by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 1 second.
TODAY’S IDEA: Think “both”
— From: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker (read a sample)
Why does it seem that some people live in a world of abundance and plenty and some others live in a world of scarcity and limitations? While we all live in this physical world, the difference, according to T. Harv Eker, is perspective. He says, “although you may not be able to have ‘everything’ as in all the things in the world, I do think that you can certainly have ‘everything you really want’.”
“Do you want a successful career or a close relationship with your family? Both!
Do you want to focus on business or have fun and play? Both!
Do you want money or meaning in your life? Both!
Do you want to earn a fortune or do the work you love? Both!”
People with a scarcity mindset feel as if they must choose one because they can’t have both. However, people with an abundance mindset think both, and understand that “with a little creativity you can almost always figure out a way to have the best of both worlds.”
And the beauty of both is that it not only applies to the things you want, but also to all areas of life. It’s a win-win for all involved. For example, when you are discussing outcomes with a client or coworker, think in terms of both of you getting what you want, as opposed to a zero sum game. Or, when you are negotiating the sale of your home, think of you as the seller, the buyer, and the real estate agents involved (if any) getting what each one wants. It is indeed possible.
For those that are still skeptical, Eker asks, “what is more important, your arm or your leg? Could it be that both are important?” Let’s go back to perspective: yes, both are important because each—in its own way—plays an important role. Why chose either/or when you can find a way to have both? It may not always be easy, and it may take a while before you get to have both, but keeping your goal in mind will help you get there.
Another very important area to which both applies is money and happiness. They are NOT mutually exclusive. “People who are rich in every sense of the word understand that you have to have both. Just as you have to have both of your arms and your legs, you have to have money and happiness.”
“From now on, when confronted with an either/or alternative, the quintessential question to ask yourself is ‘How can I have both?’ This question will change your life… it will take you to a universe of possibilities and abundance.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of a way to get both from a project you have to get done or from a situation that you are going through. What can you do? How can you plan for it? Who is involved and who can help you?
TOMORROW: Make a point of thinking both from now on. Be creative and think of ways in which you and all involved in your projects can have what each of you wants/needs. A simple but effective technique is to take a piece of paper and draw 2 vertical lines to have 3 columns. On the left column, write what you want/need. On the right column write the second thing you want/need or what someone else wants/needs. In the middle column write the path that will enable you to get both. Remember that there is no shortage of ideas.
Know someone who could benefit from both reading this and using both in his/her life? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: We learn by copying
— From: Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon
From a very young age we are told not to copy, but the truth is that “nobody is born with a style or a voice… In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying.”
“You learn to write by copying down the alphabet. Musicians learn to play by practicing scales. Painters learn to paint by reproducing masterpieces.”
Yet it’s important to make a distinction between copying and plagiarism. “Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else’s work as your own. Copying is about reverse-engineering. It’s like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works.”
“The writer Wilson Mizner said if you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.”
The people whom we copy are usually our heroes, those that we admire the most, whose work we love and are inspired by. The trick is not just to copy the style but “the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.” The goal is to see the world the same way they do, to “get a glimpse into their minds. If you just mimic the surface […] without understanding where they are coming from, your work will never be anything more than a knockoff.”
Then something remarkable happens: from imitating all our heroes and seeing the world through their eyes, we find the confidence to create our own style. We take from all of our heroes, mix it up, and out comes our own voice. This is what makes us different from one another and how we can best contribute.
ACTION
TODAY: Who has done what you want to do? Set a time today to make a list of your heroes. Then find out who are your heroes’ heroes. Make a list too, you’ll want to copy and learn from them as well. Remember you are part of a creative lineage.
FUTURE: Set up some time in your calendar to “do research” according to Mizner. Where you start, how and who you copy is up to you, but dive deep into the style and thought. Copy, copy, copy from all of your heroes and their heroes, reverse engineer the heck out of each, understand, improve, and then copy some more. Eventually you’ll start seeing your own style emerge. Don’t forget to share it with the world. Give credit to your heroes, as they served as teachers and mentors, but don’t forget to give yourself credit too!
Know someone who is trying to find his/her own style? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Networking, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 25 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Memorable networking in just 3 minutes
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
When we meet someone new we tend to use small talk “because it’s far more socially acceptable than asking pointed questions. But the truth is that by asking better, smarter questions, we can understand the people we meet more quickly and determine rapidly whether they’re friend or foe, a potential business partner or a mate, a future employee or casual acquaintance. Life is short. The less time we waste on the weather, the better.”
And so begins an exercise to help our networking that Dave Kerpen shares with us in his book The Art of People. The exercise is geared to getting to know the person you are meeting “better than you know many of your friends, in just three minutes with just three questions.”
Kerpen mentions he was a skeptic at first, yet once he tried it at a conference, he was convinced immediately of the effectiveness of it. Further, two years after having the conversation with a total stranger, he could still recall the details easily. That is memorable networking!
The three questions are:
- “What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now?” (1 min)
- “If you had enough money to retire and then some, what would you be doing?” (1 min)
- “What is your favorite charity organization and why?” (1 min)
As you can see, these questions bring out our passions, our dreams, and our deep emotions when we answer them. They get to the heart of what makes people tick. Thus, they are guaranteed to break the ice and get to know the other person via the stories that he/she tells. And stories are memorable and relatable.
However, there are many other questions that will produce a similar effect. Craft the ones that suit you in order to bring out the best in the people that you meet, for example, “If you weren’t doing what you do today, what would you be doing and why?” “Who’s been the most important influence on you?” “If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be and why?”
ACTION
TODAY: Try out these questions on someone that you meet (preferably), or someone with whom you are barely acquainted. Pay attention as to how you know each other and how the relationship changes, for the better, in less than 3 minutes. It’s a powerful exercise.
FUTURE: Keep this exercise in mind for the next time you meet new people. If you think it’s awkward to ask them these questions, blame it on us! Simply say, “ I just read this crazy [blog] that talked about asking better questions when you first meet someone. Mind if we try out a couple of these questions and each answer them?”
Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, if you know someone who could benefit memorable networking!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Best in the world
— From The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin
The best in the world. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But why is it important? And what exactly does “the best in the world” mean?
A simple Google search for time management yields 138 million results. This implies that there are 138 million resources in cyberspace to help us figure out how to manage our precious time wisely.
Because we are all pressed for time and we don’t like taking risks are the reasons why being #1 matters. “If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer of the navel, you’re not going to mess around with by going to a lot of doctors. You’re going to head straight for the ‘top guy,’ the person who is ranked the best in the world. […] When you’re hiring someone for your team, do you ask your admin to give you the average résumé, or do you ask him to screen out all but the very best qualified people?”
“With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top.” Also, “being at the top matters because there’s room at the top for only a few. Scarcity makes being at the top worth something.”
People who are looking at doing business with you (or with the business that you represent) will be wondering if you are the best in the world. And that deserves a new definition that Godin describes majestically:
“Best as in: best for them, right now, based on what they believe and what they know. And in the world as in: their world, the world they have access to.”
If I’m looking for a dry cleaning service that doesn’t use toxic chemicals, I’ll go with the one that uses organic products to clean, that offers a quick turnaround service, that is affordable, and that is close to where I live. That’s the best in the world for me.
“World is a pretty flexible term… Now there are a million micromarkets [and] each micromarket still has a best. And being the best in that world is the place to be.”
The consumer is the one that decides what is best, thus the term is subjective. And the term world is “selfish,” because it’s the world that the consumer defines based on preference and convenience.
The world got bigger with the Internet opening up a lot of different options to fit our needs and wants. Yet the world also got smaller because of specialization and niching down. Since we cannot be everything to everyone, and the mass market is changing rapidly towards specialization and customization, being the best in the world just got a new definition that, thankfully, involves us all if we want to pursue it.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about your micromarket and write down the answers to these questions: What do you offer that no one else does? What can you be the best in the world at? What needs to happen for you to position yourself to be the best in the world—in your world—however big or small? Also, talk to a few clients or customers today and ask them how they would describe what you do and what value you provide. The answers will reveal things that you may have either taken for granted or would have never even crossed your mind, but that are valuable to your customers.
FUTURE: Talk to as many customers as you can. Find out what are the key aspects of your business that you have to highlight and promote according to what your customers define as best in their world. Then set up a road map to get there. Work on becoming the best in your customers’ world and you and your business will flourish.
Note that this applies to business as well as to any other personal endeavors that you’re involved in: How can you be the best friend in the world? Or the best volunteer in your church? Or the best parent who organizes the bake sale for your child’s school this year? Our lives are made up of different mini-worlds in which best in the (mini)world applies too, for our benefit and the benefit of all involved.
Know someone who needs to read this? Be the best friend in their world today by sharing with them this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 40 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The Rosenzweig Technique
— From Footprints on the Moon by Seth Godin
The Rosenzweig Technique is named after Franz Rosenzweig, “an author who served in the First World War. He wrote his ideas on postcards and sent them to his mom for safekeeping. He turned them into a book years later.”
Last Summer, a bunch of friends and I exchanged postcards through the mail according to a slightly modified version of The Rosenzweig Technique. It was inspiring, fun and, most of all, we all found ourselves giddy when going to our mailboxes to pick up the correspondence for that day. I’m inviting you to do the same today! While you may or may not write a book out of this, the postcards are a great exercise to share ideas with yourself as you are writing them, and then to reflect over those ideas when you receive them.
Let me share technique as Seth Godin describes it:
“Get a stack of blank postcards… address each of them to yourself, probably at home.
The challenge is simple: Four times a day, fill a postcard with an idea, a message to yourself from today to tomorrow. And then mail it.
A few days later, handwritten ideas from your past yourself will begin to arrive.
Each day, when you get home from work, you’ll get three or four (or even five) ideas worth reading.
As each arrives, your job is to take that germ and write it up, expand it, put it into the word processor on your computer. It’s the end of the day, so there’s no need to worry about checking your email.
Do this for five weeks, for 35 days, for 140 cards. Do it without cease, without hesitation, without regard for whether it’s perfect or not.”
The modified version that I did with my friends was as follows:
- Send a postcard on Day 1 to four people in the group.
- Send a postcard on Day 2 to another four people in the group.
- Keep sending postcards as the days progress to groups of four until everyone has sent a postcard to every member of the whole group.
- Then start again and send more postcards to the first group of four, and so on, until the cycle is complete for 35 days.
While the thoughts that each one of us shared in the postcards were completely spontaneous and random, and we had no control as to when they would be delivered (we live in different countries), the postcards that I got in the mail always seemed to arrive at the right time with the right message on them. I remember, for instance, that I was stuck with a project one day and received a postcard that said, “move forward imperfectly.” Boom!
ACTION
TODAY: Decide if you want to embark in doing The Rosenzweig Technique over the next 35 days. I highly recommend it because of the insights, inspiration and ideas that you can share and receive with yourself/ your friends. Plus, the reflection that this brings as you are writing about the postcards that you receive is invaluable: you’re guaranteed to get more insights, solve a few challenges here and there, and expand your mind. However, if four ideas/thoughts a day for 35 days is too much, feel free to modify the technique however you see fit (for example, one idea per day). Don’t work for the specifics of the technique, instead, make the technique work for you! If you are ready, go get your postcards and your stamps and get started today.
FUTURE: Do you want to do The Rosenzweig Technique with me? I’m starting on March 21 to commemorate Spring, and I’d love to do the modified version again, this time with my fellow gurupies*! 🙂 If you are interested, send me an email (no later than March 19) letting me know that you are in, and I will send you all the details. It doesn’t matter where you live, postcards are used to traveling all over the world. This should be a lot of fun and we will all learn a ton from each other and from our own reflections. Hope you will join me — really looking forward to this! Sorry, this has already been done. We had a blast! If we decide to do it again I’ll post about it so that you can join. 🙂
* Gurupie = blend of guru and groupie = how I fondly refer to the EntreGurus’ community, because we all follow the ideas of the gurus.
Know someone who would like to join the upcoming exchange-of-postcards group? Let that person know via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.
TODAY’S IDEA: WOW! All business is personal
— From The Book of WOW: A practical and inspirational guide for driving extreme client loyalty by John L. Evans
We’ve all heard the saying, “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” (Uncertain author) And this gets compounded if we add the words of writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who said, “Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember, so as to tell it.” *
With this in mind, if you want to surprise your customers or clients with acts of thoughtfulness, that are truly meaningful and memorable, you have to create a “WOW” experience for them. This means the kind of experience that makes the clients go “WOW!” and blows them away because it shows them that you know what they care about.
“The essential premise underlying the WOW concept is that all business is personal.”
By reinforcing the personal aspect in client interactions, you de-commoditize your business and separate yourself from the competition, because “a merely satisfied client is not loyal—a satisfied and emotionally engaged client is.”
To make it personal, first and foremost, the Platinum Rule needs to be applied: “Do unto others as they would want done to them.”
“When doing something extraordinary for your clients, use the talents, resources or connections that are available only to you or through you, whenever possible.” This way you will ensure that the experience becomes memorable, indelible (and not repeatable by your competitors), causing your clients to talk about it to others and to recommend you. That’s why “the best WOWs bounce around—they get shared in the form of enthusiastic retellings [via] positive word-of-mouth.”
WOW moments are as varied and creative as the nature of each business. The openness and attentiveness to recognize when the opportunity arises is in the eye of the beholder. However the one underlying thread is that, to be able to imagineer (blend of imagination + engineering) the best possible WOW moments for your clients, you have to have as much information as you can about them. Get to know them in as much depth as your business will allow.
Also, while the WOW moments or experiences don’t necessarily have to be unique to each client, they do have to feel that way to the recipient. You can always “operationalize, but don’t [ever] DE-personalize.”
Above all, keep in mind that “WOWs don’t have to be complex or worthy of a world record to produce the desired effect. Some are. But most are smaller in scope. When left to accumulate over time, they can end up having an enormous impact.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of someone who has wowed you during this past week. What did that person do that made you feel special? Now turn it around: who did you wow this week? A client? A loved one? How did you let them know that you care about them? Start imagineering how you can WOW your customers, clients or loved ones with the resources that you have.
FUTURE: Think of ways in which your business can get more info about what makes your clients tick. This will naturally give way to ideas for WOW moments. Make a list of every touch point in your client’s journey to see how you can personalize those interactions. How can you elevate them from the ordinary to the extraordinary and memorable?
Create a WOW moment for your friends and colleagues by sharing this post via email, Facebook and Twitter. Thank you!
* Original quote in Spanish: “La vida no es lo que uno vivió, sino lo que recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.”
