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Author Archives: Nicholas McGill
How We're Bringing Heroik Culture to R-Town
Heroik Media moved the HQ to Roseville in 2012. We’ve formed relationships with the local business community, local leaders from the various chambers of commerce, the city of Roseville, and RCDC. In committees, meetings and mixers we heard more about the goals and aspirations of the region as well as the challenges. To strengthen our relationships and presence in the community, we’ve aligned our efforts and formed regional strategies to support the prosperity of the city of Roseville, as well as the greater Placer region.
- We’re sharing our culture and reaching out to the business community through the Heroik Innovation Lab; bringing our experience of building ideas from thought to profit to a local community of business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders.
- We’re starting a bigger movement that everyone can get behind: Built in R-Town. We can all have a shared sense of ownership of the innovative creations and new endeavors that get built right here in Roseville.
- We’re making it easier to connect, gather, share and learn through supporting and creating various groups and events.
- We’re exploring big challenges facing a global economy- and sharing the spotlight with our home town.
We’re doing what we’ve always done; doing, building, sharing Heroik things- and inspiring the world to Get Heroik. And now, we’re focused on doing it all, from right here, in R-Town. Anyone is welcome to get involved, partner, and support us. There are many ways and many different levels of support:
- Sport our shirts
- Tell your friends
- Collaborate with us-share your thoughts, feelings and concerns,
- Send us feedback, comment on our blog articles that you like, hate or just want to talk about.
- Contribute to the lab- Get hands-on with our projects
- Persuade businesses, and brands alike to get involved with the lab
- Get involved with the local community
- Share your community event on our community calendar
- Buy our products and use them to develop and grow your business.
Tell the world.
We’re seasoned veterans of the no-bull rodeo, and that allows us to identify and meet the challenges presented on every project. This requires us to be real about the challenges, to speak the hard truths and to name the pink elephants; so that we might meet them with real solutions and help make this town a must-experience on the map.
From our community outreach and bringing various projects online, here are some of our honest observations as far as the goals and challenges facing the region:
Goal: Roseville as a destination location for business and life. Most people talk about one or the other. But if people don’t enjoy living here they’ll spend their time, effort, energy and of course money, elsewhere. Local government can only go so far and so fast. Businesses and private individuals can do far more faster to make this a destination location now.
Challenge: The dynamic mix of young families and retired people. This means that developing soft infrastructure (designing/influencing and shaping local culture) to bridge the generational gaps will be an important part of our work.
Challenge: There is a schizophrenic approach to local economics & identity. To put it bluntly, Roseville exhibits signs of a little brother or kid sister identity issue. Roseville is torn between wanting it’s own identity and wanting to engage and be included with the Sacramento region. By constantly supporting/piggybacking on the limelight of efforts and programs in Sacramento, Roseville surrenders its own unique identity as a destination and sustainable community to itself.
Local economic growth must mean something more concrete and tangible to Roseville than the bumper sticker slogans of the Next Economy. While supporting the region’s growth is a benefit, Roseville does not seem to have its own distinct voice, nor it’s own tactical plan that helps distinguish itself from the crowd. I use the word “tactical” because many in the community have determined a strategy to address the issue from an elevation of 50,000 ft. Strategy is indeed important. Yet, the actions per gallon of thought especially on high level strategy are relatively low. Good ideas are nice to have. They come easy with little cost. Bringing them to life; implementing them, (the end goal), requires action and tact. And, representing a firm that works on the ground where the rubber meets the road, where strategies take form and actions sculpt the results and impact. We’re not the only builders
If Roseville’s voice is lost/spent in the noise/support of Sacramento only, Roseville won’t have voice or energy left to articulate its own position or differentiate itself as anything more than Sacramento’s suburban sibling. I know this may offend some, but it’s time to be real about the challenges so that we can get real about possible solutions. These views are based on the actions and positions of the community, not its will, desire or intentions. Actions speak louder than intentions. We’ve connected with many people who have aspirations and great intentions for Roseville. However, we’ve noticed that the execution of strategies, implementation of tactics and taking of actions, could use some help. This is why we get involved, why we roll up our sleeves, grab a shovel and get to work .
The discerning point here is simply the need for Roseville to take a leadership position, with actions, not only words, with the community actively involved, engaged and excited to be so.
Challenge: Roseville lacks of an articulated, modern, cultural identity. When talking about the area, some people focus on the history, the trains and good ole days. Some people mention the schools, level of public safety, the mall and cheap electricity. While all of these things are interesting to some, they didn’t exactly blow up our skirts. They don’t wow the masses into coming to our town or moving their business. They don’t inspire bay area businesses to relocate to the city. Statistics and numbers help, but don’t make for a good narrative that wins the hearts and minds to deliver
People come to Roseville to shop at our mall, enjoy our restaurants, etc. The most often touted reason for living in Roseville is the same we’ve heard for Sacramento; it’s a few hours from everywhere you’d want to go. That line is horrible for Sacramento and worse for Roseville. People live here and love living here. We can offer more. We need to offer more. We need to articulate it better.
The Heroik team has a different vision. We believe there are big thinkers, entrepreneurs and people who want to build (and are building) Heroik things in R-Town. We are helping them gather, connect to other resources and collaborate with one another. They’re helping us address our core projects as well. This is true synergy and the power of community. Over the coming months and indeed likely years, Heroik team will continue to invest its time, effort, energy and dollars to address these areas to help Roseville:
- Develop a narrative and and articulate distinguished identity.
- Add new wonderfully Heroik ingredients to be adopted into the DNA of the city and region
- Foster a local community that takes pride in its collective effort to build not just ideas or businesses, but families, relationships, connections, memories and dreams. Built in R-Town
- Foster a platform that makes it easier to not just exchange ideas but build them from inception to fruition, from thought to profit.
- Support idea culture, entrepreneurial endeavors, and a spirit of interdependence as we work, build and thrive together.
A Glimpse of Seevogh In the Lab
The Heroik Team is proud to have Evogh as a technology partner in the Heroik Innovation Lab (HIL). Together, we’re exploring new applications of their tools within our core projects, as well as the changing landscape of global business, the remote workforce, and community dynamics in the Information Age. Their chief product, Seevogh provides scalable video conferencing technology that is amazingly accessible to for educational institutions, businesses as well as individual innovators. Together, we look forward to bringing new horizons to education, healthcare, as well as consumer communications platforms through service providers. Put simply, Seevogh is changing the landscape for work and life, for everyone. And the innovations are being explored right here in R-Town, Roseville, CA.
Here’s a quick explainer video of SeeVogh
We use Seevogh on a regular basis to collaborate and work remotely. Beyond our core project areas, we’re exploring productivity and management paradigms that arise from having constant virtual eyes in the remote workspace. Heroik works collaboratively with a more of a round table approach, so luckily, we don’t have big brother fears. It’s really about measuring the impact on our level of accountability and productivity, as well as collaboration.
Our cameras: Mike is using his isight camera on his Macbook pro, Joe and I use the Logitech C290 HD pro, Samsung Galaxy S3 (Yeah this tech is mobile and awesome).
We’ll be updating this posts with screenshots and short blurbs about the impact on our lives and work.
To learn more about Seevogh software, click here.
How will this change the way you work or manage your teams? Feel free to comment and keep the conversation going.
Introducing the Heroik Innovation Lab
The Heroik team is pleased to announce the launch of the Heroik Innovation Lab (HIL). As part of our regional outreach effort to connect with our new hometown community in Roseville, CA, we’re spearheading a mission to bring the entrepreneurs, big thinkers and leaders together to do big things in R-Town. Our current set of core project areas include:
- Locality, Communication and Relationships (See Built In R-Town Movement page)
- Health & Wellness – eHealth, quantified self, gamification and Intentional Wellness
- Remote Environments Management (Learn about our tools & SeeVogh, our Technology Partners)
- Education & Distance Learning (Interaction in new Learning Environments)
- Business Innovation (creating businesses from the ground up)
You can learn more about the HIL, and core project areas here
Don’t worry- we’re still keeping it real. Heroik culture, personal productivity, thrivalism are the engines that allow us to work effectively and enjoy life. You’ll still find plenty of these things on this site. Now you’ll get to see a bit more into our professional projects from the lab and beyond.
1 Nugget of Marketing Wisdom- Preserve the Magic
What’s happened in the world of marketing over the past decade or so is truly remarkable. Media and marketing became democratized. It seems as if overnight, everyone became interested in marketer (and expert ones at that). To explain the significance of that- let’s enter the land of not-so-make-believe.
Imagine if one day everyone found out they can be a magician with little effort. The old, experienced magicians recognized the high demand for their secrets, and decided to get rich revealing them to the whole world. The secrets behind the tricks became public knowledge. And since everyone knew how the tricks worked, people no longer found them compelling. People became bored with the magic tricks all together.
This has happened repeatedly in the world of marketing. In a down economy, in an age where media is democratized, the marketing pro’s sold all their secrets. The general public became aware of these games and soon became disinterested and resilient to the old plays. The perceived value of these “secrets” plummeted, forever, unless we all choose to forget them. In this way, it’s a sad day for the professional marketers.
A good magic trick, or nugget of marketing wisdom is like a golden goose. If you take care of it, it will lay golden eggs and bring you wealth. If you can preserve the magic and mystery with your audience, you will be able to captivate their attention and guide them on an amazing journey of value.
Now there is a world of old-magician marketers out there, and new marketers following in their footsteps that believe you should constantly reveal and share everything because the crowds love it, and then continue to reinvent yourself. It’s true, people love free stuff. We gladly take their free gifts and use their magic, but rarely do we pay tribute or even care to give credit or pay attention beyond that moment.
This arbitrary and blanket approach to giving away the house and sharing everything will not preserve your audience or earn their loyalty. Who respects a brand that doesn’t respect itself? Who is a true friend or loyal fan to those who have to give away everything for a split second of attention.This is an unsustainable and wasteful approach to leveraging your gifts to help you thrive.
Not knowing how the tricks work, is part of the allure of magic, marketing, the appealing bits of a customer experience and business in general. Make life easy for yourself, hone your magic. Master it. Milk it for all that it’s worth and then come up with new magic as necessary at your discretion.
When it comes to your craft and cards up your sleeve, do you know when to hold ‘em? when to fold them? when show them and when to run?
We’ve all been on this rollercoaster of learning. What’s your story? Please share it in the comments.
5 Contagious Tips To Help Make Your Content Go Viral
Executive Summary:
If you want your content to go viral, Aim to Arouse, Inspire, Anger, Joke, Awe, Pass-on the credit and Edutain. If you don’t know the emotional answer to “why should I care?” ask, and answer it until you do.
Evoke high arousal emotions.
High arousal emotions such as anger and awe, that get us to sweat, twitch, cringe, smile, cry, scream and laugh uncontrollably, get people fired up. These high arousal emotions inspire us to take action, even simple action such as sharing the content.
Here’s video for Heroik Media that is designed to drum up enthusiasm and comfort to work with other amazing people. It’s simple, comforting, subtle and energizing.
Low arousal emotions like sadness and contentment decrease the amount of sharing. Think of it like a roller coaster. We have roller coasters that no one talks about. They’re called trains. A train ride is a content journey, they’re generally pleasant. People may talk about the scenery along the way, but they don’t feel compelled to talk about a flat experience on a train. Now if you add some tension, action, more loops, speed and extremes the more likely you are to talk about it. Whether you loved it or lost your lunch, Good or bad they more than likely to have something to say.
Google’s Parisian Love commercial has 6 million views, tells a love story through their platform. It’s poignant, cute, pleasant, but doesn’t yet crank on the crazy factor.
And then there’s Never Say No to a Panda. 26 million views and it takes a few commercials for you to realize what’s being sold. The shock and awe campaign made this a viral success.
Those moments of arousal and awe-someness will definitely go a long way towards boosting the virality of your content. Think about the inspirational videos, magic movie moments, life changing words, books and experiences that you’ve shared. Where can you bake in the awe-some factor into your content.
Edutain. Help Others Impress Others.
People share things that make them look good. Telling a good joke at a party makes the guests think that you’re witty. Sharing useful information makes the sharer look good, wise, etc.
If you taught your audience how to do a cool magic trick, time saving productivity tip,
Your audience shares useful content to show that they care about others and wish to help them so…
Create content that makes your audience look good.
Create content that the audience can share and use to show they care about others.
Provide practical information in a simple form such as short lists focused on a key topic. The useful things will catch on.
Publicize the important. In this day and age that means walking your talk and telling the world about it. If they see someone sharing something, if you make it widely known, it becomes increasingly more likely for it to be accepted as fact.
Tell a good story.
“Those who tell stories rule society.” -Plato
Compelling narratives provide great psychological cover for things you’re trying to market. A good story makes advertising seem less like advertising, and more like, well, a story. This allows people to spread your message without seeming like a walking billboard.
Paul Harvey did this with his radio show “The Rest of the Story”. As the storyteller, Paul was the only one who knew how the obscure information in the beginning of his short stories, connected to the practical information and connection to why the audience would care. He’d end each story with “and now you know the rest of the story”
Subway did this with Jared’s story. You can’t tell Jared’s story without mentioning Subway. If you tried to tell the story about a guy losing weight eating at a sandwich shop, it loses the detail. It would also leave out the perception of Subway as a fast food joint.
Bottom Line: Make your brand, product, and/or message, essential parts of the story.
To do this you need to understand:
- Your brand persona, the culture and character that adds depth to the brand. You need to identify which parts of the story that connect with which parts of the brand. Why couldn’t this story be any other brand’s story?
- why the content you are creating or the information you are passing along is important for your brand to be sharing. To uncover the emotional message you should really convey to your audience, start with the 3 Why’s exercise.
How to Connect to the Emotional : The 3 Why’s Exercise.
The 3 Why’s exercise can help make any topic emotional. Once you find the important emotions it becomes easier to create content and campaigns to encourage the audience to share and engage with your ideas.
Note: There is also a 5 Why’s version (used in root-cause analysis), so you’re welcome for the 40% less work in this version.
1. Take your topic, idea, product, service, or whatever and ask yourself “Why is this important ?”
2. Take that first answer and ask again “Why is that important?”
3. Finally, for a third time through the wash, Take that last answer and ask “Why is That important?”
Example: Responsive Web Design
Why is this important? It allows a website to be viewed from different devices with different screen sizes and orientations while preserving the visual design.
Why is that important? People want a stunning visual web experience anywhere they go on any device they use, mobile, tablet, desktop, watch or otherwise.
And, why is that important? People love freedom and mobility, and want technology to keep up with their lifestyle.
The responses to this exercise will guide your content to more compelling stories that are more likely to be shared, clicked, commented and perhaps go viral.
What are your thoughts?
What nugget can you most apply to your practice?
Share your thoughts in the comments
Read More:
Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Warton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has been studying just why things spread and catch on for the past decade. In his critically accalimed book, Contagious, he explores these issues in great detail.
Heroik Trail Master Concept Series- Placer Land Trust
Getting people excited about creating and caring for 20 Miles trail is a Heroik job, and we’re happy to do it. We’re exploring some concepts to generate an entire campaign that combines a hands-on experience,
The Placer Land Trust is seeking to raise funds to build and maintain over 20 miles of train for patrons to hop, frollick, run, ride, hike and enjoy. As outdoor junkies and advocates of protecting and preserving the great outdoors, Heroik Media is excited to be a part of the effort.
7 Things You Should Hear From Ze Frank
Ze Frank is an Internet Culture Comedian and has been featured on TED and many other fine and funny places. He created this piece “An Invocation for Beginnings” and it shows a more serious side to his wit that is inspirational. Here are 7 take aways from that video.
My past failures at follow-through are no indication of my future performance. They’re just healthy little fires that are going to warm-up my ass.
Let me think about the people who I care about the most, and how when they fail or disappoint me… I still love them, I still give them chances, and I still see the best in them. Let me extend that generosity to myself.
Let me not be so vain to think that I am the sole author of my victories and a victim of my defeats.
Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he’s a bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.
Let me not think of my work only as a stepping stone to something else. And if it is, let me become fascinated with the shape of the stone.
Let me take the idea that has gotten me this far and put it to bed. What I am about to do will not be that but it will be something.
There’s no need to sharpen my pencils anymore. My pencils are sharp enough. Even the dull ones will make a mark. Warts and all, let’s start this shit up.
Bonus: Let me remember that my Courage is a wild dog. It won’t just come when I call it. I have to chase it down and hold on as tight as I can
The One Network to Connect it All? Google+ All Grown Up
Google+ is rapidly becoming the social starting point as people begin to understand how the network and tools are tightly integrated with all things Google. I particularly enjoy how fast it is to filter the noise and change the channel by clicking through your various circles. Google continues to learn and grow from its many mistakes and insights from the multitude of user data. Below is a 14 min video introduction to Google+ and a brief view into just how tightly the various Google properties are integrated into the platform.
Google+ Continues to grow at a steady pace. It’s not Facebook growth, but it’s also not Facebook spam. The ability to change channels/circles and really listen in increases the opportunity for enhanced virtual relationships. If you’d like a quick read to master some Google+ goodness, be sure to read Guy Kawasaki’s What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us
But Wait There’s More – Google+ Tips
12 Tips to Writing an Epic Outreach Email
Knowing how to reach out to important and busy people is an essential task to build your network and personal brand. Important people are busy people and most people are busy people, especially online. Tweets (Micro Mental Masturbations) are impersonal and often come across as spammy. Business gets done via email. So does quite a bit of spam filtering.
Our brains assess email in a matter of milliseconds. Below is the common email evaluation process our brains go through:
- Who is this and why shouldn’t I hit the spam button?
- What do they want?
- How long will this take?
(more…)
Texting Judo 101: Stopping Disruptions
Minimizing and Eliminating Text Interruptions
Understand this: Communications technology has evolved far faster than we can adapt to in a civil manner. Barbaric behavior and expectation of instant gratification are the result. Few people stop to consider a code of conduct for texting/interrupting. So, out of respect for your own work and sanity, you must respond appropriately in a way that does not get you lost, disrupted and addicted to the distraction cycle. You must unapologetically let people know that instant expectations are unrealistic and reverse the energy and stress. These methods will reveal that texting is no longer a short cut or form of direct access and response whenever they want it with no regard for your work or schedule.
Establish the Cone of Silence. Estimate how much uninterrupted time you need and put your phone on silent in a drawer.
Put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode w/auto responder message.
Allow yourself to finish the task you’re working on. Don’t drop everything to respond right away. Establish a habit of noting where you left off, finishing what you’re doing and then following up. If you note where you were at, you won’t waste as much time returning to that task or project.
Be honest and don’t over commit. Let people know you’re busy, when you can really focus on the task they sent you. Then deliver on your promise. Stop making promise estimates that you rarely meet. You’ll build a negative reputation.
Establish uninterruptable moments. These are rules for yourself that trigger your texting judo mode. Keep an index card to list people and tasks to follow up with.
Batch/block time for your follow ups. Designate your follow up time. This will minimize interruptions and help you keep your word and respond on time.
Don’t be a slave to your phone and text interruptions. Just because you can see your phone doesn’t mean you should be expected to stare at it all day.
Responses
If you are indeed in a meeting or in an uninterruptable moment:
Immediately respond with: “ in a meeting” / “driving” / “with a client”
Do not use full sentences and make the response seem like an auto response (see do not disturb mode). This buys you respectable time to finish your work and follow up appropriately and attentively.
Along with the do not disturb mode for the iphone, iOS users can also download an app called Canned and respond quickly with canned messages. Android users can use Tasker, OnX, or settings within their phone (flip it over screen face down for do not disturb), etc.
You can add: “Let me get back to you” / “via email” / “before/after/lunch/my next meeting at 2/when I get to my desk.”
Block response time. Give yourself appropriate time by hovering around certain time blocks like your designated response hours.
Divert the texter to email. I find that there is a unconscious understanding that email is associated with more effort and work and therefore deserves more time. This reduces the expectation and stress level.
Get a text assistant/gatekeeper. When you have processes/mechanisms in place people are more understanding of delays. For example, if you’re a regular 9-5er with a “real” job, people will understand that your busy and things are out of your control. If you’re the boss or a freelancer, they will somehow expect you to find/make the time to their preference (now). By introducing a mechanism/gatekeeper/assistant, you can restore a bit of order and peace to the land.
Frantic, expectant texters can meet your texting assistant.
You can introduce them via an email, repeated in your email signature or a simple text message to the offending texters. “To increase my response time and productivity, my assistant will address all incoming text messages.”
If it’s a new texting contact: “This is Assistant/Fake Assistant Name, I handle his/her texts. Let me see if I can take care of that for you.”
You can have your real assistant do this for you by using a Google voice account rather than your direct phone number.
You can fake this by editing your text signature to “responded via remote assistant.” Or divert blame on an application by saying “responded to via TimeRescue app “ and you may add “available in the app store”
Even if your methods are exposed, they’ll understand you’re trying to save time and be more productive. Stop asking for permission to do this. You’ll never get it. The worst case scenario, you’ll have to ask for forgiveness.
Must Be Present to Win
In order to get somewhere, you have to be somewhere first. Instead of obsessing over getting somewhere fast, focus on being somewhere completely. Being who you are right where you are will allow you to practice more authentically, generate more opportunities, and increase your performance and enjoyment, personally and professionally. In essence, in order to reap all the benefits that life in the moment has to offer, you must be present to win.
If you’re more mentally aware of your circumstances, you can be more honest about your actual experience and avoid the self-deceptions and false guarantees. If you’re intelligently available to clients, customers and demands of your job, you will perform better than those that don’t. If you develop a trust for your natural talents, you’ll be able to work candidly and play to your strengths. The adaptive mindset, authentic present, both require an acute attention and awareness to the here and the now.
The Challenge: No time for the Now. Only Time for the Future.
The challenges to being present revolve around the common and frantic obsession with the future. Will I get that promotion? Will it launch successfully? What will happen next? Will my deal go through? These are but a few questions and worrying habits of the future that create anxiety and stress and hinder performance in the now. With our attention on the future neglect the opportunities of our work now.
Stress Anxiety from Unrealistic Expectations
While stuck on the future, we set unrealistic expectations by ignoring or not defining the present. We set goals for ourselves while completely ignoring our present circumstances. By ignoring or not defining the starting point, it becomes quite easy to set unrealistic demands on our workloads and personal lives. If your goal is to run a marathon but you’ve never ran a 5k, your making failure far more likely than success. If your goal is to make a million when you’re having trouble making a hundred, you’re likely creating trouble. These examples may sound obvious but the addiction to speed and consumption confuse the senses.
Stop Counting and Start Measuring- Quality Control
We often confuse the quantifiable measurements of speed and consumption with the qualitative net gain,and holistic virtue of our efforts. For example, the number of books you’ve read may be impressive, but the number of books you remember, or better still the number of books that changed your life and business may appear less impressive but are far more meaningful to your bottom line. This is a problem of linear thinking; when focused on measuring only one outcome (volume or quantity) and not the many varying results (qaulities and virtues) or net effect. Though they may be harder to define, the qualitative effects may be more important to measure.
Linear Check-List Mentality of Strict Accounting
Our self-sabotaging doesn’t stop there. Consider the check-list mentality. Do you have a business plan? Uh-huh. a website? Yes. A business card? A website? Duh. The most neglected aspects of our practice are often areas where we apply a checklist (yes/no) mentality. This attitude of binary strict accounting when it comes to measuring progress and achievement hinders the quality of our work and creates more anxiety. Without acknowledging the qualitative values that we wish to demonstrate in our work, frustration builds when we can’t check off our progress. This ends up causing us to ignore our actual forward momentum, and tricks us into believing that despite our efforts we got nothing done.
So how do you escape all the entanglements and anxiety of future obsession? How do you become present to win?
The solution: Be Somewhere First.
Be who you are right where you are. Know yourself. Choose to cultivate an authentic practice. Know who and what you’re not (e.g. you are not a 5th degree black belt productivity guru, or Google or Steve Jobs). Let go of the urge to compare yourself to the myths and legend of your time and industry. Be comfortable with what you’ve got and build something with it.
Increase your opportunities right now by deciding to be attentively aware right now. In order to act upon these new opportunities, you’ll need an adaptive mindset. Making use of an adaptive mindset requires an understanding of your situation, so consider your environment, network and capabilities.
Be who you are right where you are. Relax.
Recognize that you will never be able to completely control every aspect of your work. Let go of the expectation. Commit to what you can do on a time frame you can actually deliver on. Integrity goes hand in hand with authenticity. Be consistent in your word and deed, for your own personal practice and to build respect in your work.
Let go of the focus on the future so you can be fully available to work in the present. Try and have one mind for that one task or project, right now, today.
Pencil in at least 10 minutes per day to practice being aware. Schedule the time on your calendar. Write it down. Focus on everything and nothing. If your attention wanders, bring it back to the moment and just sit and be open. If you treat this as seriously as the rest of your business efforts, it will outperform many of them. The fruits of being mentally available in the now will come to those who choose to do it. You must be present to win.
Posted: Nicholas McGill
Categories: Becoming Heroik, Blog, Chronicles, Heroik MBA, Productivity, Required Courses, Simplicity
Visual Thinking And Creativity
Do you remember visual thinking? Have you heard of it? It’s essentially visualization, a lost art these days. Ask yourself when the last time you staired at a blank wall or a fresh blank page of paper? These days our writing space has been replaced with watching space in many cases. The computers,televisions, and screens do the thinking for us. And yet, many basic problems and challenges persist. In a brief ode to Jim Henson, check out the two videos below about Visual Thinking. Then challenge yourself to unplug and try it. (more…)
Be Yourself And Change the Game
If you play by the rules, operating on inherited knowledge from your industry or path, failure is a certainty. Succeeding by playing the game of “business as usual” requires careful study, practice, a willingness for repeated failure and resilience to get back up and try again and again. Two chief problems with this strategy is that with that industrial and cultural inheritance, you take on the flawed strategies of yester-year, wasteful practice, without filtering them through effective analysis or personal success criteria. As a result, not only does business suffer, but you suffer personally, doing things away from your strengths and passion. Another option worthy of Considering, is to analyze the whole board, challenge the way the game is played entirely and change it to serve you.
Cure Procrastination & Attention Drift With Mission Focus
Military training teaches you self-discipline and focus that can give you an edge in a world of distracted procrastinators. Distraction, procrastination and mission drift come easy to our brains in any environment, be it in business, in the wild or on the battlefield. On the show Man vs. Wild, survival expert, mountaineer and special forces soldier, Bear Grylls often talks about the distractions and the importance of having the right priorities .In particular, in tough situations, the ability to get mission focused is key.
In survival scenarios, when times are tough and energy is low, get focused on the mission.
The unavoidable truth about getting things done in any scenario, is that it takes discipline and will power to focus the mind on accomplishing a task. There is no secret work-around to cultivating self-discipline. Call attention to your tasks while recognizing the distractions, simply by entering a mission focused mindset. (more…)
Let Your Ideas Take Flight- Play Harder
Playing with ideas, in the literal, like-a-child sense of the word, is at the epicenter for creative innovation. Creatively solve problems and present new ideas is one of the most valued abilities in life and business today. Whether you’re trying to keep energy high, approach things from new perspectives, or solve complex problems, you should harness the power of play. (more…)
11 Tips For Whole-Hearted Living
In life, entrepreneurial and cultural mythology, and Heroik chronicles neglect to tell you all the important stages of self development required before you run off to slay dragons and conquer the world. The facts are that everyone comes ill equipped and most turn around and give up. If you want to succeed you’ll need to pursue life whole heartedly, with a sense of worthiness. People who have a strong sense of worthiness, have a strong sense of love and belonging. The difference between those that have it and those that struggle for it and wonder if they’re good enough is simply belief. People who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe that they are worthy of love and belonging.
The way the whole hearted live. The following tips are based on over 8 years of research by Dr. Brene Brown and are pulled from common traits of those who feel worthy and live with a strong sense of love and belonging. So, how do you achieve worthiness? (more…)
10 Reasons to Read Linchpin by Seth Godin
. After revisiting it, I expanded upon a few key take-aways that every business owner should know and use right now. 
Time Travel 101: How to Go Back Change the Past, Present and Build a New Future
It may come as news to you time travel is possible, when it comes to our perceptions of the past. Your timeline, the way you record your life makes up your story. That story is far from objective mechanical truth and up for interpretation.
How do you define your life? As a collection of moments, are they mostly good, or mostly bad? How do you hold on to them? Your perception of your life and how you remember isn’t a fixed absolute. You can change your perception of your past and change your future. (more…)
38 Memory Biases That Change The Story
Not all memories are treated equally. A memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many different types of memory biases, some that tend to serve you in positive ways and others that tend to get you in trouble. All of them effect your story and the way you remember it and retell it. (more…)
The Heroik Decision Matrix: 1 System 6 tips to Help You Decide What to Do First and Get it done
Are you ready to decide what to do right NOW? Do you feel overwhelmed with tasks but don’t know where to start?Enter the Decision Matrix. What is the Matrix? The decision matrix is a simple chart that will help you score and rank your tasks. By ranking different aspects of a task (1-5), adding the scores up and compare them with other tasks, you can quickly decide what task(s) you should start first.
You can create your own matrix on a blank sheet of paper or download the FREE Heroik Decision Matrix PDF template. There are 7 columns and 7 rows. Across the top label the columns Task, Enjoyment, Impact, Effort and Energy, Profitability, Alignment with Vision, and Total Score. Leave the most room for the task column as the rest will have numbers in them. For each row, write down your task item. (more…)
Posted: Nicholas McGill
Categories: Blog, Chronicles, featured, From The Meet Up, Unlocking Victory
