Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
When was the last time your company made a daring, bold decision that turned out to be wildly successful? Not that recently? Not ever?
But how likely is it that your company’s boring, middle-of-the-road decisions will ever turn out to be wildly successful? Probably never.
Steve’s newsletter challenges you to “Quiver in Your Boots” from time to time– only risky moves have the chance for great reward!
Read the newsletter: “Quiver in Your Boots”
And here’s a link to Apple’s famous “1984″ ad referenced in the newsletter.
Posted in Creativity, Invent Your Future, Observations, Wisdom from everyday life | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
As Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, “some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
In our day and age of meritocracy, greatness usually comes only from achievement, not from birth or happenstance. So, we then have the question: “How do you achieve success?”
In today’s newsletter, To Achieve Success You Need To Create Success, I share a an insight I heard recently that sheds light on this question. On the surface, it’s simple, but, then again, sometimes the most important ideas are simple.
Read the newsletter: To Achieve Success You Need To Create Success
Posted in Invent Your Future, latent profit, Wisdom from everyday life | 3 Comments »
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
Ah, early January, and the whole year stretches out before us. Plenty of time to do the right things, plenty of time to do things right.
So, how do we get started? What should we do now to ensure that 2011 is a winning year?
This week’s newsletter, What should you do the first week of the year? explores this issue. Hint: If you want to know what to do at the beginning of the year, think about what you want the end of the year to look like.
Posted in Invent Your Future | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
There are an infinite number of possible futures for you business. Choose one! Today’s newsletter, Choose Your Future, continues the them of “Invent Your Future” from the last few issues. Here’s an excerpt:
“Who do we intend to be?” is a question you should ask now and continue asking every day you are in business. Our ability to accomplish things has less to do with skills and abilities and more to do with the choices we make.
Choose to read Choose Your Future. It will help your business (and your career).
Posted in Invent Your Future | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Steve took inspiration from the great transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson for today’s newsletter, Invent Your Future- Now.
Here’s an excerpt:
Circumstance affects our results, but we cannot let a blame of circumstance distract us from what we need to do. On the contrary, circumstance should inform what we do. Look out the window at the outside world, and study closely what is happening. Then, turn and look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Ok, now it’s time for action.”
Steve advocates we take charge of our futures and invent them (now!). So, what are you waiting for? Read the newsletter, and Invent Your Future- Now.
Posted in Invent Your Future | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
If you decided to focus on the top 5, 10 or 15 things that are most important to your business, would you know what they are?
Today’s newsletter, The Things That Matter, addresses this question. What is most important to your business’s future? How do you sort through thousands of issues to find the Things That Matter? How do you create your business’s “To-Don’t” list?
Have a look at the newsletter, and then please share your comments here.
Posted in Invent Your Future | 2 Comments »
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
This week’s theme has been “inventing the future” … it’s been cropping up at every turn. I spent a full-day early in the week with a group from a client company, helping them navigate from a powerful past, through a treacherous present, to create an even more powerful future. I spoke with three prospective clients, each of whom is a business owner who wants to create a future for his business over the next few years that will allow him to pursue important life goals. And, I ran three CEO workshops, between California and Texas, in which “Invent Your Future – Now!” was a major theme.
The entire week came together for me early this evening, on a flight from Dallas to Miami. Due to a faulty hydraulic valve on the airplane, we took off two hours late, giving me a 50/50 chance of missing my connecting flight to Grand Cayman. After take off, as I was wondering if I would make the connecting flight, I thought of Shrodinger’s Cat. In 1935, physicist Erwin Shrodinger wanted to illustrate the bizarre implications of something called “quantum superpositions.” Quantum physics posits that all possible states for a system exist simultaneously until they collapse into one state at the moment of measurement or observation. Shrodinger used the following story to describe how strange this is: Imagine a cat inside a box, along with a small amount of radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, an electrical relay, a hammer and a vial of cyanide. There is a 50/50 chance that one subatomic particle will be emitted in the course of one hour, setting off the Geiger counter, relay and hammer, shattering the cyanide and killing the cat. You don’t know which of the equal probabilities exists, living cat or dead cat, until you open the box. So, before you open the box, is the cat dead or alive? Both dead and alive, says quantum physics. The cat doesn’t settle into one state until you open the box. All probabilities exist, until the observer’s observation causes one state to manifest itself. Pretty strange, eh? (One basic example from quantum physics can help us understand the powerful role of the observer: You can’t measure both the position and speed of a particle at one time, because your measurement of one parameter affects the other. Observation is not passive; we affect reality when we observe.)
Applied to my situation, which I pondered at 35,000 feet, Shrodinger’s Cat implies that I was both catching my flight and not catching my flight. Huh? How could that be true? Would my observation of the situation really have a bearing on the eventual outcome, on which of the possible states actually comes to be? How could it? This is a tough concept!
Then, I pulled a DVD out of my briefcase to watch on the fight. On recommendation from a friend, I had rented the 2004 film,“What the Bleep Do We Know?” not really aware of the topic of the movie. This is an amazing film. It starts with a very accessible description of quantum physics, described by a group of perspicuous experts, and then, through a dramatic narrative starting Marlee Matlin, shows how this theory of multiple probabilities plays itself out in our lives. There are an infinite number of possible futures for each of us, so how do we settle on one? Through an equally accessible description of biochemistry, the What the Bleep group of experts show how our brains manufacture chemicals, millions of times every second, that create the reality of our lives. For example, if we have a victim story going on in our minds, we will produce chemicals that addict us to the feeling of victimhood, and cells throughout our body will go through physiological changes that make them crave this victim chemical, shutting out other chemicals, such as nutrients. The victim complex, in this example, actually turns one into more of a victim. Of an infinite number of possible life scenarios, the victim changes his physiology to create a reality of victimhood. I suddenly understood the sea-change I have created for myself, over the past few years, in how I handle anxiety. I have learned, thankfully, to produce chemicals in my brain that stop the feeling of “The sky is falling!” and, instead, tell myself that life is pretty wonderful. Of many possible life-states, I chose one.
So, back to Shrodinger’s cat. Was I missing my Miami flight and catching it, both at the same time? Yes. “What?” you ask? How could that be? Quantum theory says that all probabilities exist until the observer observes. I accepted, sitting on this American Airlines 757 somewhere above the Gulf of Mexico, that both of these realities existed, and I let my observer perspective determine the single outcome I wanted. Of course, I couldn’t influence American Airlines to hold the flight to Grand Cayman for me. But, instead of letting the situation dictate my mood, as I would have done in the past (make the flight = happy, miss the flight = pissed off), I decided to “be chill.” I recognized that there were a near-infinite number of possible scenarios for the rest of my day, and I chose one. By actively deciding how I would react to the situation – what chemicals my brain would release – I, as the observer, determined the outcome. No matter whether the cat was dead or alive, or, in my case, if the flight was waiting or had departed, I would feel the same. Both states were equal. Right now, I am sitting in the Sofitel Hotel by the Miami Airport as a “distressed passenger,” with no change of clothes or power cord for my phone. I am as calm as I would be if I were sitting in the lobby bar of the Westin Grand Cayman (where I was supposed to be by now).
In “What the Bleep,” physicist Amit Goswami says, “To acknowledge the place where you have choice is to be enlightened.” A very important lesson as you invent the future of your business.
There are an infinite number of possible futures for your business. At every point in time, one of those futures will have manifested itself. You – yes, you – will determine that outcome. Whether you are one employee at a 30,000 person company, or a sole proprietor, your actions will determine the exact future your business finds itself in at any point in time. It can’t be any other way; you are not a passenger, you are a creator.
So why not choose the best possible future for your company? Why not acknowledge what you can choose, and what you cannot choose, and choose to create the best possible future you can for your company?
You cannot choose for the economy to improve, just like I could not choose for American Airlines to stall the departure of my connecting flight. But there are many things you can choose. You can choose to focus on certain business outcomes, and not others. You can choose to focus on certain customers, and not others. You can choose how you allocate your time and resources. You can choose how you interact with customers. You can choose the behavior you model for the people who work for you. You can choose to ignore your competitors and focus on addressing the challenges within your company that influence your performance much more than the damage a competitor can do.
Pre-dating Shrodinger by 94 years, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the following in his 1841 essay, Self-Reliance: “The picture waits for my verdict.” You can choose which of an infinite number of possibilities will happen. Be enlightened. Acknowledge the place you have choice, and then choose to create your best future.
Invent your future – now.
Posted in Invent Your Future | 5 Comments »
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