Trick or Treat!

It's Halloween and you would have seen young kids wandering the streets dressed up as ghouls, ghosts, zombies and the like.

Ever considered that they're cold calling?

If you're currently recruiting for your sales team, you should go out and look for the kids that have the biggest and heaviest bags of candy. They're your child prodigies!

It's the same with fundraising and selling chocolates. There's something innocent about a young child knocking on your door selling you things to fundraise. You don't feel threatened, you don't expect them to try and rip you off and they're doing something good for society.

My thought is - how do you in the first few seconds of that cold call convey that sense of innocence and authenticity?

Help your idea blossom by sharing it

Remember to share your idea.

Nobody ever succeeded with there business idea by keeping it a secret. Today I shared one of my business ideas with a friend of mine and what came out of the discussion was fantastic. I got to see some different angles I hadn't considered before and opportunities opened up right in front of my eyes.

Sharing an idea is like watering a seed. The more you share it, the stronger it becomes and it develops. It'll get to a point where it's strong enough to survive by itself and takes on a life of its own. You now just need to nurture it and watch it blossom.

If you don't share it, the idea will never see the light of day. It stays as a seed.

I know from experience. I come up with great ideas, keep them in my head or only share them with one or two people. Before I know it, I've talked myself out of it, taken no action and trashed the idea.

What's your idea? Will you share it with me?

Intrinsic Drivers

It's those things that float your boat.

There's certain common aspects to the things that you love doing and things that really fulfill and satisfy you.

For me, one of my intrinsic drivers is "experiences". Having beautiful memorable experiences whether they be my brother's wedding, a valentines day picnic or a trip over to Hong Kong. It doesn't stop there either, that driver is also fulfilled by creating and sharing experiences for others.

If I look at my life, a lot of what I value is in experiences. I wrote about it in a previous blog where I'm not a big present giver or receiver but I do like creating an experience to share for that special occasion instead.

Right now, I'm in the process of discovering my intrinsic drivers. That involves observing what I feel drawn towards, looking at what I really love doing and enquiring into why I want certain things in my future life.

This is a fundamental step as it allows me to clearly define what I want to achieve in my life. Part of this blog is about how I'm going to leave a positive mark on the world. What will I be known for?

By creating a mission/path that fulfills on all my intrinsic drivers, I'm going to far more enjoy myself, be fulfilled and put my heart and soul into it even when the going gets tough.

Take a moment to think about what you're up to. What floats your boat? What's the common intrinsic driver?

If you want to learn more about intrinsic drivers, read the Winner's Bible by Kerry Spackman. A brilliant book!

Ideas. Sometimes they come easy sometimes they don't.

Ever noticed that when you're in the shower, exercising or in bed that you come up with epic ideas?

Then in contrast, you find yourself at a loss when you're brainstorming and trying to come up with that perfect idea.

I notice it all the time and it's something that I've been musing about. Why is that?

What I've noticed is that when I'm focused on coming up with ideas and being creative, my mind is blocked up with the concern about producing a result. I'm strategising, analysing, judging and trying to work it out. My brain's all busy doing that rather than being creative.

Inspired creativity doesn't work like that.

It comes from a sense of wonder. From being creative for the sake of being creative.

When we're in the shower, exercising or in bed, our brain is not focused on generating any result. It's in a relaxed state, in a state of wonder. From there, your brain is free to do the work for you - piecing together your knowledge into fantastic and brilliant ideas.

If you think you're not creative. Just notice next time you're in the shower or going for a walk. What ideas pop up for you? Your point of view that you're not creative stifles your very creativity.

Keep on going.

I've now written 20 posts and I can see the wall coming up. I can see that dip that I'm going to have to pull myself through.

My mind is telling me to give up, to stop writing. People don't want to hear about you. People don't want to see all your posts on social media.

In fact, writing this very post is confronting as it has me think about what people might be thinking about me.

I don't want to be disliked - I'm a people pleaser. However, it's this little voice in my head that's going to keep me from achieving what I want to in life. If I'm not willing to risk looking bad and upsetting people, then I'll forever play safe in my shell.

I'm going to keep going. My goal is to inspire, challenge and grow both myself and others and if I stop here, that goal isn't going to be fulfilled.

I know some of you read it and that's enough for me :).

Keeping a clear picture

There's a lot going on in my head. Lots of ideas, lots of dreams.

I've put them all up on a wall so they're out there now. I've had my goals up on the wall in this arrangement for a couple of weeks now and it's great.

I can refer to them while I brush my teeth and Lisa my fiancée can see what I'm creating for my life as well. I think that's hugely important and she's going to a big part of helping me fulfill what I'm up to in life.

At the bottom I've literally just created a business ideas area. If you know me you'll know that I come up with business ideas incessantly. I like to think a lot of them would work too!

The problem is of course that I don't follow through with them. I'm always wondering about the amount of time or money I have to dedicate to these projects and more often than not I pull out of doing them.

So, what I've done to clarify my thinking is I've put on the Y Axis the priority. That's how well that idea fulfills on the needs I have - marketing experience, contacts, finances etc

On the X Axis, the closer the idea is to the middle, the more it fulfills my intrinsic drivers. The stuff that floats my boat.

In doing this exercise, I became much clearer and I can rapidly see what's of most importance to me rather than having this confusing snow globe in my head.

I'll review this as I go on a daily basis. It's a great starting point :)

Our little voices

The unknown is scary.

Our mind doesn't want to deal with something that's scary. Our fight or flight response protects us from taking that sort of action.

Just stop for a moment. Think about something you've always wanted to do but never got around to it... or it's one of those things that you'll do one day.

Just listen.

Listen to those thoughts, that little voice inside your head telling you things. Often they're reasons why not to do something. For me, it often says "what if you miss out on this or that??". "That's not going to work". "People won't like you if you do that".

Now those voices aren't bad. They're what keep us safe. It's part of the predictive system that we have for protecting us. We predict what will happen in the future based on our past and your little voice relays those things back to you to "protect" you. Only those things that you're protected from aren't going to kill you, nor even true!

In the weekend I made a choice. My voices were going crazy and I all I did was notice all those voices. Then, I put the voices aside and made a choice freely.

The result? Clarity. I'm so clear. Because it wasn't a choice made based on my voices/thoughts/reasons/considerations, it was one that I don't question myself on. It's empowering.

Experiences - an intrinsic driver

I wrote my secret vows for our wedding the other day.

I expressed myself authentically in my tatty little red book (Lisa don't go through it :P), I observed myself as I progressed through the process of crafting the vow.

I got to see something I had never seen before. I place massive value on experiences. I found myself becoming particularly emotional when thinking about the experiences that Lisa and I have had and will have in the future.

When I made a deeper enquiry into this, I started to see how it played it out in my life.

I'm not a big present buyer or giver. In fact, my excuse is that I would much rather go have an experience and do something special. Go out for dinner with friends, go see a movie, go somewhere special - that sort of thing.

Then I looked at how that influences my relationship with Lisa. She loves presents and the act of giving and receiving. Doesn't make sense to me but I now have a greater appreciation of how for her, gifts are as important for her as experiences are for me.

Experiences. One intrinsic driver of mine. Or in other words, it's what floats my boat.

So how do I incorporate that into what I do in life?

Emotional buying

I just came across the all new Toyota Corolla: http://corolla.co.nz/

I love what they've done. It's not just about the car. It's selling the experience and the story behind the car. It's selling you the emotional connection that you'll have with your car.

If you read through the site, it's not dry specifications. It's all about how each feature will apply to you and how it'll make you feel.

It's quite different to the old story of Toyota reliability. With cars becoming more reliable, people just don't care as much as anymore.

They know buying a car is an emotional decision, not a logical one. That's why the GT-86 is sold with fun in mind and this Corolla is selling you a connection to a car like you'd have a connection to a pet.

Watch the video advert of Alloroc the cat. It's very cute :).

On another note, isn't it a great looking car?

The backdoor

Last night over a pretty average butter chicken, a very good friend of mine - Henare - helped me see something in my life that I hadn't seen before.

I'm really good at coming up with ideas, getting people enthused about them, going part way down the track and giving up.

I know for myself that I don't commit to business ideas because I feel like if I do, I'll miss out on something else.

So what I do then, is I always leave myself a backdoor. I never commit fully, only test the waters. When things look tough or I'm at the point of no return, I often back off and talk myself out of the idea. I find reasons why it won't work and don't work to find a solution.

Doing this really sucks. Nothing ever gets accomplished and I feel incompetent. Not only that, I know it's frustrating for Lisa (my fiancée) when it seems like every week I'm doing something different.

The access to doing something else is noticing when I start to hold back and do it anyway. I have to burn the bridge that I walked across so I have no turning back.

So I ask myself - what is it that I would commit my all to? Perhaps I should ask, what would I be ready to die for?

I've got some thinking and brainstorming to do.

Creating (product) experiences

I want to create experiences for people that are truly joyous.

Cars are close to my heart and I know that I'm going to have a car collection.

It's amazing. A car is a collection of shaped metal, plastic and other various materials. If you turned one to scrap, there's not actually anything to be loved.

However, arrange those pieces into a Ferrari 250GT California and you end up with a car that's truly remarkable: Top Gear James May drives a 250GT.

There are a number of other cars that are equally sought after. It doesn't say it in that short clip but Chris Evans the owner of that car paid 5.5 million pounds for that car.

What I'm most interested in is the experience James May has - the fulfilling a childhood dream part of his experience. It's the whole story, one that has been going on for decades for him that comes to a climatic conclusion. He's fulfilling a childhood dream or story.

So how do we create such experiences? How do we create and share incredibly moving and memorable experiences with our customers? How do we create brands and products that people emotionally connect with?

That's what I'm interested in.

Patting myself on the back

I don't really give myself enough acknowledgement.

For me, it's like climbing a mountain. I'm climbing climbing climbing, slogging my heart out and I get to the top of the mountain. Instead of turning around, admiring the view and giving myself a high five for my achievements, I look up at the next mountain and just continue climbing.

The impact on me is that it's just so tiring and debilitating.

The biggest thing is that it stops me from creating. When I'm not allowing myself to be as great as I can be, playing myself down or criticising myself for the things I can improve on, I don't get to be creative, passionate or inspiring.

The times when I do produce my best results are when I'm allowing myself to acknowledge how awesome I am. That's when I'm bold and unstoppable. At that point I'm fully self expressed.

When I'm making cold calls like that, the conversations are completely natural. There's no forcing the call, or trying to make an appointment. I'm know what I'm offering is brilliant and I know that I am making a great contribution to them - it's up to them to say yes or no. More often than not, it's a yes.

The thing is, this isn't a natural way of being for me - but I'm committed that it becomes natural. More often than not, I talk myself down, I doubt myself and I analyse the crap out of everything.

So all I'm doing right now is noticing when I do that... it's at that point that I'm able to interrupt my automatic behaviour and go back to acknowledging myself and being awesome :).

Commenting!

I've just been playing with the settings of my blog so it's now possible to comment on my blog posts.

I didn't realise I had it on a setting where you had to have a Blogspot account. I've changed it so now you don't need one :)

Trying to get it all done

You and I will never get it all done.

It's human nature.

Even though I know that, there's no stopping me from trying. Today I spent a good part of the afternoon feeling stink about how much I had accomplished. In fact, I had produced some pretty great results over the last week but that all doesn't matter when I'm beating myself up.

I was "overwhelmed". I've just taken on some new responsibilities and I wasn't responsible in the way I took things on.

Ever notice those times when we say yes to things we know not to say yes to?

That's why we get overwhelmed and then we get resentful and justified. It's just a lot easier to say 'no' in the beginning and be responsible. In fact, it's a much more powerful way of dealing with life.

People respect knowing up front rather than being let down when you don't complete it.

In saying that, don't go around avoiding being overwhelmed. That experience comes part and parcel with growing and taking on life. I just know my access to not having my brain exploding everywhere is getting in communication with people and saying what I will and will not do and by when.

If you're like me and been feeling a bit overwhelmed, think about who you need to talk to be responsible with what you've promised. Communicate first. Action later. Don't do what I do and just try and push your way through it. You'll end up wanting to punch someone in the face.

I broke a promise I made yesterday

When it came to doing my cold calling at the time I scheduled today, I started 10 or so minutes late. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I was going to start right on time.

What may not seem like a big deal - after all it was only 10minutes - actually had a big impact.

I had broken my promise and that left me feeling let down, weak and guilty though at the time I didn't see it for myself. To cover it up I drove myself to produce results so I could justify to myself it doesn't matter that I was late in starting.

Well... I ended up floundering for the next 2-3 hours until I actually said something to another person rather than hold it all in.

Once I was freed up - having acknowledged my broken promise - I booked two appointments and had great results! The weight lifted.

It seems minor but it's really important. Being someone that honours their promises (no matter how small) gives me power, respect and trust - not just from others but for me to myself.

Broken promises can be cleaned up but if they're left - they hold performance back.

Getting up in the morning

Sometimes it's very hard to get up in the morning.

This morning I woke up at 6am and then didn't get up until 6:45am. It's that dreaded "snooze" phenomenon.

I roll over, my cat walks on me, I push her away then roll over again. I close my eyes and try not to think about doing anything just so I can eek out those extra precious minutes of sleep.

In reality, those extra minutes of sleep really don't make a difference. In fact, I end up getting later which means I don't have time to just chill out while I have breakfast or take my time in making a really good lunch.

If I relate this procrastination to the day - any time I procrastinate, I make more work for myself. Procrastination is never satisfying. It never delivers on anything beneficial yet I still do it. It just draws out the amount of time that I'm left anxious about doing something.

Tomorrow morning, I've set my alarm for 7am. I'm going to get straight out of bed when I wake up and have some time to myself before I start work. I also have some work scheduled in the day and I'm just going to do it as soon as that time arrives.

Let's see what happens.

The best get picked first.

I'm good at a lot of things.

But good is not remarkable. Good is not the best. Good is normal.

Remember back when you were at school and you when people were being picked for a game of soccer/rugby/netball. I was never the first one picked but I was never the last one picked either. I was in the middle and that's not memorable.

In society today, what do you go for? Do you pick the 2nd best TV? The 3rd best wedding photographer?

In society, we pick the best (within our criteria). Makes sense.

So when it comes to building a team for a business or project - we want the best people in our team. If we look at the most successful businesses, at the crux of it they always have the best team. The best people for each specific role.

How do I get picked for that team? Being good at sales, marketing, systems, product development and all that makes no difference. I have to be the best - so that I'm the go-to person when you put together that dream team.

I looked at what floats my boat, what I love doing. What is it that I can see being a part of what I'm up to in life? For me, that's being the best marketing storyteller there is.

What about you?

New Zealand Innovators

Last night I attended the New Zealand Innovator Awards last night courtesy of Nick of Paperkut (www.paperlessreceipts.com).

The winners of each section walked up on stage to receive their prestigious awards and as they did, the host would read out a description of what their business or innovation is.

What blew me away is the level of innovation in New Zealand. Many of these companies I'd never heard of before and in a way it's no surprise because their products and projects are global. A team of graduates in university had developed a water monitoring system being implemented over in Asia and the Middle East whilst another company was completing a project to have the world's first 100% solar powered nation.

All based out of New Zealand.

New Zealand has so much potential to be a major technological and innovative powerhouse on a global scale.

We need to be willing to stand out and not be afraid to take on the world.

The value of an experience and story

Lisa my fiancee is in Canada at the moment and she rung me up excitedly.

"I just made my first spend in Canada and it wasn't for me! I'm still giggling!"

"What was it?"

"I've just been to this amazing store where I made a teddy bear for my flower girl!"

She had just been to "Build-A-Bear Workshop" at Niagara Falls and here's a picture of it.

Incredible. There's a whole process that goes into building the bear and it's amazing what a difference this experience adds to an industry that has been around for aaaages.

Buying a great soft toy teddy bear isn't memorable. Buying a great soft toy teddy bear that you made is far more memorable and worth talking about. Lisa is no doubt going to talk about that experience for a long time to come!

There's now a whole backstory that goes with her teddy bear.

What about other industries then? Can this be replicated in other places to create joyous memorable experiences? Not in the world of mass production that we have today but what if you were take a mass produced product and make it personal?

I think that's where we're heading. Products are so easy to buy these days. We have so much choice. The ones that will stand out are where we can add our own personal experience and we'll pay more for it too. I know Lisa did...

Imagine being involved in the process of building your own car - we're part way there with picking options. What about custom making your own smartphone case? What about a restaurant where you get guided to make your own dinner or dessert?

I like the idea of crafting joyous experiences for people.

The value of action

This morning I didn't feel like doing anything at all. I felt like that all the way as I drove to the office.

I got to the office I still felt like that. It certainly seemed like one of those days where I'd get nothing done.

Instead of getting stuck and sulking about my situation. I took the action I knew I needed to take even if I didn't feel like it. That was to cold call and book a couple of sales appointments.

And that was it. Immediately after having that first call that cloud lifted. The very act of taking the action I was procrastinating about lifted that gloomy feeling.

It's simple really. The next time I feel gloomy, just look at what I haven't done that I know to do and do it.

Not taking risks is the biggest risk of all

Today I've been thinking about all the hair brained ideas I've had.

I'm sure you've had lots yourself and many of them were nuts but there were always a few that you thought that would be absolutely brilliant.

I've had many of those and many of them haven't gone anywhere. They swirl in my head like a snow globe.

The reason why they haven't gone anywhere is that I haven't been willing to risk myself. To what degree varies - from not sharing the idea at all through to not taking the actions I know to take. Hidden inside that is the biggest risk of all and that's becoming a permanent snow globe.

What I'm learning to do is to share my ideas, to speak out and express how I think things should or could be. To take that first step. To not do that is to risk stagnating and ending up as a "I could have, or that could have been me".

As I went through this thought process today, I became clearer on how I might set myself up to take risks. What is the safety net I could put in place to take bigger and bigger risks?

Well - my answer to that was to create a financial foundation that supports my life necessities. You know, Audi RS4, big car garage and a lifestyle family home complete with brilliant views.

From there I've got a foundation that enables to risk big on my ventures without falling back to a destitute entrepreneur.

I'm going to poke a hole in my snow globe and watch the storm ensue...

Innovate.

Today, I had the pleasure of having meetings with two new potential clients that were open minded.

I'm a partner in a marketing business - an entrepreneurial marketing business at that. That means I get to be creative all day coming up with new ideas on how to grow people's businesses.

Often times our potential clients are quite set in their thinking - more to the point are quite fearful of dramatic change. What they're missing though is that without changing and innovating, they stop being remarkable and miss out on being the leader in their field.

These two businesses were different and it came down to the individuals.They were up for a conversation about how they could innovate and be the leaders in their industry. Now that lit me up.

This driving of innovation and doing something remarkable really speaks to me. How do we have our businesses stand out? And... what does standing out look like today? Standing out tomorrow is going to look different to how it looks today.

The question I'm asking myself right now is how do I personally stand out? What makes my blog more interesting to read than others?

It's a bit scary.

Now that I have my blog, it's actually got me all excited.

I feel like I'm now actually taking steps toward crafting a future that I want to live. This taking action business puts me out there in the real world - a world where I'm actually at risk. It's where things happen.

It's a bit scary actually. Sharing my thoughts to the world. My brain tells me not to do it. To stop the feed to Twitter and LinkedIn and to just post for myself. To keep it all private and avoid being judged. But that's what it's like to be a leader.

What I want to achieve with this blog is to share about my journey of discovery of creating who I want to be and how I want to leave my mark on the world. If I'm out to be a leader in this world, I've got to lead. Not just read or learn about it.

Even after only two posts, I know I've already made a lot of progress in my thinking. It's amazing what taking action does.

Taking action

Instead of sitting on my hands. It's time to take action. Here's my first action.

Over the last couple of months I've been thinking more and more about what I want to achieve in life.

Life is really a game. If you think about it, there's actually no inherent meaning in life. If human's didn't exist, there wouldn't be any meaning. Meaning only exists in human language.

As life is a game, let's make it a game that I want to play. Let's make it a game that by the end of it I don't feel like I've just the last 40 years of my life playing World of Warcraft.

So that brings me to this blog. I've got some ideas of what I want to do and fundamentally it involves making a difference in the world. To make a difference in the world, I'm going to have a lot of difficulty making that difference in my own head.

Sharing an idea can be the beginning of something amazing. Like a drop of water in a pond, you don't know how far reaching the impact of your sharing can be.