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The 4 Universal Approaches to Entrepreneurship

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

In an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurship is being defined by a common set of global principles. Although, what we discuss today, in not how to achieve entrepreneurial success in a global village; we attempt to understand the universal principles that make any entrepreneurship successful, no matter where in the world you are. Learn to recognize an opportunity A successful entrepreneur is one who sees a gap in demand and supply or one who thinks he can supply the best in a market crowded with supplies. The 2010 Forbes Richest Man in the World, is an entrepreneur who pounced on an opportunity. An immigrant in Mexico, Carlos Slim Helú started off with a dry foods store, made money from his real estate investments and then went on to grab the government-run Mexican Telecom Business when it was being privatized in the 1990s. Today, he’s valued at $53.5 Billion, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who, incidentally, also made their riches by learning to recognize opportunities. There are entrepreneurial lessons to come out of the British Royal Wedding too. Catherine Middleton’s mother, Carol Middleton, a stay-at-home mom noticed a huge opportunity in the Kids Party segment in the 70s. The wife of a flight dispatcher, she set up a hugely successful home business that made the family wealthy, propelling them into social circles that would eventually lead to the Royal union. The company, Party Pieces, is currently valued at 30 million pounds. Have you learned to recognize an opportunity yet? Recognize the potential of your idea If you haven’t seen ‘The Social Network’, you’re probably detained in Guantanamo. If you’ve seen it, you’ll definitely remember the bit where Sean Parker talks to Mark Zuckerberg about Roy Raymond. The Stanford Business School grad who wanted to buy lingerie for his wife, was too embarrassed to buy it in a mall where everybody could see him and came up with the idea for Victoria’s Secret, a high-end lingerie store, where men could buy lingerie without feeling like perverts. Unfortunately, he sold his company, and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a few years after. While introducing Mark to Victoria’s Secret models, Sean makes his point to the future billionaire – recognize the potential of your business idea. Universally, if there’s one thing that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from would-have-been success stories is this simple skill to know where an idea can take you. Roy Raymond sold the company he created for 5 million and died when it was worth 500 in a few years, because he failed to recognize the potential of his brainchild. Sean Parker received 7% of Facebook’s stock and is worth $924 million, when he didn’t even come up with the idea. His networth is the result of his genius in being able to recognize the potential of Mark’s idea. Stay Foolish, Stay Motivated If you look at some of the biggest entrepreneurial success stories of our time – Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Google, etc. – these were all begun by crazy guys, dropping out of college, setting up small businesses in garages and setting out to do ridiculous things like compiling the entire data of the internet and writing algorithms to make it easy to sift through this data. But these were men who stayed motivated and stayed foolish. Jeff Bezos started Amazon after a comfortable stint as Vice President at a well-paying Computer Science job. Indeed, not all IT Czars became billionaires at 25! He kept the fire in his belly alive and thought of the Amazon business plan on a cross country drive from New York to Seattle. After working in the plush offices of Wall Street, he risked it all for setting up a company in his garage. Present day billionaire entrepreneurs who started from scratch follow the simple universal approach to entrepreneurship, they stay foolish and motivated, which Steve Jobs put so beautifully in his Stanford graduation speech to deafening applause. These entrepreneurs have defined what it takes to be successful – all you have to do is have enough belief in yourself and continue to put in the effort and work it takes. These guys wouldn’t be at the top of their game, if they weren’t constantly motivating themselves. Follow your passion Jerry Seinfeld is an inspiration to all those artist-entrepreneurs out there. Whether, you’re a writer, a painter or a stand-up comic, Seinfeld shows you that if you’re really good at what you do, there’s no need to trade money for following your passion. Currently valued at $800 Million, Seinfeld retired from television more than a decade ago but continues to rake in the moolah by syndicating his show, Seinfeld. After landing a small role in an HBO series, in the 80s, Seinfeld was fired over creative differences, showing streaks of a classic entrepreneur who doesn’t get along with people. Let’s not forget Steve Jobs was fired from the company he created! He went on to create a pilot for Seinfeld, along with Larry David, and sold the show to NBC. He refused to extend the show by another season, even for 5 million per episode, or take up a Hollywood career after the show ended and instead he continued to be a stand-up comic, making more millions through his shows. The four approaches to entrepreneurship described above are so universal in nature that they can be applied to any business, in any part of the world. They are simple as philosophies, strong as ideas and enduring as steps to entrepreneurial success. Preetam Kaushik is a freelance writer/independent columnist and an avid blogger. He is a web 2.0 expert and writing consultant serving a wide array of clients. Read more about Preetam here .

Tagged as: amazon, british, business, data, entrepreneurship, facebook, game, government, kids, microsoft, success, time, wife

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The 4 Universal Approaches to Entrepreneurship

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

In an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurship is being defined by a common set of global principles. Although, what we discuss today, in not how to achieve entrepreneurial success in a global village; we attempt to understand the universal principles that make any entrepreneurship successful, no matter where in the world you are. Learn to recognize an opportunity A successful entrepreneur is one who sees a gap in demand and supply or one who thinks he can supply the best in a market crowded with supplies. The 2010 Forbes Richest Man in the World, is an entrepreneur who pounced on an opportunity. An immigrant in Mexico, Carlos Slim Helú started off with a dry foods store, made money from his real estate investments and then went on to grab the government-run Mexican Telecom Business when it was being privatized in the 1990s. Today, he’s valued at $53.5 Billion, ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who, incidentally, also made their riches by learning to recognize opportunities. There are entrepreneurial lessons to come out of the British Royal Wedding too. Catherine Middleton’s mother, Carol Middleton, a stay-at-home mom noticed a huge opportunity in the Kids Party segment in the 70s. The wife of a flight dispatcher, she set up a hugely successful home business that made the family wealthy, propelling them into social circles that would eventually lead to the Royal union. The company, Party Pieces, is currently valued at 30 million pounds. Have you learned to recognize an opportunity yet? Recognize the potential of your idea If you haven’t seen ‘The Social Network’, you’re probably detained in Guantanamo. If you’ve seen it, you’ll definitely remember the bit where Sean Parker talks to Mark Zuckerberg about Roy Raymond. The Stanford Business School grad who wanted to buy lingerie for his wife, was too embarrassed to buy it in a mall where everybody could see him and came up with the idea for Victoria’s Secret, a high-end lingerie store, where men could buy lingerie without feeling like perverts. Unfortunately, he sold his company, and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a few years after. While introducing Mark to Victoria’s Secret models, Sean makes his point to the future billionaire – recognize the potential of your business idea. Universally, if there’s one thing that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from would-have-been success stories is this simple skill to know where an idea can take you. Roy Raymond sold the company he created for 5 million and died when it was worth 500 in a few years, because he failed to recognize the potential of his brainchild. Sean Parker received 7% of Facebook’s stock and is worth $924 million, when he didn’t even come up with the idea. His networth is the result of his genius in being able to recognize the potential of Mark’s idea. Stay Foolish, Stay Motivated If you look at some of the biggest entrepreneurial success stories of our time – Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Google, etc. – these were all begun by crazy guys, dropping out of college, setting up small businesses in garages and setting out to do ridiculous things like compiling the entire data of the internet and writing algorithms to make it easy to sift through this data. But these were men who stayed motivated and stayed foolish. Jeff Bezos started Amazon after a comfortable stint as Vice President at a well-paying Computer Science job. Indeed, not all IT Czars became billionaires at 25! He kept the fire in his belly alive and thought of the Amazon business plan on a cross country drive from New York to Seattle. After working in the plush offices of Wall Street, he risked it all for setting up a company in his garage. Present day billionaire entrepreneurs who started from scratch follow the simple universal approach to entrepreneurship, they stay foolish and motivated, which Steve Jobs put so beautifully in his Stanford graduation speech to deafening applause. These entrepreneurs have defined what it takes to be successful – all you have to do is have enough belief in yourself and continue to put in the effort and work it takes. These guys wouldn’t be at the top of their game, if they weren’t constantly motivating themselves. Follow your passion Jerry Seinfeld is an inspiration to all those artist-entrepreneurs out there. Whether, you’re a writer, a painter or a stand-up comic, Seinfeld shows you that if you’re really good at what you do, there’s no need to trade money for following your passion. Currently valued at $800 Million, Seinfeld retired from television more than a decade ago but continues to rake in the moolah by syndicating his show, Seinfeld. After landing a small role in an HBO series, in the 80s, Seinfeld was fired over creative differences, showing streaks of a classic entrepreneur who doesn’t get along with people. Let’s not forget Steve Jobs was fired from the company he created! He went on to create a pilot for Seinfeld, along with Larry David, and sold the show to NBC. He refused to extend the show by another season, even for 5 million per episode, or take up a Hollywood career after the show ended and instead he continued to be a stand-up comic, making more millions through his shows. The four approaches to entrepreneurship described above are so universal in nature that they can be applied to any business, in any part of the world. They are simple as philosophies, strong as ideas and enduring as steps to entrepreneurial success. Preetam Kaushik is a freelance writer/independent columnist and an avid blogger. He is a web 2.0 expert and writing consultant serving a wide array of clients. Read more about Preetam here .

Tagged as: amazon, british, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, family, game, kids, real-estate, success, time, wedding

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How To Be Happy – All The Time

by Paul Joseph July 19, 2011 Featured

Before writing this post, I was unhappy. A lot had happened in the hour since I woke up in the morning! Then I said to myself, “If you’re going to write about always being happy, why not try out what you’re telling others to do?” So I did. It worked. I felt happy. And then, I sat down to write this – for you. Wouldn’t you like to know more about an approach that can take you from being unhappy to being happy – in five minutes or less ? Here it comes… How to be happy – all the time! Why Be Happy? As entrepreneurs, we’re often seized by the “WHY?” question. It’s sheer survival dynamics. If we grab every idea that passes by, we’ll have little time for doing anything. So we look for a compelling reason before taking action. Here’s what being unhappy will affect in our entrepreneurial lives: Efficiency – It’s hard to get motivated to do something well when you’re feeling blue, lonely and hopeless, like it all doesn’t matter. The simplest action seems forbidding and overwhelming. Productivity – Anyone with disgruntled employees understands how significantly this impacts your business. Tiredness, lethargy and lack of focus are all symptoms of unhappiness. Innovation – When was the last time you had a great idea while you felt sad? Me neither. Creativity peaks when the mind is agile, active and stimulated – not when you feel dull or depressed. Fulfillment – Doing something you love and enjoy gives a deeper sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and doing it happily multiplies this feeling. When you’re unhappy, you lose this sense of purpose and achievement. And that’s why you are better off being happy than sad. But happiness has never been available “on tap”, has it? After reading this, you may be surprised! “How Can I Always Be Happy?” There are only TWO ways to be happy all the time. 1. Have Whatever You Want 2. Want Whatever You Have Simple things are usually powerful. Like pithy quotes and short parables, the impact created by basic but universal truths resonate through our lives. The more we think about them, the deeper their message gets. Here’s a simple diagram. I call it the ‘Happiness Paradigm’ . WANT HAVE YES NO NO YES Take a close look at this. Let it sink in fully. Think about it a little. Then, we’ll talk about it some more. Having Whatever You Want This sounds like a nice way to be happy. But let me tell you the story of a Gambler who died. He entered the pearly gates and was given a warm welcome, led to a huge casino, and turned loose. Happily the Gambler played baccarat and the slots. He won, and kept winning. He tried backgammon, roulette and blackjack. It happened over and over. His winnings mounted. He grew more daring. Bet larger amounts. And won again. His excitement mounted – until, after a few hours, he realized that no matter what he did, he was always winning. The Gambler called out to God. God appeared, and asked him: “What can I do for you?” “Listen, Lord, I love being in Heaven, but couldn’t I lose just once in a while?” God looked surprised. “Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea you’re in Heaven?! “ That’s how it can be when you always have whatever you want. Apart from being impractical. Because, let’s face it, no matter who you are, how powerful or influential or networked you may be, there simply is no way you can have everything that you want (or will want in the future). The human state being what it is, whenever we get something we’ve wanted badly, our mind tends to want something more, something better, something different. That’s just the way we are! When you have one decent suit or one pretty dress, you’re happy – for a while. Then, you start wishing you had another. A costlier one. A prettier one. One just like that guy or girl has. Oh, and it would be nicer to have three of them – after all, your friend or neighbor or boss or someone you know does. Before you know, you’re no longer happy with your one nice dress… you’re unhappy about it! Pegging your happiness on such an impossibility as always having whatever you want condemns you from ever enjoying your life. So that’s a dead-end. Let’s look at the alternative. Wanting Whatever You Have This is big. Really BIG! It gives you a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude to everything you already have. Like, maybe two legs! If you have only one leg because you lost the other in an accident, you’re still better off than the guy who has none because he was born with a birth defect. If you’re having something you don’t like for lunch or dinner, you’re still lucky – because many folks don’t have ANY kind of food to eat. If you come from a broken family, or are going through divorce, or struggling at work, you’re still the envy of someone who doesn’t have what you’re unhappy about having… a family, a spouse, a job, anything! Here’s another story. This is about a billionaire. He lost a fortune when the stock market crashed. Almost overnight, his personal wealth dropped by $300 million. Ouch! He was so upset by what happened that he committed suicide. He chose to die because he lost $300 million. He could have chosen to live – because he still had $700 million ! Yes, this is an extreme example of how perceptions can be distorted to keep us unhappy. You may not lose $300 million… but you don’t have to in order to understand this message. On a smaller scale, this is representative of everyone’s life – including yours and mine. We refuse to acknowledge and appreciate our generous blessings and gifts that a kind destiny has showered upon us . Our lives. Our bodies. Our minds. Our intellect. Our upbringing. Our necessities. Our little (or big) luxuries. Our friends and family. We ignore them all – and focus instead upon the things we don’t have… but want. That makes us unhappy. You Can Choose To Be Happy You have a choice – to decide to want whatever you have. That changes everything. And it leaves you happy – all the time. It’s better still, because now YOU have all the control over your state of happiness. You can choose how to react to what’s around you. To what you have. To what you don’t have. You can decide to feel regret, frustration and anger at all the burdens Life dumps on your weary shoulders. Or you can see it all from a different perspective – and appreciate, nurture and treasure everything anyway… because it’s more than some others have (or ever will). Since writing this post, I’ve had a chance to view this exact mindset in action – by a good friend and role model who recently faced a disaster in his personal life, and is dealing with it like a champ . This friend is a guy you know and love too. It’s Yaro Starak – read his post “ The Day My Life Changed ” – then think over this message again. Won’t That Kill Any Ambition? This post you’re reading came about from a discussion with my little girl on a long drive to the railway station. After listening to me quietly, she asked: “If I’m happy with whatever I have, won’t I lose any ambition to improve? I’d just stagnate, and waste my talents!” “Not necessarily” I replied. And explained. Even as you’re happy with all that you have, you can choose to be happier if you get something else. That new ‘something’ now becomes desirable, motivating you towards it, fuelling change… but with a difference. You’ll always succeed at everything you try – even before you begin. Because in one sense, success is about being happy about whatever you do . And being perfectly happy exactly where you are, with only the upside potential of being happier still if and when you attain your new goal, you are already successful! It’s a frame, for sure. But an intelligent frame for your goals and targets. True, being unhappy or dissatisfied with where they are in life is usually a powerful motivator for some people to seek to change. Unfortunately, the mindset of discontent usually persists in whatever new, altered life they attain – so they end up being unhappy somewhere else, with someone else, or something else. Let me tell you one MORE story to illustrate… The Wisdom of A Gatekeeper A man arrived at the outskirts of a village, and was stopped by the gatekeeper. “What do you want here?” he asked. “I’ve left my village and am looking for a new place to live. Tell me, what kind of people live here?” The gatekeeper stared at him for a long moment, and then asked: “What kind of people lived in your village?” The man thought for a moment: “Oh, they were the worst. Cheats. Liars. Small minded people. I hated it all. That’s why I left.” The gatekeeper looked sad. “You’ll find the people here just the same.” The man shook his head in disappointment, turned around, and walked away. A few hours later, another traveller arrived at the same village for the same reason. Again the gatekeeper asked him: “What kind of people lived in your village?” “Oh, they were wonderful folks. Kind, generous, warm-hearted. I didn’t want to leave. I wish I could have stayed forever!” The gatekeeper said: “You’ll find the people here just the same.” He opened the gate and smiled as he welcomed him in. This is a powerful story – because it’s so true. The world ‘outside’ is just a reflection of the world ‘inside’ us. It’s like a mirror, projecting back to us the attitude, feelings and worldview we have adopted and developed over years. When we try to alter our inner state of happiness by focusing on external events or possessions or people, it usually fails. Lasting change can only begin on the inside. By the way we think, feel and view our reality. And then, almost magically, the same things manifest on the outside. Within each of us lies the seed of our personal greatness. We already have everything inside us to attain it. We have the power to always be happy. To the extent that we seize our opportunities and maximize our potential, we will fulfill our greatness And be happy as we do. But when, instead, we obsess over other people’s achievements, or what they have that we don’t, we tend to lose our inner balance, grow unhappy and desire change for the sake of it – which never brings deep, inner joy. We end up shifting the arena, never the game. Instead, play the game. Play to win. Aim to be happy… no matter what. Dr. Mani . Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: game, goals, personal, power, success, young

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7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Give Up on the Dream

by Paul Joseph July 1, 2011 Featured

The way of the entrepreneur is fraught with danger. You’ve got to climb mountains of skepticism and cross chasms of underfunding, where beneath you the skeletons of ill-fated startups lie… and there’s only that thin rope of your own determination keeping you up there, alive. Nobody said being an entrepreneur was easy, but I bet some days you didn’t expect it would be quite so hard. You probably didn’t expect you’d be reading words like “fraught” either. Life is just full of little surprises like that. So you’re struggling along; maybe you’re at a low point, believing you really are crazy for dreaming. Maybe that nine-to-fiver is looking really good right about now. Maybe you’re tired of being so dang determined, you’d like to have a real day off, and you’re thinking,  Really, is a normal job that bad? Well, no, it usually isn’t. But you shouldn’t take it anyway. Here’s why: 1. You’re reading this article… this one, about holding on to the dream of entrepreneurship, of success on your own terms, of something besides the job you could be working in right now. You’re looking for a reason to stay in the game, and that’s reason enough. If you didn’t really care, you’d have quit already. 2. You fear failure at this – this venture, this small business, this one-man shop, this entrepreneurial craziness – more than anything else you’ve attempted. You wake up at night afraid you can’t do it…. which just means that you really, really want to be able to do it. Fear is a normal part of risk. Failure is a necessary part of success. You don’t fear failing at what you don’t care about. 3. It’s not about the money. Sure, you’d like the money. Sometimes you think it’s about the money. But you know it’s not. Not for you. 4. A big part of your difficulty is all the new great ideas you keep having while you’re still in the preliminary stages of getting that first great idea off the ground. Ideas are like food for you. You live them, breathe them, love them. They’re also your nemesis, because the fun of ideas can keep you from the imperative of action. If that’s a problem for you, it’s just further proof that your entrepreneurial heart is beating strong. It just needs a little discipline, a little focus, a little bit of you setting boundaries to take one idea  all the way before you jump to the next one. 5. You’re really afraid you’re not qualified for this whole entrepreneurial thing. Maybe you don’t have an MBA, or a business degree, or a degree at all. Maybe business jargon sounds like Klingon to you (or maybe you speak Klingon better than you speak business jargon). You keep thinking someone will figure out that you’re a fraud, that you’re not qualified, that you don’t know exactly, precisely, at all what you’re doing.  But you’re still here doing it, aren’t you? Congratulations; you’ve just met the preliminary requirement for being an entrepreneur. 6. The phrase “work-life balance” is essentially meaningless to you. That doesn’t mean you’re a workaholic, exactly… though that may not be far off. But what it really means is that work is an important part of your real life, not just a separated, specialized segment of it. It’s not just what you do for a living, it’s an essential part of who you are as a person. 7. You keep trying to talk yourself out of this risky business. Freelancing, consulting, or working from home? A start-up? Venture capital? Business plans? Presentations? Risks, and prototypes, and meetings, and marketing, and more presentations; clients, cold calls, sales strategies, late hours, working weekends… Life would be so much simpler, so much easier if you could just let yourself quit. Here’s a secret for you: people who don’t want to be entrepreneurs  aren’t entrepreneurs. They don’t talk themselves out of it, because they never even consider getting into it. But you did, and here you are. Why? Because it’s who you are, and who you want to be. Sometimes you wish you could change that, but here’s another secret you already know: even if you could change that part of yourself, you wouldn’t, because you know you’d die of boredom doing anything else. Stay in the game. You’re a real player, and this game needs real players. Annie Mueller enjoys creating a personal yet professional voice to render complex topics understandable. Her passion is helping home, small, and micro businesses succeed. Read more about Annie here .

Tagged as: become an entrepreneur, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, game, money, small-business

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Kerwin Rae Explains How To Maintain Optimal Flow For Peak Performance

by Paul Joseph June 12, 2011 Featured

Hello once again fellow entrepreneur. Today we have a very interesting article based on an interview I had with Kerwin Rae last week. For all those who have been reading this column from the beginning, you will notice that Kerwin has already appeared twice previously, once in an article on Creativity and Influence and the other on Inspirational Leadership . In one of the articles, I mentioned seeing Kerwin presenting in such a powerful state of flow , that he literally seemed to have the audience in the palm of his hand . I found out later that he made around a million dollars from that 90 minute presentation, which exemplifies how powerful congruency and flow are in relation to our business. When I asked Kerwin about this accomplishment, he told me it has taken about ten years to get to that level of expertise in his presenting skills. This lead us to discuss something I have heard him reiterate numerous times, that success is never an overnight phenomenon , and it’s always the long distance runners who win in the end. Endurance Beats Speed Kerwin went on to say that in many areas of business, you hear people talking about overnight success, but business and wealth creation needs to be committed to for the long term. Kerwin has studied wealth creation for decades. The penny dropped after one of his mentors asked him to read the BRW Rich 200 and start studying billionaires , rather than listening to people who talk about making money. He noticed all these guys were 50+, and only started to really crack money game in the mid 40’s. He also noticed that a lot of them were 60, 70 and 80 years of age. At that point, it really hit Kerwin that if he wanted to figure this out and do it properly, he needed to let go, relax, do the work and realize it was going to take some time. One of the most useful things Kerwin uses to keep his mind in the right place for wealth creation is to keep his expectations in the short term realistic and stay focused on the long-term goal . Staying focused on the game for life, not moment to moment, keeps him in the state of relaxation and flow he needs to keep jumping his business to higher levels. What is particularly fascinating about this is that Kerwin has cracked the game of wealth and business at a level many people only dream of, those who attain this degree of success in business, often do so much later in life. (I can’t be quoted on this, but I think Kerwin is the same age as me, and that’s mid-thirties.)  But he did this by shifting his focus, working smarter not harder, and learning how to maintain a state of coherence and flow within himself, and as we shall see in the next paragraph, without the latter, none of it would have been possible. That is fascinating! I think that equation could be worth noting for all of us. How A Life Threatening Situation Led To Greater Coherence In his early thirties, Kerwin suffered a massive stroke, he told me that the stroke turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of his life. To explain this, he went on to cite the difference between elite athletes and business people. If you look at most business people, it’s almost a complete reverse model to an athletes model, we spend 80% of our time competing in our business, maybe 5% training, and if we’re lucky, 15% in rest and recuperation. This is actually a burn out model, and Kerwin said he has burned out many occasions. One of the techniques Kerwin had to learn was moderating his energy levels . Like many business people, he used to become quite intense and run on adrenaline in his activities. Much like the sprinter, he was very effective very quickly, but suffered from exhaustion because of maintaining such an obsessive focus. The greatest tool Kerwin found for moderating his energy levels and finding flow was something called “ Heart Math ”. Heart Math is based on the science of neurocardiology, which concentrates on the messaging system between the heart and the brain. Various meditation and spiritual disciplines create an alignment between the brain and the heart. Heart math is a scientific approach to accessing and accomplishing these same results. Heart Math focuses on coherence, helping people find a channel or a link between chaos and coherence as quickly as possible in stressful situations. Ultimately, it trains us to recognize coherence as a state being and access it on demand. Heart Math has played a phenomenal role in Kerwin’s life, especially in his recovery from stroke. For three months after his stroke, Kerwin had no short-term memory, and he would be grappling to remember things constantly. He said it was like torture to live in this state for three months. But one of the things heart math gave him was the ability to access information that was not neurologically based. So when Kerwin became panicked at not remembering things, he found he could use heart math to access the information, it would just come to him without him having to remember it. This happened through the process of aligning his heart and brain, so he could access information without having to use his brain to think about or remember the answer, it was more like using intuitive memory . Heart math has enabled Kerwin to bring focus to his heart in stressful situations, and put his heart back into a coherent state, which then sends messages to his mind, then through the rest of his body to return to a state of relaxation and flow for optimal performance. When we relax, we give ourselves the ability to find flow. This is often the missing link when we are trying to be successful in our work, we’re so intense and focused, we can lose the natural flow that is there for us. The Curious Case Of Our Inner Oracle Kerwin explains that the heart sends 16 times more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart, our heart is communicating to the brain constantly . Our heart perceives information in the environment well before the brain does, and it communicates that information directly to the brain. Using heart math is one way to get access to information that is available in the environment to everyone, but very few people are tuned in to it . As many of you will have read in my previous articles, I talk a lot about using play to access creativity, and how our creativity gives us the ability to access information that is not present to the senses, in other words, it’s intuitive knowledge . What is particularly interesting about this is until my conversation with Kerwin last week, I’d never heard of Heart Math, but a very weird thread of similarity ran through the things he spoke about and what I wrote about in my book on creativity. My first book was literally written from my intuition, I even say in the introduction: “I would often go in search of this book in the outer world, asking people if they knew of a book like one that was already imprinted in my own heart.” Of course, I researched and cited the work of many leading authorities and scientists on play and creativity in the text, but the information I intuitively knew was only being reinforced by their findings. The reason I’m telling you this is to show you that we all have access to our intuition , and the information is already sitting in our environment waiting for us to pick up on it. The trick is finding whatever works for you to access this and then doing it. Both Kerwin and I are on the same page about the heart being the crucial instrument we need to get connected and coherent with in order to make this happen. The more open our heart is, the more open we are to intuition , then the challenge is to have that information transported to the brain and interpreted in a way that we can receive it clearly. That’s where coherence comes in. How Coherence Gives Us An Edge In Business We need to create coherence within the communication system, and then be able to recognize the information that’s being sent as different from our thoughts or ego. Kerwin teaches Heart Math in his program, Power to Create . During the program, people find out how to read other people’s intentions, so we can pick up on people’s intentions in any scenario. Our heart can receive information, but it can also send information. This may sound a bit unusual, but the truth is, we’re all doing it all the time in our lives anyway. We may not be doing this consciously or effectively, because we have not consciously aligned our heart and brain frequencies for coherence. Kerwin explains that our heart has the most enormous amount of charge compared to any other part of our body. Every time it beats that pulse, it goes through the entire body, the thumping of the heart acts as a regulator, regulating the entire body organism . He goes on to say that we’re constantly giving off heat in the form of photons . Our body is literally producing light, and depending on what we’re doing and thinking, our body is producing different levels of light. Every time our heart beats, it is imprinting information on the photons that are leaving our body. So whatever we hold in our hearts is being communicated to the rest of the environment. Kerwin says that 85% to 95% of the time in his Power to Create program, people can read into situations, events, occurrences in people’s lives just by putting themselves into a state of coherence. The applications for this in our business are phenomenal . Most successful business people I know work from gut feeling and intuition when deciding on potential business partners. Sir Richard Branson says he knows within a few seconds of meeting someone whether or not he will do business with them, this is based on intuitive knowledge. By sensing another person’s intentions and level of coherence, we can decide immediately whether or not the other person’s intentions are coherent with our own. Again, we all do this sometimes; none of us would do business with someone who didn’t “feel right” to us. It isn’t rocket science, it’s just common sense. Unfortunately, we’ve been trained to ignore or discount our intuition when really, if we are tuned into it properly, it’s a far more accurate method of discernment than relying only on material data alone. (There is an entire article in this that I could write on marketing and perception management, but I’ll leave that for another time ) This article has blown out to being much longer than I’d planned, and I haven’t even come to the end of the information I transcribed from Kerwin’s interview! As much as I love this topic, I’ll have to finish up here and continue with this in another article. I hope the information shared by Kerwin has created some new insights and avenues of thought for you, and as I’m sure you can tell, he has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. Kerwin travels all over the world doing presentations, trainings and workshops, and if you would like to find out more about his work, check out his website for details. Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your comments at the end. Cheers, Neroli. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, business, environment, game, life, mind, online, person, power, thoughts

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Get Answers to these 8 Questions Before You Join a Startup

by Paul Joseph May 18, 2011 Featured

If you really want to impress a startup founder as a potential employee, or you want to be a smart investor, you need to know the right questions to ask. These are the questions that get past the hype of a founder’s “vision to change the world,” and into the realm of real business strengths, weaknesses, and current health. Some founders try to deflect these questions by talking incessantly, so you often need to be calm, patient, and persistent to get the answers. My advice to founders out there is to not volunteer too much, but be open and honest in the face of direct questions like the following: 1. What is your burn rate and runway today? These are investor slang terms referring to how fast money is being spent, with an implicit question of how long the startup can survive before breakeven or another cash infusion is required.  You need to know this as a future employee, since it probably gates how long your new job will last.  If the runway is less than six months, with no new source signed, both you and the startup are at risk. 2. How much “skin” is already in the game? The intent of this question is to determine the level of commitment of founders, both cash and “sweat equity,” and how much others have already invested into this plan. Implicit in the analysis of the answers is how much progress has been made for the investment, and how stable the business is now. 3. What’s the total history of this company? Gaps in the history of a startup are big red flags, just like gaps in your resume.  If the company was incorporated five years ago, and is still in early stages, with the same founding team, chances are slim that it will suddenly get back on track with you as an employee, or you as an investor. 4. How well do the founders get along with each other, and with the team? The smartest people are often the most eccentric, so some conflict in the ranks is normal. Excessive conflict, lack of communication, or lack of mutual respect is indicative of a dysfunctional team, and eventual failure of the startup.  You won’t get this answer from the founder, but it’s not hard to get it by talking to other team members. 5. What’s in this deal for me? Investing in a startup, or joining a startup, is always a very big risk, so the potential return better be large.  As an employee, you salary will likely be low, your job security low, so the job title better be large, and the stock options better be large.  As an investor, look for an ROI that is 10x your initial investment, based on something more than a dream from the founder. What traction can be measured today? 6. Who do you have as outside board members? The only true outside board or advisory members are not family members, not current investors, but are experienced entrepreneurs with deep knowledge and connections in the relevant business area.  They should be asking to speak to you if you are a potential investor or a superstar hire.  If you talk to them, they better know the answers to the previous questions. 7. Who is a real customer that I can talk to? Real customers are ones who have paid full price for the product, have it installed and in use, and are still satisfied. Free trials don’t count, betas don’t count, and “excited about the potential” doesn’t count. If there are no customers yet, when will the product ship, and how many times has the date been set? 8. How solid is the intellectual property? Provisional patents, or lawsuits pending, don’t add up to a strong sustainable competitive advantage.  You need to know these things before you put your money on the table, or bet your career and your family’s future on this startup. Again, I’m not suggesting that you go on the attack to get answers to these questions.  But don’t let management divert you with comments on your failure to understand “the vision and the big picture.”  If you are a potential employee, it probably makes sense to get the job offer first before you tackle some of these, always staying calm and assertive. In the parlance of an investor, asking these questions and getting answers is the heart of that mysterious “due diligence” process.  Now you know. If you are a potential employee, you need to do the same due diligence before you sign on.  Every good founder will have done the same on you, before they make you an offer. Martin Zwilling is the founder and chief executive officer of Startup Professionals, a company that provides products and services to start-up founders and small business owners. Read more about Marty here .

Tagged as: answers, business, entrepreneur, game, potential, product

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If You Haven’t Shredded Your Marketing Plan by Now – It’s Time!

by Paul Joseph May 3, 2011 Featured

Shred your marketing plan? Are we advocating doing away with marketing plans? No. Shred it and start over! Unless your marketing plan was created within the last two years, it is obsolete and needs to be reborn. It used to be that a good marketing plan could carry your company for years without a lot of changes. The promos, designs, and approach might have changed from time to time, but the tactics could remain fairly stagnant and still be effective. That time is gone. The rules of the game have changed. So if you’re still using an old marketing plan, shred it, toss it out the window, burn it, or whatever you have to do to start fresh. What has Changed? Because of the emergence of Web 2.0(+) and the massive popularity of social media, the way people buy has changed dramatically. It’s always been true that word of mouth affected buying decisions, but as a consumer you used to have to rely on family and friends for this, and they might not have had any experience with what you were thinking of purchasing. Now there is scarcely a product or company that exists that you can’t find reviews or comments about online. Product and service review sites like Yelp , Angie’s List , Epinions , and others have made word of mouth take on a whole new meaning. Add the hundreds of millions of vocal Facebook and Twitter users to the mix, and it’s clear that you’d better look at marketing in a whole new way than you did just a few years ago, or you’ll be left in the dust. 3 Key Factors that Affect Today’s Marketing There are some specific factors that have changed the landscape for buyers and therefore have made old-style marketing obsolete, and new marketing the way to go. Here are three of them: 1. It’s not in the Eyeballs. It used to be that a marketing campaign’s success hinged on how many people you could get to see it – or number of impressions. TV and radio ratings, reflecting how many people tuned in, and print media’s readership rates were usually the biggest factors in deciding where to place your ad dollars. In the social media world, impressions matter, but not nearly as much as engagement and interaction. With social media marketing, it doesn’t matter that you have 100,000 Twitter followers or 80,000 Facebook fans if you aren’t doing what’s necessary to pull them in and convert them to buyers. Today, buying decisions are based more on trust and genuine engagement than ever before. Quality over quantity is where it’s at now. 2. Crowd Power – Disruption marketing, as it is often called, refers to the marketing tactic of shoving your product in front of the faces of your target market to get them to notice you. It is “push marketing.” You push out your message over and over, and people will ultimately buy. In the world of social media, we’re dealing with “pull marketing.” It isn’t a matter of getting your marketing message out; it’s about reputation and relationships. Today, your level of customer care is the most important marketing tool you have. Take great care of your customers, and the crowd will reward you. Provide a bad experience, and tens of thousands of people could know about it in minutes! 3. Free is Profitable – Companies have been using “giveaways” to draw in customers for decades, but the “freemium” model of today is something completely new. Giving to get is not just common in the social media world – to a large degree, it’s expected . And we’re not talking trinkets or a pen with your logo on it. People expect companies to provide real value before they decide to become a customer. This doesn’t have to cost the company anything, but it does have to be of value to the prospective buyer. For instance, a blog, white paper, e-book, or free consultation can provide genuine value for little or no investment. But be careful. If your “consultation” is nothing more than a sales pitch, or if your e-book is a multi-page ad for your products, you’ll do more harm than good. How has your marketing plan changed over the last few years? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tagged as: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, game, internet marketing, marketing, marketing-strategies, power, small-business, social

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How My Facebook And YouTube Profiles Led To An Invitation To Become A High Paid Speaker

by Paul Joseph May 2, 2011 Featured

Greetings once more Entrepreneurs! I’m going off on a tangent today about engaging in the world of social media to build your profile, build your brand and grow your business . This is a topic we’re all pretty savvy about as online entrepreneurs, because we’re all doing it, and most of us will have experienced some success with it. I’m writing this post to share with you just how extraordinary the power of social media has been for me in my own business, and specifically to let you know that if I can do this anyone can ! In regard to the above statement, I have to explain, I’m not an expert in social media, and my computer skills are questionable . I don’t have huge numbers of followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook , and none of my YouTube videos have gone viral. But I’ve still been able to use it to launch me to a level of connection and communication with people who I would LOVE to be associated with and do business with! These are individuals I consider to be the best in the world in my field. To me, the power of social media is mind blowing! Even more exciting is, as aforementioned, if I can do this, anyone can . What Are These Results, And How Did I Get Them? Let’s start with Facebook and YouTube . I was asked recently to be represented by a speaker’s bureau. This business books speakers around the world, with the lowest fee bracket being 7,500 Euro. But most of the speakers are in the “more than 30,000 Euro, or the, ‘better pm the bureau, it’s going to cost you a fortune’ bracket” – aka, Sir Richard Branson, Lance Armstrong, Jimmy Carter, Sir Bob Geldoff, Nobel laureates, Spice Girls, Supermodels , etc. To be offered an opportunity to be represented by this bureau is pretty exciting for me, and it came through social media. A representative of the bureau saw my videos on YouTube, checked out my website, befriended me on Facebook and the rest is history. I couldn’t have imagined this simple sequence of events in my wildest dreams…Well, maybe that’s not true, because all of our creations come from our intentions, so I guess I did dream it on some level…getting esoteric and off-topic, quick, back to business! What this does for my business in both financial terms and profile building is incredible. I’ve asked to put my presence on the speaker’s bureau on hold until July, after I’ve completed some intensive speaking and presenting training. I have plenty of speaking and presenting experience, and I love it, but if I’m playing at the level of their other speakers, I need to make sure I can be in the game with some professional training and tweaking. Astounding Outcomes From Twitter And Facebook The other astounding outcome from my social media adventures was being interviewed for an upcoming book on creativity, but this is not just any book as far as my work is concerned. The author, Sir Ken Robinson , is considered the world’s foremost expert on creativity . I’ve referenced him plenty of times before in both my book and my posts . This opportunity came via Twitter and Facebook . I responded to a tweet then followed through with a facebook message. I was contacted by his co-author for an interview a day later. I was so shocked, I nearly feel off my chair! Sir Ken’s co-author, Lou Aronica has interviewed people all around the world for the upcoming book. It’s due out in July, and it’s about how different people access their creativity or find their Element . If you can imagine your own level of excitement at being interviewed for a book by the one person in the world whose work you love the most, and who is the biggest name in your niche , then you can probably get how buzzed I was about this. Being a writer though, I’m aware that passages can end up on the editing room floor, so fingers crossed this doesn’t happen to mine! Creativity And Social Media As far as how this post is related to creativity, I’ll be very brief on this because it’s covering old ground. When you look at the play personalities that guide us to how we express our creativity , there is one in particular that loves to connect and communicate with others , it’s the Director. I’ve got a fairly strong Director element in the way I love to play, and I’ve noticed a lot of women do. It’s an intriguing correlation to observe the amount of women who use social media and get amazing results from it , and I’m pretty sure this is due to social media being a perfect platform for the Director play personality to get their groove on in myriad ways to connect and communicate with others . Getting active in social media has been one of the most amazing ways to make contacts, build business and public profile for me. There’s no silver bullet needed to get similar results in your own business. But there is one thing I know for sure that helps, it’s congruency, consistency and being in the right place at the right time with the right information . Those last three things might sound like impossible aspects to have any control over, but the truth is, you create that for yourself. When you are congruent and consistent with who you are , and what you offer to the world, you magnetize opportunities to you like some kind of master alchemist in full swing. I said before there was no silver bullet, I take it back. There is, it’s got Facebook, Twitter and YouTube written all over it, and anyone can do it? Many thanks for reading and I’d love to hear of your own social media adventures or insights. Cheers, Neroli. P.S. All of these opportunities happened in the last three months. For me, social media has been one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to build my profile , build my brand and grow my business . I hope you find ways to make this as fun and useful a tool in your own business. P.P.S. Terry, Kara, Rob and any other readers who have expressed particular interest the creative process, I’ve posted an article on my site that goes further into the element of the unconscious or superconscious role in the creative process. I was writing it for Entrepreneurs Journey, but I realized it’s getting a bit off the topic of creativity in business and it also gets a bit left field and esoteric when we start journeying into the unknown. I decided I’d better not subject the E-J audience to an entire article on this, so if you’d like to see what else I’ve dug up on the more unusual aspects of creativity, pop over there to have a look Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, creativity, entrepreneur profiles, game, internet, mindset, power, social-networking, youtube

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How To Be Creative At Work

by Paul Joseph April 4, 2011 Featured

In this article, we’re looking at how each of our play personalities can be utilized in our work environment to access our creativity. If you are familiar with the two articles posted recently on creativity enhancing techniques, you will find that some of these techniques are included here, but looking at some which specifically suit each play personality. There’s also a completely new creative problem solving technique mentioned and a link to Dan Roam’s book which covers it in detail. An important thing to note, exactly how each person finds ways to utilize their play personalities to enhance their creative thinking and innovation in the work place is going to require some self-reflection and self-discovery, as I’ve said, it’s an inside job. Obviously, our unique creative expression is unique, so no one else can figure this out but you☺. One more thing before we go on, if you find that the work you do is completely at odds with your play personalities, or you can’t find any ways to bring play into your role, then I’d say you’re in a very incongruent line of work. I’m not an advocate of doing rash things like quitting jobs or changing careers abruptly, it’s just the more I research this, the more I find that when our work incorporates some aspects of our preferred way to play, the more productive, motivated and happy we are. This also means we will be more successful, and have a blast while we’re at it! So, we’re going to go through the different play personalities from Dr. Stuart Brown’s work, and look at how each one can be incorporated in a work situation. We’ll cover four in this article and the final four in next week’s article. Most of us will be naturally drawn to the roles best suited to our play personalities and already be utilizing them in our work anyway, so we’re really just drawing attention to this. The Joker – Who Has The Last Laugh? As we know from a previous article , the Joker is a very handy character to have around in any environment, work, family or social, and this play personality is well suited to just about any work place. Obviously, making jokes, playing pranks and generally goofing around is the access point for these characters and their creativity. Luckily for the Joker, this can be done quite easily in a work environment without raising too many eyebrows. Unless of course, your joker gets carried away and creates havoc with their kidding around. What makes us laugh is often balanced on a very fine line between okay and going too far. Jokers dance along this line constantly and when they feel like it, bulldoze right across it just for the amusement of watching the fallout. At work, jokers can play quietly in their own minds by creating amusing scenarios from whatever they’re observing, they can share their jokes with others verbally, through body language or even make funny facial expressions to co-workers in a form of silent comedy. Posting a funny cartoon on a work notice board or emailing it to co-workers is a way of engaging this play personality. Our joker is not engaged in laser like focus whilst conceiving these various funny activities, instead they slip into the soft focus of creative thinking. They’re experiencing the seven elements of play we looked at last week , including being in their zone, improvising, etc. Usually, a joker is unable to keep anything that may cause a potential laugh to themselves, because in sharing, they get even more joy from it. Sharing the joke creates the connection with others that makes this play personality such a valuable asset in a work place. Engaging others in this kind of collective play can also shift people’s focus and release stress and tension very effectively. How It Works At The Office We’ve discussed mental priming previously , it’s one of the creativity enhancement techniques that is a great tool for Jokers in accessing creative insights. Using our imagination is key here! Take the problem and imagine it from every single humorous angle you can. Like making a mental movie in the form of a comedy, to a side-splitting verbal portrayal of the issue like a stand-up comedian, or a funny physical expression of it in your face or body. As you play these out in your mind, notice if any of these exercises lead you to possible solutions to the problem, or even new avenues to explore to find the solution. Another option is to let the problem rest at the edges of your mind and immerse yourself fully in some form of kidding around, then come back to it later and see if any new insights have surfaced. Our creative play very rarely gives us the answer to our problem on a silver platter; it gifts us significant hints and insights which then require our focused attention to discover the meaning and method in these little gems of wisdom. The Kinesthete – The Movers And Shakers This play personality can also fit easily into almost any work environment, although they are particularly suited to ones which are related to physical activity, like health and fitness, sports, dance, performance etc. Because this personality gets into a play state by physically moving their bodies, this can be a little trickier in an office environment. Just getting up and walking to get a glass of water is not going to be enough to get a Kinesthete in a physical play state, but walking around even a little helps them to shift focus and hits the mini-refresh button . I have a friend whose work incorporates exercise as part of the work environment by getting a personal trainer in a few times a week. Anyone who has managed their work so that they can leave their desk for the hour can go and do an intense session at the expense of the company. Another option is making lunch breaks flexible so people are able to do something physical like a gym session or yoga class halfway through the day. For a kinesthete, this can be a great help if they need to get a blast of fresh energy and rush of blood to the head. How It Doesn’t Work At The Office For a Kinesthete to access their creative play state, they need to be able to move in whatever way they most easily slip into their zone. Again, not going to be easy in an office environment, we can’t bust out our moves to “Thriller” or start reeling through yoga sun salutes at work. The only way the Kinesthete is going to be able to access their play state through movement at work is if the job entails physical movement or allows for it somehow during breaks or by incorporating it like I mentioned above. There are two creativity enhancement techniques that work well for the Kinesthete, both involving mental priming. But they will need a very flexible work environment or will have to do these outside of work hours. The idea is to cram as much as you can on the topic of your inquiry, then go and do something that completely immerses you in another mental space whilst physically engaging your body. This mental space can be one of two things. It can be space where you are still able to contemplate the problem you are working on, but only have it floating vaguely around the edges of your consciousness and then allow yourself to get into flow whilst doing whatever physical activity you love. Observe if, during or after the activity, any new insights have surfaced. The other mental space allows for no further contemplation of the problem at all during the physical activity. For example, one of our readers, Matt, goes rock climbing. If he tries to think of anything else he’s going to lose his footing, so his mental space allows for nothing but total focus and presence on the task at hand. At the end of the activity, observe if any new insights have surfaced. These techniques are the kinesthetes way of “listening to the quiet girl/guy in the room”, in which you totally engage your conscious mind with something and give the unconscious space to share it’s insights. An added bonus for the kinesthetes creativity enhancement is that if they’re exercising outside in a natural environment, studies have shown that both plants and the color green increase our creative thinking – huzzah! The Explorer – The Forefront of Discovery And Innovation Explorers show up in any area of life, someone who embraces this play personality fully is usually at the forefront of innovation in their chosen field because of their intense curiosity and desire to explore new frontiers (quite a lot has been written about this common character trait in some of our most recognized leaders in business, and it’s really worth knowing about so I’ll do an article just on this at a later date.) The explorer play personality can be engaged on numerous levels, mental, physical, emotional or spiritual. Mental exploration loves researching, reading, spending time pondering new possibilities, and pushing the limits of common knowledge and constantly questioning it. Physical exploration needs to be more hands-on, like a typical explorer who ventures into ice capped mountains or sweltering jungles. It can also be like an engineer or an artist, engaging their explorer play personality by physically exploring the possibilities of the medium and materials they’re working with. Emotional exploration can involve any form of research and learning about, or contemplation and experience of our emotional and psychological landscape. This can be done through short courses, formal study or personal inquiry through experience and reading, research, and contemplation. Spiritual exploration can involve all aspects of the first three, it can be a mental, emotional or physical experience, but the person is exploring through the lense of understanding themselves and life from a spiritual perspective. This form of exploration can incorporate all of the others because any activity can be used as a form of spiritual exploration whether it’s reading, yoga, meditation, washing the dishes, building a business or catching the bus. It can be quite easy for an explorer to access creativity and innovation as they are naturally curious , and curiosity is an extremely important aspect of creativity. When explorers can connect the work with some form of exploration and engage their play personality, it’s easy to shift into explorer mode and get into the state of flow where creative insights are more available. Because the explorer is often using their mental and imaginative faculties in their play, they can engage their play personality at work a lot more easily than some of the others. The Trick Is… The trick is for explorers to look at any problem or issue they’re faced with and then imagine exploring the problem from their preferred perspective, whether it’s from an emotional, mental or spiritual perspective. That means, if you are an explorer, and you know how you already engage this aspect of your play personality, use these same exploration techniques that get you into a play state to problem solve, whatever gets you in that state of flow. This could be reading, researching, personal experience or reflection and contemplation. If this play personality can turn a creative problem solving issue into a grand exploratory adventure, then chances are they’ll engage easily with it and enjoy the process . If you like to explore physically, it helps if you can add a physical component to your work, so you can tangibly explore things, this means being able to physically manipulate the different components of a problem. If you can’t add a tangible component to your problem solving, imagining physically pulling apart the problem and laying all the parts out in front of you and perhaps re-assembling it, or seeing what else can be made from the separate elements, can help. Drawing basic symbols on a piece of paper helps with this process, this can be an amazing tool for accessing new insights and creative problem solving . If using symbols and images sounds like a useful tool, there’s a great book by Dan Roam, called, “ The Back Of The Napkin .” It’s all about solving problems and selling ideas with pictures. It’s a brilliant resource , and for all you Seth Godin fans , Seth gives it a big thumbs up. The Competitor – Playing to Win We’ve discussed this play personality in detail in a previous article , and we know Competitors play to win, and usually do. In order for a competitor to access the play state of optimal flow , they need to turn things into a competition. Doing this keeps them engaged, and gives them something to strive for, it gives them a clearly defined goal. Competitors are very good at reaching goals and maintaining laser like focus when it comes to reaching those goals, but creativity often requires dropping into what I call a “soft focus”. That is, slipping into a holistic way of thinking rather than linear and sequential, the latter is the realm of clearly defined goals and winning and losing. The trick for the competitor play personality is to get into a play state in whatever they’re competing at. As long as a competitor can make it a game, and play authentically, the hard edge of competition and laser like focus can give way to the fluid form of creative play . This play personality can easily be engaged in the work place, as anything can be turned into a playful competition. How I Play At Work I’m not highly competitive, but it’s fun to play and I run my own funny little competition with this weekly column. Every week, I check the number of article Facebook shares and retweets, and comments and see if I can “beat” the other writers. Of course, this is ludicrous competition, because I haven’t got a lot of control over whether or not I “win”. My competition relies a lot on the whim of readers and if they feel like sharing the article or dropping me a line at the end of the article. Of course, I have some influence, if I wrote something totally boring or absolutely amazing , the response rate is affected. But the whole thing is just a fun game for me, the point of my seemingly pointless exercise is to put me in a play state when I’m sitting at my computer, as well as giving me some feedback on what’s interesting to the audience and what isn’t. One of these days, I’ll write such a brilliant article, I might even “beat” Yaro in the “race” (that’s going to be difficult, whenever he publishes an article, he wins by a mile!) I’d better add a disclaimer here, I always reply individually to comments, but this is not related to my game/competition. I do this because I think if someone has taken the time to leave a comment, responding to them is an act of appreciation and acknowledgement. It’s kind of like my own code of ethics, and some of my responses get very animated if I’m really excited about the conversation. Once again, thanks for reading this article and sharing any insights or experiences you would like to at the end. I’ll be watching the tally to see if I win or lose this week Cheers, Neroli. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: article, book, creativity, game, mind

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The Secret Language Of Your Creative Genius

by Paul Joseph March 28, 2011 Featured

Well, actually, if you’ve read any of my other posts, you are probably aware of the secret! Today, we’re going to learn more about this language however, and hopefully become more fluent in it as we gain a greater understanding of how it works. We’re looking at play, and it’s connection to creativity, because play is the language in which our creative genius speaks most fluently to us. Many of you have completed my play personality/creative character survey and know which kind of play personality you inhabit the most, so we’re going to investigate how these play personalities connect you to your creativity. I’ve trumpeted away about how play holds the keys to how we access our individual form of creative expression, but I’ve never spent an entire article going into depth on why this is so and how it really does this. Last week, I was directed by a friend to an interesting article about play and creativity, in particular the link between our childhood play and creativity . This post was written by a man named Gabor George Burt , funnily enough, I’ve never encountered his work on creativity. But when I researched him, I found this; “Gabor George Burt is an internationally recognized expert on strategy, innovation, creativity and business development. A leading proponent of Value Innovation and Blue Ocean Strategy for over a decade, Gabor has also gained recognition as a thought-leader on the creative perspective of Defying Conventional Wisdom. ” Goodness, that’s quite a cool phrase, “a thought-leader on the creative perspective of Defying Conventional Wisdom.” More importantly however, this man seems to have connected similar dots as far as play and creativity are concerned. An interesting thing about this is, Gabor doesn’t go into detail about how the play and creativity connection works, he’s promised to do so in his next post. So, brace yourselves dear readers, we’re about launch! AND, I’m going to be bouncing back over to Gabor’s take on this same subject and sharing with you the link, so we can compare notes and see what new insights can surface. Remember from a previous post, that in order to access and express creativity and innovation, we need freedom and autonomy. Play is integral to the creative process because, as Dr. Stuart Brown states, the essence of play is freedom . Dr. Stuart Brown is the world authority on play behavior in humans and he has described 7 fundamental elements that characterize authentic play. We’re going to look at the 7 elements, so we can see clearly that these elements are deeply ingrained in the creative process. I’ll be quoting Dr. Brown then adding my own commentary about how this connects with creativity at the end of each element. Good For Nothing Or Vital To Our Success? 1. “Play is apparently purposeless, done for it’s own sake. It doesn’t help in getting money or food, it doesn’t have a (recognized) survival value.” I added the word ‘recognized’ into Dr. Brown’s quote, I’ll come back to that later. Now, why is purposelessness (that’s a very hard word to say, physical challenge – try repeating it three times) so important to our creative process? Purposeless play is connected to improvisational potential. I’ve mentioned that in order to think creatively, we need to be able to think holistically, to use our ability to take as many disparate themes and concepts as possible and draw insights from them. This is what happens in purposeless play. Because of the inherently purposeless nature of authentic play, we naturally slip into a holistic mind set . If you look back at my articles on different techniques to access creativity, you will find a lot of the techniques are designed to get you to engage in “purposeless play” or to shift your thinking process to holistic rather than linear. The biggest hindrance to accessing our creative or holistic thinking ability is to be intently focused on getting some outcome, figuring something out, or under stress and pressure to produce a result. This is the opposite of purposeless play, and we become locked in narrow, linear thinking . Purposeless play does not and cannot happen by consciously thinking about it! We have to literally be playing, just for the fun of it, and allow it to happen naturally, to become absorbed in our playful activity. We could begin the play activity with the intention of gathering some insights about a problem we’re working on, but consciously thinking about the problem has to be left at the doorway to play in order for us to access the kind of thinking needed to find our answers. So, that’s the first major connection between play and accessing our creativity, let’s move on. Freedom vs Force 2. “Play is voluntary, not obligatory or a required duty.” Put another way, freedom and autonomy are vital to the creative process. This is something we’ve covered at length in previous articles . Basically, both play and creativity don’t exist without freedom and autonomy. So if we’re playing authentically, we’re in a very fertile creative space , because we’re engaged in something that is completely voluntary. We cannot be forced to play and we cannot be forced to be creative, by ourselves or anyone else. The very act of someone imposing their will or any kind of restraint (including our own self inflicted restraints) on us immediately closes down our ability to play authentically or think holistically/creatively. You will hear me consistently reiterate that we need to allow the play and creative process to happen naturally, because it MUST, it’s the only way it works. It can’t be contrived or forced. We are naturally playful and creative beings, we’re born like this. When we were kids, we just did it, and we still do if we let ourselves, we inherently know how to be playful and creative. Inherent Attraction, Heightened Mental And Physical Arousal (It’s Not What You’re Thinking) 3. “Play = Inherent attraction, it’s fun and it makes us feel good. Play is exciting and it’s a cure for boredom.” Dr. Brown says that nothing lights up the brain like play , referring to the increased neural connections being made when we’re engaged in playing. The experience of fun and excitement in play puts us in a heightened state mental and physical arousal (increased neural connections), which increases our creative thinking. Visualize the massive influx of neural connections taking place in the brain during play, then translate that to our ability to take abstract themes and concepts and connect them to come up with creative and innovative solutions to problems. It’s a weird thing to comprehend, but literally, the more neural connections we generate through play, the more we’re able to make the connections needed for creative and innovative thinking. The “F” Word Again 4. “Play gives us a sense of freedom from time, when we’re fully engaged in play, we lose track of time.” Ha! There it is again, the “F” word! In relation to play and creativity, it just keeps coming up again and again doesn’t it? Most of us experience time as a very linear, sequential process. Remember what we’ve said about linear and sequential processes as far as creativity is concerned? Linear and sequential sucks when it comes to creativity! Certainly, we love process, as aforementioned, creativity is a process, not an event. But the creative process thrives on a multilevel, holistic and even cyclical approach. Linear and sequential constraints of time totally mess with play and creativity, if we allow these constraints to dictate our creative brainstorming. This is, understandably, a big issue we all face . We live in a world where we are constantly under time constraints, and we have to deal with that, but we can and do, every day. The trick is to ensure you give yourself the time out needed in any given moment or day to recharge and refresh your creative batteries. Ensure that when you do give yourself this time out, you do whatever you need to get into a play state where you become totally absorbed and don’t clock watch. Of course, sometimes it isn’t possible to leap away from your work and immerse yourself in play, but I do this whenever I can if the need arises. Two paragraphs ago, I lay on the couch for 15 minutes as I was hit with a wave of tiredness after being up very early for an interview. I have to be relaxed, awake and alert to make the mental connections needed to write this article on play and creativity. If I find myself losing this state, I go outside and talk to my chickens, move my body physically, or lie down (you may remember the creativity enhancing technique called “lying down on the job,” I was quite animated in my joy at finding scientific proof that it improved creative thinking!). All of these things are a combination of play and relaxation for me, and they shift my mind temporarily from a single pointed focus and let it slip into a kind of soft focus that’s characteristic for me when I’m thinking holistically. Even lying down is a form of play, as my mind is allowed to wander off on it’s own little tangents like a curious child and I give myself permission to let it forget about what I’ve been focusing on. If I allow myself to lose track of time briefly through play to recharge myself for creative thinking and writing, I know my work will improve as a result. Again, many of the techniques given in previous articles are designed to absorb the person in a way that they will lose track of time, ie, shift out of their sequential and linear thinking process. Being In Flow Or In The Zone 5. “Play gives us a diminished consciousness of self. We stop thinking or caring about what others think. We are fully in the moment, in flow, or the zone.” Having a diminished consciousness of self is a massive part of being successful with our creative and innovative thinking . Researchers have done studies proving that people will knowingly give incorrect responses to questions if they think being right will set them apart from the group or make them appear different. What’s this got to do with creativity and play? It has a lot to do with a diminished consciousness of self and caring what others think. If we, as humans are so wired to be concerned about fitting into a group that we will knowingly give incorrect answers just to ensure we belong , then finding a way to trip this hard-wiring is vital to our creative abilities . We can (and will) stifle our creative insights if we’re concerned what others might say or think about them, or in other words, if we’re sensitive to external judgment or criticism (and we are). Play is our trip wire , as Dr. Brown has stated, in authentic play, we stop caring about what others think, and we lose our sense of self-consciousness. Ask any creative, if they’re concerned about what someone thinks of their work, how badly does it mess with their creative process? Ask yourself this same question in relation to anything you’re working on, if you care too much about what others think, does it diminish your ability to do it well? Being able to immerse our selves deeply in any activity so that external influence or approval doesn’t interfere with our creative process is vital to our success. It’s through play that we can find the path to this lack of self-consciousness . After all, we’re just playing right? It’s no big deal, it’s a game and we don’t place the same expectations on ourselves when we’re playing, and neither do others. Play gives us the “out” we need to shake off the expectations of ourselves and other people, and open up to our creative potential . Mixing It Up 6. “Play allows for improvisational potential. We aren’t locked into rigid ways of thinking or doing things. We are open to serendipity or chance…we stumble upon new behaviors, thoughts, strategies, movements, or ways of being. We see things in a different way and have fresh insights…You never know what’s going to happen when you play.” I mentioned at the beginning that purposeless play was connected to improvisational potential. We’ll look at this some more, as well as just how integral improvisational potential is to our creative process. Obviously, our ability to improvise is an essential part of creativity and innovation . Improvisation is what takes us from a known to an unknown path . Improvisation is how we make a map to navigate unchartered territory . When we play, we allow ourselves to go off on tangents, to entertain unusual ideas or methods, and we allow ourselves to slip between what we know (or think we know) and the unknown . The same thing happens in our creative process. Both play and creativity require improvisational potential in order to flourish. Without it, the game stops , and so does the creative process. Play is an important ally for accessing our creativity and improvisational potential because in a play state, we’re more open to it. The purposeless element of play allows us to recognize and respond to the things that might normally slip by unnoticed or unexplored if we were purely focused on an outcome. Through purposeless play, we let ourselves pick up seemingly random elements, and improvisation is the skill we use to makes sense of these elements. We then engage our creativity to express the discoveries of our improvisational play. Play, Our Element And Mastery 7. “Play involves continuation desire, we want to keep doing it, the pleasure of the experience drives this desire.” This aspect of play relates to fine tuning our creative gifts more than anything else. Continuation desire helps us achieve mastery, which is an innate human psychological need. I’ve mentioned previously that humans have three innate psychological needs . Dan Pink discusses them in his book “ Drive .” Just to recap, these three needs are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Continuation desire is connected to fulfilling our need for mastery . I read that anyone who has achieved mastery has spent at least 10,000 hours practicing. I don’t think we’re going to achieve mastery in anything if it requires that much practice, unless we really love doing it. And what was that about play? Oh! Wow! We want to keep doing it and the pleasure of the experience drives this desire? Cool! This last aspect of play in relation to our creativity really leads into another whole world of exploration, and that is Sir Ken Robinson’s work on finding our element . I spoke with Sir Ken’s co-author, Lou Aronica this morning about certain aspects of finding my element. (I’m busting to find out if Lou quotes me in Ken’s next book on “The Element” Basically, one of the things that quantifies finding my element for me is I want to keep coming back to it again and again. In other words, there is a strong continuation desire in my element ; my element, which is my unique form of creative expression, is also a form of play for me. I would never put in the hours I do if I didn’t love what I am doing, my creative expression has to be a form of play for me in order to achieve any degree of mastery. And I’m pretty sure this is the same for anyone who has accomplished any level of mastery in their lives. I’m going to have to leave it there, I honestly cannot drag you all into another world of Sir Ken Robinson and The Element, I’ve gone way over my preferred word count as it is. I truly hope the long read has been worth it, and it’s very clear to those who wanted to know, just how play is integral to our creative process, and how your preferred style of play shifts you into the alternate space you need to be in to access your creativity. As you know, I’ve been working some more on my play personality/creative character survey . My aim is to make this an incredible resource of information about how to find your unique blend of play and creativity, and how you access these gifts. Like any creation, it’s constantly evolving, and I am loving the process. Next week, I am going to explain how each of the individual play personalities and certain activities and techniques cause the mental and emotional shift needed to access your creativity. Thanks so much for reading, and please leave any comments you have at the end of the article, I love hearing about other people’s creative insights and process. Cheers, Neroli. Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

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