I AM an entrepreneur.

Following a dream, pursuing an opportunity, taking charge of my own destiny.

Bringing something of value to society, making a job for myself and for others, and creating wealth that benefits my family, my community, my country, my world.

One of a movement of millions of entrepreneurs and innovators who made this country great, and who will keep our economy going…and growing.

What I am because many people have helped me along on this journey.

THEREFORE I WILL

Tell my story, sharing my successes and failures, so that others taking the entrepreneurial path can learn.

Strive to mentor an aspiring entrepreneur.

Make my voice heard by those who make policy decisions that affect me and my business.

Appreciate and celebrate my accomplishments and the accomplishments of my fellow entrepreneurs.

Give back to the society that helped me to be successful.

Build a Stronger America. [And a Stronger World.]

– From The Kauffman Foundation BuildAStrongerAmerica.com

For more information

The Kauffman Foundation is the world’s largest foundation devoted to promoting entrepreneurship as a powerful tool to develop individuals, communities and the country as a whole. I found it very inspiring to hear stories of how people of many different backgrounds share a common passion of being an entrepreneur. I’m partnering with Quebec International (our local economic development agency) to bring a Kauffman program here to Quebec City, with the goal to jump-start our local tech startups.

http://www.kauffman.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KauffmanFDN

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

So what if fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real”
It’s real enough to me
It’s the fear of being incompetent that scares me the most

To create a new normal I must learn a new way of being
which means doing what I’ve dreamed of doing
but have not yet done

My worth to others
and especially my worth to me
is based on what I’ve done in the past

But if I try something new,
my fear is
of not measuring up to the expectations of others
and even more terrifying
is facing the reality that what I’m delivering
does not measure up to the magnificence of what I imagined

Will I let them down?
Will I let ME down?

When I look back ten years from now
I will probably smile at how naive I was
how I was afraid of giving life to my vision
for fear of not being worthy of being the one to make it happen

It is very tempting to cling to the known
because, like it or not, at least it is known

The choice I have before me is to be comfortable in my competence
because it justifies being the person I am now
or to celebrate my incompetence
because it frees me to invent the glorious person I am meant to be.

For more information

This post is part of a series inspired by The Domino Project’s #Trust30 Writing Challenge. Each day during the month of June 2011, we receive a thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, to use as a writing prompt. For more information about the #Trust30 Writing Challenge, see today’s prompt:
http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/lachlan-cotter

Image credit: Loretta Prencipe (LWPrencipe) on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorettaprencipe/110834144/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eric Handler asks:  ”What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?”

Simple. LISTEN UP!!!

Stop chasing “things” to feel fulfilled. Success is creating an experience of life that allows you to explore your full potential. Pursue your passion. Make a difference. Build a legacy. Turn your vision into a Big, Hairy, Audacious Life Project, and push it to the max.

The benchmark for me is Steve Jobs, who keeps on creating, imagining and executing his vision even though he knows each new day when he wakes up could be his last. He doesn’t need the money, he does it for a higher purpose.

For more information

This post is part of a series inspired by The Domino Project’s #Trust30 Writing Challenge. Each day during the month of June 2011, we receive a thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, to use as a writing prompt. For more information about the #Trust30 Writing Challenge, see today’s prompt:
http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/eric-handler

Before I read today’s prompt, I was reading an article -
“Foxconn CEO: I Wouldn’t Be Working As Hard As Steve Jobs If I Was As Ill As Him” (Business Insider)
http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-ceo-praises-steve-jobs-disses-warren-buffett-2011-6

Image credit: “the justified sinner” via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_justified_sinner/3685583354/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yesterday is done, spent, unchangeable. Tomorrow is a dream, ephemeral, potential. Today is real, here, now. Is what I’m doing today creating the tomorrow I really want?

For more information

This post is part of a series inspired by The Domino Project’s #Trust30 Writing Challenge. Each day during the month of June 2011, we receive a thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, to use as a writing prompt. For more information about the #Trust30 Writing Challenge, see today’s prompt:

http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/liz-danzico

Related articles on this blog:

Today Is Not Yesterday Nor Tomorrow
http://blog.davender.com/2008/10/today-is-not-yesterday-nor-tomorrow/

When You Run Out Of Dreams
http://blog.davender.com/2008/01/when-you-run-out-of-dreams/

Image Credit: Asja Boros (Asja.) on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/asjaboros/5615912356
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lately I have become acutely aware of my mortality. Not that anyone around me has died…well, my cat passed away last year, and yes, I grieved.

Until recently I thought that everything was possible, that I had all the time in the world to build what I wanted to build. But then I hit a wall.

I didn’t see the wall coming, although in hindsight it was obvious. All of a sudden I started asking myself what have I really created in the last fifteen years since I first set out on my entrepreneurial adventure. I don’t have much to show for it materially, compared to my brothers who held fast to their military career paths and who now enjoy fat incomes and job security as managers in some government office.

Fifteen years seems so long, but as I look back, it went so fast. What is left to show for it?

Then I realize that what I have built is so intangible that our economic system has no way to measure it. Helping people on three continents name their mission, vision and passion. Inspiring people to be bold, audacious and authentic. Showing people that there is a structured way to build a livelihood based on one’s passion, that there is also art to this science. Bringing people together so they can join as business partners or even as life partners.

The asset I have built is much more than bricks and mortar or gold and silver. It is hope, purpose and passion.

But there is no line for this asset on a tax return.

What I have learnt in the past fifteen years-which-seem-like-minutes is that success is not about stuff nor is it about status. Success is creating an experience of life that expresses one’s full potential.

For a minute, I let myself get distracted from the real meaning of life. I became overwhelmed by the enormity of the mission, and it scared me shitless.

Life is too short to have it be just about accumulating stuff. We are not put on this Earth to be economic animals. There is no such thing as Homo economicus. We are put on this Earth to experience one tiny sliver of passion. Not just to think or to do, but to love. Homo amoris.

I remember the first time I led a team-building workshop in Nova Scotia back in 1999. As the last participant left, I sat quietly in the living-room of the B&B we had reserved for the weekend, soaking up the love that was created in that room, and smiling to myself as I thought: “Lord, you can take me now, my work is done.”

Little did I realize it was just the beginning…

For more information

This post is part of a series inspired by The Domino Project’s #Trust30 Writing Challenge. Each day during the month of June 2011, we receive a thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”, to use as a writing prompt. For more information about the #Trust30 Writing Challenge, see today’s prompt:

http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/gwen-bell

Image credit: Alex Lomix (Dalo_Pix2) on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55432818@N02/5500963965/in/photostream/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

Of course I read with concern about the sad events in Tucson. I see this as the inevitable outcome of the decline of leadership in today’s society, and the symptoms of the revolution that is about to happen.

Our leaders want to be seen to be “serious” and doing “something”. One way to do “something” is to provoke the “lizard brain”, i.e. stimulating the amygdala, that primitive part of our brain stem which generates the base emotions of fear or excitement. When the lizard brain is stimulated, we jump into action – or, rather, reaction. I’m noticing that it has become the habit of politicians, media celebrities and business CEOs major and minor to appeal to fear, worry, envy and revenge. This provokes reaction all right. But provoking reaction is not leadership, it’s demagoguery.

Why are the leadership classes sowing fear, hatred and terror? Because they are losing power, and they know it is slipping from their grasp.

And this power is slipping from “them” to “you”, should you choose to accept the challenge.

Lizard-brain leadership posits that we are living in a time of crisis: disappearing oil, water, land, food, money, freedom. Lizard-brain leadership views life as a zero-sum game, where if I give you a piece of my pie, there is less for me, and that’s not fair.

By all means, we should have hit the boundary conditions of finite resources decades ago. But we haven’t. Why?

This is my view of how this came about.

In the old days, the key to wealth was how much gold you held. Kings obsessed about the possession of resources. Wars were fought over land and spice, wood and gold. Wealth was in the hands of the monarchy and the aristocracy, the “political” class of the time. The equation for wealth was very simple:

Wealth = Resources

The Industrial Revolution changed the equation. Humanity started to organize itself, and invented ways to transform the resources, adding value, making their use more efficient and more valuable.  The new formula became:

Wealth = Resources * Technology

But the technology was still controlled by a few, those who had access to the knowledge and experience. The wealth spread from the aristocracy who held the resources to the business moguls who held the technology and means of production.

The Industrial Revolution created the concept of a “job” and a “career”, where each person plays a well-defined role, a cog in the monolithic societal machine. The machine worked because information was hard to spread, so although the political and financial classes held most of the cards, those who had access to some knowledge and experience (i.e. white-collar professionals) were also able to share in a bit of the wealth. This created the “middle class”.

After World War II, technology started to spread faster and faster. Consider the adoption rates of the telephone at the beginning of the 20th century, compared to radio, television and computers.  Access to technology became more and more democratized.

Then, barely 16 years ago, the Web was born. In an instant, knowledge and experience was no longer limited to certain classes. Information starts to circulate faster and faster. People can now seek out like-minded colleagues to form their own networks, communities, tribes. And this kind of self-organization unleashes a resources that multiplies our abilities in an exponential way: the power of Passion.

Passion is a very powerful element, because it powers our confidence, our courage, our persistance and our ingenuity. In the past, our societal and economic systems contained our passion. Passion at work was not encouraged, because the machinery of living depended on each person playing a well-orchestrated part in a precisely-defined box.

But when Passion comes into the equation, it adds an element that supercharges the wealth equation.

Wealth = (Resources * Technology) ** Passion

People powered by Passion are willing to go the extra mile, to go beyond the status-quo, to take risks and to innovate.

Passion is also a chaotic element. The Passion sparked by the democratization of technology and the ease of communication and association, means that the old top-down ways of societal and economic organization are fracturing. I believe that the root cause of a lot of today’s economic problems is not only greed or government regulation, but that all our assumptions about how to generate wealth have fallen apart. The old economic models of GDP and productivity and employment no longer have any relevance in this new, Passion-powered economy.

The political and financial classes of today’s society instinctively know the power of Passion, because they seek to provoke it by poking at our lizard-brains. But that is like pouring gasoline on a fire, it makes a big flame, lots of sparks, but becomes uncontrollable.

The real leadership we need to overcome the challenges of our time will not come from politicians nor from big company CEOs. Those social classes have too much invested in the status-quo to risk losing it through revolutionary change. They actually gain by pitting people one against the other: left vs right, public vs private, middle class vs poor. They gain because we get distracted from what we need to do.

The key to the new leadership is by moblizing people around visionary projects. Projects that fire the imagination and stimulate creativity. Projects that inspire everyone to reach for their full potential.

We have seen what visionary projects can do. The textbook example is President Kennedy’s challenge in 1963 that Americans would set foot on the Moon before the end of that decade. And they did, with six months to spare.

We’ve lost sight of what visionary projects are. Infrastructure is not a visionary, mobilizing project, because the outcome does not engage the imagination. War, however well-intentioned, is even less of a visionary, mobilizing project, because there is no win-win outcome.

It is the new generation of entrepreneurial leaders, you and me, who now hold the key to progress. We have our feet on the ground. We see what people need, want and yearn for. We also can aim for the moon, defining visionary goals that engage the communities we build around us. And as entrepreneurs, we master the skill of simultaneously seeing far to keep the goal in sight, while seeing close to make sure the next step is well placed.

I believe each of us has the right to fully live our own individual potential, and the responsibility to help others fully live theirs. I also believe that although the world has finite resources, the true multiplier of these resources is human passion, which is limitless.

We need to stop the lizard-brain thinking which is short-circuiting our society’s potential, and embrace the Power of Passion through Visionary Projects.

Stop playing for survival. We need you to play to WIN.

<end rant>

For more information

Although my motivation for writing the above post was inspired by a tragic event, and borders on a pessimistic view of the world, I remain resolutely optimistic about the long-term prospects for our society, our species and our planet. See my “manifesto” on my About.me page:
http://about.me/CoachDavender

To give historical context to this post, see this article from Huffington Post describing the assassination attempt in Tucson that left six people dead and many injured (including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who is in critical condition as of this writing):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/gabrielle-giffords-shot-c_n_806211.html

I have read many articles by Naomi Klein, on the subject of her book “The Shock Doctrine”, which is related to the idea of the “old-guard” societal and economic leadership via fear and manipulation:
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

A thought provoking article that posits that the current economic system requires crisis events such as oil spills and disasters, just to keep in a steady-state
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-harrington/why-our-economy-required-_b_800143.html

Image credit: AmberBrooke via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberbr00k3/4289936624/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

I was asked to review applications for a new seed capital acceleration program getting underway here in Quebec City. As I read the submissions, I started to realize something.

I can’t get excited about almost any of them. It’s sad to say, but it’s true.

Each submission proposed to solve some kind of problem for their target market, each had an interesting technology to develop.

But each submission was also too…businesslike. Why is this not necessarily a good thing?

Why should “passion” be part of a business? Passion is the energy that moves a project forward, and attracts clients who appreciate the value of what you offer and who are ready to buy.

If you look at businesses who are successful, especially those operating in very competitive environments, their success has a lot to do with the passion they generate: Apple, Southwest, Porter Airlines, Porsche… Their value goes beyond the atoms they build or the bits they create or the services they provide, they also elicit strong emotions. People love them or don’t – they are rarely indifferent. But these business create a loyalty among their clients and supporters, assuring a long-term success.

Passion is generated by the creative tension between what is and what you want to create. The bolder the vision, the stronger the tension and the greater energy you can unleash.

I believe that any business project needs just two basic ingredients: time and passion. Bring these two elements together and you can do anything. Money is a way of leveraging time, so you can accelerate your progress. But money is not essential to business success.

If you’re in business to make money or to do your job, that is not enough to succeed. Money without passion does not motivate, and will not get you through the challenges you need to overcome in order to succeed and prosper.

What people want more than money, is to contribute to something greater than themselves. Be it your employees, your suppliers, your investors or your customers, you will generate a lot more loyalty and support by building a cause instead of just a business. With a cause, everyone wins.

By “building a cause” I don’t mean simply giving to charity. It has to be bigger than that: by doing what you do, you are directly making the world better for your clients, for yourself and for all the stakeholders in your project.

Being too “businesslike” – cold, detached, clinical – removes the emotional element which gets people to sign on to what you offer.

People are not really interested in what you do. What people want to know, and what they can get behind, is what you can do for them. How can you change their world for the better?

Stop pitching your product and start promoting your passion. This is how you will attract the money, the clients, the talent and all the other resources you need to make your bold dream a reality.

For more information

Related post: “Got Mojo? The Spark That Makes Your Product Come Alive”
http://blog.davender.com/2009/08/podcast-got-mojo-the-spark-that-makes-your-product-come-alive/

The seed capital accelerator I am a member of is called V3-Ventures
http://V3-Ventures.com (French only)

Image credit: Rasmin via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rasmin/3484200308/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

Who am I really? What is this drive that urges me to go out and change the way things are around me?

The other day, I had the privilege of having a passionate discussion with a new acquaintance, debating the nature of Mission, Vision and Success. I shared with my lunch partner my own philosophy about the nature of the soul and the ego. What comes next is somewhat spiritual, reflecting my own belief framework that helps me to understand what makes me and other people tick.

The soul is “Who I Really Am”, my essence, my wisdom, my consciousness. The soul is timeless, because it lives in the present moment. The fundamental state of the soul is happiness, it is happy to simply be. In my mind I picture it as a smiling Buddha.

One’s Mission in life is encoded in the soul. Each human being is born with the DNA of one’s Mission already present, providing the soul its fundamental frequency. This is why the Mission is fundamentally constant, it just “is”. The words used to describe one’s Mission may evolve, because words are at best rough approximations of ideas, but the energy of the Mission remains constant.

Then there is the ego, which seeks to shape the world around me so that it mirrors the soul. It is like a projector, my soul being the light source and my ego the lens. If my ego is out of focus or misaligned, the image projected into the world about who I am becomes blurry or false.

One’s Vision is a construct of the ego, and by extension, so are dreams, goals, objectives and projects, because they all seek to modify the external world to make it align with one’s Mission. The ego does not necessarily seek results, it is fed by experiences. Results are simply means to create those experiences.

Passion and motivation comes from the ego. The better the alignment between my Mission and Vision, between my soul and my ego, the more of my essential energy gets projected out into the world and the brighter I shine. The task of self-improvement then becomes to clean up and align the lens, to adjust how I project my Mission onto the external world through my Vision.

I define success as: “To create an experience of life that expresses Who I Really Am“. Success is not a destination, it is a feeling, an experience. I feel success when my ego faithfully projects the energy of my soul onto the external world, allowing me and everyone around me to experience my true essence.

I realize my interpretation of “ego” and “soul” differs from the classical psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretation. I’m not sure where I picked up this insight, but the concept of “Who I Really Am” comes from the series of books “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsh. If this approach rings a bell with you (no pun intended) as to where it comes from, either in psychoanalysis or spirituality or philosophy, please let me know in the comments…

For more information

Site for Neale Donald Walsh: http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/

Site for Conversations with God (the site may be “under construction”): http://www.cwg.org

Conversations With God Book 1 (my favorite): http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-God-Uncommon-Dialogue-Book/dp/0399142789

Wikipedia entry for “ego” (Freudian interpretation): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego

And a somewhat-related article from Time.com (2005):
“The Science Of Ambition: Why Some People Are More Likely To Succeed”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126746,00.html

Image Credit: Image by Michael Porter on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/110679756/
Use under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

I remember how happy I was on my graduation from the Royal Military College of Canada. The double-major I chose had the heaviest course load of any program at my college, so each fall and spring exam session was a gruelling non-stop blur. I was so happy to never endure another exam for the rest of my life!

As I transitioned to my new career, that hope was somewhat dashed, but it wasn’t so bad. There were some tests, but nothing that really pushed me to my limits as did the exams I endured in college. And what tests I did have to take became fewer as I progressed in my career.

Our society is set up to minimize discomfort, but I’m not sure that it is necessarily a good thing. Without opportunities to measure our abilities, there is little incentive to further explore our potential. I’m grateful for not having to relive the pressure of test-taking like I had in college, but on the other hand, I miss the opportunity to measure my abilities and push myself to a new level of performance.

I believe it is important to proactively put challenges in front of oneself in order to provoke growth and development, before life imposes a test that one might not be ready to take.

I was fortunate in the early days of my career to surround myself with people who wanted to improve themselves on many levels. As the number of tests imposed on me by others declined, my friends encouraged me to start choosing other occasions to expand my experience of life. I took up running, which led me to start testing myself in 10km and marathon runs. Then I graduated to biathlons and triathlons. I didn’t win, but that was not the point. It was about besting my previous performances and discovering my other strengths.

Then during my masters degree, I discovered long distance cycle-touring, and I tested myself on a Seattle to San Francisco ride which helped me to redefine how I saw myself.  Moving to Western Canada, I discovered backcountry hiking and skiing, and two significant tests I fondly remember are hiking the West Coast Trail and traversing the Wapta Icefields. When I left the military, the tests I set for myself shifted to more spiritual and emotional pursuits, by taking the Context Associated series of courses and embarking on the path to becoming an assistant facilitator. Then there was my career change to become a coach, and the courses and experiences that I chose to undertake to develop myself on that new path.

And all during this time there were other lesser challenges that I gave myself that allowed me to explore my creativity, my analytical skills and my physical fitness.

What I notice is that each of these tests helped me to define who I am and what I’m capable of. The tests I chose for myself helped me to build my confidence and especially to help build my capacity to overcome the obstacles of everyday life.

As I reflect back on the tests I’ve set for myself over the years, I notice some elements that helped to make them a success for me. Therefore, here are some guidelines to help you choose a test that will help you to succeed:

1. Make it something that you choose to accomplish. Tests imposed by others are not as meaningful as ones that you choose of your own free will. It should be something meaningful to you, in alignment with your values, your passions, your strengths and your goals.

2. It is focused on a particular date and time. Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline.

3. It sets a high-water mark of your capabilities. Choose or establish a test that causes you to stretch yourself in an area of your life that you want to improve.

4. It inspires confidence in yourself. Completing this test makes you proud, building your confidence in all areas of your life.

5. Preparing for it helps you establish positive rituals in your life. Select a test that requires discipline and endurance as you prepare for it. The longer you need to prepare (between three to twelve months), the better the positive changes you can create for yourself.

6. It is something special. Your test should be something out of the ordinary, which creates positive memories and from which you can extract valuable life experiences. By selecting a positive event, you can share it with others and even inspire other people to complete it.

7. It is something that you win just by participating. Avoid a pass/fail or win/lose test.

8. It tests one or more of the dimensions of living. A test does not only have to be a physical or a mental feat. Consider how it expands your emotional and spiritual ways of being.

During the last couple of years, my annual test was to complete a half-marathon (21km) race at the end of each summer. In 2006 and 2007 my focus was the Demi-marathon des Deux-Rives here in Quebec City, and in 2008 I completed the Toronto Half-Marathon. Various other tests I have given myself were to participate in a silent retreat, compete in Toastmasters public speaking contests and taking on leadership roles in community organizations.

But in 2009 life took over and I did not plan or prepare for a half-marathon, which caused me to set aside my personal fitness habits. I believe that by not testing myself, I allowed my physical and mental health to decline, and given the challenges I had to face in the following months, it was a contributing factor to my burnout experience this past spring.

By choosing tests that challenge us to stretch our abilities, we become better equipped to face the peak demands of everyday life. Well-chosen challenges help to develop the reserves and strengthen our confidence and our courage to transform the status-quo around us.

I strongly suggest that you take time right now to choose a test of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual fitness, something that you will complete in the next twelve months. Use this opportunity to measure your mettle. Then when life decides to impose her trials upon you, you will be up to the challenge and pass with honors.

For more information

Image credit: Image by sashamd on Flickr.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashamd/132071876/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 license

Why do so few people live up to their potential?

In his book “Linchpin”, Seth Godin posits that people who are remarkable are those who are totally dedicated to their “art”, exhibiting a willingness to plunge forward despite the fear and the risks, and deliver results that change the world around them.

In one of his blog posts, he asks the further question: How much support does someone need before they create remarkable results?

His observation:

“(…)Most mentors and coaches and teachers will tell you that few of their students ever do, not in comparison with their potential. A few break through and change everything, and we celebrate them, but what about everyone else?
The artists are different. They took a leap.
They weren’t pushed. They jumped.”

What is the difference between jumping and being pushed?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and what comes to mind is the idea that maybe the difference between jumping and being pushed is about expectations. And specifically, expectations about “winning conditions” that guarantee success.

As I look at the opportunities before me, there is a part of me that wants to leap, but another part of me that is holding me back, waiting for the right conditions that can maximize a successful outcome:

- If only I had more money in the bank
- if only I had more time
- if only I had more help
- if only I had more support
- if only I had more accountability
- if only I had more recognition
- if only I had more energy
- if only I had more resources
- if only I had more knowledge
- if only I had more structure
- if only I had more encouragement…

…then I could feel better about making the leap.

Deep down I want assurance that everything will turn out okay before I take the risk. I also want insurance that will compensate me if the result doesn’t turn out as expected.

But this is a lie.“Winning conditions” will never show up by themselves. And if they do appear before I make my move, it’s too late.

This is the conundrum: If I wait for the winning conditions, they can’t happen, because winning conditions are only created once I make an irrevocable commitment. It is the energy of my commitment that creates the winning conditions.

And that’s why being pushed is not the same as jumping.

If I wait for someone to push me, the winning conditions can’t happen, because the commitment is not fully mine. So I need to fully commit to jumping now, in the absence of winning conditions, knitting my parachute as I plummet to the earth, hoping I can make it work before I become a stain on some farmer’s field.

This is the problem with the coaching, personal development and self-help industry. We want to provide winning conditions for the client to make the leap. But if we provide the client with the parachute, and push him out the door, the winning conditions can’t appear. The client has to make the decision to leap on his own. As I look back on the success stories with my clients, it is those who decided themselves to take that leap, who succeeded.

If success were guaranteed, there would be no reward, because success would be so ordinary. The reward of success comes by pushing through the fear and the odds to create remarkable results that express my full potential.

Pain, disappointment, stress and fatigue are guaranteed. I chuckle to myself as I think about this… if it’s guaranteed to hurt, why am I afraid of the pain? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the reward and aim for that? To have the unshakable belief in success carry me through the pain…

In my own life, right now as I write these lines, there are several amazing opportunities that are opening up for me. These opportunities challenge me to take my game to a whole new level, but also trigger my lizard brain to shift into overdrive, causing me to hesitate when I should be going full throttle. Seth’s post reminds me that maybe I’m waiting to be pushed, instead of leaping of my own accord.

Thus the real question I must answer for myself: Am I waiting to be pushed, or will I jump towards my potential on my own?

For more information

Amazon.com link for Linchpin:
http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591843162

A very good overview and interview on Mashable:
http://mashable.com/2010/02/14/seth-godin-linchpin/

Seth’s blog post that triggered this thought process:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/mentoring-platforms-and-taking-a-leap.html

Related posts on this blog:

• This is Think Big Week!
  http://blog.davender.com/2009/04/this-is-think-big-week/
• Yes You Deserve It: Five Tips To Strengthen Your Deservability Muscle
  http://blog.davender.com/2008/11/yes-you-deserve-it-five-tips-to-strengthen-your-deservability-muscle/
• A Thought About Making Decisions
  http://blog.davender.com/2008/04/a-thought-about-making-decisions/

Image credit: Josephine Dorado via Flickr. Direct link to image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/66512710
Permission via Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

We are programmed from an early age to think: “If I just work harder, I can reach my goals faster.” This attitude is reflected in Daft Punk’s hit “Harder Faster Better Stronger”:

Work It. Make It. Do It. Makes Us
Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.
Work it harder, make it better,
Do it faster, makes us stronger
More than ever hour after
Our work is never over

But what if this belief is false? What if working harder, instead of making my results happen faster, just contributes to burn out?

Does turning the thermostat all the way up make the room heat up faster? So why would just “working harder” accelerate success?

My realization is that I should “work smarter”: find the right level of effort that yields the best results. And take care of myself better so I can build a stronger personal foundation to support results that last longer.

For more information

Video Credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw

Official video (non-embeddable): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgBgnoEY4iM

Daft Punk: http://www.daftpunk.com

Daft Punk on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk

The beauty of the Internet is that I can be searching for something, and stumble onto something else even more precious, like this, from Wikipedia:

The engineer Buckminster Fuller is often cited for his use of trim tabs as a metaphor for leadership and personal empowerment. In the February 1972 issue of Playboy, Fuller said:

“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trim Tab.”

Update:

The followup that comes to me, rereading this post, is that you don’t need to convince everyone in order to provoke a major change. You only need to get some key influencers to adopt your idea, and everyone else will follow.

For more information

Wikipedia source for this post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab#Trim_tab_as_a_metaphor

Wikipedia article on Buckminster Fuller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

Amazon link for the February 1972 issue of Playboy: http://www.amazon.com/Playboy-Magazine-February-1972-Buckminster/dp/B000FSJTFY

Buckminster Fuller Institute: http://www.bfi.org/

Lately I’ve been “burning out”. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to launch new content simultaneously in English (for my Internet audience) and in French (for my local audience). It got to the point where my head was constantly buzzing with a low-grade headache, and my patience was in short supply.

Then I received a morning thought from Heather Frey, a fitness trainer who I follow on Facebook:

You are unfinished. Yet everyday you race, scramble, and pressure yourself to be finished, which is both impossible and exhausting. Your life is a beautiful project, not a task. It is not to be completed and put away but rather relished, enjoyed and learned from. Your life is not one day after another, it’s a span of time with rest in between where you get a chance to grow and build momentum. Your life is suppose to be joyous and your “project” is to figure out how. Stop trying to “finish”.

Stay CLEAR…stay FOCUSED…and it will be yours…

Best,
Heather

The moment I read Heather’s message, the buzzing stopped, and I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders.

I also then remembered what columnist Roger Cohen wrote in a recent New York Times essay called “Florentine Choices“:

In the U.S. culture of achievement, efficiency and logic are prized. In the Italian culture of aesthetics, the artful scam has its place. America acts in the belief that life is linear and leads to the realization of goals. Italy idles in the belief that life is circular and objectives an illusory distraction from pleasure.

Are objectives really an illusion? Did I get so wrapped up in the linear pursuit of trying to “complete”, that I started driving myself to exhaustion chasing the impossible?

For goals to have meaning, they need to be connected to what is most important to me: my personal mission, my vision of the change I wish to create in the world around me, and my beliefs about my talents, strengths and abilities (my “permission”). The point of having a goal is to orient my energy and provoke movement. Whether I reach the goal or not is, in the big scheme of things, “unimportant”.

I define “success” as creating an experience of life that allows me to explore my full potential.  The moment a goal urges me to take a step, my perspective about the goal changes. Whether the step is forward, or back, or to the left, or to the right, I’ve accrued a bit more experience, a bit more knowledge. This new experience causes me to reevaluate the goal – how is the goal still relevant to the experience of life that I wish to create, a life that allows me to explore my full potential?

It could be now that I’ve shifted where I am, that the goal is no longer as relevant. Or that it’s even more relevant. No matter, the objective is to be continuously reevaluating the goal, treating it as something dynamic rather than static.

If I am too focused on a static end-goal, my project ends when either I reach my goal, or the goal escapes my grasp. The end of a project is a little death. This is why goals need to be dynamic, always under reevaluation. Because the only purpose of a goal is to move me to action, so I can live an experience.

A linear life ends up being singularly focused on completion – and the ultimate completion is death. A circular life is focused on experience, and the experience of exploring my mission, vision and permission need not end… The circular life can go on forever, because it never needs to be complete.

For more information

Check out Heather Frey on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/SmashFit and Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmashFit Heather’s web site is http://www.SmashFit.com

The essay that got me thinking about “linear” vs “circular” lifestyle: “Florentine Choices” by Roger Cohen, NYTimes.com, 11 Mar 2010
Direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12iht-edcohen.html

Image credit: ”Six Blue Circles” by qthomasbower on Flickr. Link to author: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/
Link to image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3835549101/
Used under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 licence

The situation in Haiti is appalling.

It is virtually impossible to break away from the news, it is on the television, the front page of the newspapers, on the radio, in the Twitter stream I follow. The images, the sounds, the stories…it is overwhelming.

But before the earthquake in Haiti struck, what occupied our collective attention? Was it the swindle or terror attempt du jour? The war, or scandal, or the crotch-bomber or whatever the crisis of the moment, imagined or real? I don’t remember, there were so many. It is important to know what’s happening, but what is the potential effect of that constant bombardment of bad news?

And most importantly, in what way does this bad news help me to live better, right here right now?  

It doesn’t.

As a solopreneur, my emotional energy must be managed differently than other people.  I need to protect it in order to invest it as fully as possible in my projects. It’s like they say in the airline safety briefings: first put the oxygen mask on yourself, then help your neighbor if required. I need to ensure that my emotional energy level is healthy, then I can give some to others.

Mixed in all this media attention is a not-so-subtle pressure to donate money and possibly time to relief organizations. If you have energy or resources to spare, please do so. On the other hand, if your business is taking all your energy, such that you have little to give to the relief efforts, that’s okay. Don’t feel guilty. You are still contributing to making the world a better place.

You can also find ways to integrate your business with giving, creating a win-win situation. But again, if you don’t want to, or you’re not in a position to do so, don’t let others make you feel guilty.

We have a responsibility to ourselves first, to make sure we have that emotional oxygen mask on, that we’re breathing correctly, that we’re emotionally healthy. Our clients, our families, our community – they are counting on us to stay focused and strong. By helping to make my corner of the world a little better, it enables others to do the same…and I believe that the ripples will reach out and help everyone in need, whether here or in Haiti.

For a couple of years now I have been programming my own media mix, using podcasts, GoogleReader, iTunes, Twitter, Facebook and some online video and news sources. I’m still hyperaware of what’s happening, but I feel I have more control to block out ads and negative news. I choose my media sources and my social media friends carefully, to keep me plugged-in to positive, inspiring information, which fills up my emotional energy tank to be there to help my clients and to invest in their success.

Resist giving into despair and guilt. Look for the positive, be inspired by the good. Look for the light.

I’m not saying to ignore the bad in the world. To see the light one must also recognize the shadow.

Just beware not to become obsessed with it.

For more information

Photo credit: Janex & Alba at http://www.flickr.com/photos/janex/. Permission: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I use Google Reader to track of hundreds of blogs on leadership, entrepreneurship and success. Here are some great posts that turned up in my Google Reader lately:

• Successful People Focus on the Process, not on the Result
  Chuck Blakeman – TeamNimbusWest Blog
  http://blog.teamnimbuswest.com/2010/01/successful-people-focus-on-the-process-not-on-the-result/

Are we too focused on the result, thinking that “arriving” will make us happy? Why do athletes, music heroes, and business people who are already at the top of their field and financially secure keep going? Why don’t they retire as soon as they get there?

• Success and Motivation: What will you remember when you are 90?
  Mark Cuban – BlogMaverick
  http://blogmaverick.com/2009/12/04/success-motivation-what-will-you-remember-when-you-are-90/

Mark Cuban may be a multi-millionaire, but he does ask a good question that puts wealth (and the pursuit of wealth) in a proper perspective

• What Makes An Entrepreneur? Perspiration (6/11)
  Mark Suster – Both Sides Of The Table
  http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/12/21/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-perspiration-611/

A great series of posts by an entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist about what it takes to succeed today. I like the point that he makes in this post the best: “If you want a safe job or a balanced life don’t be an entrepreneur.”

• 6 Things They Mean When They Say They Have No Money
  Naomi Dunford – IttyBiz
  http://ittybiz.com/customers-cant-afford-it/

The brutal truth about what “I don’t have the money” really means (and what to do about it)…

For more information

Check out these and other posts that I share from a list of over 220 blogs on my Google Reader sharing page:

https://www.google.com/reader/shared/davenderg

Do you have a blog you suggest I should follow? (Maybe even your own blog?) Post it in the comments below!

Someone sent me an app on Facebook that creates a poster listing my statuses of the past year. Well I discovered that I have too many good ones to fit on just one page (plus I’m not a fan of subscribing to apps because of security concerns), so I used the app to retrieve all my status updates of the past year so I could archive the best here on my blog. Here are the highlights (IMHO) from my Facebook page for January 2009:

• Thot: In whatever you do, start the way you want to finish.
• Thot: I judge the competence of someone not on the answers they give but on the quality of the questions they ask.
• Thot: Urgent vs important? Important tasks move me towards my priorities, urgent is responding to other’s priorities. Choose wisely.
• Thot: Real, sustainable profit only comes from making a positive difference in people’s lives.
• Thot: Don’t be scared by structures, systems and discipline: the crucible from which you can create great things.
• Thot: In committees, talking about politics makes you feel important. Focusing on getting things done makes you important.
• Goodnight thot inspired by Tim Sanders’ blog: Are you committed enough to your Big Dream to “break some ribs”? http://is.gd/f6OS
• Thot: If you don’t have a dream, you can’t spot opportunity.
• Thot: The best way to create positive cashflow is to first create positive change.
• Thot: Success is not about achieving a goal, that thrill quickly fades. Success is what you learn and how you grow by reaching for the goal, and beyond.
• Blog post: Greatness is never a given – it must be earned http://bit.ly/6y3lP4
• Thot: Luck means settling for what fate decides to give me. I don’t want to settle!
• Thot: We budget our money as if it was finite and spend time as if was infinite-should it be the other way around?
• Thot: Money is the measure of your client’s commitment to the impact you promise them through your offer.

I’m fortunate to be part of an amazing circle of people led by Elizabeth Marshall, with a mission to plug you into the hottest ideas in marketing, business and leadership. AuthorTeleseminars.com is a series of teleconference interviews by high-profile authors and thought leaders to bring to your attention important books that are shaping today and tomorrow. Membership in AT is free and you get access to the calls and also the recordings.

The 2010 season starts off particularly strong with two great sessions:

• Publishing Strategist and Author, Janet Goldstein

DATE: Thursday, January 7 at 1 pm Eastern Time

If you are an aspiring author or communicator who wants to write a book and successfully build a following for your idea, join this conversation with publishing strategist and author Janet Goldstein. You will discover six easy and effective steps you can take right away to powerfully proclaim your message.

Specifically, on this call you will learn:

• Three specific action steps you can use to immediately strengthen your idea.
• Three effective ways to build your following (platform) and establish key relationships with strategic partners.

MORE INFO AND REGSTRATION: http://bit.ly/gopubliccall

• Dan Pink, author of the new book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”

DATE: Tuesday, January 12 at 1 pm Eastern Time

Dan’s book “Free Agent Nation” was the catalyst that supported me in taking the decision to go solo. His latest book explores how can keep the passion alive. In this season of resolutions, it is essential to upgrade our understanding of how to motivate ourselves (and others) and discover proven ways to awaken our true motivation and align our actions with our deepest values and desires.

MORE INFO AND REGISTRATION:  http://bit.ly/danpinkcall

Go to the links, save your seat and attend these FREE information-rich calls!

For more information

http://www.authorteleseminars.com (click on the direct links above to go to the specific event pages)

Janet Goldstein:  http://goldsteinjanet.web.officelive.com

Dan Pink:  http://www.danpink.com

What matters most to me in 2010 is one word: Execution.

I love Peter Senge’s definition of Leadership from his famous book “The Fifth Discipline”: leadership is the ability to get things done.  Getting things done means turning ideas into results.

For the past ten years I have been working on this vision of mine. When things work well, it is because I focus on making things happen. When things don’t work so well, it’s because I get too wrapped up in dreams, hopes and wishes…

Yes, positive thinking is important. The Law of Attraction (Ask-Believe-Receive) sounds nice, neat and tidy. But all the Big Dreams in the world amount to nothing until someone is willing to roll up their sleeves and get sweaty all over.

Here is what Execution means to me, right now.

• Execution means clarity – keeping the main thing the main thing
• Execution means discipline – taking purposeful action regardless of how I feel (about it or about me)
• Execution means accountability – measuring and reporting my tangible and intangible results so I tell myself the truth about my current situation
• Execution means systems – having processes and structure to free my mind from sweating the small stuff, so I can focus on what’s important
• Execution means efficiency – doing things right to maximize the return on my investment of time, money and effort
• Execution means effectiveness – doing the right things that move me forward towards my goal
• Execution means progress – making sure I move forward each day
• Execution means commitment – doing what I say is most important to me
• Execution means collaboration – assembling and building a team that actively supports the vision and the mission
• Execution means communication – communicating my intentions constantly and clearly so that everyone who is involved and impacted by what I do knows what is happening and where I’m going
• Execution means purposeful courage – expanding my comfort zone by keeping one foot in and one foot just beyond, giving me a fulcrum from which to propel myself forward into the unknown
• Execution means planning – thinking things through before I act, to optimize my efforts and my results
• Execution means standards – establishing performance levels that I require of my self in all my actions
• Execution means results-focused leadership – ensuring that I stay out of the “strategy trap” where all I do is conjecture and plan, and that I move into action mode
• Execution means celebration – recognizing and celebrating progress so that I can enhance it
• Execution means acceleration – from first learning to crawl then to walk then to run, what is in common is that it’s all about putting one foot in front of the other
• Execution means boundaries – being clear about what I tolerate from others, and being grounded enough to say no (or no more) when it does not serve my purpose
• Execution means imagination – keeping the big vision alive in my mind’s eye
• Execution means relentless focus – being obsessive about creating results in alignment with what I say is most important to me
• Execution means responsibility – adopting the attitude that “the buck stops here”: if it is not working, first look at myself to see what I can change within me, if it is working, then recognizing the contributions of others that make it possible
• Execution means excellence – making a positive difference in the world that fully expresses Who I Really Am.

Dreamers open up the possibility of change, but it’s the doers that make revolutions happen. In 2010 I will be the revolution-maker.

What value matters most to you as you move into 2010?

For more information

Read my original post here: http://blog.davender.com/2009/12/what-matters-most-whats-your-one-word-theme-for-2010

Get Seth Godin’s thought-provoking e-book here: http://www.squidoo.com/Whatmattersnowfreeebook

What is one word that sums up the experience that matters the most for you in 2010?

My favorite thinker Seth Godin asked this question to over seventy big thinkers and produced an inspiring (free!) e-book “What Matters Now“. Each person chose a one-word theme for what’s important to them in 2010 and wrote a little riff on the topic.

My faves are Hugh Macleod’s riff on “Meaning” (read the fine print!), Jackie Huba on “1%” (see one of the banner images on my blog!), and “Gumption” by J.C. Hutchins (made me smile!).

As complete as this little book seems to be, there are so many more themes that you can claim and express in 2010. I have a couple of ideas I want to explore… Stay tuned for my own choice – I will post it here this week as my “New Year’s Resolution Project”.

Pass the word about this inspiring e-book. Post it on your blog, on your Facebook page, Tweet about it.

What is your One-Word Theme for 2010?  Please share it!

For more information:

Link to post on Seth Godin’s blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html (actually this post includes TWO free e-book downloads)

Link to Squidoo lens: http://www.squidoo.com/Whatmattersnowfreeebook (includes a reading list of amazing books…)

Direct link to download e-book (pdf): http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-1.pdf

Make this first day of the New Year a model for the kind of day that you want for each of the next 365.

I know that there are some things on my “To Get Started On” list that I have been delaying and delaying for several weeks, telling myself that I will get to it in the New Year. Well, the day has arrived, the excuse ship has departed.

Today, right now, I resolve to adopt three daily practices of personal transformation:

1. Let go of something – What is a habit, a situation, a task, promise or commitment, or even a relationship, that is not serving you? That is preventing you from expressing your full potential? Every minute that you tolerate something that is holding you back, you are paying a price, that of not living your full potential. So whether it is something simple such as tossing that unopened junk mail sitting on the side of your desk (okay, it’s now done!) or something big like closing down a project that is going nowhere, do it now. You now have made space for the next step.

2. Transform something else – What is a something that could be improved? Many times what is holding us back is that our tools, systems or habits are not quite serving us. What action can you take today to improve your surroundings or your systems so that they work better? For me today it is finishing a writing draft that I started a few days ago but never finished, and getting it out the door, hence this blog post.

3. Adopt something new – This is the fun part for me, because I’m a forward-looking kind o’ guy. What is a new habit, situation, tool or project you can adopt that will help you to move forward, faster? For me today the new practice I adopted this morning is do to my pushups and abs exercises as soon as I get out of bed (my goal is 100 pushups and the equivalent in abs exercises)

By adopting these three principles and making small adjustments each day, big changes can occur over time.

Why is this important?

I love the feeling when I go to bed at night and I know I have played to the limit, leaving all of my energy and my efforts, all that I had to give, on the playing field of life. That I did all I could do, no excuses, no regrets. That I’ve taken a step further along the path of “Creating the change I wish to see in the world”.

Resolve to make this year the best. It may sound corny, but I mean it. All those great promises one makes to oneself, especially near the end of the year, well now is the time to live up to them. Create a physical, spiritual, mental and emotional environment that supports you to perform at your best.

The media are doing a great job at pushing people into an emotional depression. What the world needs more than ever right now are role models of people acting with purpose. You and I need to look forward, think and act big, to be irrationally and foolishly optimistic, for beyond that glass half full there is a whole ocean waiting to be explored!

May your New Year be full of great adventures and challenges, heartache and happiness, humor and sadness, disappointments and accomplishments, and above all, growth towards your full potential, towards Who You Really Are. For you are the sum of your experiences, so resolve to make those experiences as real and as fulfilling as humanly possible. There is a message to be heard and a lesson to be learned from every one of those 86400 seconds we receive each day.

I look forward to supporting you on your journey to greatness, as you support me on mine.

Bonne année mes amis! Happy New Year, my friends!

For more information

Image credit: Paul Moody via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmoody/339827428/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence