letting go of the need to control them. For yourself, it means acknowledging that you have the power to make your own decisions.

If anything interesting happens, I’ll invite you to share in the comments below. It’s just an invitation — it’s up to you.

I believe that the title of this book could have been aptly renamed “Disciplined Creativity” because “Dreaming” can sometimes denote something of a loftier and not yet concrete nature, but the author Josh Linkner substantiates and quantifies his observations about creativity with over two hundred interviews that have been distilled into bite-sized morsels of wisdom.  This is a brilliant “how-to” and “actionable” book that is best suited for individuals, entrepreneurs, teams, and organizations that want to progress beyond the status quo. 

Linkner lends a unique and yet complementary perspective as an accomplished jazz musician, successful entrepreneur, and keynote speaker.  It’s his unique ability to improvise, create, and articulate a process that resonates and adds a cohesive fluidity throughout the entire book.

Linkner lays out an easy-to-follow framework and an integrated process that includes Five Key Steps:

1. Ask – clearly define your creative challenge
2. Prepare – mentally, physically, environmentally, emotionally, spiritually – whatever it takes
3. Discover – explore every avenue that might lead to creative ideas
4. Ignite – put your imagination to work and apply proven techniques (outlined in Chapter 8 and 9)
5. Launch – make your best creative ideas a reality

Golden Egg

Become a Disruptive Force for Change

“The creativity gap is real and it’s getting worse.  Josh Linkner challenges you to become a disruptive force for change, and I hope you will.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Seth Godin,
as quoted on the front cover of Disciplined Dreaming

Throughout the ages creativity has been the cornerstone for humanity’s progress and it’s as important as breathing fresh air.  From the Stone Age, Agricultural Age, Industrial Age to the Information Age, “creativity” has been the gel and secret elixir that has moved us collectively forward.  Creativity, simply put, builds our future.

“Success in the new era of business is driven by your ability to stand out and be truly remarkable,” explains the author.  “That requires an ability to tap into creativity, break the mold, introduce disruptive change, and dislodge the status quo”.

GEM #1

Break the Mold

“Like all agents of change and creative disrupters, we didn’t win because we executed the old model more efficiently.  Change agents win because they have the courage and creativity to break the mold.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Disciplined Dreaming, page 9

Linkner builds strong correlations for “breaking the mold” where we might not normally find them and each chapter is effectively strung together with methods, examples, and exercises to solidify and “build our creative chops”.  Funny thing is that most companies dismiss “creativity” as a legitimate business skill and yet, historically, it has been the only way businesses have ever advanced.

A personal example of “breaking the mold” is when I had pitched an idea to the president of the investment firm that I worked with to provide an Accredited Broker Education Program.  She not only loved the idea but quickly put it into action and it completely revolutionized the industry and changed the perception of our company in the broker community as being an “educator and service provider”.  I’m happy to say that the program is still in place more than twenty years later.

Why not schedule time in your calendar just to think of alternative and creative ways to make necessary changes?  Creative thinking is a discipline and skill, and it requires practice in order to sharpen and perfect it.

GEM #2

Build Creative Cultures

“In today’s Age of Creativity, your key challenge is to unleash creative ideas from your team in order to drive meaningful business performance.  That makes building a creative culture one of your primary jobs as a leader in the new era of business.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Disciplined Dreaming, page 89

Linkner shares his own company’s mantra of “Who we are is more important than what we do” as the primer for his team’s Ten Core Values (on page 90). Notice that creativity is third on the list:

1. Passion
2. Trust
3. Creativity
4. Innovation
5. Higher Thinking
6. Communication
7. Collaboration
8. Results
9. Evolution
10. Extraordinary

Building a creative culture can be a real challenge, especially if the “status quo” has been imbedded into the culture for a long time. So the shift from the old archaic way to the new creative way will call for being intentional, empowering your team, promoting autonomy, encouraging your team to take risks, and giving them license to “fail and learn”.  Some very good examples of exceptional companies that are succeeding in creative cultures include Virgin, Google, and 37 Signals, and it’s no coincidence that they are all thriving.

Josh Linker’s Disciplined Dreaming is chock full of constructive ways to get your brain, team, and business moving in the creative direction.  In closing, this book will also prove very useful to those involved in the process of mind mapping, brainstorming, re-engineering, strategic planning or anyone who wants to be the catalyst for change in a conventional setting. One indelible feeling that I was left with after reading Disciplined Dreaming was optimism and confidence that there are great things to look forward to that have yet to be created and discovered.

In the comments below, let us know…

How will creativity change your future?

20,000 Days and Counting, page XXI

How many days have you been alive?  It’s a thought provoking question, isn’t it?  Death, as they say, is inevitable.  But with that thought lingering in the background, the author asks a much more important question: How do we want to live?  We have become so accustomed in this life to thinking in terms of years lived, but what would happen if we focused instead on counting and maximizing the DAYS of our lives and lived each one of them with a plan of intense focus and action?

This is what Robert D. Smith is saying we must do in his first book, 20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course for Mastering Your Life Right Now.  On the 20,000^th day of his life, Robert decided he wanted to take time and not only reflect on how his previous 20,000 days had been lived but also plan out how his next 20,000 days should be lived.  And he did this all in two days.

This is intentionally a short, quick read, as the author keeps a theme throughout the book of imploring us to get out and START LIVING!

Golden Egg

What is your plan?

“Are you spending life merely reacting to events as they happen, or are you moving forward each day with a clear objective?…Your life will take place whether or not you have a plan, so have a plan.  Choose one.  Say YES!”  (Click to Tweet!)

20,000 Days and Counting, page 81

How, exactly, are you supposed to live out the rest of your days unless you know exactly how they are supposed to be lived?  Robert’s key to living a life of intentionality and purpose is centered on having a plan for living.  In quoting Henry David Thoreau, “Take time by the forelock.  Now or never!  You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

This is a real challenge to all of us who are breathing.  Life in general is moving so very quickly that to actually think we can have the audacity to plan, dream, and take action to fulfill the precious thoughts we have about how life should be lived is extremely counter-cultural.  How many of you have been told to just “take things as they come”, “don’t rock the boat”, etc.?  Have you ever stopped to think if this advice would help or hurt what you want to do in life?

Having a clear objective each day about WHY you want to live the life you do and HOW you will live that life will bring immense clarity to any situation you find yourself in.

GEM #1

Your Search and Your Purpose in Life (in about 20 minutes)

“Your search is your purpose.  Remind yourself of it daily.  Remember that it’s the little things that add up to the big picture.”  (Click to Tweet!)

20,000 Days and Counting, page 37

This is truly what got me inspired about Robert’s book.  If you have read any type of self-help book written in the recent history, you will find that many implore you to take a weekend, month, sabbatical, etc. and find a way to “find yourself” before penciling out a mission statement that may or may not really resonate with who you are.  Have you ever tried to do this?  I know I have, and have come away frustrated by the experience.

The author says to follow this three-part process, and he gives us the following advice.  “We are short on time, so we have to hurry.  So be open to this.  You must expect it to work; then it will.”

1. Get a blank sheet of paper.  Title It, “My Purpose in Life”.
2. Start writing.  Right now.  Write.  Write all you can.  Words, phrases, complete sentences, just write.  Don’t stop.  Write some more.
3. Repeat step two until you get the answer that makes you either cry or jump up and down with excitement.  Condense it into one sentence.  This is your purpose.

I personally did this one Sunday morning, and the clarity of thought that came from this brief exercise was amazing.  In a little more than twenty minutes, I was able to write down the major drivers in my life and put on paper what my life lived with purpose looks like.  I have since made two copies and put one on the inside of each journal I carry for personal notes so I can review it often.

The easy part of this is the actual writing.  The more challenging part is dedicating the time to review it and read it each week to drive the point home that this is what your life should be about.

GEM #2

You Only Have Two Choices…

“Of all the decisions we have to make every day, how many real choices do you have?  There are only two.  That’s right, just TWO.  You can easily decide yes or no.  How simple is that?  But not always easy.”  (Click to Tweet!)

20,000 Days and Counting, page 56

The two choices we all have.  Isn’t that an interesting perspective to use?  How often do we have a tendency to overcomplicate and add stress to any situation?  “Well, we could do x, but really that wouldn’t be as good as y; however at the same time there is always z and you know how much I can’t stand to do without z…” Enough is enough.  Taking decisions and breaking them down into “yes or no” answers is a very small change that can add value to every decision-making process.

At the same time, Robert adds that you also must allow yourself to say “yes” to open yourself up to the possibilities of life.  Think about things like this:  how far do “no’s” get you?  What if, over a period of 365 days, you said “no” to every person who asked you to lunch.  Would you have added many new relationships or friendships to your life?  On the other hand, what if you gave yourself permission to say YES!?  Yes, to the possibilities and opportunities that come with it.  YES to doing your best work, turning off the TV, and going out to live life.  YES to saying YES!

Robert acknowledges this is not always an easy and automatic response to situations.  “But when you open yourself up to yes, amazing opportunities, existing possibilities, and good results come your way.  Marvelous memories are created.”

What challenge can you own and say yes to right now, he asks?  Can you break down your decisions to yes or no actions, and be open to the possibilities that both answers bring?

Deciding how you want to live your life, planning it out, and then having the willpower to put that plan into action is not an easy, quick makeover.  As with everything else, there is a process that you must go through, a shedding of past thoughts and paradigms and the making room for new ones to enter in.

In the end, we all will create a legacy based upon how well we do with what each day brings us.  We all have a simple choice to make each day:  Will today be a statement of my life purpose?  Will I love those around me?  Will I do what needs to be done?

You can only answer yes or no each day.

In the comments below, let us know…

What will it be for you?  What will your life statement be?  How will your next 5,000, 10,000, or 20,000 days be lived?

Smart Thinking, back cover

Sigh.  We know we have accumulated plenty of bad habits over the years but the question always thrust upon us at the beginning of a new year is:  What can we do to eradicate the habits we know are holding us back from reaching a higher level of accomplishment and personal fulfillment?

Smart Thinking provides a simple framework to understand how memory and experience work while providing methods to implement specific strategies that will enable deliberate, helpful changes to improve our effectiveness.  Author Art Markman utilizes his years in cognitive psychology to “replace self-limiting habits with those that foster ‘smart thinking’”.  ‘Smart Thinking’ simply means:  do more, better. It is the ability to solve new problems using one’s current knowledge, and the good news is that it is a skill that one can develop.

So how do we rid ourselves of muddled thinking and destructive patterns of behavior?  Markman presents three key areas that we need to be in control of in order to engage in ‘smart thinking’:  smart habits, high-quality knowledge, and the application of that high-quality knowledge.  The fact is that most of what we do every day, we do without thinking – but that’s not a bad thing because the brain is designed to focus on the easiest, safest solutions to any problem without the heavy lifting of slow, ponderous thought patterns.  However, Markman believes that we need to organize our life so that the things we do by habit are actions that will promote ‘smarter behavior’.   This means we have to work harder at thinking about what we do as we do it. 

Golden Egg

Creating Smart Habits and Changing Behavior

“The mind is designed to think as little as possible. Habits are created by consistent mapping and repetition. Habit change requires replacing bad habits with good ones.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Smart Thinking, page 27

Okay, repeat after me, “Duh!”  Of course what the author says above is obvious.  However, evaluate your own success in regards to changing a deeply entrenched habit you are unhappy with.  There are gaps between knowledge and application of that knowledge when it comes to forming new habits.  We need to understand that our mind is always on the look out to create habits and that most of those habits are, in fact, good ones because they allow us to perform crucial actions in our daily lives without thinking about them.

To engage in ‘smart thinking’, we have to become more acutely aware of our environment and the desirable behaviors that will support smart habit creation.  To create habit change, there are two things that must happen.  First and most obvious is to find ways to stop engaging in the old, undesirable behavior.  The second and most critical to change is to replace the bad habit with a good one.

GEM #1

The Formula for Smart Habits

“There is a formula for Smart Habits, which requires only two ingredients: 1. Mapping between an action and the environment consistently and 2. Performing that action repeatedly.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Smart Thinking, page 33

There is hope.  You can perform desirable behaviors automatically.  The first part of forming a smart habit is creating consistent mapping, which is making a connection between the environment and a behavior.  We need to slow down and be cognizant of the outside world and our internal mental feelings and thoughts.  Consciously and slowly recognizing an environment that brings a bad habit into presence is the first key to habit change.  Then, when engaging in the new, desired habit, a ‘new map’ between the environment and action is created.  Repeating that action in that environment will result in a new habit forming.

Surprisingly, you do not need massive amounts of willpower to create new habits intentionally (and this is backed up by the most recent studies in cognitive psychology). These new habits can develop as long as you consistently map your physical and mental environment to the behavior you desire to carry out.  By slowing down and thinking about this linking of environment and behavior, you engage the frontal lobes of your brain that can empower you from not carrying out the undesired habit.  In other words, be mindful about the unwanted habit and your environment, and you have the clues to begin to remove them.

GEM #2

Smart Thinking in Practice

“By adding elements to your environment that remind you of actions that you are supposed to perform, you are providing a framework or scaffold to support your new behaviors.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Smart Thinking, page 187

Slow down. Think. REALLY think before you act.  I’m not your mother, but remember effective learning requires a process to think more deeply.  By talking to yourself as you are learning something new and walking through new concepts around the higher-level knowledge, you allow your brain to flex its associative muscles and make patterns of understanding that will lead to smart thinking.

When you are in a situation of new learning and challenged with understanding knowledge unfamiliar to you, it helps to create a summary of the experience before moving on to the next thing. Few people do this.  You should.  Stop.  Structure your new learning by taking notes and write a summary of what you think you need to understand for the long term and isolate the key points (can you say “Actionable Books Summary”?!).

This will create high-quality knowledge that you will be able to apply more readily when a situation comes up that requires smart thinking.  Your (written) summary should organize around three elements: objects (people), events, and casual understanding. Casual understanding is organized around explanations and is always related to a particular why question.   When you understand the reasons behind the acquisition of this new learning experience, then you will be able to use that information to determine its application towards your desired outcome.

Smart Thinking is presented in a simple, readable fashion that encourages taking action to arrive at a better understanding of our good and troubled habits, and then provides new strategies to serve new, more beneficial outcomes in your personal and business life.  The information in the book could be a life-altering experience for many readers.  On the surface, the discussions of cognitive science and behavior modification seem somewhat obvious and straightforward.  However, based upon my own experiences in the weeks after finishing the book, I was making ‘connections in search of meaning’ and had the sense of being more creative when looking at the opportunities and struggles inside my business.

One brief example:  Upon finishing the book, I came up with a unique and different way of approaching my Monday-Friday work schedule. I created a highly personalized approach to moving distraction-riddled behaviors into a new schedule that addressed the trigger situations that created the bad habit and inefficient thinking. I engaged in the smart thinking process, quite literally.  I am three weeks into this new schedule and I am demonstrably more productive and creative in my work.

In the comments below, let us know…

How could replacing bad habits with good ones change your life?

The Innovative Team, page 47

I’d easily be a millionaire if I had a penny for every time a business leader put forth the need for companies and employees to innovate.

While the need for innovation makes sense, the directive to innovate has always struck me as rather odd.  I mean, doesn’t innovation in the business world occur by chance when people are brought together to work on a project?  Also, doesn’t innovation require the involvement of naturally creative people? If so, it begs the question, “if you’re not especially creative, do you even have a role in the innovation process?”

In The Innovative Team: Unleashing Creative Potential for Breakthrough Results, Chris Grivas and Gerard J. Puccio, use a fictional narrative to introduce how adherence to a four stage process – The Breakthrough Thinking Process – and frequent, deliberate focus on where you are in the process, can make innovation possible for any team.

Golden Egg

Divergent and Convergent Phases

“If we are going to be successful at getting some breakthrough thinking for our client, we need to understand a couple of things about the thinking process that will get us the results we are hoping for.  The first thing to know is that at every stage of the process there are divergent and convergent phases.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Innovative Team, page 42

The Breakthrough Thinking Process is introduced in the story by a character named Kate Murdock.  Kate has been assigned to lead a team of consultants that have recently received poor reviews from a client company.  The client company had asked for an innovative solution to a problem and unfortunately felt that the consulting team had delivered a run-of-the-mill solution, anything but innovative.  The four stages of the Breakthrough Thinking Process are the following:

• Clarify situation
• Generate ideas
• Develop solutions
• Implement plans

Kate admits that all she has done is put names on the stages of innovation that everyone does naturally.  She adds, however, that the key to making sure that innovation ultimately occurs through this process is in deliberately following it as a team and in focusing on diverging and converging at each stage.

As Kate works her new team through the first stage, for example, she challenges them to come up with relevant new data and identify unexplored causes of the client company’s issue.  By asking open ended questions and employing mind-mapping, Kate helps the team see that they hadn’t really considered all the data relevant to the client company’s situation.  She slows the group down and makes sure they take time to diverge.  Once she is satisfied that the team has uncovered enough potentially relevant data and possible causes, she has them converge by choosing which data is most relevant and most essential to understanding the client company’s challenge.

GEM #1

Know Your Preference

“We all have different preferences when it comes to where we like to spend our time in the breakthrough thinking process.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Innovative Team, page 49

One of the best things you can do to maximize your effectiveness in the Breakthrough Thinking Process is to become more aware of which stage you have a preference for. Grivas and Puccio describe four main preferences, each corresponding to a stage in the Breakthrough Thinking Process (see below for preference labels and characteristics of people who tend to exhibit each of the preferences.)

The following descriptions are from the authors’ website, FourSight Online.

Clarifiers do their homework.

They approach a challenge by digging through the facts, figures, and background data in search of greater insight.  They seek to understand before acting.  They move forward cautiously, researching, investigating, and asking questions to make sure the right challenge is being addressed.  Their curiosity, patience, and persistence often pay off by affording them a more complete view of the situation.

Ideators think big.

They see things in global terms.  They are fluent, flexible thinkers.  They “get” the big picture and enjoy playing with ideas and possibilities.  They like originality.  They seek novelty.  Playful, imaginative, social, and adventurous, Ideators are quick to generate original, out-of-the-box ideas.  As such, they are celebrated players in the innovation process.

Developers get things right.

Faced with a rough concept or a broad idea, they like to refine it and shape it into a perfect solution.  This tendency to strive for perfection can move an idea from half-baked to brilliant, making Developers a great asset to the innovation process.  Reflective, cautious, pragmatic, and plan-ful, Developers can leverage their analytical minds and turn unproven concepts into workable solutions.

Implementers get the job done.

Full of energy and drive, they focus on moving forward.  If there’s a problem, they’ll tackle it.  If there’s an idea, they’ll test it.  If there’s one thing they like, it’s a tangible outcome.  Implementers are willing to learn as they go.  Persistent, decisive, determined and assertive, the Implementer’s bias for action fuels the innovation process.

How and why would it be useful to identify your preference?  Well, just because you have a preference for a stage doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily skilled at that stage.  Once you identify your preference, why not set out to acquire skills and techniques that would be useful to a group at that stage?  For example, if you know that you are an Ideator, you could increase your effectiveness by learning techniques meant to help groups come up with ideas (brainstorming is not the only technique available.)  Or, if you are a Developer, you might focus on learning various approaches to refining and perfecting ideas.

GEM #2

Learn Others’ Preferences

“If this team can identify and leverage its strengths, it’s going to get where it needs to go faster and with better results.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Innovative Team, page 38

In the story about the project team being led by Kate, each team member has a preference for a different part of the Breakthrough Thinking Process.  Kate learned of her team members’ preferences in her first meeting with them as she described the process.  The conversation among her team while she was describing each of the stages made it clear which stage each of the team members preferred.  This knowledge helped her know which team member(s) to rely most heavily on at each of the stages and helped her move the team through the process successfully.

Learning the preferences of your team members is just as valuable as learning of their skills and relevant past experience.  If you are unable to uncover their preferences through conversation, don’t lose heart.  The authors’ website (www.FourSightonline.com) includes a link to an assessment that will provide this information along with tips on how best to utilize each of the preferences.

I’ve often taken pride in my ability to contribute to the generation of ideas part of the innovation process.  After reading The Innovative Team, I’ll be looking for a greater variety of techniques to help with generating ideas.

In the comments below, let us know…

Which phase of the Breakthrough Thinking Process do you prefer?  What have you done to cultivate your skills associated with that preference?

The Procrastination Equation, page 13

Are you impulsive? Are you distracted by shiny things? If so, you are probably a procrastinator.

I wanted to start 2013 off on the right foot – do a little less procrastinating.  What better way to reduce my procrastination than to better understand it?

In The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done, author Piers Steel does an excellent job in defining procrastination and provides several assessments to determine how much you procrastinate and more importantly – what type of procrastinator you are by referring to three fictional characters. Who knew there were different kinds of procrastinators!  Low Expectancy Eddie believes that he will fail, has low self-confidence and little optimism, which deflates his motivation.  Valerie Without Value tends to put off what she doesn’t like doing (sound familiar?!).  She doesn’t value the tasks she needs to complete so they don’t get done.  Time Sensitive Tom always over-estimates how much time he has left until it’s too late. “Never do today what you can do tomorrow” and then something else comes up which delays the task again.

To better understand procrastination, Steel provides a mathematical equation that explains how this problem causes much stress and in turn costs the economy billions of dollars each year. By breaking down each component of the equation, he also provides solutions to help you eliminate this nasty habit.  Motivation is the key in limiting procrastination.  Admittedly, his solutions aren’t anything earth-shattering or new, but his reinforcement of them makes you take note.

Golden Egg

The Quick Impulsive Test

“The greater the delay, the less your motivation.”  (Click to Tweet!) 

The Procrastination Equation, page 29

Time is the one part of the procrastination equation that resonated with me personally. To demonstrate how powerful time (delay) is on motivation, Steel uses this quick test.

Let’s say I put $1,000 cash into your hands (10 crisp $100 bills). You can keep this money and walk right now.  However, I also have a certified cheque, post-dated for one year from today.  Here is the dilemma. What is the minimum amount that I have to put on that cheque for you to reach into your pocket and hand back the $1,000 cash, take the cheque, and wait a year to cash it. Quick! Immediate gut reaction! How much?!

Steel finds that most people are between $2,000 and $3,000.  If you have been taught calculations of common interest rates and give it some thought, you’ll have a much lower answer, but a quick emotional reaction drives that cheque figure much higher. The higher the amount on the cheque, the more impulsive you are; the more that you like to satisfy immediate needs and put off future enjoyment.  Really when you think about it, that is why we procrastinate:  because we are impulsive. We trade short term pleasure for long term pain. 

GEM #1

Frame Your Goals in Specific Terms

“Goal setting – proper goal setting – is the smartest thing you can do to battle procrastination.”         (Click to Tweet!)

The Procrastination Equation, page 191

Like most of you, I set personal and professional goals. We have all heard of the SMART method, where your goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.  Without addressing those specific criteria, goals will usually fail. However, Steel breaks down the SMART theory and adds in some depth to the Timely criteria.  Example, frame your goals in specific terms so that you know precisely when you have to achieve them. Instead of “Do my expense report tomorrow”, it should be “Gather all my receipts, itemize them and record them by lunchtime tomorrow.”  Instead of “Lose weight this year”, it should be “Limit my calories to 1,700 per day by eating a set menu for each meal and exercising for one hour at 4:30pm each day.”  By putting a time-stamp on it and by breaking down the goal into manageable chunks, we tend not to blow it off so easily.

GEM #2

Visualize and Contrast

“Whether the task is preparing for exams, getting a job, smoking less, or improving personal relationships, she (the researcher) found that the worst-performing group used positive fantasies alone. You are better off not using this technique at all.”

The Procrastination Equation, page 129

Basically, just visualizing yourself doing the task (Creative Visualization) isn’t enough, and in some cases it’s actually worse than doing nothing.  You need to take a few extra steps to help make your visualization a reality:

• Break off a manageable piece of your future by focusing on just one aspect of your desire.
• Elaborate on all that makes this mental picture attractive to you.
• Mentally contrast this future with where you are now. Focus on the gap. Put the same emphasis on vividly reflecting on this discrepancy as you did on imagining your idealized future.

You should feel optimistic about realizing this ideal future which in turn creates motivation. Motivation is the key in limiting procrastination. The procrastination should disappear as you actively close the gap. You know what to do and you have the drive to do it.

Piers Steel does a great job dissecting procrastination: what it is, its financial costs, the stress it causes, and how we are naturally wired to do it.  By using personal examples (that I related to more than I care to admit), he really helped me develop a connection with the book.   I was totally impressed with the last chapter where he takes the three fictional characters and implements his solutions into their lives.  It makes it real and gives the reader the motivation to take steps in reducing the enormous stress that procrastination puts on our already busy lives.

In the comments below, let us know…

How much less stress would you have in your life if you stopped procrastinating?

                                                                                                                 The Art of Possibility, page 2

Whether you’re in business or running a household, part of a team or working alone, you’re operating with a set of assumptions and beliefs – a framework – about how the world works and how people are likely to behave in any given situation.  That framework informs your behaviour, your decisions, and your attitudes toward others.  Sadly, many of our frameworks have evolved over time based on our negative experiences and so are by default designed to protect us and keep us safe from being wrong or losing face.

Not surprisingly, these negatively-based frameworks get in the way of us achieving greatness and overcoming obstacles, not to mention creating difficulty in our interactions with others who have their own frameworks in place.

Benjamin and Rosamund Zander, the authors of The Art of Possibility: Transforming Personal and Professional Life, posit that the world could be entirely different if we all adjusted our frameworks to focus on possibility.  Based on their respective experiences as the renowned conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and as a family therapist, they suggest that the frequent conflict between the good of a group (whether it’s an organization, an orchestra, or a family) and the interests of the individual need rarely occur.  Rather, by changing our frameworks, barriers disappear, extraordinary accomplishment becomes every day, co-operation is easy and possibility comes to life.

Relying heavily on musical metaphors and examples from Benjamin’s conducting and teaching experiences, The Art of Possibility suggests eleven “practices” that are intended to shift the reader’s framework and, by extension, change the way we see the world and others in it.  Through the use of stories and examples, the authors demonstrate that the leader of any group has the power to change the group’s dynamic and direction simply by adjusting their own framework toward the art of possibility.

Golden Egg

Be a Contribution

“In the game of contribution you wake up each day and bask in the notion that you are a gift to others.”  (Click to Tweet!)

                                                                                                                The Art of Possibility, page 58

Of all the eleven practices offered up in the book, I think that this one has the potential for the most significant impact on its own.  The idea is to consider how you can serve – be a contribution – rather than succeed or fail, or compare yourself to others.  If you are playing a competitive game, then by definition you cannot trust anyone who might not be oriented toward the same objectives you are.  If, on the other hand, you think in terms of your own contribution, you throw yourself into whatever you’re doing on the basis of making a difference – which changes your perspective on who you are as well as who else is involved.  Your worldview changes from one of scarcity to one of abundance – there’s enough success for everyone because it’s defined differently than the typical win/lose.  Viewing yourself as a contribution shifts your perspective away from self-concern toward being in a relationship with others for the purpose of making a difference.  If service and contribution are the goals, then the interests of the individual are by default aligned with the interests of the organization.

GEM #1

Giving an A

“The freely granted A expresses a vision of partnership, teamwork, and relationship.”  (Click to Tweet!)

                                                                                                                    The Art of Possibility, page 36

In the practice of “Giving an A,” Mr. Zander bestowed an A course grade on all of his students at the beginning of the term, thereby taking competition and fear of failure off the table.  In order to qualify for the A grade, the students had to write a letter describing, in the present tense, what they would have done by the end of the term to have earned the A.  They all demonstrated an ability to envision great personal growth, to overcome beliefs and behaviours that might have hampered their progress, and make major shifts in who they were as people – and none of it had to come at the expense of another student’s own success.

The practice of “Giving an A” can, for example, be incorporated into the workplace by overriding the quota in the performance review system and granting every employee an “exceeds expectations” rating – provided they draft a description of what they’d have done to deserve that rating by the end of the year.  Imagine what removing the dysfunction of the rating Bell curve would do to the level of motivation and engagement in an organization that was previously system-bound?  The impact is potentially staggering.

“Giving an A” is an amazing concept which can apply in any environment where any one person’s success can only occur if someone else fails or falls behind.  It replaces judgment with possibility, focuses on standards and process rather than outcomes, and eliminates the anxiety over performance measurement that can’t help but get in the way of taking risks and expressing real creativity.  This practice is an extraordinary concept worth implementing in any environment where genuine innovation and team behaviour are desired.

GEM #2

Rule Number 6

“When we follow Rule Number 6 and lighten up over our childish demands and entitlements, we are instantly transported into a remarkable universe.  This new universe is cooperative in nature, and pulls for the realization of all our cooperative desires.  For the most part it lies a bit above our heads.  Angels can fly there because, as you may have heard, they take themselves lightly. But now, with the help of a single rule, so can we.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 The Art of Possibility, page 97

Rule Number 6 is “Don’t take yourself so g—damn seriously.”  What are rules 1 through 5? They don’t exist.  The practice here is to lead by example, lightening up, and not trying to change others but setting a tone that others can relax into.  The authors distinguish between our “calculating self” – the aspect of our frameworks that judges everything we do in terms of our ability to succeed, and that takes itself VERY seriously – and our “central self” which is naturally generative, abundance-oriented, and creative. “Rule Number 6” asks that the “central self” be allowed to guide us, rather than allowing the downward spiral that accompanies the “calculating self.”

The Art of Possibility is a guidebook for mindset change.  If you adjust how you see yourself, give others the tools to see themselves differently, and tread lightly through it all you will discover ease and inspiration that were previously hidden behind expectations, beliefs, and pre-conceptions.  But if accessing possibility is just that easy, why do we grip so tightly to those expectations, beliefs and pre-conceptions that only create limits and barriers?  Why can’t we let go?

To some, the situation may seem dire and many may feel helpless. In a time when the media may lead us to believe that we are fighting a losing battle, trying to impact the world in a positive way may seem overwhelming and unrealistic. Fortunately, Zachary D. Kaufman and his fellow contributors to Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World illustrate that we already have everything we need to begin the process of making the world a more just place.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a time of optimism and renewed hope that we would be able to move the world forward and make it a better place. Unfortunately, while some gains have been made since 1989, we have experienced a multitude of human tragedies. From two major genocides of magnitudes unprecedented since the Holocaust of World War II to the rise of ethnic conflict and escalating anti-Americanism, we are facing challenges that are often too great and interconnected for states alone to combat. Even when governments or individual states try to step in, they often unintentionally exacerbate issues or leave behind new wounds to be dealt with.

This is where social entrepreneurship comes into play; but before we can look to social enterprise for help in creating solutions to some horrific problems, we first need to understand exactly what social enterprise is. Because the field of social entrepreneurship is so young, it can be hard to define, but the book provides a good starting point: “Social Entrepreneurship is in essence the privatization and secularization of activities that used to be considered the sole responsibility and province of government and religion. Social Entrepreneurship often serves to ameliorate market failures. Not only do social entrepreneurs seek to fill gaps in existing political, social, economic, and legal systems, but these entrepreneurs also endeavour to rectify many of the very problems these systems often inadvertently create.”

Golden Egg

Everyone is a Change Maker

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Margaret Meade

The wise words of Margaret Meade have never been truer than they are today. Even though our world is facing a host of serious and often appalling challenges, the great news is we can all contribute to positive change. Often times the biggest barrier we face when trying to deal with social injustice is a lack of confidence in our abilities and potential solutions to the problems society struggles with.

The first and most important step to overcoming the obstacle of insecurity is to give ourselves permission to look at problems objectively and realize that we can solve them. Giving ourselves permission to fix a problem and then acting on those impulses is what will ultimately change our world. With the amount of people that inhabit this earth, there is no way for problems to outnumber solutions.

As Bill Drayton, the Founder, Chair, and CEO of Ashkoka: Innovators for the Public says in his foreword, “Social Entrepreneurship can be the rule, not the exception.”

This idea is best illustrated by the individuals that are profiled throughout the book. These individuals are neither brain surgeons nor astrophysicists but rather a group of committed, passionate, and often young people who saw that the world needed changing and gave themselves permission to come up with and act upon solutions.

GEM #1

Find Your Passion

“Entrepreneurship is often most successful when it is driven by value-based faith. From motivating the individual to engage in the entrepreneurial activity in the first place, to persuading others around her to support the initiative and trust the entrepreneur, deeply rooted and life-defining values inspire and compel.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities, page xxxv

Most successful pursuits in life result from a moment of obligation. This moment occurs when individuals begin to discover what inspires and motivates them and this then helps individuals recognize the ability they have to make a unique contribution, thus leading them to start chasing their passions.

Although it is important to be engaged in things that we are passionate about in any area of life, it is absolutely imperative when becoming involved with a social enterprise.

Because social enterprise seeks to change the injustice in the world, these ventures can face many difficulties in even getting off the ground. From finding a committed team of individuals to help with your mission to securing limited financial backing, while also considering language, cultural differences, and distance issues for organizations operating in foreign countries, social enterprises face many challenges.

Being passionate about your cause is what will keep you committed to seeing your pursuit through, even when the chips are down. Find your passion and then step out boldly. Passion is integral to the success of a social enterprise.

GEM #2

Collaboration is Key

“Many of the world’s problems must be addressed at the global level. Today’s needs, exemplified in this book by atrocities, are often so complicated and challenging that they demand international collaboration on solutions.”

Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities, page xxxv

Society teaches us from a young age that to not only survive but to also thrive in our world we need to learn how to play well with others. We need to share and to be team players not only in order for ourselves to be successful but also for any project or organization we are a part of to be triumphant.

Throughout each case study in the book, collaboration was a trait common amongst all the social entrepreneurs. Despite different backgrounds, different educations, and passions for different social issues, each entrepreneur was not only a leader but also a team player. These individuals knew not only how to share information with others but also how to work with other organizations toward achieving common goals and desired results.

In the area of social enterprise, collaboration is essential because there are many organizations working toward some of the same goals. A huge number of these organizations compete for funding. Collaborating with these other organizations as well as with local governments helps to eliminate redundancies and also helps ensure each organization is successful in fulfilling their individual missions.

If you want to help, it is important to make sure there is actually a market or a need for a specific service. The only way to ensure this is through due diligence and working with others. Also, because most social enterprises are using financial resources donated by outsiders, it is imperative to make sure those funds are being put to good use. None of the organizations profiled in the book would have been successful without collaboration.

Although Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities was not quite the book I thought it was going to be, it was fascinating and highly informative. For anyone looking to help create positive change in our world, this book offers a lot of practical advice from individuals that have gone before us and stepped out to create solutions to some of our biggest social challenges.

If nothing else, this book will leave individuals feeling inspired and motivated that we can actually positively influence the lives of others.

In the comments below, let us know…

What can you do today to start making the world a better place?

 Mastery, page 179

Is it possible that the key to what separates the Einsteins, the Mozarts, and the Da Vincis from the rest of us has less to do with intelligence and more to do with their habits, mentors, creativity, and commitment?

That’s what Robert Greene suggests in his latest work, Mastery. In studying the path taken by such masters, Greene outlines several ways we can tap into a higher level of performance, a greater sense of satisfaction, and use our work to contribute on a much larger scale.

Whether it’s a hobby or profession, mastering anything is no small task, requiring years and years of learning, experimentation, focus, and flexibility. And while reaching the highest levels may not be attainable (or even desirable) for everyone, anyone can use the advice and guidelines in this book to boost their performance.

Golden Egg

Learning How to Learn

“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.” (Click to Tweet!)

Mastery, page 64

At no point in our history have we had such easy, affordable, and consistent access to the information and technology we need to study, experiment, build, and create. The masters of tomorrow will be those who can exploit and take advantage of this access.

Mastery is filled with countless stories, biographical accounts, and lessons that make one thing clear: Masters from every era, every profession, and every creative field had one thing in common – they mastered learning. More than pure knowledge, facts, and figures, they had learned how to identify the right environments, found the right mentors to support their journey, and learned to push beyond their comfort zone.

The key step in becoming a master is a commitment to learning at a deep level. Greene uses the stories of people like Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Graham, founder of Y-Combinator, to describe just how important deep knowledge is.

Ericsson called it deliberate practice, Gladwell said it takes 10,000 hours, and Greene calls it an Apprenticeship. Regardless of the name, there is no such thing as an “overnight success.” True mastery requires focus, determination, and grit. It requires the ability to identify the right teachers, productive environments, and the willingness to take on the next challenge, the one just out of our comfort zone. The one most people shy away from.

This journey toward mastery is comprised of three distinct phases:

• Apprenticeship – Practical, hands-on experience, separate from formal education and focused on skill development and evolving into an independent thinker.
• Creative Active – Using your new skills and experience, you begin to experiment and create.
• Mastery – After years of practice and focus, your knowledge is so deep that your work has a clarity very different from anything you have previously experienced.

Greene makes it crystal clear when he says, “You must value learning above everything else.”

GEM #1

Choose Your Environment Wisely

“You must choose places of work and positions that offer the greatest possibilities for learning. Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come” (Click to Tweet!)

Mastery, page 55

To become a master, you must not merely commit to acquiring knowledge. You must also find opportunities that offer the acquisition of practical skills. Find roles where you can experiment, test, and where you’ll be surrounded by people that inspire you. Search for organizations that value innovation, divergent thinking, and creativity. Keep in mind that while these positions may not always be the most glamorous or provide the largest paycheck, they are often the greatest opportunity for learning. You cannot be, as Greene states, “seduced into fields because you see others making a living, treading the familiar path.” Be bold. Be brave.

If mastery is your goal, resist the temptation to chase money, fame, or prestige. While they undoubtedly offer their own benefits, they won’t necessarily lead to mastery. You have to carefully guide your career, making deliberate choices about how and where to focus your time and energy. You have to be your own career architect. Mastery uses countless examples from the lives of people like Da Vinci and Goethe, who had a knack for knowing when they had outgrown a role or position. This very ability to identify and take the next step played a significant role in their development, and is essential to yours.

To further accelerate the learning phase, find a mentor. As Greene states, “mentors do not give you a shortcut, but they streamline the process.” But choose this person carefully. Your mentor should come from the field you are pursuing. And even though today’s technology makes it possible to connect with virtually anyone, try to find someone where personal interaction will be possible. Look for someone who will challenge you, push you further than you would go on your own, and tailor their advice to your circumstances.

GEM #2

Engage and Embrace Your Creative Mind

“Creativity is by its nature an act of boldness and rebellion. You are not accepting the status quo or conventional wisdom. You are playing with the very rules you have learned, experimenting and testing the boundaries.” (Click to Tweet!)

Mastery, page 203

With so much being written about creativity and innovation today, companies large and small are constantly looking for ways to stand out and differentiate themselves. The same goes for individuals. The need for creativity – “the ability to expand [your] vision beyond conventional boundaries” – is becoming increasingly important in today’s ultra-competitive market.

Today’s “connection economy” makes it easier than ever to create something new – a blog post, a photograph, a start-up – and put it into the world. With access to nearly instant feedback, you can make changes, adapt and tailor your work to the needs of your audience almost in real time.

But this is often easier said then done. By its very nature, being creative means taking risks, exposing yourself to judgment, or worse, potential failure. The very things we as humans are conditioned to avoid. True mastery requires the willingness to break free from this fear, or as Greene states, “You must become aware of the typical patterns your mind falls into and how you can break out of these patterns and alter your perspective through conscious effort.”

To get into a creative mode, Greene offers three suggestions:

• Choose the proper Creative Task – choose activities where you can leverage your greatest skills and knowledge. It’s important you also have passion for this task.
• Use Creative Strategies to open your mind and expand your idea of what’s possible. As an example, he recommends continually “altering your perspective” as a way to prevent your current paradigms from limiting your ability to generate new ideas.
• Fostering a mindset and attitude to allow for Breakthroughs and Insights. In other words, resist the common tendencies that stifle our creative momentum: complacency, inflexibility, and impatience being just a few examples.

It’s hard to believe that we all have the natural ability to rise to the intellectual or creative levels of Mozart, Einstein, or Da Vinci. But for most of us, that’s not how we should measure our Mastery. Instead, Greene’s book should serve as a guide of best practices available to all of us. Each of us has the ability to leverage the principles and strategies used by such visionaries. Which begs the question, how much better could you be?

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, page 26

Personal growth is about change, and change is about choices that if made consistently can eventually lead to a desired destination.

Most people understand that they need to grow in order to reach their potential, but few are intentional about it, and fewer still have a plan to direct their growth. People plan their vacations, careers, and even trips to the grocery store, but invest little time in plotting out their personal growth.

To address this problem John Maxwell explains The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. He concludes each law with an application section to help the reader digest the ideas taught and begin to put them to use. Through completing all fifteen exercises the reader gains a foundation for creating a personal growth plan.

While the author acknowledges that the steps each person needs to implement growth are situation-specific, the principles taught in the book are universally applicable.

Golden Egg

Be Intentional About Your Growth

“If you want to reach your potential and become the person you were created to be, you must do much more than just experience life and hope that you learn what you need along the way. You must go out of your way to seize growth opportunities as if your future depended on it. Why?  Because it does. Growth doesn’t just happen–not for me, not for you, not for anybody. You have to go after it!”  (Click to Tweet!)

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, page 13

“Do you have a plan for your personal growth?” Think about 2013, with nearly a month under your belt, have you grown? Have things improved the way you had planned at the beginning of the year?

No one sets out to be average. No one plans to be mediocre. Yet often by failing to plan and intentionally seek out opportunities to grow, that is where some end up. You may have the best intentions, but then life happens and you never get around to those plans. To remedy this unfortunate, yet likely outcome, Maxwell **strongly** recommends setting aside time on the calendar dedicated to personal growth.

However, it is not enough to block out time. You must keep the appointment for personal growth as if it were with anyone else. That time must be zealously protected, lest it be sacrificed to another more pressing engagement.

GEM #1

Develop Systems

“Systems permit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results predictably. Without a system, even extraordinary people find it difficult to predictably achieve even ordinary results.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Michael Gerber,
as quoted in The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, page 109

You recognize that you need to be intentional about your growth, but where to begin? Leadership, communication, attitude?  Or maybe you know what to work on, but don’t know how you should begin. It is difficult to try and glean every morsel of wisdom from experiences on a daily basis. Before long you may feel overwhelmed and see little progress, leaving you discouraged.

To avoid this problem Maxwell recommends developing systems. He describes a system as “a process for predictably achieving a goal based on specific, orderly, repeatable principles and practices.” A system will act as a form of leverage that will assist you in achieving a predetermined result. Effective systems helped Henry Ford and Ray Crock build empires. Imagine what they can do for your personal growth.

A system can help you focus on a specific area you want to improve and produce consistent results. Unlike a generalized school curriculum, systems can be uniquely tailored to your priorities. Maxwell describes several systems he developed over time to help him focus on areas of personal growth. For example, he developed a system for storing quotes from what he learns. His system allows him to easily sift through the tens of thousands quotes and find what he is looking for within a matter of minutes.

Since reading the book I compiled a system for a more effective approach to my schoolwork, reviewing my days, and a new morning routine that creates time for a personal growth study before classes start.

Through implementing systems you can be intentional about your personal growth.

GEM #2

Build Your Reach Muscle 

“… most people are naturally tempted to settle into a comfort zone where they choose comfort over potential. They fall into familiar patterns and habits, doing the same things in the same ways with the same people at the same time and getting the same results. It’s true that being in your comfort zone may feel good, but it leads to mediocrity…”  (Click to Tweet!)

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, page 163

In order to grow, you must change. To continue to grow you must stretch and do something different. It is only when you stretch beyond your current abilities that you grow. However, often this is done in reaction to circumstances out of your control. Imagine how much greater and frequent growth would occur if rather than react to change you initiated it? This is what Maxwell illustrates in the law of the rubber band saying, “Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.”

If you fail to reach your potential, what do you miss out on? Ghandi believed, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” By continuously reaching and developing new capabilities you can avoid falling into a rut, or stagnating on a plateau for too long. What opportunities are you currently pursuing that you believe are helping you to reach and grow?

Set short-term goals to reduce the gap between where you are and where you could be. By actively seeking out new opportunities and developing your reach muscle you can become intentional about your personal growth.

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they may have planned for you? Not much.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Jim Rohn,
as quoted in The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, page 100

Being intentional about personal growth is difficult. It requires consistent effort and discipline, and it will be uncomfortable, which is why so few people are willing to do it. However, because so few people are willing to invest the time and effort to become intentional with personal growth you can easily stand out from those who are unwilling. You can become intentional in your personal growth by building systems that produce desired outcomes, and resolving to develop your reach muscle to help you close the gap between where you are and where you have the potential to be.

In the comments below, let us know…

Do you have a plan for your personal growth? If so, what are you doing today to implement it?

Anything You Want, inside flap

When Derek Sivers started CD Baby in 1998, he simply wanted a way to sell his own CD.

That’s it.

He didn’t plan on starting a multi-million dollar business.

Nor did he envision that he’d one day sell it for $22 million dollars.

In fact, as Derek writes in Anything You Want, he did everything he could to keep CD Baby as small as possible. “Funny thing is, I didn’t want CD Baby to grow at all,” Sivers explains. “Even from the start, I didn’t want this website hobby to take away from my career as a musician, but it did. I didn’t want it to have more than a couple employees or outgrow my house, but it did. When I had twenty employees, I vowed to keep it that small, but customer demand kept growing, and I had to keep the customers happy. When I had fifty employees, I swore that was enough, and we needed to curb this growth, but the business kept growing.”

Derek’s journey from a musician, to business owner, to entrepreneur, has been filled with many life and business lessons which he shares in Anything You Want. And perhaps the most powerful lesson is just that: you can have anything you want.

Golden Egg

You Will Make Your Perfect World

“I started CD Baby focused on the importance of making a dream-come-true perfect world for musicians. Along the way I learned the importance of making business dreams come true for myself, too.” (Click to Tweet!)

Anything You Want, page 76

On any given day, at any given time, it’s up to you how to think, act, and behave.

The choice is always yours. No one else’s.

The same applies when you start your project or business.

“When you make a business, you’re making a little world where you control the laws,” writes Sivers. “It doesn’t matter how things are done everywhere else. In your little world, you can make it like it should be.”

From implementing a “We’ll do anything for a pizza” policy to having a “ridiculous” hiring policy, Derek wholeheartedly believed that it was up to him to decide how to run his business; no one else’s.

“My hiring process was ridiculous. Because I was ‘too busy to bother,’ I’d just ask my current employees if they had any friends who needed work. Someone always did, so I’d say, ‘Tell them to start tomorrow morning. Ten dollars an hour. Show then what to do’ And that was that.”

 “Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors. It’s OK to be casual.”

Anything You Want, page 44

GEM #1

No “Yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “No.”

“If you’re not saying ‘HELL YEAH!’ about something, say ‘no.’”  (Click to Tweet!)

Anything You Want, page 11

The projects you choose to pursue are at the heart of creating your perfect world. And these projects most likely take up most of your time and energy, so it’s important to remember:

“When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than ‘Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!’ – then say ‘no.’ When you say ‘no’ to most things, you leave room in your life to throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say ‘HELL YEAH!’”

GEM #2

Focus On Being, Not Having

 “In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Anything You Want, page 51

When Derek started CD Baby, he only knew very basic HTML programming. Since he couldn’t afford to hire a programmer, he bought a book on PHP and MySQL programming and developed the site himself. Even as the company grew, he continued to do all the programming himself.

And since Derek insisted on doing all the programming, even in the last few years, new features weren’t added as quickly as they could have, and his employees strongly voiced their opinions because they felt they were losing millions of dollars in business.

So why did Derek insist on being the sole programmer, even after knowing it meant losing business?

Because he was happy.

He knew full well that it would take longer and that it might be inefficient.

But he enjoyed the creative process and challenge.

And he was happy doing it – that’s what matter most.

Not having more money.

“To have something (a finished recording, a business, or millions of dollars) is the means, not the end,” writes Sivers. “To be something (a good singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy) is the real point. When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.”

When Derek was at the crossroads of deciding whether to take on the traditional CEO role at CD Baby, he again went with what made him happy.

Business deals and management didn’t make him happy.

He loved “sitting alone and programming, writing, planning, and inventing.”

He loved “thinking of ideas and making them happen.”

So that’s exactly what he did.

He hired someone to take care of the business deals and management, while he focused on what truly made him happy.

“You have to just do whatever you love the most, or you’ll lose interest in the whole thing… Happiness is the real reason you’re doing anything right?”

Anything You Want truly is “a manifesto about living life.” It’s a reminder of something we tend to forget: You truly are in control of everything you do – It’s your choice.

“Whatever you make, it’s your creation, so make it your personal dream come true.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Anything You Want, page 77

In the comments below, let us know…

Why do you do what you do?

The Gifts of Imperfection, page 6

“Once you see a pattern, you can’t un-see it.”  How true!  How intriguingly this preface sentence draws the reader into an illuminating and provocative book.

In The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, Brené Brown, a leading expert on shame and authenticity, shares practical tools and strategies so we are enabled to embrace the power of wholehearted living – a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.  Combined with honest (and poignant) storytelling, reading this rich work feels like an uplifting conversation with a very wise friend.

Golden Egg

Live Wholeheartedly!

“Wholehearted living is about…cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough’.  It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.’”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Gifts of Imperfection, page 1

Building on this foundational definition, Brown goes on to say wholehearted living is not a one-time choice.  It’s a process.  In fact, she sees it as a lifelong journey from “What will people think?” to “I am enough”.

The central answers to reflective questions posed throughout are Courage, Compassion, and Connection.

While this potent triad could seem like a cluster of lofty (even impossible) ideals, they’re actually daily practices that, when exercised enough, become incredible gifts.  Do you want to hear something fascinating?  Wholeheartedness is as much about embracing our tenderness as it is about developing knowledge or claiming power.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Oh great, the very qualities I wish to deny or squelch altogether!”  Here’s the beauty of it.  Because we’re imperfect, we get plenty of opportunities to use these amazing tools each day.  The end results include belonging and worthiness – ultimate quests that characterize the human experience.

GEM #1

10 Guideposts for Living

“When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.  Our sense of worthiness – that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging – lives inside of our story.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Gifts of Imperfection, page 23

Brown’s fundamental commitment is to clarify “gauzy” terms tossed around all the time but rarely explained.  She firmly believes good definitions should be accessible and actionable.  Isn’t that perfect for our purposes?

For instance, many of us use the terms fitting in and belonging interchangeably.  They’re not the same at all.  One interferes with the other.  Fitting in is about becoming who you need to be to gain acceptance.  Can you spell chameleon?  Belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.

GEM #2

Dig Deep

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more what they want so they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 Margaret Young

Based on thousands of conversations with men and women living in amazingly wholehearted ways, Brown found these special individuals operate in core ways very distinct from most of us – particularly when exhausted or overwhelmed.  They DIG by getting:

• Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting intentions;
• Inspired to make new and different choices;
• Going.  They take action.

For example, the author asserts within the “Cultivating Play and Rest” Guidepost: “We are a nation of overstressed adults raising overscheduled children.”  Great challenge!  Instead of viewing exhaustion as a status symbol, we are roused to silence gremlin voices that whisper, “One more hour of work!  Push through.  You can catch up on your sleep this weekend.”

Given Brené’s admitted previous standby of soldiering on, she now carves out weekly fun to take photographs and do art projects with her kids.  In turn, we’re urged to say “no” – today.  Buck the system.  Take something off your list and add a nap!

Personally, I became aware of The Gifts of Imperfection through an absolutely amazing TEDx talk.  If you have only 20 minutes to spare one day (even if you don’t, you need to find that time), watch her YouTube on vulnerability.

How aptly this food-for-thought is stated: “The universe is not short on wake-up calls.  We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”  Until we’re willing to have an honest conversation about what gets in the way of putting qualities like courage and compassion into daily practice, we will never ever change.

To risk living in anything less than a wholehearted way due to avoidance of squishy feelings is for me too high a price to pay.  May it be so for you, too!

In the comments below, let us know…

How do you plan to live wholeheartedly?

The Impact Equation, page 7

In the age of social media, anyone with an idea can communicate it to the world, often at little or no cost. For the first time, we all have the ability to be producers of media content, not just consumers, resulting in a significant amount of new content being created every day.  The trick is to figure out how to make a strong impact from your efforts.

In their first book, Trust Agents, authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith taught us how to use the web to communicate and build trust behind your ideas. Now, in their latest book, The Impact Equation, the authors teach us how to amplify our efforts.

So what’s the secret for generating impact in what you do? The authors say it is an equation that looks like this:

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

• C = Contrast – having ideas similar to existing ideas, yet different enough to stand out
• R = Reach – connecting higher numbers of people to your idea
• E = Exposure – knowing how frequently you connect people to your ideas
• A = Articulation – ensuring that your ideas are easily understood
• T = Trust – based on multiple factors, such as credibility and reliability
• E = Echo – connecting to your community in a personal way

Using all of the elements in their formula as part of your impact strategy can become a powerful way to cut through the content noise and connect in significant ways with your community.

Let’s talk about where to begin.

Golden Egg

Start Creating

“Just as this is the era of media democracy, it is also the era of idea-creation democracy.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Impact Equation, page 59

One thing is for certain – if you aren’t building a platform for communicating your ideas, it is very difficult to have impact.  Developing your channels of communication, whether blogs, vlogs, YouTube videos or other products and tools, and tying them together for your audience is critical to adding impact to your voice.

Having one great idea to start the process is important, but it takes work to continue to build, add to, and refine your message.  And it takes bravery at times to put yourself and your ideas “out there” for everyone to view, and often critique.  This is where Contrast and Articulation come into play.  Are your ideas generating new thought leadership? What’s your angle?  How clearly are you explaining your thoughts?

Building a platform in the social and digital age is easy – sustaining it is more difficult. Being strategic about what you do and how you do it will help you see the results and impact you desire.

“Once you decide to be the actor on an idea of your own creation, then the rocket ship takes off.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Impact Equation, page 40

Once you have your ideas carefully crafted and your platform established . . . now what? How do you expand your impact?

GEM #1:

Credibility Is Key

“ . . . if you are not trusted, if you are not credible, you are nothing.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Impact Equation, page 197

Reliability is the first step in establishing credibility as you build your platform. If you say you will blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you need to do it, even if initially you are writing for an audience of one.  Establishing editorial calendars and a regular writing schedule can help you deliver your message on a reliable basis.  Doing what you say you will do is an important element of credibility.

Trust is another key element of credibility, and it is tricky to define, difficult to establish, and easy to lose.  You will often see bloggers and writers provide disclaimers on how they are being sponsored to write a review or provide details of their experience with a product.  The authors see quality as the core of trust as well; as more and more people like the work that you do, trusting you and what you say become natural extensions of it.

GEM #2:

The Human Connection

“ . . . very few successful ventures exist without understanding the human aspects of impact.”  (Click to Tweet!)

The Impact Equation, page 190

Some of the most popular blog posts or videos that go viral resonate with us because of their personal, emotional, and human impact.  Being human in the work that you do is part of establishing your unique voice, and separates you from others.  Use Twitter to make introductions, help others, and expand your community.  Your audience will know when you are writing from the heart, and those posts will often generate the most impact for you.  Human nature weaves through the Trust and Echo elements of the Impact Equation in significant ways, and it is important not to overlook how you are connecting with people and ways to increase the personal elements of your work.

There are so many tips and tactics within this book, which makes it extremely useful for building your own impact, even if starting from scratch.  It can be a great resource for those starting to build their platforms, as well as others looking to take their impact to the next level.

One of the best pieces of advice from the book for me was this: “Accept all criticism and praise equally as the thoughts and opinions of others and nothing more.” As you start to build your platform and share your thoughts and ideas, you will always hear from critics.  You need to figure out how to accept praise and criticism gracefully, and try not to let the opinions of others sway you from continuing at full speed. 

Ultimately though, impact begins when you start to create!  Build your platform, find your voice, and make your impact.

In the comments below, let us know…

What are your plans for impacting the world?

Daring Greatly, page 12

In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown walks us through twelve years of research on shame and vulnerability, leading us to the principals of wholehearted living and the power to dare greatly in our lives and work – the secret is in our vulnerability.

We are human, and our deepest needs are connection, love, and belonging. Our fear of not having these inherent needs met, the fear of showing our vulnerability and being rejected, results in a cascading system of shame that disconnects us from our families, our communities, and our work. Dr. Brown outlines the common masks that we use to hide our vulnerabilities and provides practical tools for removing the barriers and engaging with others to live wholehearted, connected lives.

Golden Egg

Disruptive Engagement

“No corporation or school can thrive in the absence of creativity, innovation, and learning, and the greatest threat to all three of these is disengagement.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Daring Greatly, page 187

In the final chapters of Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown examines how shame affects our culture and examines the power of leadership to cultivate engagement and transform our organizations. Shining a light on our educational and corporate cultures, she identifies the hallmarks of shame-based systems: blaming, gossiping, name-calling, favoritism, harassment, humiliation, bullying, and, ultimately, disengagement.

It’s a real problem, and the only way we can confront, and eventually change a culture that rewards shame is with vulnerability. Dr. Brown outlines four strategies for building shame-resilient organizations, and each strategy relies on leaders willing to dare greatly by being honest, constructive, and engaged.

GEM #1:

Unmasking Vulnerability

“[A]s adults we realize that to live with courage, purpose, and connection…we must again be vulnerable. We must take off the armor, put down the weapons, show up, and let ourselves be seen.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Daring Greatly, page 112

In order to remove our armor and put down our weapons, it’s necessary to identify how we are masking our shame and protecting our vulnerabilities.  Dr. Brown identifies three major shields that we use to protect ourselves:

• Foreboding Joy (Imagining dreadful outcomes that clamp down on momentary joy)
• Perfectionism (Believing that doing everything perfectly protects us from shame)
• Numbing (Embracing anything that deadens the pain of discomfort and shame)

She also identifies the powerful disarming strategies for freeing ourselves of these masks:

• Worthiness (I am enough)
• Boundaries (I’ve had enough)
• Engagement (I’m taking risks and letting myself be seen)

GEM #2:

Gremlin Ninja Warrior Training

“If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Daring Greatly, page 58

Dr. Brown defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” She counters with the wisdom that “shame resilience is the key to embracing our vulnerability” and leading a wholehearted life. If we are to dare greatly in our lives, we must confront the mental gremlins that prevent us from truly engaging with others.

She goes on to identify the most common shame categories, for both men and women, stressing the difference between guilt and shame. And she outlines a strategy to build shame resilience:

• Recognizing shame and understanding its triggers
• Practicing critical awareness and self-compassion
• Reaching out to empathetic connections and sharing our stories
• Speaking about shame and asking for what we need

From a personal standpoint, what I found most enlightening from Daring Greatly was the emphasis on our ability as leaders and members of our communities (both personal and professional) to encourage connection and empathy – and to combat shame by owning our vulnerabilities.

In particular, I am actively practicing the disarming strategies to counteract my personal shields. Owning my vulnerability and making a practice of self-compassion and empathy is already changing the way I relate with others in my family and in my work.

In the comments below, let us know…

What are you doing now to cultivate a wholehearted life? How do you combat shame? How do you find strength in vulnerability? Are you daring greatly?

 Where Good Ideas Come From, page 174

The greatest minds in human history seem to be springs of good ideas and innovation. Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and companies like Google never cease to amaze us with their ideas. In many cases, their ideas seem to emerge out of thin air. But to author Steven Johnson, their ideas are no coincidence. In his book, Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson explores the origin of innovation and seeks to determine what kind of environments are the best producers of ideas in order to give readers pragmatic strategies to innovate in their own lives.

At the outset, Johnson proposes that densely populated, urban areas are significantly more innovative than rural areas. But he goes much deeper to explore over two hundred ideas and identifies seven common patterns of idea formation: The Adjacent Possible, Liquid Networks, The Slow Hunch, Serendipity, Error, Exaptation, and Platforms. Then by classifying them into four kinds of environments to examine emerging patterns, Johnson concludes that open-source or academic environments are the best for innovation because they encourage ideas to be improved upon and re-imagined within a group setting. Johnson likens this environment to a coral reef.

Golden Egg

Create Your Own Coral Reef

“[The coral reef] is not a story of simple geology … It is the story about the innovative persistence of life.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Where Good Ideas Come From, page 6

It is through an observation made by Charles Darwin on the sands of the Indian Ocean that Johnson forms the foundation of his own idea. Throughout the book, Johnson seems particularly fascinated with Darwin’s Paradox that describes the coral reef – so many different life forms, occupying such a vast array of ecological niches, inhabiting waters that are otherwise remarkably nutrient poor. Darwin was interested in the “tiny architects” that build the reef formations that are resistant to the waves’ impact. The microorganisms form connections to the rocks and each other that are incredibly strong. In many cases they have created coral formations that are thousands of feet tall.

Johnson uses the reef as a metaphor for our own minds. He explains that by utilizing the seven patterns of idea formation in our daily lives, we can start to create our own “reef” – a bank of connections in the mind. And ultimately, it is the connections made within the mind that give rise to good ideas. The good news is that we can do more to foster these connections. Johnson believes that the richness in our daily lives builds up those connections and by doing so we make our lives a more fertile environment for good ideas.

“Go for a walk, cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build your own ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Where Good Ideas Come From, page 246

GEM #1:

Embrace Chaos

 “…the quickest path to innovation lies in making novel connections.”  (Click to Tweet!)

 Where Good Ideas Come From, page 108

Making connections in the mind to build one’s coral reef isn’t necessarily about absorbing tons of new information. Rather, it is about connecting what we already know in new ways. Consider this: the adult human brain contains one hundred trillion distinct neuronal connections. It is by far the most dense, complex network on earth. In order to make the most of the information we have, we have to be able to access it. In a way that is slightly metaphysical, Johnson proposes that we already hold all the answers – they are internalized.

One of the ways that the brain forms connections is during REM sleep. Neuroscience suggests that REM sleep can actually be a crazy time for the brain. Think about the last dream you remember. Did it seem random? That randomness is actually the brain experimenting! This sometimes leads to the brain coming across a valuable link that escaped during waking consciousness. In fact, studies have shown that the brain actually gravitates toward a more chaotic state of existence where it can experiment with new connections. Johnson goes as a far to say that Freud had it backward – a dream isn’t revealing a repressed truth, “it is exploring, trying to find new truths by experimenting with novel combinations of neurons” (page 102).

Allowing your mind to wander is one of the many ways we make meaningful discoveries. To go a step further, we have to give ourselves the “space” to be a bit chaotic in order to form those connections. Brainstorming at the beginning of a project is a prime example of this.

GEM #2:

Seek Openness, Not Protection

 “When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Where Good Ideas Come From, page 108

Just as coral reefs welcome new microorganisms to build themselves up, choosing to be open about our ideas will provide us with opportunities to build upon our own ideas. Johnson suggests two facets of openness. The first relates to the networks we live and socialize in. Throughout his explanations of the seven patterns, Johnson alludes to networking and openness as a key way to form good ideas. But it’s not enough to spend time with like-minded folks. Making your personal network diverse is what will lead to richness in your ideas because you can cultivate them from different perspectives.

The second kind of openness that Johnson discusses relates to intellectual property. An idea is often just the tip of the iceberg for developing something much greater and there is great value in allowing others to come into conversation about the idea. Johnson uses the example of offices that have created a physical space that foster idea generation: breaking down physical walls, allowing employees to work near those they are collaborating with and turning walls into whiteboards. By making it easier for inter-disciplinary collaboration, good ideas are more likely to be birthed.

Johnson also uses Twitter as an example of “Cooperative Advantage.” Much of what Twitter is today has been developed by users and external developers, not the company. For instance, only a small percentage of Tweets are actually sent from the main Twitter website. The majority of them come from the plethora of applications for mobile devices that were created by amateur coders. These developments all stem from the deliberate decision of Twitter’s founders to utilize an open platform – Application Programming Interface. This has created one of the largest ecosystems of applications built for their platform and further engages users with their product.

Just like the coral reef that he describes, Johnson builds a network of ways for the reader to improve idea generation. Although there are many ideas to try, they are all connected to two underlying concepts. First, we are only as intelligent as our networks. Second, breaking from the routine leads to new perspectives. Johnson’s combinations of historical anecdotes and creative insight make this a great read for anyone who seeks to be on the edge of innovation.

In the comments below, let us know…

What has helped your best ideas evolve?  Do you recommend any strategies, tips, or tricks?

Talent is Overrated, page 206

Geoff Colvin, senior editor at Forbes magazine, gives plenty of insight into the difference between top performers and average performers, and his answer isn’t exactly what you’d think it would be.

One typical thought when viewing the work of a master artist, or watching a professional athlete or musician perform, is that these people must have some inborn talent. We think back to our own experiences learning to draw, play sports, or pick a guitar and realize they have a divine gift, they were meant to do what they’re doing… they have more talent than us.

Colvin strikes this notion of talent down, reviewing countless examples of the hard work and years of practice that the top performers put themselves through, from Mozart to Tiger Woods. But it isn’t just hard work and logging the hours. Colvin reviews the research on a particular type of work, deliberate practice, and shows us how we can implement the principles of deliberate practice in our own lives.

Golden Egg

Deliberate vs. Mindless Practice

“It (talent) explains why great performers seem to do effortlessly certain things that most of us can’t imagine doing at all…why extraordinary performers are so rare; god-given talents are presumably not handed out willy-nilly…This explanation has the additional advantage of helping most of us come to somewhat melancholy terms with our own performance.” (Click to Tweet!)

Talent is Overrated, page 3

There should be no doubt that great performance requires hard work. But we all know individuals who work exceedingly hard and never succeed. The difference between hard work and getting nowhere versus hard work leading to great performance is the difference between mindlessly practicing (driving range, anyone?) and deliberately practicing skills that are just beyond your current capabilities in a manner that is well-designed and conducive to growth.

Colvin delivers a step-by-step plan on how we can implement the principles of deliberate practice into our lives and become masters in our chosen fields. The catch—and there is a catch—it won’t be easy. But that may just be a good thing.

GEM #1:

Defining Deliberate Practice

“Identifying the learning zone and then forcing oneself to stay continually in it as it changes are the first and most important characteristics of deliberate practice.” (Click to Tweet!)

Talent is Overrated, page 69

When I think of practicing golf, I think of going to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls, heading to the putting green for 20 minutes of putting practice, and heading home. It is easy and mindless.

When Tiger Woods thinks of practice, well, it’s entirely different. Tiger focuses in on  specific skills that he needs to develop (hitting a buried bunker shot or cutting a ball underneath a series of trees yet flying it over a lake 50 yards out), even though he may only need to make that shot once a year. Because he has repeatedly practiced those shots, when the time comes, he’ll be able to make the shot when it counts.

Deliberate practice is activity designed to improve performance. You should work with a teacher or coach to figure out what activities you need to improve. It can (and should) be repeated a lot. Feedback is continuously available. Deliberate practice is mentally taxing, to the point where practicing more than 4-5 hours per day is nearly impossible. And it isn’t very fun.

Deliberate practice requires sacrifice and hard work, but if we choose to make the sacrifice, we can be among the top performers in our field, as most people prefer not to sacrifice and claim that bad luck, or bad genes, are the reason why they are stuck in life.

GEM #2:

Applying the Principles of Deliberate Practice

“Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration.” (Click to Tweet!)

Talent Is Overrated, page 70

Colvin provides a road map for deliberate practice for those who are looking to up their performance in any field. It begins on knowing what field you are willing to devote your time and effort to. Then comes the practice. Colvin suggests three different models of practice to follow: music, chess, and sports.

The music model is an analytical approach. If, for example, you were preparing a presentation, this model suggests focusing on the purpose of each part and practicing multiple times to develop the best method of presentation.

The chess model of practice involves looking at past games of masters, comparing moves you would make to the moves they made. In business, we can use the chess model by reading case studies and articles, making note of potential solutions to real-world business problems.

The sports model involves conditioning, going back to the basics of your field to sharpen your saw, and developing specific skills with simulation or practice.

You must also find a way to practice in the work, through choosing which tasks to focus on, developing new methods to more effectively complete those tasks, and reviewing the progress you have made at the end of the day.

When I played basketball, I had a coach that would say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” With Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated, I finally get the point.

In the comments below, let us know…

What deliberate practice skills have you applied to your life?  What type of impact did this make?

Leadership and Self-Deception, page 32

What if all the “people problems” we have in the workplace, the home, and our communities were stemming from a problem within ourselves? What if that problem was right in front of you and you were the cause? What if we could end the blame game that cripples our relationships in all those different areas of our day?

In the book, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box, the Arbinger Institute presents a case in an easy-to-read business fable about a new manager in a company and how his self-deception is a problem he must tackle to adapt to the company culture.

Throughout this book, you learn that when we end the practice of self-deception we can improve the hiring process, leadership, team building, conflict resolution, accountability, transformation, and finally, personal growth and development.

So what is self-deception exactly? The Arbinger Institute defines self-deception as simply “the inability to see that one has a problem … [I]t blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the ‘solutions’ we can think of will actually make matters worse.”

Golden Egg

“Are you in or out of the box?”

“The public remains generally unaware of the [self-deception] issue. That would be fine except that self-deception is so pervasive that it touches every aspect of life”.  (Click to Tweet!)

Leadership and Self-Deception, page 1

In-the-box behavior begins when we start to see others as objects rather than people and when we are focused on ourselves, not the results or the person in general. We need that person, that group, that department to be wrong again and again to justify our stance and feed our box. Once we get into the box ourselves we give each other the reason to stay in the box. If in-the-box behavior toward people is the act of self-deception, then what is the trigger that starts the deception?

Self-betrayal.

The act of self-betrayal is when we act contrary to our sense of what is appropriate. It is when we find that we have betrayed our own sense of how we should behave toward another person. For example: Think of a time when you felt you should have helped another person but then decided not to, or a time when you knew you had some information that would be helpful to a co-worker, but you kept it to yourself.

I can think of many instances when I could have and should have helped a fellow co-worker with a project or issue, a simple piece of information, or general advice. Likewise, I know there are times I should have helped my wife with the chores around the house. This behavior is in every action and reaction we have continuously throughout the day. Have you ever felt this way?

When I am in the box, I am actively resisting others.  When I stop resisting others, I am out of the box; I see people for who they are.  I see their hopes, their fears, their dreams, and their gifts. When I can move out of the box toward a person, I am liberated from self-justifying thoughts and feelings. When I am able to honor them as people in each interaction, then I am out of the box. I am no longer justifying myself or my behavior. So the question stands, “How do I get out of the box?”

“‘How do I get out of the box?’ is really two questions. The first question is, ‘How do I get out?’ and the second is, ‘How do I stay out once I’m out?’” In order to not only get out of the box, but stay out of the box, “it’s critical that we honor what our out-of-the-box sensibility tells us we should do for these people. However—and this is important—this doesn’t necessarily mean that we end up doing everything we feel would be ideal.” We have our own responsibilities and needs that require attention, and it may be that we can’t help others as much or as soon as we wish we could. In such cases, we will have no need to blame them and justify ourselves because we will still be seeing them as people that we want to help… even if we are unable to help at that very moment or in the way we think would be ideal. We simply do the best we can under the circumstances.

GEM #1:

Collusion

“People who come together to help an organization succeed actually end up delighting in each other’s failure and resenting each other’s success.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Leadership and Self-Deception, page 113

Being in or out of the box is an internal action, but when we start to blame others, we invite them to get into their own box. We begin to “feel justified in blaming them, we feel their blame is unjust and blame them more.” Once this cycle begins, both parties response to the other’s blame is to stay inside their own box; provoking each other to commit more of the negative actions that we ourselves so resist in the first place. This is collusion: when two or more people are in their boxes facing toward each other, mutually betraying themselves and condemning themselves to ongoing mutual mistreatment.

Even when the person we are blaming begins to act the way we want them to act (ie. they start climbing out of their own box), we do not automatically get out of our box; that takes deliberate effort on our part.  An example may be in order…

In the book one character discussed her “in-the-box” relationship with her teenage son. The son was continuously late for curfew. When he asked his mom to borrow the car one night, she gave him a time that she knew it would be difficult to return by. But when he did make it back with a minute to spare, she still could not thank him or praise him for respecting her curfew. She immediately criticized him for cutting it so close. That’s what we call in-the-box.

When we begin to notice that we are in collusion with another person(s) we need to stop and get ourselves out of the box. “Collusion spreads far and wide” and the result is that co-workers position themselves against co-workers, groups against groups, and department against department. Once we begin to pull ourselves out of the box – toward a person – the cycle is broken.

GEM #2:

What/Who Focus?

“As long as I am focused on myself, I can’t fully focus either on results or on the people whom I am to be delivering these results.”  (Click to Tweet!)

Leadership and Self-Deception, page 109

Our focus on the who and what helps to drive us to achieve results together. Think back to when you first joined an organization. You were happy and focused on results that would help the organization succeed. Your “what focus” was the results and the “who focus” was the organization. Over time, however, many people become unhappy with the organization and/or the people they work with, and their focus shifts from results to themselves. They begin to go in the box and collude with others.

While in the box, my “what-focus” turns from a healthy priority to an unhealthy justification. The box needs that justification and it thrives on it. So when we are in the box we are focused only on justifying the self-betrayal we sold ourselves on, undercutting results.

Furthermore, when we use a who-focus lens and are in the box, we end up focusing on ourselves. Remember, when we are out of the box, we are seeing people for who they are – their hopes, their gifts, the value they bring to the team.  When we turn that “who focus” on ourselves however, we do not see other people as anything more than objects and roadblocks.

When just one person in an organization is in the box and failing to focus on results and people as people, he or she can easily start to bring his or her coworkers into that mindset as well, and collusion begins to spread far and wide.  The result is devastating to the organization.

When we begin to identify the what-focus and the who-focus in our own situations, we should identify who around us is in the box and who is out of the box. This will remove any of the devastating effects and begin to create a supportive environment where people are working toward common results and treating each other well.

I can tell you that after reading the Arbinger Institute’s Leadership and Self-Deception, I am armed with a knowledge of self-deception – when it strikes and the impact it can have. I now know that “people problems” can be solved with an efficiency that I never had before, and I now know that there is a clear way to attack and solve such issues, not just one by one, but in one disciplined stroke.

In the comments below, let us know…

Looking around right now can you see who you are “in-the-box” toward?  What about the people you are “out-of-the-box” toward?

Are you willing to see them as people and focus on the results outside of the self-betrayal we have sold ourselves?

The Power of Focus, book cover

Les Hewitt joins Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen of the Chicken Soup for the Soul fame. The Power of Focus delivers ten strategies to plan for, and work toward, when getting what you want in life.

For readers familiar with success literature, the topics will be familiar: planning for success, being proactive, acting consistently, and keeping your life in balance.

However, this is more than just a self-help book – it’s a powerful workshop to help you achieve your goals in a paperback form. It’s written in a conversational yet direct style, as though the authors are directly asking you: are you paying attention? What do you want in your life? Are you willing to do what it takes?

You’ll find yourself drawn in by the clear, no-nonsense advice that is brought to life with short examples from the lives of the authors, their friends, and clients.  At the end of each chapter, you are presented with a chart or tool to help you take action.

Golden Egg

Think Big, Act Small

“This is the exciting part – actually creating your better future and the clarity to go with it.”                 (Click to Tweet!)

The Power of Focus, page 73

Do you have written goals? Are they well-balanced across the main areas of your life? Do you have planned weekly actions to support your goals?

Perhaps you have sales targets or key performance indicators at work. Maybe you have fitness goals.   For some people (me, for example), creating planned vacations is a key part of a yearly plan.

Chapter 3, “Do You See the Big Picture,” walks you through creating goals in seven major areas of your life.   Have a look at these seven areas:

• Financial
• Business/Career
• Fun Time!
• Health and Fitness
• Relationships
• Personal
• Contribution

Write at least one significant goal in each of the seven areas, every sixty days to ninety days. Start with small goals and then increase as you build confidence in your achievements.   Once you have the goals defined, create a week-by-week plan, with three specific actions per week that will support moving toward your goals.

What’s an area of life you’d like to move ahead? For me, I’m working on learning French. My husband, who is a Francophone, will be my teacher. What goal can I achieve within sixty days? I decided to work through the first eight units of my French textbook. We’ve started taking the small actions (getting the materials and booking time in our schedules) to move toward this goal.

What is your goal? Whatever it is, you’ll find it more manageable and achievable if you decide what you can accomplish within the next sixty days and then write action steps to support it. Refer to your plan daily. Find a buddy to work with and share your goals – use accountability to support you taking action to create the life you want.

GEM: #1

Successful Habits

“Your Habits Will Determine Your Future” (Click to Tweet!)

The Power of Focus, page 1

Your results in your life are, to a great extent, created by your actions.  Our actions are up to ninety percent driven by our habits.  Yes, we are what we repeatedly do.

Success is created by powerful habits.  Disappointment and frustration follow from bad habits.

What are your bad habits? Do you recognize yourself in any of these?

• Being late for meetings and appointments
• Talking instead of listening
• Forgetting someone’s name sixty seconds (or less) after being introduced
• Hitting the snooze alarm several times in the morning before getting out of bed
• Taking work home with you
• Having your cell phone on at all times

Your recommended action: make a list of the bad habits that are holding you back. Decide which ones you are committed to changing. Remember, habits are simply actions we repeat over and over until they feel comfortable.

Here’s a three-step process for breaking a bad habit:

1. Identify your bad or unproductive habits
2. Define your new successful habit
3. Create three action steps

An example:  Perhaps you forget new names shortly after being introduced – that’s your bad habit.   Your new habit might be: Paying attention and repeating a person’s name in order to remember it. Three action steps for next time you meet someone new: 1) Listen to and repeat the name when introduced, 2) use that person’s name in conversation, and 3) ask for their business card and review later to ensure you remembered the name.

Adopting new habits isn’t easy. It takes concentrated effort. However, the more often you do it, the easier it becomes.

Where can you look for new habits that will drive you to success?  Choose someone whose success you admire and take him/her out for lunch. Ask them questions about their schedule, activities, and habits. What do they read? What clubs and associations do they belong to? How do they make the best use of their time?

GEM #2:

Time for Thinking

“If you want to have unusual clarity about what is working in your life and what is not working in your life, schedule time for reflective thinking.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Power of Focus, page 114

Too often, we’re rushing from one activity to the next, without pausing to see if we’re running in the right direction.

Take a deep breath. Step away from the busyness and the action. Take time to reflect with no disturbances.

Peter Daniels, an Australian author and professional speaker, has this to say about what helped him succeed: “I scheduled time to think. In fact, I reserve one day a week on my calendar just to think. All of my greatest ideas, opportunities, and money-making ventures started with the days I took off to think.”

Taking time to think can help you focus on the big picture: what are my goals? Are they aligned with my values?

And, taking time to think on a daily basis, you might ask yourself: How did I do today? What did I do well?  What adjustments do I need to make?

Taking time to think allows you to make course corrections and ensure you’re refocusing on your goals and creating balance in your life.

The Power of Focus is a clear and compelling book that has something in it for everyone. Because it’s packed with tools and tips, I can see myself referring back to it many times to see what else I can implement.

In the comments below, let us know…

What’s a goal that you have, or a change you’d like to make, and how can the advice from this book help you?

Of course, at the beginning of every year, we all have high hopes as we launch our grand plans and resolutions that will transform who we are and what we accomplish. We’re going to break all our bad habits and develop all good ones.

But by June (ok, February) we’re wondering where that new person is, the one who’s accomplishing so much and uber-successful.

Well, the authors of Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success are set on changing that cycle for everyone, thus changing the world. But they’re not writing about the same how-to-set-goals-and-accomplish-your-dreams stuff that has been around for eons.  Instead, they show scientific studies and data that will open your eyes to the multiple sources of influence that determine the way you act like you do.  They also share many examples of how their methods have worked on real people with real issues.

We’re talking about changing anything in your personal or professional life, from increasing your disposable income, career options, and physical fitness, to decreasing your smoking, food intake, and relationship struggles. Any change you need to make in your behavior can be addressed by using the knowledge and strategies in this book - hence the name.

Are you perfect yet?  Then maybe you need this book.

Golden Egg

More Than Willpower

“When people believe that their ability to make good choices stems from nothing more than their willpower – and that willpower is a quality they’re either born with or they’re not – they eventually stop trying altogether.”  (Click to Tweet!)   

Change Anything, page 5

That’s the willpower trap – the depressing cycle where we get all jazzed up to make changes, and then relapse into old habits when we can’t make the muster.

But the authors explain that we’re blind and outnumbered. We can’t see all the forces combined against us and there’s a lot more of them than we think. When we can see what we’re fighting we have a better chance of winning, and we can learn how to turn the tables so that the opposing forces begin working for us instead of against us.

The authors clearly define six sources of influence that affect our behavior, and arrange them into a table for easy remembrance.

The first two concepts we need to understand are that in addition to motivation for change, we also need skills. We can improve our abilities by learning techniques and strategies. For instance, I can want to be a great writer, but if I don’t learn how, it will be a hard change to make in my life.  So, we need both motivation and ability. This fact is demonstrated with scientific proof and many examples within the book.

But, we need to apply both of these concepts to three different categories – personal, social, and structural.

Personal relates to strategies you can do personally to affect your change. Social encompasses the involvement of others to help you change. And structural includes using things and your environment to influence your change.  So when you put both motivation and ability together with these three categories you get a table that looks like this:

These are the six sources of influence that are either fighting against us or working for us as we attempt to change. And in order for our change to be effectual and stick, we need to employ all six influences. We need both personal motivation and ability, both social motivation and ability, and both structural motivation and ability.  The entire book explains in detail all the many strategies and tactics that fit inside each category, but just knowing these six influences can help you be aware of what is affecting your actions, and thus build a robust plan for change.

GEM #1

Be the Scientist and the Subject

“When you study people who not only succeeded in changing but also maintain their success for years, you’ll quickly discover two things: 1. They stumbled as much as they succeeded. 2. Their change plan was homegrown.”   (Click to Tweet!)

Change Anything, page 27

The key to having a “homegrown” change plan means you adjust it to fit your specific situation, weaknesses, or tendencies. You become a scientist studying yourself.

Because, no matter how great the advice you get from anyone regarding weight loss, addiction recovery, career planning, or anything else, no one is studying you. No one is living your unique life, in your particular environment, with your particular quirks or thoughts. You must become a social scientist, using yourself as the subject, like you were a specimen under a microscope, until you have a plan perfectly suited for the one subject you care most about: yourself. In the end, you’re in search of the most important social science discovery of all: how to change you.

To do this, the authors recommend a few strategies (Basically, they explain how to use the scientific method.). First, identify your crucial moments – the times or circumstances when you are about to give in and fall back into old habits, the times when you are the most vulnerable.  Then create a plan (or hypothesis) of what you’ll do to resist, remove, or transform your urges during critical times.  After that, implement the plan, observe the results, and make changes based on what worked and what didn’t. Repeat as needed until you’ve succeeded.

The essence of this strategy is what they call “turning bad days into good data.” When you fail, don’t get discouraged, get curious. Examine why you failed, gather data. Use that data to run another experiment on yourself. Of course, being an engineer, this strategy resonated with me. I’m curious and I love experiments.

GEM #2

Deploy Deliberate Practice

“…when it comes to practice, remember the oft-quoted words of legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi: ‘Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.’” (Click to Tweet!)

Change Anything, pages 73-74

One of the phrases the authors use to employ influence #2 (personal ability) is “do what you can’t”. This means that you need to figure out the skills or knowledge required to do the thing that most eludes you. Once you’ve identified the skills you need in your crucial moments, you can set up a plan to practice those skills, until you become an expert, or expert enough.

“Perfect practice” involves four concepts:

1. Practice for crucial moments.  Find out the specific thing you need to know how to do in the very moment, or even events leading up to the moment, of when you give in to temptation.
2. Break the skills into small pieces, and practice each skill in short intervals. Baby steps make things easier.
3. Get immediate feedback against a clear standard, and evaluate your progress. How do you know if you’re doing it right? Establish a way to find out. Coaches work well for this kind of feedback.
4. Prepare for setbacks. Be on guard for the things that might cause you to fail, and use them as opportunities to develop greater skill in the future.

For me, deliberate practice using these strategies will be the secret sauce to making my changes happen.

You know, changing is something we’ve been doing since birth.  You may think that you just turned out this way, but however you’ve turned out is based on influences and the choices you’ve made.  It’s time you understood what they are, and be in charge of how the rest of your life will turn out.

You really can change anything.

In the comments below, let us know…

What influences have you used to change your life?  What worked and what didn’t work?

The Laws of Subtraction, page xii

A long time ago in a world most of us have never seen, simply speaking up got you noticed. Most folks went through life without trying to attract attention. The simple agrarian world didn’t require a coordinated online marketing network to survive.

Today if you have anything you want heard, if you endeavor to create art of any kind, your venue has shifted from “my village” to the entire world. For the past 50 years business folk have acted as if the loudest voice saying the most words wins.

Extra buttons. Brighter colors. Faster. Bigger.

More.

In a world of excessive excess, subtraction is not only good creative and marketing thinking, it’s morally responsible.

Golden Egg

Create Focus and Amplify Creativity By Leaving Something Out

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.” (Click to Tweet!) 

John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity,
as quoted in The Laws of Subtraction, page xiv

Subtraction is not minimalism, nor is it just simplification. It is the careful choice of what to leave out to create focus and allow and promote creativity. It is simplicity with the intent that what’s left out is a message in itself, like the negative space in architecture, the blank spaces in art, silences in music.

Seth Godin’s 12 Domino Project books had no words on the front cover. One reason was that since it’s always sold online, the image would be accompanied by lots of text, so who needs more on the image?

But here’s the reason I love: by leaving the words off, anyone who sees your copy is going to ask about it. What’s this? The only way to find out is to pick it up and look, or to ask whoever’s holding it.

If they had put words on the cover, they would have eliminated many of those conversations. Leaving the words out was Seth’s signal that he intends the book to start conversations; to not just benefit from word of mouth marketing, but in many cases, require it.

Importantly, that signal aligns with Seth’s message. If you get the cover, you’ll get Seth.

Subtracting the words was an overt choice, sending a specific message.

GEM #1

6 Laws of Subtraction

“[The] six laws . . . can be thought of as a code for the creative mind.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Laws of Subtraction, page xiv

May’s ideas here are based on John Maeda’s 10th Law of Simplicity. In what he realizes is an ironic move, May breaks down the 10th Law quoted above (“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful”) into 6 sub-laws. Doing so allows us to take a deeper dive into the intentional simplicity we create by subtraction.

• Law #1: What isn’t there can often trump what is – As with Seth’s Domino Project book covers, what’s left out signals something meaningful.
• Law #2: The simplest rules create the most effective experience – Simpler rules lead to more investment and interaction by users. In an extensive example, May describes an urban development project where most of the traffic signals, curbing, and other pedestrian/vehicle separators were removed in order to create a less cluttered space. Drivers and pedestrians are overtly expected to behave according to the rules we already know (watch out for others; look before you step into the street.) Projects like this have shown that additional rules actually decrease safety. Fewer rules = greater compliance.
• Law #3: Limiting information engages the imagination – Telling less engages more. Akin to the writer’s mantra “show, don’t tell,” when we give others just enough information to allow them to draw their own conclusions, the process carries power not inherent in simply describing all the details.
• Law #4: Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints – Constraints amplify creativity. The codification of the 12-tone musical scale resulted, not in a stifling of creativity, but in the greatest explosion of musical creativity in human history. Artists know that constraints have power. It’s true in all aspects of life, not just the formal arts.
• Law #5: Break is the important part of breakthrough – Breakthroughs come when you break away, break free, break barriers. Breakthroughs are never the result of incremental change. Changing our physical or mental location, stepping outside the security of our network, abandoning accepted thinking can all lead to epiphanies.
• Law #6: Doing something isn’t always better than doing nothing – Sometimes, the right thing to do or add is nothing. It’s human nature to abhor inactivity. We dislike silence in a conversation. Yet at times, the silence is what moves the conversation forward. The apparent inactivity allows our unconscious to percolate. Plain old waiting and seeing sometimes allows events to unfold in a manner we could never have orchestrated.

GEM #2

Breaking Free: Relabel, Reattribute, Refocus, Revalue (A Deeper Dive into Law #5)

“He teaches them to reset and rewire their brains by changing the way they think.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Laws of Subtraction, page 161

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is when a good brain and pattern gets locked in a loop.  Four steps which help rewire OCD can help any of us change how we think.

• Relabel – Instead of “I’ll never write a book” we can relabel the thought as “unproven negative thinking”, for example. In order to relabel the thought we want to replace we need to subtract ourselves from the equation, seeing our thinking objectively.  This is perhaps the most difficult part of the process.

• Reattribute – Properly attributing old thinking patterns reminds us they no longer add value. Realizing that “I’ll never write a book” is simply our lizard brain lying to us, we can let go of the valueless thought.

• Refocus – Relabeling and reattributing old thoughts puts our conscious mind in the driver’s seat.  Instead of continuing on the autopilot of the old thinking, we can intentionally direct our conscious mind to the new thinking pattern we want to habituate. “If I’m going to write a book, here are some things I’ll have to do.”

• Revalue – As the new thinking becomes habit we devalue the old thinking.  We teach our brain that the new pattern has value but the old pattern does not. We’ve replaced a valueless thought, “I’ll never write a book,” with something that moves us forward and is better for our self-esteem: “I can do this if I’m willing to do the work.”

The example is an oversimplification, but the process is about stepping out of our unconscious automated (and wrong) thinking, and choosing new thinking. It’s a process I’ve used to eliminate some seriously negative thinking and replace it with happier, healthier thoughts.

Even before reading The Laws of Subtraction, I’d made use of its principles in my life.

My businesses each have a narrow focus. The things we don’t do say something about the things we do.

My wife and I subtracted most of our physical possessions from our life, and as a result have a life that’s more like an adventure. We’re much happier now.

Quiet time. Simple art. More space and time, less noise and clutter. We appreciate them when we stumble upon them.

In the comments below, let us know…

What could you subtract from your business or your life?

What would you have more of if you did?

Golden Egg

Make Being the Exception the Norm

“Time and again, Apple has made being fed at a special table part of its business model, whether it is dealing with dinosaurs of old media in the music, movie and publishing industries, partners in the telecommunications world, or suppliers who provide it with raw materials to manufacture their goods.” (Click to Tweet!)

Inside Apple, page 143

Lashinsky explores the special treatment Apple receives from its partners and collaborators: whether it’s in dealing with music publishers for the iTunes music store, wrestling control away from AT&T for exclusive access to the iPhone, or substituting its own employees into Best Buy to sell Apple products better. Each of these parties was forced to grin and bear the behaviour, and thank Apple for its business. Similarly, despite frequent complaints about Apple’s stringent app submission process, app developers continued to submit their work into the iTunes App Store.

Apple’s able to get away with this because of the power they’ve earned. Whether it’s their beautiful, elegant retail stores that consumers flock to, or their innovative products that can contribute to partners’ bottom lines, anyone interested in dealing with Apple is forced to overlook its lack of flexibility and compromise.

This has some serious implications for any artist or businessperson: while it may not be the most ethical behavior, Apple is proof that even today, as long as you command the bottom line and push great product, you have the ability to remain true to your own artistic vision and command negotiation power. Despite this age of reciprocity and strong word of mouth buzz, Apple still isn’t afraid to step on some toes in order to continue manufacturing things that they are sure people will love. If you often find yourself on the weak end of negotiations, perhaps it’s time to rethink your product and how to improve it: for example, if it’s you negotiating on your own behalf, how can you make yourself more productive or creative? How can you make yourself more valuable to a client or employer?

GEM #1

Why Corporations Die

“‘I think as long as humans don’t solve this human nature trait of sort of settling into a worldview after a while, there will always be opportunity for young companies; young people to innovate, as it should be.’” (Click to Tweet!)

Steve Jobs, as quoted in
Inside Apple, page 171

As an entrepreneur, Steve Jobs already clearly understood his role: to start companies that will kill off existing leaders. It’s also interesting to note that despite Apple’s size, it still maintained a start-up culture in a few ways.

New projects were built in secrecy, isolated from the rest of the corporation in extremely small groups. This enables the team to move at the velocity of a typical smaller start-up. Jony Ive’s industrial design team at Apple is almost like a small group of consultants, free of corporate groupthink and bureaucracy with direct access to resources and clients.

Jobs took a stab at fusing start-up culture within his own corporation. This has worked out well for him in the past 15 years, while he stood at the helm. The billion dollar question now remains to be answered by Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Scott Forstall, and the rest of the Apple executive team: Can Apple continue to succeed without Steve Jobs?

Nonetheless, this is another interesting question to ponder: How can you build the speed and creativity of a start-up, while retaining the stability of a corporation, into your own life as well as the one of your company’s?

GEM #2

Own Your Message

“‘You’re going to do twenty briefings, and they’ll all sound exactly the same to you. But that’s what you want, because the person who is hearing it is hearing it for the first time. And where you get into trouble is where you start to mix it up because you’re getting bored. So one of the key things was: Just use the same words over and over and over again. That will turn into the same words that the consumer hears, which ultimately will turn into the same words that they then use to define the product to their friends.” (Click to Tweet!)

Bob Borchers, as quoted in Inside Apple,
 page 117

Borchers, a senior product marketing executive for the iPhone, continues, “‘When we launched the iPhone, it could have been a gazillion things,’ he recalled. ‘It did a huge number of functions and had multiple features.’ Rather than listing a multitude of capabilities, he said, Apple executives ‘boiled it down to three things: It was a revolutionary phone; it was the Internet in your pocket; and it was the best iPod we’d ever created’ (116).”

This consistency of message helped build customer loyalty. Borchers continues later on to say that the best messaging is clear, concise, and repeated.

It’s important not to be everything to everyone. However, even current measures are often still not enough: Could you whittle your personal current iteration down to three areas of focus? In this case, Apple used the same diction and messaging in order to tell a consistent story. Executives would memorize these value propositions of new product launches far in advance. These stories would be tweaked, tested, and reiterated constantly until launch day.

Lashinky’s Inside Apple offers a rare perspective into a very secretive, and excellent, company. There are a ton of principles and little nuances that Apple operates on that can be applied not only into the macrocosm of a business, but also into the microcosm of a professional life.

In the comments below, let us know…

How have you fused start-up and corporate culture in your business?  What worked and what didn’t?

And most importantly, what GEM will you integrate into your professional and personal life?

Golden Egg

Go Big or Go Home

“…success is most often the result of doing the bold extra something that no one else has thought of or dared to try…  doing a job well is not enough. The key is to do more than what’s expected, power it up, go balls to the wall.” (Click to Tweet!)

 I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This, page 6

“When was the last time that you made your boss say, ‘Wow’?”  This was a question that Kate White asked of the audience at a speaking engagement and it’s a good one to ask yourself.  People are never successful because they do exactly what’s asked of them and nothing more.  People are successful because they think outside of the guidelines, do a little bit extra, refuse to do something one way just because “that’s the way that it’s always been done.” 

Go big when grabbing what you want. Whether it’s a minute alone with someone you know can help your career or going for a job, success is never found sitting still and waiting for life to happen.  And, White warns, sometimes going big means you’re going to have to break the rules: “you have to take what you’ve been told to do and twist it, toss it, or turn it upside down”.  White shares the story of Kate Spade who, the night before she was going to show her purses for the first time at a trade show, looked at them and realized that they were fine but nothing was special about them.  She cut a piece of the label inside and stuck it on the outside – challenging the rule that labels go on the inside and creating her iconic look for purses.  Whether it’s rethinking an assumption or going forward with a crazy idea, go big or go home!

GEM #1

Have the Eye of the Tiger

 “(Success:)  you have to want it… you have to have the eye of the tiger and you have to do it every single day” (Click to Tweet!)  

Sandra Lee, as quoted in
I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This, page 132

We all know someone who is completely focused on achieving his/her goal.  Their passion is inspiring – but do you ever wonder how they stay so passionate?  White says firstly that for some people, the eye of the tiger is just innate.  For those of us who aren’t as lucky, we must cultivate it.  To do this, Kate suggests:

-        Be passionate about your job.  If you want success (in your personal or professional life), you need to follow your passion.  If you’re not sure what you are passionate about, throughout the book Kate White gives suggestions on how to find your passion – but they can really be boiled down to having experiences.  Whether it’s volunteering, joining clubs, buying a Groupon for something you’ve never done but you think “could be fun,” you never know what activity you will do that will make you think “this is it… this is me.”  And, White suggests asking those who love us what they think that we should do. Challenge anything that would make you think: “I could NEVER do that.”

-        Get a taste for success. Whether it’s relishing positive comments on a project that you completed or simply observing someone else’s success and how they experience it, remember it.

-        State your goal in a way that makes you excited.  Maybe it’s not a raise that you are excited about, but a change in title.  Talk about your goal in terms of what excites you.  This will help you tough things out when you’re working towards it.

-        Use envy as a motivator.

-        Stop worrying about how you can mess something up and think about how you’re going to impact the people you’re going to meet.  Whether in a meeting, a sales pitch, or even a networking event, you need to think about what you’re bringing to the table more than whatever the worst-case scenario is in your head.

-        Know what you need to know at the moment. Know a little bit about whom you’re meeting with, or know about the job that you’re interviewing for.  Knowing will help you to have more powerful conversations and the confidence that comes with knowing will come across.

GEM #2

Drain the Swamp as You Slay the Aligators

“I quickly realized how easy it would be to become mired in all the day-to-day duties and drama of running the magazine and never get around to focusing on what was necessary to evolve it.” (Click to Tweet!)

I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This, page 212

If you have a “to do” list that seems to repeat itself day after day, this tip is for you.  So often we have a big goal or project that we are working towards (draining the swamp) that gets buried under the urgent tasks that come up every day (slaying the alligators).  To be a success you have to master how to do both things at once, in both your personal life as well as your professional life.  Put time in your schedule to actually drain that swamp.

What big success are you looking for in your life?  Share below in the comments. Are you truly passionate about what you are doing or is there a nagging sense in the back of your head that this is not what you were meant to do?  No matter what success you are looking for in your life, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This will offer easy tips to help you think big and go for it.

The Charge, page 240

Are you ready to question why you live at the energy level that you do? Are you ready to challenge yourself to live a consciously designed life that makes you feel more engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic – a CHARGED life?

Brendon Burchard’s book, The Charge, won’t let you settle for living in boredom, distraction, or mediocrity. He shuns “normalcy”. And his timing is perfect. After all, most people are unhappier now than ever before. The clinical diagnosis of depression has increased tenfold in the past forty years. This is despite the fact that we have abundance in every aspect of life associated with well-being (such as food, money, education, safety, health care, arts).

In The Charge, Brendon Burchard inspires us to demand more of ourselves and then empowers us to purposely choose the way we show up in the world, define the meaning of our experience and demonstrate how remarkable we are.

Golden Egg

All You Need Is…

“It’s my belief that the 10 Human Drives are what you really want in life, and if you’ll work toward activating them, your efforts will lead to a state of heightened energy, engagement, and enthusiasm- yes, happiness – that will simply astound you.” (Click to Tweet!)

 The Charge, page 30

The Charge doesn’t just introduce us to the ten drives but also offers three strategies to activate each drive. These are powerful yet simple actions you can take to radically increase your levels of energy, engagement, and fulfillment in all areas.

He starts with the “baseline drives” which contribute to our stability in our sense of self and social belonging. They include your desires for more:

1. Control: of your outlook, character, new experiences, workflow
2. Competence: assess and direct your desire to learn, set a real challenge, plan for success and get a coach, integrate success into your identity
3. Congruence: set new standards for yourself, set your mood meter, keep your word, and follow through
4. Caring: care for thyself, be more vulnerable and allow others to care for you, be more present, interested, and attentive to others
5. Connection: define and design your ideal relationship, practice positive projection, find and cultivate ‘growth friends’

The following “forward drives” offer the home runs in happiness levels:

1. Change: make change about the gains not the losses, get clarity, think big and be bold, make real choices
2. Challenge: choose fulfilling challenges, focus on the journey and don’t fear rejection, set monthly 30-day challenges
3. Creative expression: amplify creative expression in all areas of your life, study people and design, create more, share more
4. Contribution: give of yourself, give to deeply meaningful contribution experiences, mentor others
5. Consciousness: focus on your consciousness, transcend consciousness, live in wonder

Burchard proposes that these drives shape everything you think, feel, and do in life; so understanding and mastering them is critical to your success and happiness.

GEM #1

Set New Standards For Yourself

“… in the end our self-image is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” (Click to Tweet!)

The Charge, page 82

When describing the drive for congruence, Burchard offers a powerful exercise. He suggests it may be the most important exercise. You may want to do it right now. I did.

1. What are three words that describe who you are? Mine, for example are curious, enthusiastic, inspiring.
2. What are three words that describe how you treat others? Mine, for example are loving, caring, interested.

Now, think of your words each time you meet or interact with someone.

You see – if we don’t have a pre-selected standard for how to behave, we could be driven by nothing other than our immediate animal impulses to fight, flight, or freeze. By consciously choosing our character and behavior, we are then able to reach our highest potential. Who are you and how do you show up in the world? 

GEM #2

Change Your Relationships Forever

“Carrying the torch of optimism into your social life is likely the best thing you could ever do to start feeling better about humanity” (Click to Tweet!)

The Charge, page 124

Want to change your relationships forever? In the connection section, Burchard reminds us of the importance of optimism in our relationships and encourages us to practice ‘positive projection’. Reinforcing the adage ‘you get what you look for’, he explains that whether it is your student or your spouse, if you want the best from them, you must see the best in them and expect the best from them. When your children are told they are attentive, charming, and pleasant, they start behaving that way. They then see the tired or distracted behavior as anomalous to who they are.

If you go through life believing that people are generally good and interesting, you will find good and interesting aspects of every person you meet. It requires you to honor their uniqueness and believe that goodness and humanity are part of who they are. In short, it requires love.

Does anyone think they compliment too much? I doubt it. In fact, Burchard references a study that shows you need to give five times as much praise as criticism. In the study, happily married couples who end up staying together for life have one interesting thing in common. The ratio in which they share positive versus negative input is 5:1.

Coupled together, positively projecting and praising five times more than complaining will change your relationships forever.
The Charge will leave you feeling energized and inspired. After reading it, something within you changes, and you find a new and lasting commitment for a better life.

Burchard inspires us to live in color. He empowers us to activate the drives that will lead to measurably improving the quality of your life. Each of his ten drives has actionable ideas so you will want to read the whole book to enjoy the full benefit of his work.

While he provides reflective exercises throughout the book, he cautions that it is only after finishing the book that the real work begins when we start acting on the ideas. We move forward, however, with his map that highlights how to be more conscious about designing our days and activating our drives. He further cautions that most stress today comes from distraction and procrastination.

So get on it! Activate your charge!

How are you implementing Burchard’s ten drives into your life?  What impact is it having on you?

What one thing can you do to feel more engaged, energetic and enthusiastic: Today? This week? This month? Share in the comments below.

The Education of Entrepreneurs, page 7

This book is guaranteed to light a fire under your ass.

If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re probably pursuing a post-secondary degree, or have already done so, and have spent at least $40,000 (supported by student loans) funding your education just to be able to graduate from an accredited university with knowledge, skills and experience in a particular discipline.

Now ask yourself, are you currently working a job that is directly related to your choice of academic study? How well does your career reflect the effort that you put in at university?
If you’re an entrepreneur, a consultant, a lawyer, engineer, accountant, doctor, scientist or marketer (or anything else for that matter), how did you get your job? Was it because you could do what you do very well, or was it because you were, additionally, very good at marketing and selling the fact that you could do what you do, very well?

That’s the question this book essentially tries to address. And if you’re willing to entertain for a moment that in order to succeed, it takes more than just a solid knowledge of your field, then you’re in the right place, because that’s the truth.

A romp of a read, Michael Ellsberg’s “The Education of Millionaires” should be required reading for all students, entrepreneurs, teachers, professors and career professionals. It also makes an excellent field manual and stocking stuffer for you to turn to when you need advice on how to open and close a sale, connect with mentors, find meaning in your work, or in general figure out how to develop a soft skill that will help you take your career forward, and which university failed to teach you.

Golden Egg

The Pain of Buyer’s Remorse

“..Degree-bearing applications have attained the very thing society, their parents, their teachers, and everyone else around them told them they needed to attain in order to be successful – a credential certifying their achievement in academic intelligence. And yet…the comparatively tame recession of the early 2000s had hundreds of these Bas, MAs, JDs, PhDs, and MBAs lining up for a $10-an-hour shit job posted by a scruffy young business owner without a college degree.

Is this really the best life advice we can give young people?…Shouldn’t we ask ourselves if our advice couldn’t use a bit of updating and refining?”

The Education of Millionaires, page 5

Being unemployed in the midst of the 2008-9 economic recession was tough, especially if you were a college student looking for summer employment. As a freshman student looking for a job to build up some savings for my sophomore year, I was ready to work any job that was reasonably clean, including, yes, “a $10-an-hour shit job” that would help me pay my bills.

The problem: so was everyone else – including those who were down and about with university degrees clenched in hand, and soon I was forced to compete with laid-off retail sales clerks, financial traders, accountants and truck drivers all looking to work in the oft-glorified field of newspaper telemarketing, which turned out to be the only type of employer that could actually tolerate a high-turnover in its employee base.

At the time, I remember asking myself why this was the case; why was I rubbing shoulders with a new graduate in accounting and a seasoned retail sales clerk who had studied HR and psychology more than 10 years ago in university – wouldn’t they be able to find a job elsewhere, given their degree and experiences?

It was all rather grim, but as I stood in line desperately waiting for an interview, I reflected on all the career advice that I’d been given throughout my childhood, and realized that most of it, while well-intentioned, was certainly out of place, and definitely out of its time.

Was university-based education failing to prepare us for the real-world?

Gem #1

A Little Misunderstanding

“…education is most certainly not the same thing as academic excellence. We’ve conflated them, at great cost to ourselves, our children, our economy, and our culture. And, while education is always necessary for success, pursuing academic excellence is not in all cases.”

The Education of Millionaires, page 11

So how did we end up in this situation?

It’s likely that the education system that we have right now is a relic of the 19th century, where grades might have been emphasized as a the leading indicator of success – and hence the most emphasized focus of all our attention, energy and value – because the system was built to mimic the rigours of the industry that it was training graduates for. Industrial positions largely consisted of jobs in bureaucracy and management, and in both cases success was largely measured scientifically in terms of one’s ability to achieve and perform with respect to pre-set productivity and efficiency targets. And what is a grade if not a measured achievement target?

The education system was set up to standardize knowledge and take children off the streets, but in the process it tended to produce bureaucrats. The problem is today, industry needs more than just bureaucracy, but the education system has been slow to play catch-up.

So the question is: can we escape our self-imposed system of thoughts, beliefs and conventions about education, and figure out what it takes to acquire a successful education?

GEM #2

Refocusing our Lenses

“What would education for a successful life look like? You can define a “success” any way you want – wealth; career; family; spirituality; sense of meaning and purpose; vibrant health; service and contribution to community, nation, and humanity – or any combination thereof. What would an education look like that was laser-targeted only toward achieving these real-world results, and zealously cut out all bullshit not directly related to living a happy, successful life and making a powerful contributing to the lives of the people around you?”

The Education of Millionaires, page 9

If you haven’t figured this out by now, a college education is not a necessary precondition for career success. And if you didn’t believe this just by seeing how many college dropouts turned out to be millionaires and billionaires, take a look at doctors and lawyers (or any accredited professionals for that matter). Any of these professionals would not be able to practice their professions without having a college degree (or few) behind them, and in fact, it isn’t that degree that really makes a good lawyer or doctor stand out, as much as it is their ability to stand out – their soft skills, marketing and sales skills, customer service skills, and networks (both of people, and ideas and concepts and new developments within their industry).

In fact, Ellsberg identifies 7 success skills that everyone needs to develop if they want to succeed in the real-world:

1) Finding ways to make your work meaningful – actively finding ways to stop it from going stale
2) Finding great mentors and building a great network
3) The fundamentals of marketing
4) The fundamentals of selling
5) The Art of Bootstrapping (or investing your money successfully)
6) Building your personal brand within your industry
7) Developing an entrepreneurial mindset – how to become a hustler and brilliant executor, under fire

But then again, these “practical skills are not intended to be a replacement for college” (page 7), and a person who can combine the benefits of a university education with these skills will truly stand out in their field.

Here’s what it boils down to: once you figure out what “success” means to you, your task is now to match your work as closely as possible to this vision of success. This book basically provides you with a general framework of the 7 key factors that all successful people – from Sean Parker to David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd), Jean Paul Dejoria to Mark Ecko (of Ecko Unlimited clothing) – share, leaving it up to you to fill in the specifics with your particular interests and experiences.

In a narrative that criss-crosses America’s business landscape while making brief pitstops at various points in the author’s life, and crammed with interviews with some of today’s top entrepreneurs and high-rollers (many of whom are household names), Ellsberg shows us just how easy it is to work for ourselves, doing things that matter to us and which really interest us.

“I hope this book has inspired at least a few disobedient thoughts.” (page 242)

So What?, page 5

How often do you need to influence someone? Think about it. It starts the moment you wake until you lay your head back down. We influence and persuade all day long. But how much thought do you put into how you do that? How much faster, easier, more satisfying would your life be if you could influence others more effectively?

Mark Magnacca studied the communication successes and mistakes of people and companies who have changed our world and those who should have. He shares their examples with us to illustrate how the So What Question was integral to their success. All the successful influencers, he says, focused on what was important to their audience. They asked themselves ‘so what?’

He not only shares the examples, but then makes them tangible by teaching us ten ways to make them happen. His ideas help you change the way you communicate with people from ‘here’s what I have and want’ to ‘here’s how you can benefit’. The result? You learn how to engage your audience’s interest and influence them.

Golden Egg

The So What Benefit

“Every single time you communicate, you must ask yourself what’s important to your audience. Have you thought about the key points of your presentation from their perspective or could they be saying ‘So what?’”

So What?, page 137

Do you know your So What Benefit? What is important to them? If you don’t know, Magnacca suggests you simply ask! Specifically he suggests you ask a member of your target audience to complete the following sentence:

All I really care about is _____________.

This will move you away from the logical (and less influential) ostensible benefit to the emotional (and more influential) So What benefit. For example, did you buy an iPod for its “portability” (ostensible benefit) or because you will have 1000 songs that you want in your pocket (So What benefit)?

Emotion drives decision making, not logic. The So What Benefit helps you connect to that emotion. Move away from the benefit that seems like the reason people buy your product and move to the so what benefit that causes them to say “I love it, I want it, I’ll buy it.”

GEM #1

Prepare the Soil

“Neil, here’s the simple reality. This game was over before it began. This audience made up their mind that it was not useful to listen to you even before you started talking. Let me tell you why.”

So What?, page 57

Does your audience or customer have a preconceived notion about who you are and what you do? Does that lead them to believe you might just waste their time? How are you preparing the soil so that your seeds or ideas can germinate?

One of the ways Magnacca suggests that you can prepare the soil is to position yourself just like you would your product or service. Understand what is important to your audience and then focus on those benefits that bring meaning to them in the form of a personal biography. You can think of it as a document that answers the questions most people have before they agree to work with you – but are uncomfortable asking.

While this isn’t a new idea (as far back as Napoleon Hill, the idea has been suggested) it has not been implemented as well as it could. In short, it should include:

• Who you are
• Your character, competence and common ground
• What makes you unique

Want to make one for yourself? Magnacca offers 7 steps to help you create your biography and examples at sowhatbook.com.

GEM #2

It’s about them, not you

“The quickest way to reduce nervousness is to focus on the needs of your audience rather than be concerned about how you look or sound in front of the audience.”

So What?, page 136

Sometimes we get so focused on what we have or what we want to tell them that we forget what they need or want. For example, people don’t go to the hardware store because they want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They go because they want to make quarter-inch holes. Are you too focused on your quarter-inch drill that you’ve forgotten all about what they wanted the drill for?

If you concentrate too much on what you want to tell them, you may forget their needs. An antidote? Develop an inquisitive mind to discover the needs and a genuine interest in meeting the needs of your audience.

There are many ways to improve how you influence others. Magnacca offers one significant way that he calls the So What mindset. This will help you clarify your thinking and communicate what matters most to your audience. He proposes that if you help enough people get what they want, by showing them how what you have can benefit them, then you can have anything you want.

While this sounds seductively simple, Magnacca admits it is difficult to apply. He therefore offers, as a bonus after reading the book, his 21-day challenge to reinforce the ideas, recondition your thinking and develop the So What Mindset. Brilliant!

That’s because math can create a model for how everything works. And there’s always a ‘right’ answer.

So when Chris Brogan and Julien Smith talk about an Impact Equation, they’re trying to get at the ‘truth’ of how to make an impact in today’s connected world (even though their equation is not really mathematical at all, just a simple mnemonic to help you remember key points. It works for me, though.)

Making an impact, they claim, is not about the tool or the platform, it’s about the people. So, Chris and Julien focus on principles that will impact people, regardless of the medium. It’s about spreading ideas and making your mark, no matter how you connect with people. It just so happens that today’s online tools puts everyone on equal playing field where there’s no excuse for you to not to make a difference. Even though Chris and Julien are big advocates of the current tools, and seem to be regarded as ‘social media experts’ that is not their focus. They are experts in the human element – how to be more human – with today’s social tools, instead of just more automated and impersonal, which only creates ‘noise’.

Their equation involves 6 concepts arranged like this:

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

Where each letter of the word ‘create’ stands for the following concepts:

C= Contrast

R = Reach

E = Exposure

A = Articulation

T = Trust

E = Echo

The word, CREATE, not only helps us to remember the 6 concepts, but also signifies that creating something is at the core of all your work, and impact is the goal.

We all like to think that our ideas or message or life in general will have a positive impact on at least someone somewhere. This book will get us thinking about the dynamics of how impact happens and what strategies we need to incorporate for us to generate more of it.

What will you create that will make an impact?

Golden Egg:

Contrast Your Ideas

“When everyone has a tattoo, tattoos cease to stand out and we need more.”

The Impact Equation, Page 65

Contrast is the multiplier of the equation (if you noticed the mathematical operator), which means that it contributes the most to the overall impact. It is the thing that makes you stand out from the crowd. Marketers call it a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) so it is not a new concept, just maybe one that people don’t seem to put a lot of effort into developing.

“The best idea spreaders think hard about how they design and shape their ideas.” pg. 56 In an age where ideas are overwhelmingly abundant and easily published, the only way for one of them to get noticed among the noise is for it to have contrast with all around it. The authors describe good ideas as ones with the right ‘shape’, which means they can be thrown, caught, and bounced effectively, whereas a poorly shaped idea won’t go far.

Ideas have an ecosystem, “they are always competing either until they have achieved a monopoly, like human beings, or until they die out entirely, like the dodo.” As creators we are having ideas all the time, so knowing which ones to nurture and which ones to let die is a critical skill that is helped by the tools of the internet. It is a perfect laboratory for testing environments.

As humans we recognize patterns. We learn everything by recognizing patterns and seeing the breaks in those patterns. We do things we like, that make us happy, and avoid things we don’t like, or that cause us pain. We are always experimenting to find out what side things are on. So, pattern breaking, or contrast, gets our idea into the experiment more easily.
My actionable take away is to spend more time thinking about how my ideas can have contrast and then bouncing them against the market to see what works (and doesn’t.)

Gem #1

Have Better Ideas

“…idea creation is not an accident. It follows a process. You must recognize a good idea in your head and then mold it like clay until it’s ready for public consumption.”

The Impact Equation, Page 69

We’d all like our YouTube video to go viral, or our web site to be at the top of a google search for our subject, or our book to reach number one on the best seller list, but that doesn’t happen just because you’ve produced it. You need the design of the idea to have certain qualities. The authors reference the Heath brothers’ Made to Stick as a great resource on this subject, but they explain a few.

One of those essential qualities is that your idea must fulfill a need. “Highly efficient ideas help people fill a blank space in their head, whether they know it exists or not” explain the authors. Your audience needs something useful to them, not just something you think is cool.

Another quality is that good ideas attach themselves to other concepts in the brain. When your idea can be described in one sentence, explained as a metaphor to some familiar concept, it will stick in people’s minds. Chris Brogan calls this “giving your idea handles,” because people can hold onto it and put it in their mind where it fits alongside other concepts. (See, that was a metaphor.)

Along with good qualities, Chris and Julien have developed a framework for helping an idea serve your needs. They list 7 useful questions on pages 70 and 71 that help you determine how it fits into your work, such as, what is the goal of the idea, can I make it happen, and when will I be done.

I’ll be using this framework and designing my ideas with ‘sticky’ qualities as part of my actions.

Gem #2

Get Emotional

“Good ideas make you feel… something, anything!”

The Impact Equation, Page 73

Another essential quality of a good idea is that it goes past the brain and reaches into the heart. The only reason people feel compelled to share something with others is when they have had an emotional experience with your idea. They are wiping tears either because of sadness, compassion, joy, or because they are laughing so hard their gut hurts.

Information alone does not sway people to make decisions. Logically, you may think it makes the most sense, if people only knew the facts, they would choose correctly, but the market tells us otherwise. Think of the commercials you remember most. Are they the ones that displayed the most facts in a list of bullet points? I don’t think so. You remember the ones that made you fall off your chair laughing, or digging into your wallet to donate because you couldn’t bear to see another helpless child suffer.

People react to emotion. That’s what makes us unique and human. Let computers handle the number crunching and information gathering, we have a higher power when communicating with other humans. Find the emotional angle to your idea to give it that power of impact in the human world.

Chris and Julien are excellent humans. They know how to make an impact because they’ve done it. They’ve also done things that haven’t been so effective, and they’ve learned from their mistakes. If you’d like some game changing instruction on how to make a difference in the world, then I highly recommend reading The Impact Equation. It’ll help you make things happen, instead of just making noise.

What have you learned from creating ideas and launching them into the marketplace? Have you made an impact, or just noise?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, you’re doing something wrong.”

To Sell is Human, page 232

In the closing words of To Sell is Human, Dan Pink puts his mouth where the money is. Whether we like it or not, selling is a very human experience. Those of us who like it, in fact, have a distinct advantage over the inhumane practices we’ve come to associate with the word “salesman.”

Research confirms what we already knew: the word most associated with “sales” or “selling” is pushy, followed closely by sleazy, slimy, manipulative, and dishonest. Back in the bad old days, a salesman had all the information. You were at his mercy (if such existed.) Caveat emptor; buyer, beware!

Thanks to the internet, today we all have the information. Pink coins a new phrase: caveat venditor. Yes, in a world where information is ubiquitous, buyers know as much as or more than the seller. Not only can we protect ourselves from bad products and services, any seller dumb enough to behave unscrupulously can be pilloried in pixels around the world.

While many believed that universal access to information would make sales irrelevant, the surprising discovery is that a large segment of workers are still engaged directly in sales. If we include what Pink calls “non-sales selling,” that number becomes “all of us.”

Golden Egg

We Are All in Sales, and That’s Okay

“In the United States alone, some 1 in 9 workers still earns a living trying to get others to make a purchase . . . More startling, though, is what happened to the other 8 in 9. They’re in sales, too . . . They — make that ‘we’ — are engaged in what I call ‘non-sales selling.’”

To Sell is Human, page 3

Though it wasn’t the demise of the salesman, the internet did have a sweeping effect on business.

It made us all salesmen.

Look through your email for the past week. Consider every meeting you’ve been to in the past month. Think about the phone call you’re about to make.

Your business life is fundamentally about moving people to take action, make a decision. Much of your personal life is about precisely the same things.

This is not to say that we should all go out and buy plaid polyester sports coats. The traditional image of the pushy shyster hucking overpriced broken-down cars to the unwary isn’t the true picture of sales. In fact, it turns out that too much extroversion isn’t good for sales.

The folks who do the best in the new “equal knowledge” caveat venditor selling are, not extroverts, nor introverts, but those balanced people who share characteristics of both, the ambiverts.

Isn’t it great, then, that we’re virtually all ambiverts, to some extent?

We lean one way or the other, certainly, but we can enhance the personality traits that create better balance, moving us toward the middle.

We do that with the new ABCs of selling.

Gem #1

The ABCs of Selling: Attunement, Buoyancy, Clarity

“Attunement, buoyancy, and clarity: These three qualities, which emerge from a rich trove of social science research, are the new requirements for effectively moving people on the remade landscape of the twenty-first century.”

To Sell is Human, page 68

The two most visceral and universal images of selling seem to be the word pushy, and the scene in Glengarry Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin assaults the sales team with the phrase “Always Be Closing!”

While I dispute whether that was ever the best method, these days, it’s very nearly the worst method.

Instead, Dan teaches us three new principles: attunement, buoyancy, and clarity.

Attunement is the ability to bring your actions and outlook into harmony with other people and the context you’re in. Buoyancy is the ability to stay afloat, mentally and emotionally, through an ocean of rejection. Clarity is the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more revealing ways and to identify problems they didn’t realize they had.

We’ll focus on buoyancy’s actionable process. Actions we take before, during, and after our efforts to move someone help us develop and maintain buoyancy.

Before: Interrogative Self-Talk

Declarative self-talk (“I’m a winner and I can do this!”) risks bypassing our motivations. Questioning self-talk (“Is this the right service for them?”) reveals our “why” and makes a deeper connection and increases our buoyancy even before we’ve taken the first wave.

During: Positivity Ratios

How much positivity makes up “a positive attitude,” anyway? It turns out that it’s between 3:1 and 11:1. Seriously. Those who have between 3 and 11 positive thoughts for each appropriate negative thought are the most effective in moving others, staying afloat despite failures.

After: Explanatory Style

A giant of contemporary psychological science, Martin Seligman discovered and named “learned helplessness.” When we believe that failures are personal (“I’m not good enough”), pervasive (“I fail at everything”) and persistent (“I’ll never be any good”) we learn to fail. Seligman pioneered learned optimism: when we fail, we need to look for logical reasons why it wasn’t a moral shortcoming in us, but external circumstances. Remind yourself of other areas where you’ve succeeded, and of other times you’ve done well at this same task. Teaching ourselves that our failure to move someone else to action is not personal, persistent or pervasive creates buoyancy.

Gem #2

6 Successors to the Elevator Pitch

“Today, we have more opportunities to get out our message than Elisha Otis ever imagined. But our recipients have far more distractions than those conventioneers in 1853 who assembled to watch Otis not fall to his death.”

To Sell is Human, page 159

You know the elevator pitch: that 30-second blurb you’ll blurt when you discover you’re on the elevator with the CEO of the company, and you have until the 23rd floor to sell him your genius.

Except these days, the CEO is often just an email away, or actively soliciting feedback at an all-hands meeting or some social event. Waiting for the elevator is a waste of time and talent.

Instead, Pink gives us 6 other ways to pitch; practical methods to move others by how we present our position: the “one-word” pitch, the “question” pitch, the “rhyming” pitch, the “subject line” pitch, the “Twitter” pitch, and the “Pixar” pitch. Most are self-evident (though not as simple as they may sound.) Let’s talk about the Pixar pitch.

Every Pixar movie follows the same pattern. Since they’re the only movie studio in history to turn out 100% hit movies, it’s worth analyzing.

Once upon a time there was . . .
Every day, . . .
One day, . . .
Because of that, . . .
Because of that, . . .
Until finally, . . .

You can fill in the blanks from every Pixar movie you’ve seen. This 6-sentence format gives you the power of story within a concise, disciplined format.

Take an hour and work out your Pixar pitch for whatever it is you spend your time moving folks to do. It’s one of my year-end projects, perfecting my Pixar pitch for both of my businesses (and then perfecting it for each of my books.)

Every single day, we invest time and effort attempting to move others to see or do things a certain way. Whether it’s selling in the traditional sense of getting them to exchange money for goods and services, or it’s non-sales selling, it’s a fundamentally human endeavor.

To sell is human. How can you make your own selling even more human?

Digital Leader, page 89

I am literally reeling from reading Erik Qualman’s Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence. Qualman tells us that the first habit of digital leadership is to “Simplify” and then gives so many tips (along with numerous examples from companies, politicians, CEOs and others) for how to do that and the other four habits that I’m overwhelmed with exciting things that I know will work if only I did them.  He says that even he does his best to adhere to the principles he’s laid out but he’s a long way from following them consistently.  The only reason I kept reading after the hyperventilation state I had reached by the end of Chapter 2 (and these are short, easy to read chapters with lots of quotes, bullet points and white space) was the quote – “Once you accept the fact that you aren’t going to get every thing done, then you can better address what should get done.”

The five habits of digital leadership:

SIMPLE: success is the result of simplification and focus
TRUE: be true to your passion
ACT: nothing happens without action – take the first step
MAP: goals and vision are needed to get where you want to be
PEOPLE: success doesn’t happen alone

These form the acronym STAMP because these are the habits that create your personal stamp -on your life and others’ lives. Qualman’s tips and examples of how real people implement them are primarily digital ones (social media, email) but all have components that people have followed for centuries as leaders.

The difference now is the far reaching and the long lasting effect of your influence as a leader.  We all know this as we deal vaguely with how best to write an email so it’s not taken differently than it’s meant because it’s missing our facial expressions and tone of voice. Or, as we read about a potential employee who doesn’t get a job because their Facebook page has pictures of them doing some obscene gesture. But what really brought the long lastingness of our digital legacy to “I better take this seriously” level for me was this statistic: it’s estimated that ¼ of babies have sonogram photos posted online before they are even born.

That means our parents (and their planning for our digital legacy or lack thereof) are shaping what people think of us before we can read this book and implement its ideas! We’re behind the game with words, videos and pictures describing us to the world before we start working on our legacy.  Whether I implement any of the specifics in this book or not I am absolutely committed to acting on the fact that leadership legacy isn’t what I leave people when I’m not the leader anymore – it’s what I do now.

Golden Egg

We are all mini-digital celebrities and heroes to someone

“If you truly want a life that inspires, you need to change your leadership habits today to adapt to the new digitally open world.”

Digital Leader, page 2

Now. It’s something I do now. It’s everything I do. It’s every second. There is no time off from my personal stamp in the digital age. So many more people are influenced by my actions compared to when it was just the people I saw, wrote a paper letter to or called on the phone.  In this digital age, I am influencing people who don’t know me, people I didn’t even intend to. These people don’t know my humor, they don’t know my history and so don’t know why I said or wrote something. And it’s not just what I write, it’s pictures even if they’re from my personal life. Before digital we did let people at work see our personal lives – think pictures on your desk. But those pictures came along with a person, in person, to mitigate whatever they saw in the pictures.

Even if I choose not to be digital (close to impossible, but let’s assume I could not use email or the Web or social media) everyone I interact with may be posting about me (pictures and words).  There is no way around it so I have to adapt now, think every minute about what I’m doing and how it will be taken literally by the world or risk influencing people in a way I didn’t intend.

GEM #1

Remove to improve

“Your digital presence should be less ‘Chinese menu’ and more ‘lemonade stand’”

 Digital Leader, page 84

How many things have I waited to do because there were so many parts to something and I needed to have them all ready to go at the same time?  Example: I couldn’t put up our company Facebook page until I was ready to go with our Twitter account, LinkedIn page and our blog.  Let me see, was it 2 years in the making? I think so. What a waste.  And now that they all exist (plus our website and numerous other digital presences) I’m not doing justice to any of them. The digital habit of “Simple” tells me that I should have done only one (ok, maybe 2) and done it well.  So now my task is to figure out how to consolidate or do away with at least 3 of the 5 main digital presences. And then there’s my personal digital presences to contend with after that.

GEM #2

Success doesn’t happen alone

 “Don’t be afraid to distance yourself from a friend or customer that isn’t having a positive impact.”

 Digital Leader, page 225

The GEM and the quote seem to be at odds with each other.  My point exactly! I have been in a stage of my life the past 4 years where I have removed people – tired of their whining and complaining, tired of them being dependant on me for advice, for answers, for their success. Coincidentally I have also been stagnant (apparently it’s not so coincidental).  Just floating through the days trying rather haltingly to come up with a new definition of success since my old one (be on TV, the radio, in magazine articles and keynote speaking) doesn’t achieve the goals I now have.  I’ve been trying to find that new definition of success alone after I jettisoned clients, staff and people in my personal life that didn’t have my best interests or the company’s at heart. I purposely drew the circle small a few years ago.  In my desire to do this I also kept away the people who can have a positive impact.  I see now that whatever the new success is it’ll be in concert with others (a few). In fact, they will make it for me if only I participate.

Technology has redefined the nature of relationships. You can see that I’m pretty happy about this as I can use email and social media to not have to ever talk to anyone again.  Qualman suggests we look at our digital imprint each week by reading over emails and posts that relate to you.  He says that if you see the tone they create isn’t the one you intended you need to make changes immediately.  So as I look over a week’s worth of emails and posts I see me not really interacting with anyone, me holding people at arm’s length, in short me doing the opposite of most of the five digital leadership habits.  To stem the reeling feeling I’ll start with one tip in habit one (“Simple”) – focus around the things I can do 3x better than others.  What about you?

‘Yes!’ they yelled as one.

‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Then who will get in?’”

All In, page 4

The Great Blondin didn’t settle for simply walking across a high wire strung above Niagara Falls. Back flips. Chairs. In the quote above, a wheelbarrow.

There’s a world of difference between what we say we believe and what our actions show we believe.

The fans were delighted to watch. Participate? No thank you.

One man did. Blondin’s manager, Harry Colcord, climbed up and got in the wheelbarrow.

That is the kind of belief which makes the difference between mediocrity and excellence.

Golden Egg

Beliefs are Emotional

“Blondin had hoped his fans would believe, as he did, in his infallible prowess on the high wire. They said they did, but they really didn’t.”

All In, page 4

Clinical psychologist Dr. Kevin Fleming points out that our brains are wired to feel right, not to be right. Most of us are masters of four methods of resistance which allow us to maintain existing beliefs:

1. Counter-arguing – Poking holes to rebut new information
2. Attitude bolstering – Focus only on the facts which support it
3. Selective exposure – Ignoring or avoiding new information
4. Disputing rationality – Insisting our beliefs don’t have to be based on facts

The authors provide a 7-step process to foster the kind of belief that got Blondin’s manager into the wheelbarrow.

But first, they provide 3 questions to identify who believes what in the first place.

GEM #1

Engagement is Not Enough: Enable and Energize

“A hamster on a treadmill is energized, for example, but it doesn’t really accomplish much . . . an eager new military cadet may be engaged . . . but without training and the right support, he’s unlikely to be of much use to his comrades. A teenager can be given all of the enabling freedom in the world, but if she isn’t absorbed in an interesting challenge she . . . won’t accomplish much.”

All In, page 47

To clarify the need for more than engagement, ask yourself these questions about the people you work with. They’re worded as a manager assessing employees, but try them with reference to business partners, vendors, and hey, how about yourself?

1. Do you have employees who care about the organization but are burned out?
2. Do you have people who are energized to do big things but feel stifled and not able to run?
3. Do you have employees who care but aren’t always focused on the right behaviors?

These folks are certainly engaged, aren’t they? But are they the people who’ll take your business, your life, to heights of excellence? Hardly.

Beyond engagement, people need to be energized and enabled. E + E + E. They need an environment which builds enthusiasm instead of burning it out. They need the tools to do the work. They need to be engaged, not just with the step they’re taking now but with the dreams on the horizon.

GEM #2

7 Steps to Create a Culture of Belief

“How do you influence others to ‘get in the wheelbarrow’ ?”

All In, page 19

You cannot create belief.

You can, however, systematically create an environment where belief is a natural result. Gostick and Elton provide a 7-step process to create that environment, to foster a culture of belief.

1. Define your burning platform – Communicate your mission clearly and instill the proper sense of urgency.
2. Create a customer focus – Not the bottom line, not position and title, not the next social media fad: focus on the customer.
3. Develop agility – Being flexible is reactive. Agility is proactive, embracing change.
4. Share everything – Truth and transparency create trust which is vital to belief.
5. Partner with your talent – Publicly and personally recognize that your success hinges on the greatness of those you work with.
6. Root for each other – Belief can’t flourish without peer appreciation and camaraderie.
7. Establish clear positive accountability – Positive accountability means employees have the tools they need to meet the goals set by management, including authority to match their responsibility. Positive accountability flows up to managers, not just down to employees.

This is not an easy process, a quick fix. Nor will it convert active disbelievers.

But in the hands of a manager or entrepreneur who believes that his business associates are looking for something to believe in, it’s a viable process to amplify the culture of belief in even the best organization.

What made Ferdinand and Isabella support Columbus?

What made thousands of Apple employees follow Steve Jobs?

What made a quarter of a million people march on Washington, DC on August 28, 1963?

It wasn’t facts. It wasn’t comfort or convenience. It certainly wasn’t a paycheck.

Belief drives every single action we take.

What are you doing to cultivate it in the people you work with?

E + E + E. Individually, they’re vital. In concert, they not only raise profit margins to multiples of the competition’s, they create cultures which become the stuff of legend.

That may not describe your work efforts right now. A team which is engaged, enabled, and energized is the result of a culture of belief. And that is a result of 7 steps you can plan and implement.

Judgment, page 5

In 1999, Jack Welch was named “manager of the century” by Fortune magazine. Through his leadership during his 20 year tenure as CEO, GE “had dramatically outperformed the economy, creating close to $400 billion of new market value”. When he took over in 1981, it was worth $13 billion.

In 1997, AT&T was a $130 billion company when Michael Armstrong became CEO. Unlike Welch though, Armstrong wasn’t able to drive the same change and growth at AT&T. By 2005, it was “nearly dead-broke”.

How was Jack Welch able to transform GE by such a great magnitude? And why wasn’t Michael Armstrong able to do even the fraction of that at AT&T?

Well, as leadership experts, and professors, Noel M. Tichy and Warren Bennis explain in Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, it all comes down to each leader’s judgment calls.

“Whether we’re talking about United States presidents, CEOs, Major League coaches, or wartime generals, leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls. In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment determines the fate of the entire organization. That’s why judgment is the essence of leadership.”

Noel and Warren have “watched hundreds of leaders making thousands of judgment calls”. They’ve witnessed the ability of great leaders like Jack Welch to articulate and share their storyline and vision for the organization with the rest of the company, as they use it to ultimately guide each decision they make.

But perhaps more importantly, through these experiences with leaders such as Jack Welch, they also came up with the Framework for Leadership Judgment; a framework that leaders can use to make better judgment calls.

Golden Egg

Understand The Framework for Leadership Judgment

“Good judgment calls are a process, not an event.”

Judgment, page 17

Making judgment calls is an art, not a science.
Each judgment call you make sets the stage for the next one you make as a leader, and ultimately the success of your organization.

“Despite the implications of the word call, the judgment calls that leaders make cannot be viewed as single, point-in-time events. Like umpires and referees, leaders do, at some moment, make a call. They make a determination about how things should proceed. But unlike umpires and referees, they cannot – without risking total failure – quickly forget them and move ahead to the next play. Rather, for a leader, the moment of making a call comes in the middle of a process.”

The following two GEMs highlight the two key elements of The Framework for Leadership Judgment.

GEM #1

Be Aware of The Three Judgment Domains

“These are the three domains that make the most difference to the survival and well-being of any institution. If they are unattended to or if bad calls are made in these domains, it can be fatal to an organization.”

Judgment, page 22

No matter what industry you’re in, you need to be aware of three crucial domains where you will be making judgment calls:

1)      People Judgment Calls The way you not only manage, but also hire the people on your team, will have the biggest impact on your success as an organization; especially when it comes to your leadership team. You have to keep your organizations goals and vision in mind, and not let emotions complicate your judgment. Your number one priority is getting the right people on board.

“While misjudgments in any of the three domains have the potential to be fatal, the one with the most potential is people.”

2)      Strategy Judgment Calls As the leader of your organization and team, it is your responsibility to direct the strategic direction. Like the saying goes, “You are the captain of your ship.”

“The role of a leader is to lead the organization to success, so when the current strategic road isn’t leading toward success, it is his or her job to find a new path. How well a leader makes strategic judgment calls is a function of both (a) his or her own ability to look over the horizon and frame the right question and (b) the people with whom he or she chooses to interact.”

3)      Crisis Judgment Calls The importance of your judgment calls are magnified during crises. Not only will you be under extreme time and/or political pressure, but a misjudgment can be fatal to your organization.

“It’s instructive to look at crisis calls, not only because getting them right is so important, but also because they compress and highlight so many of the important elements of making judgment calls. They require that a leader have clear values and know his or her ultimate goal. There must be open and effective communication among members of the senior team and throughout the ranks. There must be a good process for gathering and analyzing data. And there must be effective execution.”

GEM #2

Follow The Process of Judgment Calls

“Good judgment depends on how you think as much as what you know. It requires intelligence and values. It depends on the ability to gather information and to process it. It draws on experience and knowledge. The ability to shape and guide the judgment process plays out in the context of a lifetime of learning.”

Judgment, page 31

In each of the three domains, people, strategy and crisis, good judgment calls always involve a process. This process starts by first recognizing the need to make a judgment call and “continues through to successful execution” as it follows the following four phases:

1)      The Preparation Phase The first thing that needs to be done is sensing and identifying the need for a judgment call, which often means facing the reality of the situation at hand. And once you’ve recognized the need for a call, you need to “frame it and name it.”

For example, when it comes to people, it’s identifying the fact that every CEO, every person in every job will leave it someday. You will need to make replacements. So, for example, creating and having a clear CEO succession process in place is crucial to your organization’s success. (You may think this is obvious, but as Noel and Warren point out, several “highly regarded companies aren’t ready when it comes time to name a new CEO.”)

Once you’ve identified the need to make a judgment call (people will leave) and framed it (we need a CEO succession process), you then need to “mobilize and align the right people” to move forward with this judgment call. This means socializing the need for a judgment call with your board, leadership team and other key stakeholders so you can move towards making the call itself.

2)      The Call Phase: Making the Judgment Call Once you’ve mobilized and aligned your team in the preparation phase and received sufficient information regarding your judgment call, it’s time to make the go-ahead call itself. For example, in the case of CEO succession, this can mean making the call to create a leadership development program to ensure there is a leadership pipeline for the organization.

This is also where the leadership traits of character and courage are required. Once you’ve completed the preparation, you need to have the courage to make the judgment call that best aligns with the strategic vision and values of the company no matter what the current reality is.

3)      The Execution  Phase: Action – Make It Happen Now that you’ve made the judgment call, it’s time to actually make it happen – to execute (i.e. go ahead and create the “leadership academy” and when it comes time to name the new CEO, name him or her.)

4)      Learn and Adjust: Continuous Adjustment Finally, as you go through the process of making and executing your call, it’s important to learn and adjust as you move forward.

While this summary should give you a high-level introduction to The Framework for Leadership Judgment, what really brings this framework to life is the many case studies from companies like GE, HP, AT&T, Shell, and many more, that Noel and Warren draw on throughout the book. Each case study presented illustrates the benefits of following The Framework for Leadership Judgment, as well as the pitfalls of not following it. And I highly recommend you add it to your bookshelf – I know I’ll be keeping it close by as a reference.

“We offer this framework to help you improve your judgment-making faculties, to do a better job of developing good judgment in others, and to encourage a more vigorous conversation about judgment. We need more leaders with better judgment.”

Do the Work, page 63

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve being actively working on a project for a long time, putting your time and effort, your sweat and tears and your financial resources into something that you know will make the world a better place? You are about to approach the finish line, but then all of a sudden, something happens. All sorts of thoughts begin to rush through your head and you begin to question yourself and all your hard work. Such thoughts as “What in the world am I doing?” “This is the stupidest thing I have ever thought of….” “I cannot believe I invested so much of my own money and time into building this thing/book/play/song/business…” “Why didn’t anyone stop me?” “What was I thinking?…”

If any of the above thoughts have ever entered your mind, then you have come face to face with the Resistance. According to Steve Pressfield’s book Do the Work, the Resistance is an ensemble of counterproductive thoughts that emerge in our minds with the aim to extinguish our creative ideas and prevent us from finishing our projects. Do the Work is designed with one purpose: to let us get back in control of our creative minds, break free from this Resistance, and ship our final products.

Golden Egg

Meaningful Work Can Lead to Resistance

“Resistance is a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

Do the Work, page 6

Now that we know what all these unproductive thoughts are, we can use the following tools to identify the characteristics of Resistance. We’re experiencing the Resistance when:

• We start to question ourselves and the foundation of our projects too often
• We feel negative energy flowing around us; we seem to lose our passion for the things we used to love doing everyday
• We become easily distracted and we start to procrastinate in order to avoid working on our ideas

The hardest thing to do is to realize when the Resistance is working against us. Once we are able to identify it, then the fight becomes a lot easier to win.

GEM #1

Conquer It Once and For All (Or Not)

“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

Do the Work, page 9

When we understand that the Resistance is present, it is much more manageable to get back on our feet and re-immerse ourselves in that passionate state of mind that led us to start our projects in the first place. Here are three ways to fight the Resistance and never allow it to control us again:

• Stay stupid: Don’t allow yourself to think too much about the projects; instead concentrate on actually doing things
• Trust the Soup:  Trust that source of inspiration for our initial idea, and realize that we cannot control nor predict everything
• Understand that we are not alone at experiencing this Resistance. All great and successful artists/entrepreneurs/writers, etc. have experienced (and conquered) their own Resistance

It is also important to understand that the Resistance is always present. Its sole purpose is to get in the way of our creativity and prevent us from finishing something significant. Even after we conquer it once the Resistance will come back and haunt us during each and every project we undertake. However, the mere realization that we will eventually confront it during difficult times, gives us sufficient power to ensure that its effects are minimized and our projects no longer get (fully) derailed.

GEM #2

Be Ready For It When You Least Expect It

“Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies.”

Do the Work, page 12

The Resistance does not necessarily emerge when we’re about to finish something. Unfortunately, it can also prevent us from actually starting a project. Just remember the last time you had a great idea you were really excited about. But, when it was time for you to take the plunge, something in the back of your mind told you that maybe, after all, it was not such a big idea and that you should not go ahead and pursue it. It could have been a thought about a potential failure, questioning whether you were the right person, or maybe a doubt that your idea had no potential.  Either way, you now know what you were faced with and, unfortunately in that case, the Resistance succeeded.

If we want to be able to accomplish anything significant, we have to be willing to fight the Resistance all the time. The good news is that from the moment we understand what is controlling all these unproductive thoughts, we will stop doubting ourselves and keep working on our project/book/play/song/business, etc. In addition, each successive conflict becomes easier and easier to win.

“We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.”

Do the Work will help anyone get unstuck and back on their feet in pursuing their passion and completing their projects. If you enjoyed Pressfield’s previous book The War of Art, you will enjoy this one even more.  Do The Work is a fast read (98 pages) and in my opinion is a lot like jumping into an ice-cold lake: it wakes you up, makes you forget about all the none-essential things you were doing before, and forces you to understand that you are not alone in experiencing the symptoms of Resistance. But perhaps most importantly it inspires you to return to your projects full of passion and the strength to carry on and finish.

“Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing.”

Winning the Story Wars, page 5

We love great stories. They engage. They provide an outlet or a relation point. Stories bring us in and, at times, change us. This is what Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future by Jonah Sachs celebrates.

Our culture is pulled forward or changed through stories and the myths embedded in them. Myths are not lies; they hold us together around a set of common beliefs and values. “When myths are functioning properly, they bring us together and get us to act by using a specific formula that appears to be universal across all cultures” (pg 59).

Stories play a central role in our culture, our life, and our marketing, so we need to get them right and empower their value.  And “getting them right”, Sach tells us, is becoming more rare as stories are packaged as cheap marketing tools.

Golden Egg

The Story Test

“We can create patterns of stories that lift audiences up to become evangelists for our messages and call them to participation in a creating a better world.”

Winning the Story Wars, page 32

Stories are at risk. “Sins” are being committed. The sins include:

• Narcissism – Stories become self-centered instead of being about “us.”
• Authority – “Just the facts” lack emotional connection to the story.
• Insincerity – Stories that try too hard to please lose their core.
• Puffery – Stories with no substance fall flat.
• Gimmickry – Pursuing “going viral” can create a “falsity” to a story.

The point is stories are in danger of losing their value and potential in engaging people. Marketers are guilty of attacking them in multiple ways, so we need to test our stories and ensure they are sin-free. We need to craft stories to engage honestly and personally.

The story test includes:

• Tangible – Present information that people can “touch” and “feel.”
• Relatable – Include characters that people want to see rewarded or punished.
• Immersive – Develop the story so others can learn something of value.
• Memorable – Add scenes and metaphors that make it easy for people to recall the core message.
• Emotional – Elevate others in what they feel or learn.

To prevent stories from committing sins, they need to pass the story test. The more the above elements are in a story, the greater the opportunity for the story to be powerful and engage a community.

To create story evangelists, these elements need to be embraced fully in order to write a story that stands the test of time.

GEM #1

Tell the Truth

“Telling the truth – most importantly, the truth that human nature goes beyond our basest desires and orients to a higher potential – provides the foundation of a storytelling strategy that can build your next breakthrough communication – and your entire brand.”

Winning the Story Wars, page 115

Why is it challenging to tell the truth in stories? The reasons may relate back to the sins, but telling the truth should be at the center of our stories. It is just solid marketing.

Telling the truth needs to bring the brand to life and the author provides three tactics to do this.

The first is to tell a more resonant truth. In the 1950s, when Cadillac was telling the story of personal achievement and fine taste, Volkswagen Beetle took a “Think Small” approach, changing the truth to living within your means.

The second tactic is to emphasize the power of the audience. Nike launched a “Courage” campaign in which athletes tell their story of perseverance and overcoming the odds. The story is about the audience; it is a story about others that breathes life into the brand.

The third tactic is inspiration. Inspired customers become brand evangelists. Think “Yes We Can,” and you see the power of inspiration in the story.

Truth comes through in different ways – communicating what your product really is; bringing your audience into the story; or inspiring your audience to become partners. Telling the truth means living the truth, too. This approach needs to embody the elements in the story test as well as avoid the story sins.

GEM #2

Know Your Values

“But the core strategy of empowerment marketing is not about magical fulfillment. It’s about values and inspiration.”

Winning the Story Wars, page 134

Brands have an opportunity to promote higher values. To do this, we need to understand them and make a commitment to them. Values need to be embedded into the story test elements. It is a powerful engagement point between the brand and the audience (i.e., customers, enthusiasts).

Some brands have values defined by who they are. Patagonia is about adventurers; it is the value on which it was founded. Amnesty International is about human rights; it just is who they are. If the brand doesn’t have ready-defined values, then there is a two-step process to select them:

Step 1: Review values and think about what you want to be. Try out different values and see what fits. The author lists out nine brand-defining values that come from Maslow’s hierarchy, and they include: wholeness, perfection, justice, richness, simplicity, beauty, truth, uniqueness, and playfulness. Again, the key point is to answer this question:  Where do you want to go?

Step 2: Narrow the values to three, with one or two being ideal. Selecting a value(s) that align across four areas – founding story, offering, leadership, and audiences – will be the best.

Alignment of values is critical, as it relates to authenticity of the brand and story.

Winning the Story Wars is full of character and advice on how to develop stories that can stand the test of time. Our culture is influenced by great stories, changing what we do and how we do it. Stories built upon the sins and inauthenticity, on the other hand, are quickly uncovered and rejected.

Building a successful brand is about sharing stories that engage and empower a community. As Jonah Sachs said, “Perfect alignment of your organization’s values and actions may be a destination you will never fully attain, but the moment you set out on the path, you begin generating compelling content perfectly aligned with your story strategy” (pg 232).

The Accidental Creative, page 11

Todd Henry is the self-professed “arms dealer for the creative revolution”. Author of The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at Moment’s Notice and founder and CEO of Accidental Creative (a company that helps its clients achieve many of the same goals that this book promises), Henry reminds us that we are living in a create-on-demand world, where we are forced to be creative and come up with knock-your-socks-off-amazing work at a moment’s notice (as the book’s tagline says). And if we can’t follow through, we will likely be replaced by someone who can. This well written, comprehensive book offers practices to help stoke the fires of your creativity, but wisely does not promise any quick fixes. Rather “[y]ou will unleash your latent creative ability through regular, purposeful practice of the principles in this book,” writes Henry. “There are most certainly insights and ‘aha!’ moments to be found in these pages, but knowledge alone won’t do the job any more than knowing the fundamentals of how to exercise will keep you physically healthy. You must be purposeful and intentional. The results are worth it.”

Indeed they are.

Golden Egg

Newsflash: You’re a Creative

“In some circles, the word ‘creative’ has recently morphed from adjective to noun. If you are one of the millions among us who make a living with your mind, you could be tagged a ‘creative.’ Every day, you solve problems, innovate, develop systems, design things, write, think, and strategize. You are responsible for… creating value that didn’t exist before you arrived on the scene.”

The Accidental Creative, page 1

I fear that many won’t read this summary, and even worse, the book on which it is based, because of our existing conception of who is creative. Creatives aren’t limited to painters, writers, graphic designers, architects, etc. While Henry defines these jobs as traditional creatives, any other job where you’re expected to create-on-demand (come up with great ideas on short notice), but do not fit into the traditional mould, is a nontraditional creative. These jobs can include (but are not limited to) managers, strategists, consultants, salespeople, and client service reps. One the surface it might seem as though traditional and nontraditional creatives don’t share much in common. When we think of traditional creatives, such as writers or painters, we think of individuals toiling away in solitary isolation, trying to create their art. But in reality, traditional and nontraditional creatives are more alike than they are different. “Astonishingly,” writes Henry, “I’ve found little difference among the pressures experienced by these diverse groups of people. They each use a different set of specific skills in their work, of course. While a designer will solve a problem visually, a manager may solve it by developing a new process. But they’re both employing the same creative tools and wrestling with many of the same obstacles.”

Now that you’ve realized that you are indeed a creative, the following GEMs will be beneficial to you regardless of whether your occupation defines you as a traditional or nontraditional creative. If you’re the former, the GEMs will help you to make the most of your time for maximum creativity. The latter group (aka, most of us) will be able to unleash the creative potential you didn’t realize was lurking inside you.

GEM #1

Avoid the Ping

“You don’t need to get rid of technology; you just need to use it in a way that increases your capacity to do what matters to you. You need to set priorities and home in on them rather than living in a state of continuous partial attention. You can’t do your best and most insightful work when you allow the Ping to rule your life.”

The Accidental Creative, page 75

We all do it. You’re hard at work, but suddenly, for whatever reason (and it doesn’t even have to be boredom), we check our e-mails or Facebook, and our work is disrupted. I’m guilty of this. I even experienced it completing this summary. Referring to my Kindle highlights on Amazon necessary to write this summary, the lure of Facebook proved too difficult to resist, especially when I saw the blinking number in brackets in the tab I had opened notifying me of a new message. (Okay, it wasn’t blinking, but it felt like it was!)  You get the idea, and can probably relate. This lure is what Todd Henry has termed the “Ping”, and it’s a big threat to our daily work. It seems like these little interruptions aren’t major time wasters, but they are. If you need proof of just how much of a time waster it is, this calculation is quite sobering: “if on average we work an 8-hour day, 50 weeks per year, and check our e-mail every 5 minutes—just to see if anything is there—we check our e-mail 24,000 times per year”. That amounts to 66.6 hours per year of just checking your e-mail and doesn’t actually include the time it takes to answer the e-mails, and is low-balling the amount of time it takes to recover your focus after the interruption (Henry factored in 10 seconds, when it’s arguably anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes!)

There are some easy ways to avoid the Ping, and it starts with giving some consideration to where in your life you Ping the most. If it’s e-mails, perhaps designate certain times to check them, like the beginning of each hour. Or maybe one day a week leave your Blackberry at home. Whatever it is you decide to do to avoid the Ping, the fewer interruptions will allow your creativity to flow rather than be constantly interrupted.

GEM #2

Study the Supertexts

“I’ve… found that reading great works not only stretches my creative expression but also helps me identify patterns in human behavior that haven’t changed much over time.”

The Accidental Creative, page 145

This was my favourite practice in the entire book. Whether it’s the works of Shakespeare or Plato’s Republic, it’s important to read the canonical works of literature, plays, spiritual texts (such as the Bible or Quran—in fact many of the great Western books contain allusions to the Bible, including John Steinbeck’s East of Eden). I myself try to read these great “supertexts” in order to improve as a writer. (My Amazon “to read” book list is now swelling with over 800 titles, and I look forward to reading them over my lifetime…I’m realistic enough to know it’s not going to happen overnight!) While this may seem like a practice more suited to the traditional creative, it can benefit both traditional and nontraditional creatives. Henry writes, “In many ways it’s like communing with the great minds of history and allowing them to illuminate your understanding of how the world works. This improved understanding increases your platform for expression and creative problem solving.” These books demonstrate that human behaviour is essentially standard, more or less, and remarkably unchanging over time. The philosophies in these books are the basis of many of the books we read today, so instead of reading distilled versions, why not read the originals?

To go a step further, you can create a Stimulus Queue of the “supertexts” you want to read. But most of all it’s important to set aside some time, perhaps an hour a day in the evenings (any time that is most convenient to you), to study these texts, or study anything that will continue your learning. Just because you’re done school doesn’t mean you’re done learning. When you stop exposing yourself to new ideas, you become stagnant and so does your creativity. You can’t allow that to happen. Stay curious!

Todd Henry’s The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Whether we realize it or not, we’re all expected to create and add value every day in our jobs. If we can’t do that, we will be replaced by someone who can. It’s as simple as that. If you work hard to implement some of the practices in this book, there is little fear of that ever happening.

HOW, page 55

By his own admission, Dov Seidman declares: This is a HOW book, not a how-to volume.

No formulaic answers for life here!  Rote steps don’t cut it in our complex world.   As Einstein is famously quoted saying, “We cannot solve the problems of tomorrow at the same level of thinking we used to create them in the first place.”

In the 21^st century, what any of us does or what we know no longer matters most.  Instead, everyone will ultimately be evaluated on how we do things.

How we behave, consume, build trust and relate to others counts more than ever and in ways it never has before.  Those ahead of the curve understand that the best; most certain and enduring path to success plus significance in these dramatically new conditions now lies in getting our HOWs right over time.

Golden Egg

Out-Behave…NOT…Out-Perform

“Reputation is the sum total of your HOWS.  In a transparent world, reputation leads.  It enters the room before you do, and remains after you go, either enhanced or tarnished.”

HOW, page 186

Have you ever heard the term “out-behave” applied within a daily lexicon typically littered with domineering and military references?  “Business is war.”  “Information is power.”  “To the victor go the spoils.”  Via this one eye-opener so many accepted norms are over-turned.  Love it!

Whether you’re a business or individual, private behaviour is a thing of the past.  Our see-through world of over-abundant information flows too easily to be out-controlled or out-foxed.  You can’t game the system and expect no one will find out.

As such, qualities many still think of as “soft” – trust, respect, integrity, fairness, honesty, humility, transparency, purpose – have become the hard currency of achievement in a connected world – the drivers of efficiency, productivity and profitability.

GEM #1

Leaders: Shift from “Command and Control” to Inspiring

“How we do business is at least as important as how much business we do… You need to stop dancing around people and start leading a dance that everyone can follow.”

HOW, pages 55 and 145

In organizational life, this sea change implies we will need to rethink the very nature of leadership itself.

Consider tumbling engagement scores amongst U.S. and many global firms.  Seidman attributes this dismal state of affairs to outworn carrot-and-stick approaches – if indeed coercion, bullying, promise of external reward or avoidance of punishment were ever appropriate to ignite people with values plus missions truly worthy of their commitment.

Creative behaviour simply can’t be commanded by a manager or codified by a policy manual – no matter how hard you might try to cajole or manipulate it.

Evidence a Southwest Airlines flight attendant cheerfully announcing to a planeload disembarking in Las Vegas: “It’s a well-known fact that if you fold your seatbelts when you leave, your luck will improve at the casino tables.”  Everyone laughs and follows her suggestion.  Turns out, there’s an actual FAA regulation requiring folded seatbelts before new passengers can board.  The flight attendant could have done all this herself or (as she did) been inspired enough to connect and enlist collaboration.  In the process, an operational advantage to turn around the next flight faster was achieved.

How about a common “ouch” example?  How often are corporate rules created in reaction to behaviors deemed unacceptable?  All the time!  When loopholes are revealed, they get revised.  The usual email edict is issued: “From now on all expense vouchers must be…”

Someone has been caught cheating.  Now everyone must pay through added bureaucratic busywork.  We harken back to elementary school discipline: “Because Johnny couldn’t stay in his seat, the entire class will remain behind for five minutes.”  As over-reliance becomes part of the problem these regulations were originally designed to fix, trust spirals downward.

By setting floors of behaviour, rules unfortunately force ceilings.  Inspirational leaders, on the other hand, realize values-based self-governance is about giving people the freedom to uncork their ability to surprise customers and unleash delight.

GEM #2

Create a Personal WAVE!

“You lead your own journey of significance every day in how you choose to act, treat others and see the world.”

HOW, page 286

You’re likely familiar with the spontaneous “Wave” that stadium crowds perform at big sporting events to spur on their favorite teams.  On October 15, 1981, in the stands of the sold-out Oakland Coliseum, professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson had a vision.  He imagined a gesture that would start in his section and sweep successively through the crowd in a giant, continuous motion of enthusiasm – a transformative event that later proved historical.  According to our author, the Wave is a great metaphor for the human energy that will thrive in the future.

In citing globally-televised waves like the Arab Spring of 2011 (when popular revolutions confronted despotic governments in several Middle Eastern countries using social media channels, thereby proving no dictator is too big to fail), Seidman lets none of us off the hook. And rightly so.

He claims – and I strongly agree – that leadership is not just for people who have “president” in their title.  It’s not about your business card.  It’s an attitude and a disposition…Leading yourself by becoming your own legislature, looking inside for answers and being guided by your alignment to the values you find there.

In the realm of organizational leadership, HOW translates to a move from exerting power over people to generating Waves through them – by building strong interpersonal synapses capable of reaching through horizontal networks and bringing people together around ideas and initiatives.  In personal life, it’s about each of us remaining rooted in what should never change – our values and principles.

The fact of the matter is that you can’t “do self-improvement”, but if in every email, conversation, meeting and task you’re thinking like a personal leader, you’ll improve.  You can’t “do tolerance” but, if in every interaction you strive to fill the spaces between you and others with trust, you will get tolerance and a whole lot more.  You can’t “do excellence” or winning but, if you believe in a set of core principles and pursue their expression in everything you do, you will deliver more excellence to others and, in a world of HOW, win.

Do you start to see along with me to what extent HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything illuminates tidal power and possibility for living sustainably?

In the end, as Seidman so eloquently expresses: When we die our headstones seldom read: “SYLVIA JONES, 1960-2042, VP of Strategic Planning & Implementation, made the numbers 16 quarters in a row.  Instead, they say: STAN SMITH, Beloved Husband, Father, Brother, Uncle.  He made the world warmer with his smile.”