The media have this very annoying tendency to report business news as if they were baseball scores, as if the ups or downs of the Dow, TSX or FTSE are an accurate proxy for what millions of real entrepreneurs are doing.

The other day, out of curiosity, I watched BNN, the Canadian Business News Network. I usually avoid it because it gives me a headache, and this time was no different. It was a non-stop drone of talking heads recommending this stock or that stock on the flimsiest of cause-and-effect relationships. “I recommend you buy XYZ because it’s summer and people like to eat ice cream.” “Recent hail in Saskatchewan will depress demand for flivvers and sprockets so dump LMN.” What bullcrap.

Take any financial guru (please!). I bet that if you tracked their stock picks on a year by year basis you would be a net loser. Because if they were winning they would not be shilling on TV, they would be sitting in front of their computer screens with a big grin while day-trading and making more money.

Actually, “making money” is a misnomer. None of the so-called analysts are real entrepreneurs. They’re simply speculators. And that’s why the health of the stock market means nothing except the appetite of speculators. No wealth is created in their universe, it is only moved or consumed.

Ignore the news. Disregard the stock market. Refuse the recession. The world needs more value creators, not more speculators.

The beauty of being a solopreneur is that I can create my own little economy around me, of happy clients who enthusiastically refer me to their friends, creating a prosperity stream that defies the predictions of any of those blowhard pundits.

The market has absolutely no relationship with what’s happening in the world of business, especially the world of your business and my business.

For more information

Image credit: Image by mtsofan on Flickr.
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/2450496004/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

An illustrated talk by Dan Pink about what really motivates us (via Lifehacker)

For more information

Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

This talk was based on Dan Pink’s new book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594488843
Harvard Business Review: http://blogs.hbr.org/recommended/2010/01/drive-the-surprising-truth-abo.html

Dan Pink’s blog: http://www.danpink.com/

Check out other illustrated lectures by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce)
RSA website: http://www.theRSA.org
RSA YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theRSAorg

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

No, no – it’s not what you think! This is a real question, and an important one to consider!

Cory Doctorow (blog), in his novel “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom“, imagines a world where money is obsolete, replaced by a personal reputation-based currency called the “Whuffie“.

Tara Hunt translates this idea into real life in her book “The Whuffie Factor“: we are already entering an age where our “relationship capital” is just as important (or maybe more important?) than our financial capital. The more people respect you, trust you, and like you, the more they want to interact with you.

Tara suggests five principles to increase your Whuffie:  

1. Stop talking, start listening:  As she says, “turn the bullhorn around”.  We have been conditioned by the thousands of marketing messages we absorb each day to think that the only way to communicate is by pitching. But one more pitch just gets lost in the din. Instead, start listening. Draw people into conversation. Find out what makes them tick, what they are worried, or dreaming about. This opens the way to building a connection.

2. Become part of the community you serve: You need to get “down and dirty”, to connect and to get involved with your community, your tribe. The interaction has to go beyond the commercial, and become personal. (This is where Tim Sanders‘ “Likeability Factor” comes into play)

3. Create amazing experiences: People already have too much stuff. What they now want, more than ever, is great experiences that build personal relationships.

4. Embrace the chaos: As Tara says, “people are not predictable”. Start with a vision of what you want to create, and then allow it to evolve and transform through the conversation and the community. You may find that you end up with something even greater than you could ever imagine!

5. Find your higher purpose: I especially love this point – it’s about putting purpose first, then the profit is generated out of how people appreciate who you express your purpose. Another way of looking at this, is as the “Givers Gain” principle.

It is tempting to look at your Facebook friend and Twitter follower counts as a measure of your Whuffie, but in reality it goes way beyond that: your Whuffie is the quality of the interaction with your network. What are you doing to be “nice, networked and notable”? What do you give? How do you inspire them (and how do they inspire you?) How do you engage them?

As you seek to get more and better clients, consider this question: What are you doing right now to help people create an experience of life that enables them to express their full potential? I believe that the more you focus on answering this question, the greater your Whuffie, and the more you will attract people who value who you are and what you offer, and therefore who are ready to commit to you.

For more information:

Must Read: Tara Hunt, “The Whuffie Factor”  Amazon.com link (no affiliate): http://www.amazon.com/Whuffie-Factor-Social-Networks-Business/dp/0307409503

Cory Doctorow, “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” Amazon.com link (no affiliate): http://www.amazon.com/Down-Magic-Kingdom-Cory-Doctorow/dp/076530953X (Disclaimer – I have not read the novel, and I’m sure there is a lot more to the story than the one-sentence summary above, but it’s this specific concept that I want to expand on.)

Tara “missrogue” Hunt on the Web http://www.horsepigcow.com/ and on Twitter http://twitter.com/missrogue

And yes, these two people are Canadians! 

My New Year’s Eve was quiet, as usual (I don’t like big celebrations). I ended up flipping through YouTube and randomly found the movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. I’ve seen this flick several times before, but there was something that made me watch it with another perspective.

If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s about the obnoxious Pittsburgh TV weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) who is assigned to cover the Groundhog Day festivities in small-town Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He grudgingly does his on-air spot and sets off on the return trip to Pittsburgh but has to turn back because of a snowstorm. Forced to stay in the small town for another night, he wakes up the next morning realizing to his horror that he has to relive Groundhog Day again, and again the next day and the day after that. Stuck in this time loop, he realizes that he is powerless to change the situation and sinks into a depression until something clicks and he decides to start living positively. Even that doesn’t break the time loop, until…well, you’ll have to see the movie to find out how it ends.

There was one point in the movie where I was sure that once Phil Connors “got the girl” then he would snap out of the time loop, but I realized it was only half-way through the movie. Then it came to me: this movie was calling me to snap out of my own “Groundhog Year”.

2009 was a good year, in that I’m grateful for all the new experiences, the new contacts, and the new skills that I gained. But, to be honest, despite all of the big plans I had back in January 2009, I did not achieve the quantum leap forward in my business that I’ve been wanting for the last couple of years. My business project is stuck in a Groundhog Loop.

Once the movie finished, I sat there staring at the screen for a while, thinking about what are the lessons I could apply to ensure that 2010 is not another Groundhog Year?

- Do one thing different today: Phil Connors came to believe that whatever he did had no consequences. After sinking into a depressive state and trying to kill himself by different means, he still woke up with the 6:00 AM radio alarm with nothing changed. It was when he started to realize that by doing one thing different that day, in a positive way, he could make the experience of being in the time loop more pleasant for him, even if the environment around him did not change and nobody remembered. So for me, I must identify – and do – one thing different today so that I can make my day more pleasant and productive.

- Be patient: Even by making positive changes in his actions and his attitude, Phil Connors was still in the time loop for a long, long time. It’s the same with New Year’s Resolutions. The actions I take now will probably not make a difference for many days, weeks or months. But if I really want to be in a different situation one year from today, I must start now.

- Change for the right reasons: At first Phil Connors focused all his efforts on trying to “get the girl”, thinking that might be the way to create his “perfect day”. But it was only when he started to change for the “right reasons” that he created the movement that eventually broke through the time loop. Are my goals for the New Year focused on the right results that will get me out of my own Groundhog Loop?

Waking up this January 1 2010, nothing outside of me has changed significantly. I have the same surroundings, the same people, the same bank account, the same to-do list as on December 31, 2009. But I have the power to break the Groundhog Loop by the positive steps I choose to make, starting today, to make this my Best Year Ever.

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

Susan Scott, on her FierceBlog, asks this intriguing question:

“Imagine that you had the complete, avid attention of every person on this planet for thirty seconds. What would you say?”

Do you know what your message is? Are you integrating it into everything that you do, that you offer, that you say, that you make, and who you are?

Leaders know with an unswerving certainty what their message is. Their message is an expression of their Mission (who they are), their Vision (the impact they are meant to create in the world) and their Permission (their strengths, talents and abilities that enable them to execute).

Leadership is about creating a positive impact around oneself that changes the status-quo, in alignment with one’s Mission, Vision and Permission. Gandhi said it so well: “Be the change you wish to see in the world“.

Somewhere, out there, someone is listening with “complete, avid attention” for the message you were born to communicate, for the lesson you were born to teach, for the change you wish to see. Is your message loud and clear, so they can hear it, feel it, experience it?

We each have a message to bring to the world, an important piece of the puzzle that is life. You get one chance to state your case, this one chance being your lifetime. Once you’re gone, that’s it, the song is lost.

Get clear about your Life Message. Build a Big Project around it: that is your real business. People don’t just buy your products and services, they want to create a personal connection with you… to experience the change you wish to create in the world.

Now that I am getting clear on my message, what drives me forward each day is this realization that time is ticking and there is so much to do to make sure my message is heard by as many people as possible…

Think Big… and act even Bigger…

For more information

Image: Amarand Agasi on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theamarand/2743204366/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence