• 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.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

 1. ASAP is the rule of thumb: emails are to be kept  As Short As Possible

No one needs to read your life story. They need to know who, what and why. This isn’t enough to get them to connect with you, call you or do business though. For that, we resort to our #2 tip:

2. The 3 P’s of Personal Email: Personalized, Positioned, and Persuasive.

Personalized

• Do your homework. Learn something about the person you’re reaching out to.
• Don’t use robots. Robotic/newsletter “Do Not Reply” email messages get filed under spam at an alarming rate.
• Use their name. Recent research reveals that our brains light up and pay attention when we hear and read our own name.
• Use their network. Reference mutual friends and acquaintances that brought you together.

Positioned
Position the email as an introduction to investigate something worth checking out. Cramming all the information down their throats in one email is a sure fire path to the trash bin.

Persuasive
Don’t beg. Don’t say please. Don’t make demands either. Reach out with a mutually beneficial opportunity and remember that people are looking out for themselves, not you.

3. Use a Straight Forward Email Subject.

Keep it simple yet precise. “You’ll enjoy this new study on business management” is better than “Check this out” or “You’ll love this”

4. Quantify the commitment if it’s small.

“5 quick interview questions” is better than “would like to interview you some time” Low numbers clearly communicate low initial investment.

5. Use a brief personal greeting and remember to use their name.

Hey [their name] is good, not dear subscriber/loyal customer/friends and colleagues.

6. Use genuine context to answer the questions who are you and what do you want.

Hey [their name]

I’m Nicholas with Heroik Media. I really appreciated your [talk/work] about [specific work thing]. I put a lot of that to use in my [business/life]

This introduces who I am and why I’m messaging you in particular. Reach out to people you respect anyway and you won’t come off sounding like a salesman.

7. State the desired goal.

Concisely state why you are emailing them. Avoid asking for favors or using the “just wanted to connect” excuse as a goal.

• State why it will be beneficial for them.
• If there is no other benefit, make a clear statement of praise thanking them for their time.
• If you’re sharing content, try something like “ I thought you might enjoy this [work/service] since you already [purchased something similar/covered related material before]”
• Highlight the opportunity, make it painless and do the extra leg work.

8. The Signature (close)

• Name
• Position
• Website

Don’t bombard them with too much to read, but give them enough to investigate/get to know you better.

9. Use inviting language.

Which of these examples sounds more inviting?

• Hey, I’d love it if [we could do a quick interview/ we could meet at  the office] sometime soon [on your new project/to give your input on our [new service]]
• Hey. I want to do an interview with you on your new project by this Friday.

Avoid being blunt. Aim to be inviting. Use “we” instead of “you”.

10. Timing is everything.

Aim your email to be received during perceived checking times. This varies by person/industry but if you’ve done your homework you should have some idea.

11. Don’t Expect Anything.

People are busy. Appreciate any response but don’t feel entitled.

12. Don’t be afraid to follow up ONCE afterword.

People might miss you the first time. Some people just won’t be interested.

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.

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.

Creative problem solving starts with a blank sheet, a clear mind and (as close as you can get to it) and your imagination. We inherit a set of limiting beliefs when it comes to the our cultural and business heritage and problem solving. Yet if we took the time (even a small bit of it) to dream up solutions to our problems, who knows where we’d be.

If you’re thinking that you don’t have the time to creatively solve your problems consider all the time you spend complaining and working around the issues, then re-evaluate and consider shifting to a mindset of creative problem solving or at the least, visual thinking.

Problems With the Game

1. The refs and all-stars are vague on the details.
2. The rules are outdated and so are the strategies for success.
3. The factory mindset doesn’t help you cultivate a scalable competitive edge for performance.
4. There is a surplus of great ingredients and shortage of great recipes.

Ask yourself:

Does the system provide me with a fair shot or is it preserved to keep new players on the bench?

Many businesses work hard and pay dearly to find their way. Often, the last thing they want to openly and freely share is their optimized model for business. As a result, what is encouraged and hyped, are not refined strategies but generic and outdated ones. The business world loves to tell you to focus on your full and half court shots, and ignore your three pointers, team-work and lay-ups. Furthermore, the factory approach to business as we’ve known it is gone; for better or for worse.

From a bootstrapping perspective, whether you are self employed or managing dream teams of employees, the factory model does not account for the cultural environment or performance factors of today. Your well being, health, sanity and life/work balance are a distant after thought that is paid lip service to but all too often poorly delivered. Yet it is shown from study after study that these factors can decrease your cost, increase performance, creativity and innovation and make your dream team shine. Surprisingly though, the market is full of advisers, consultants and books that preach from extinct forms of successful management.

Can you smell what the loafs are cooking?

There are many legitimate recommendations for great ingredients for success but they tend to be included in bad recipes. A dash of Web 2.0, 3 tons of social media efforts are all you need, and the snake oils in between. Believe it or not, bad advice in great packaging, marketed to a starving audience sell well. These recipes pass down business to business, mind to mind, as each one either gets lost, gives up or tweaks their way to success.The honest, successful ones will tell you the model that ended up working was not the one recommended to them.

So, how might we address these issues to change the game?

1. Study the board
2. Know your strengths
3. Break the rules.
4. Shift the lens to focus to your strength areas.
5. Do that which serves you, and shed that which does not.
6. Broadcast authenticity from every pore of your being.

Study the Board

Understand the game, its history, its purpose, how its built, who its designed to ultimately serve, etc. If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that by in large, the game is based on rules to manage people in a mechanical (soulless) fashion.

 Know Your Strengths

Across the multitude businesses I’ve consulted with, most do not play to their strengths, and simultaneously use the strengths rationality to avoid doing any work. Here are 4 Strength areas you can focus on that will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours of study and reading.

1. Your learning style- the optimal way for you to learn; the ideal circumstances, environment, teachers, attitude, etc.
2. Your motivators -What motivates you to perform, learn and grow.
3. The external factors encourage and support you (people, community, accountable mechanisms/management styles).
4. Your Personal Victory System -How to honor and celebrate your victories in lasting and meaningful ways (to maintain forward momentum)

Everyone is born with the ability to adapt and learn, so in this respect, a strength you should focus on honing is the ideal circumstances in which you learn; motivations that fuel you to learn, perform and grow. You can also look at the people, community, and networks around you to study under which circumstances and management styles that you thrive. And finally, with a complete lack of regard or nod to others, society and social pressure, you should do things to honor and celebrate your victories (especially the small ones) in lasting and meaningful ways. These are the basic strength areas beyond your other talents that you should hone: the conditions under which you adapt, overcome and thrive.

Victory System Hint: if people are dismissive and whining about your victory system, give yourself an extra pat on the back, you’re probably on to something.

Break the Rules

Some of their rules can be bent, others can be broken.
-Morpheus

In just about every system or game, there are actual rules and perceived rules. The reality is that many rules are perceived and presented form limited perspectives and based on an industrial and cultural inheritance that doesn’t apply or completely uphold in today’s world. The biggest and most obvious example is the maturing global information economy. The U.S. isn’t the center of the universe any more and must compete with labor forces and innovations from countries around the world. This is a paradigm shift that adds a few dimensions to the X and Y graphs of the industrial age. Having a fast computer isn’t enough anymore either. With these challenges come new opportunities. Now one man can reach and change the world, doing more with others, without running a major multinational corporation. The pen is mightier in this respect. So it’s time to inspect the rules of business as usual and decide which still serve, which no longer apply, and those that never did apply. A few rules worth revisiting:

1. Size Matters. I believe perceptions matter more than size. Size can serve, the ability to affect and shape perception seems to be the swiss army knife tool for the bootstrapper and those looking to scale their businesses and lifestyles.
2. You’re either first or last. This isn’t true though business mythology supports it. The truth is before the iPhone, there were Palm Pilots and Blackberries and many others. Often times it’s smarter execution and marketing, not arriving first that earns the glory. Columbus was not the first white guy to discover America. The Vikings did it long before him, but leave it to the Italian guy (and the backing of Spain) to tout the achievement.
3. Hard work and compliance will get you ahead. Hard work is rewarded but the rewards do not always go to the one who does the work.The notion of the virtue of hard work, broke the backs of many sheeple for thousands of years.  Hyenas wait for lions to kill something, and then they steal it as do many other scavengers; in nature and the corporate world. There are many hard workers who have lost their pensions, jobs, etc. while others less deserving stole credit and ascended the corporate ladder. Working hard is not enough, nor is it required for successful achievement. The rule breakers get noticed, for better or for worse, take credit and climb the ladder.  Furthermore, buying into back breaking suffering as requirement for success in life is a victim’s rationale. Don’t buy in to the guilt or the hype of hard work. You can enjoy life, work well and smart without suffering.

Shift the Lens of Focus to Your Strength Areas

When would you rather people to pay attention to you and bring the cameras: when you are trying something for the first time or when you are doing something you love for the 10th time? The latter likely captures you in all the virtues where the former likely features you fumbling to find your way. Both create perceptions, which is your preference?

This serves in the areas of differentiation as well. The rules of business as usual often trick you into accepting competitive criteria that play to the strengths of the established institutions. Yet you do not have to buy in and operate on such one-dimensional criteria. Walmart focused on price exclusively, and Target responded by focusing on experience and design. Where would you rather be seen shopping? The PC market will flood you with technical specifications and many different models, Apple offers a very limited, expensive variation on a few. Yet which would you rather be seen in a Starbucks if you could? Apple and Target know this, as does Walmart and the rest. They each position the lens of focus on their strength areas, and some in more disruptive game changing ways than others.

For most, entering an industry to compete with others chiefly on price is a fool’s errand (barring some strategic ace in the sleeve). Adding other factors such as customer service, experience, design, marketing strategy, etc. can change the game. How can you add dimensions to the competitive makeup in your market? How can you shift focus to your strength areas?

Map ways to change or break the rules that play to your strengths and work to your goals. Energy can be a huge advantage that adds a new dimension to things. Framing the focus on the energy (e.g. intensity, compassion and excitement) can shake things up. Leadership can bring a team together. So leaders can play to this and draw focus to their skills within teams. Compassionate people help others and can emphasize their social skills on any number of channels. Intense, tenacious, alpha people can dominate, energize and inspire (and can do so on behalf of others), and draw focus on the impact of their efforts. There is no point hiding from the personality flaws. Play to your strengths. Mitigate and minimize weaknesses. Don’t pretend to be perfect, all good, all the time. It’s a waste of energy and demonstrate a lack of integrity ultimately hurting your work and not serving you.

Do that Which Serves You and Shed That Which Does Not

Apply this filter to everything you do and how you do it. Question the way you do things and why you’re doing them. You will identify plenty of opportunities to optimize your business and life with this simple habit and filter alone. You don’t have to dump the bad all at once. Cycle it out on your own schedule. Draw in the good at the same pace. Make a continuous effort to cultivate better practices rather than simply “best” practices. Best practices expire and don’t always apply. Aim for better; constantly.

Broadcast Authenticity: Be Absolutely Comfortable and Proud to Be Yourself

This is perhaps the most important game changing factor. Do whatever it takes to be comfortable and exceptional where ever you are. Play to your strengths. Mitigate and minimize weaknesses and be Heroik.

If you practice authenticity to your core, you should also share who you are, as you are as well. You will attract clients and customers that align and relate to your authentic identity (be it personal or brand) and growing and forming lasting relationships with transacting customers will be easier.  If you’re truly being you, your brand and value will be known. If you get lost swapping masks for flavor of the week business personas, few will be able to discern you from the rest of your competitors. It takes more energy to be fake, to support things you don’t believe in, and do things you don’t genuinely want to do. That strikes me as inefficient and is often minimally effective. Make every project, client, and product your own. You might not change the outcome immediately, but you’ll change the way you feel about it, how fast and how much you learn from it, thus eventually your performance moving forward. Don’t play by the rules laid out before you. Be yourself and change the game.

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.

Use This Not That: Mission Focus vs. Laser Focus

You may have heard the hollow 80′s-like business slang term “laser focus,,” but I find it more challenging to connect and draw energy from those words. Phrases like “laser focus” do not invite energy or attention. It also has a cultural connotation of being empty, corp speak;one of many phrases we use when we want credit for saying it but don’t actually want to implement or do anything. This is the language of procrastination, the very thing we are trying to avoid.

Mission focus on the other hand, is connected to specific action, priortized  plan with no room for bull and distraction. Mission focus invites organization and priortization. The instant you tell yourself to get mission focused, you’ll ask “What is the mission?”. And if you don’t have a mission or a plan, then you might ask yourself “what the hell are you doing?”, and subsequently get your act and mission together.  Mission focus is a testosterone and adrenaline boosting phrase that can rally teams and focus energy. It’s a manly G.I. Joe term that helps you get things done.

What is your mission? How to Rally More Energy While Getting Things Done? 

Think of your big task of the day as your mission and get mission focused. Everything else falls away; the distractions and non-essential tasks disappear and allow you to hone in on the mission. You’re there to go in, get it done, and get out alive.

Visualize the essence of the word “mission”. See your task as important, essential to your survival and thrival. Mix fun and personal accountability by using your imagination to escape the drain of the mundane  aspects of the tasks at hand. Imagine yourself as a secret agent, special-ops, or in some other mission critical environment. Picture your favorite bad-ass archetype and connect with that energy. It doesn’t matter if it’s Seal Team 6 or Batman, whatever works to elevate your energy and focus on making it happen.

Consider your vision and purpose to further connect with the mission at hand. For example, my personal purpose and company focus is to inspire others to Get Heroik. My mission is to do that through this blog post and share helpful thoughts and ideas that come from experience (doing it wrong and working it to completion, earning  perfect hindsight) and expertise (read: paying critical attention to how things work and what makes us tick). Knowing that people need the help, and in a way are counting on people like me, inspires me to get my lazy fingers on the keyboard and get the word out.

Leveraging vision, imagination and re-framing with mission focus can radically improve your work and life. This works for many things; working out, taking out the trash, and getting things done. Your imagination is a powerful tool, and using it to re-frame your environment to get excited and mission focused is a great way to get things done.  What are you waiting for? People are counting on you to get it done? Help us Obiwan! Give it a try. Psych yourself out and get mission focused.

This form of unstructured exploration does the following:

• Relaxes the mind. Play is an energizing approach where as structured examination can be draining.
• Gives a more holistic view of a concept that leads to new knowledge and new ideas.
• Fleshes out the bad ideas quickly saving the cost of lengthy arbitrary testing of every idea.
• Tests ideas in real time while supporting successful habits of iteration and shipping it now.

Remember when you were a kid, and obsessed over an idea? You’d draw pictures at school, hang them up at home, build models, play games, visualize yourself in the cockpit, etc. You’d think out the details, color buttons on pieces of cardboard and build props to actually help your imagination engage with the idea. You weren’t concerned with the proper way to do things at all. Obstacles were absorbed as opportunities. Perceptions were changed. You bootstrapped your imagination and the goal was fun, expression and visualization. Every time you played on that theme, you’d learn something or be inspired to build/focus on something new to add to things . Your business could use more of that these days. If you want to improve your ability to be creatively problem solve and innovate play harder. I’m convinced its an essential and often missing key piece from most practices out there.

Make more time for unstructured play. Schedule more recess and less recession on your calendar. Your brain could use the break from the stress, and you’ll come back to work with a fresh head full of ideas. This will also help reduce anxiety and procrastination (See Must Read:The Now Habit). Playing, is about working out ideas in a relaxed but active mindset. Play is expression with everything we’ve got.

Harness The Power of Play

• Capture ideas-Write them down, draw it, snap a picture, save it, cut it out, put it on your wall.
• Go Raw- Use what you’ve got, even if it means producing a cave man’s output. Express the idea, for the love of play. A Christmas list of toys/tools to enhance the experience can be made afterwords.
• Get Others Involved- Getting more people to play along increases exposure to different perspectives and multiplies the fun.
• Obsess & Review- Immerse yourself in the exploration and fun aspects. Surround your environment with different angles.
• Fearlessly Accept and Re-Frame Obstacles- What’s there is there. Some rules can be bent, others broken and some things just are. Re-imagine the things in your way as part of the environment, the end product, solution and opportunity.
• Produce- Create more things that help you play or enhance your experience. Then pass these on to your customers and clients.

A Note About Notes and Capturing Ideas
Capturing ideas in notes and sketches is a great habit for anyone no matter your role. It’s not just for artists and writers. You don’t have to be Picasso or Hemingway to scribble a visual note or write in a journal. Capturing ideas is an essential personal practice for self management . Reviewing past notes makes for a vastly more effective process. Editing and refining is habit lost to many talented people. More importantly than all of that is the art of play required to move ideas forward. Don’t concern yourself with how well it is done. Let the playful mindset and desire to produce something tangible guide the speed and effort.

Write it down. Draw it. Scribble. Get beyond words and to the napkin sketches. Visualizing ideas brings them out of the abstract and closer to the physical/visual environment. Artistic talent is not a requirement nor is lack of it an excuse. You don’t have to be Picasso to be seen as a  brilliant game changer. 

Review it. Revisit your ideas and notes regularly. I know a few people who journal and take notes. I know maybe one or two people who actually review their notes, entries, and ideas.

Play with it. Don’t just think. Do something; preferably something fun.

Decide what to do with it. Sometimes, albeit rarely, I don’t know what to do with the end result. Worst case scenario, I shelve it and find a way to upcycle it in later projects or I take solace in the honed practice and process of play. Supporting the habit of play itself is a victory.

In the end you’re graded on play and performance. No matter your position or role, the ability to imagine, visualize, illustrate and express your thoughts will serve you in your life and career. Essentially, in life and work, especially in a global economy that values creativity and innovation, you will be graded on your ability to play.

Make Time to Play

Recording ideas is great- moving them forward and making them happen is even better.

If you take time to dream, play and be creative, new ideas, unexpected opportunities, discoveries and wonderful new outcomes will coming to your inbox. To increase the odds in your favor, it’s important to playfully capture ideas and move them forward; molding them like clay.

My Process

It starts with inspiration. It might be something in an ad I liked, a picture on the web, a box of things, or even a conversation. I carry multiple cameras with me. Often times, I might not know why something is compelling or interesting to me, only that it is. To me, the process of exploring an idea is like unraveling a mystery, I don’t always have the end in mind. Though that’s contrary to popular management opinion- it’s vital to play and creativity, at least initially.

Case in point the sketch below. Alright- this is removed of several layers of inspiration and chicken scratch. Eventually, or initially, you start with something simple, a napkin drawing and a few post-it notes.

;

The first victory comes from scribbling anything at all but to take it somewhere, you’ll have to play with it further. Consider adding color. Change it. Add to it as you try to figure out the essence of what your mind/eye perceives as valuable or interesting.

Something might be off. The medium might not give you what I want so I change it up. Sometimes I  stick with it to draw it or write it out again and again. Changing mediums helps me approach ideas from other angles on the cheap. I tend to jump from camera, moleskine & pen, to stylus and iPad and more fun in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Words come to mind. I add them in too. The words might come first and imagery second or the other way around.

The words seem kind of clunky and need to be re-worked. I don’t often get it right on the first try, and don’t set an expectation to do so. The expectation of perfect or even good after your first crack at something is a common form of self sabotage. Often enough, I iterate after publishing/launching. When things go live, you’ll see them in a different light. Occasionally for instance, you’ll see new illustrations for blog posts from months ago, simply because I wanted to change or revisit them. I recommend small pre-launch activities and getting reviews from respected peers to eliminate obvious errors and to get valuable insight.

Iteration- Change the format. Landscape we take for granted. What about going vertical? Should I re-purpose it altogether?

Explore. Up-Cycle. Re-Purpose.

This is work and play. In this case changing to the longer vertical form allowed me to see the paper airplane and the big jet shadow- which gave me an ad idea for my company. So I took what was a playful sketch and visual note, to something to share, and finally to something to illustrate what my company does.

Some times it’s about subtracting and simplifying things. In this case, I removed the boy and background color and focused on the airplane and its shadow.

I don’t quite think it’s finished yet, but it’s getting there. Share your thoughts in comments below.

Final Thoughts

Don’t let perfect ruin good. Get out there. Play hard and ship it! 

Schedule more recess and less recession on your calendar.

For a more brainy approach check out this video: How to Generate Good Ideas

How to Generate Good Ideas from Column Five on Vimeo.

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?

1. Believe you are worthy of love and belonging. If you can’t believe this and look for validation from others you will struggle in codependency and will be easily manipulated by the world. You are worthy. Know it. Love it. Live it.
2. Have the courage to be imperfect. Courage- from the latin word cour means heart, tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. Bravery is about having pluck, being bold and gallant. You’ll need it to be courageous.
3. Have the compassion to be kind to yourself first so that you can be kind to others. Stop beating yourself up. When you are kind to yourself, you are naturally kind to others and your quality of life improves.
4. Be authentic. Have connection as a result of authenticity. This is a song on my personal soundtrack. Authenticity is a big part of a happy and healthy life.
5. Let go of who you think you should be to embrace who you actually are. The standards of others fit like shoes of others. Some fit, some don’t. Wear your own. Be yourself. Choose what is right for you.
6. Fully embrace vulnerability. I call it living comfortably uncomfortable. It’s not easy. It’s not agony. It’s necessary.

What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.

• The willingness to say I love you first
• The willingness to do something where there are no guarantees
• The willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out.
• This is fundamental.

7. Remind yourself about the choices you make. You choose to be with someone. Acknowledge the risk. It might not work out but that’s okay. I am grateful and proud of my relationship because my girlfriend and I have these really great habits. We talk about our circumstances as choices, we acknowledge risk (and laugh at them), we choose love, we choose each other (all over again each and every day), and we practice gratitude in every terrifying moment.

4 System Wide Habits to Halt

1. Most people numb vulnerability, and everything. We are the most in debt, obese, medicated, addicted in U.S. history.
You can’t just numb the bad stuff, shame, fear, guilt, “just give me a beer and 3 pieces of chocolate cake and it will all be okay.” You can’t selectively numb emotions. So when you numb the bad ones, you also cut-off access to gratitude, joy and happiness in a self perpetuating cycle of misery.
2. We make everything that’s uncertain certain. There’s no mystery or conversation. I’m right. You’re wrong. Shut up.
3. We perfect. Lie to ourselves with unhealthy expectations and struggle to meet them.
4. Most People bullshit and pretend what we do does not have an impact.

It’s time we traded and upgraded to some better ways. Here are 4

8. Let yourself be seen, deeply vulnerably seen.
9. Love with your whole heart even if there’s no guarantee.
10. Practice gratitude and joy in moments of terror.
11. Believe that you are enough. When you believe that you are enough, you are kinder and gentler to others and kinder and gentler to ourselves.

Based on my life experience and recently reinforced from reading the collected works of Dr. Brene Brown, her research on shame, fear and our struggle for worthiness. I highly recommend her book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Now when you’re done ironing your cape. Leave a comment, like and share this post with a friend, and get out there and Get Heroik.

Bonus Footage: TED Talk from Dr. Brown. Enjoy

1. The factory model and old deal are gone. The opportunity to simply input hard work and long hours for a big payout at the end is over. Wake up to global economics 101, where performance, creativity and innovation are now rule of thumb to earn end’s meat.

2. Playing by the rules, doing your job and following instructions will earn you a secure minimum wage, dead end job. The rules were written over 200 years ago for factory jobs and  factory rules that are dead and gone.

3. Leadership and solving interesting problems are more than good habits and best practices. These are essential life skills that everyone should cultivate. This isn’t taught at school.  In school, they teach you how to follow the rules and comply with outdated systems to prepare you for jobs and opportunities that no longer exist or that change quickly.

4. Ship it now.  Launch soon. Launch now. Everything is practice. The quality of production will suffer for shipping too early. Though, on the other hand, shipping something on time that’s mostly finished is better than shipping nothing. “The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.”

5. If you want to become indispensable in the Global Information Economy, create indispensable content. Do not accept common practice for your standard practice. Differentiate yourself by being better, even if only slightly so in a few key areas. Stand out. Do not confuse this with working harder or spending more money than the other guys.

6. Focus on adding value independent of effort and cost. What details can you add that would add value? They can be subtle, simple, cheap if not free. Yet they can make all the difference in the world.

7. Creativity.

8. Fearless doesn’t really mean “without fear.” What it means in practice is, “unafraid of things that one shouldn’t be afraid of.” Being fearless means giving a presentation to an important customer without losing a night’s sleep. It means being willing to take intellectual risks and to forge a new path. The fear is about an imagined threat, so avoiding the fear allows you to actually accomplish something.

9. The easier it is to quantify, the less it’s worth. When you give something away, you benefit more than the recipient does. The act of being generous makes you rich beyond measure, and as the goods or services spread through the community, everyone benefits.The future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor. And worse yet, the harder you work to quantify and manipulate this process, the more poorly it will work.

Linchpin

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. You may believe that the timeline of events and experiences you lived through occurred as you remember them. These memorable moments make up your story and affect your marching orders or how you approach your life each and every day. These experiences,
filled with intertwined emotions, thoughts and perceptions, define a part of your identity. The memory game however, is largely subjective game of connect the dots. The moments you remember, are connected to one another to make up your personal
timeline.

Your brain plays tricks on you in a few respects.  Be sure to read 38 Memory Biases That Change The Story for in depth examples of just how your memories can’t be trusted as an objective account of your life.Negative events, for example those of pain, loss and suffering are often far easier to recall than those that are positive; those moments of peace, calm, joy and happiness. Your brain and memory are hard wired to help you learn from negative moments by recording every part and pixel. You remember where, when, who, why and what you stubbed your toe on for example. If you think about something like stubbing your toe, you can probably vividly picture a piece of furniture, a corner of a particular wall, or a chair in your home. You may even be able to recall multiple items, experiences and feelings where this happened. You can probably get there quickly in your head. If you try to recall your first kiss, or how you felt when you proposed to your wife and she said yes, or your husband proposed, how vivid is that memory? Which would you rather hold on to?

It’s easier to record and retain failures and pain. As life is full of challenges, you reinforce a habit of recording the negative and being attentive to it. You may enjoy the positive but often forget to write it down in the story of your life. When left on autopilot, your brain records trauma, failures and fears with perfect clarity and distinction. This default record of your life is likely more negative than it ought to be.

Luckily, your brain is also hard wired to enjoy moments and seek that which serves you. Part of enjoyment requires being, where you turn off your personal recorder, get out of your head and get into the moment. Often, during these positive moments we abandon
our story telling station and forget to make a dot on the timeline. Thus the specifics, the feelings, and thoughts experienced in a wonderful moment may eventually fade away if you don’t call attention to them later. A dance with someone wonderful, your first kiss, a ride at the county fair, the fleeting joys are easily forgotten without practice.

Changing The Past By Mapping The Positive Timeline:

Recalling That Which Served You and Remembering That Which Serves You

I’d bet dollars to donuts that your positive timeline has been largely undocumented and under reported. It’s time to travel back in time and call attention to your past victories, decompress them and bring them to the forefront of your mind.

1. Pick a day, a few hours, or just 20 minutes to look back on some photos of your life.

2. Pick a few, pick 50, pick 5 photos of small wins/epic victories from your past. They could be from any part of your life but for best results redefine your timeline for every 5-10 years of your life so far. Grab a few photos from

3. Write a few lines next to these images about those moment. How did you feel? What about that event was so important to you? How did it shape or mold who you are and what you do today? Why is that so great?

4. Connect your past with your positive attributes, resources and networks. Reflect on failures, upsets, and setbacks. Could you enjoy what you have today if it weren’t for them as well.

5. Have the future in mind. What stories would help support you on a path to improvement, success and victory?

6. Place those pictures of  pivotal moments someplace where you can see them everyday. Understand and be grateful for the positive moments as well as the negative moments  that ultimately lead to the positive outcomes of the present.

7. Realize that who you are now, as a person who lives in this moment, is a great and powerful moment. This moment has potential as do you. Use that potential to inspire and motivate yourself to reach for more and work towards a greater goal.

Re-journaling your past may change the way you feel about your present and thus affect your future. Revisiting the positive moments and remapping your timeline will change the story and may lead to new opportunities. As you replay and continue your personal story, re-evaluate what was important in your story to motivate and inspire the outcomes you desire in this moment and every moment in the future. Call attention to the parts of your past that serve who you want to be and who you are becoming. Do this exercise multiple times and you’ll realize that you have changed your perception of the past and came up with a great Heroik Origin Story serves you now in this moment as you reach for a better tomorrow.

Positive Memory Biases

1. Remembering the past as having been better than it really was, is an example of rosy retrospection bias.
2. Remember the path taken or choices made as being better than those you did not, this is called the Choice-supportive bias.
3. Mistaking a memory for something you imagined is a memory bias of cryptomnesia or a false memory. Fiction can be fun and we can all live in our heads a bit too much. This can equally work against us.
4. Recalling the past in a self-serving manner, like the fish you caught as bigger than it was, the grades you received were higher than they were, or how high or far you jumped on the track team in college as better than they really were; these are all examples of egocentric bias.
5. Feelings associated with negative memories fade away more quickly than the feelings associated with positive experiences. This is referred to as a fading affect bias. This is the “let’s do that again” reaction that may recall the fun aspects of an event like
the glory of a long race, the excitement of a wild night, while forgetting the negative parts.
6. Things you find humorous are more easily remembered than the boring and mundane. This is an example of the memory bias called the Humor effect. This is why you can vividly remember a good laugh over a boring but important lecture. How you feel and enjoy a moment affects how you remember it.
7. Over time, as the details of an experience slip your mind, the events change in the retelling of the recollection, certain details may be crystal clear while others are exaggerated and together this exaggerates the relational details of the experience. This is said to be due to a bias of Leveling and Sharpening. This isn’t all bad news, after all, like a fine wine, some stories get better with age. The flavor certainly changes with the frequency and time that you share it as well.
8. Older adults favor positive over negative information in their memories is an example of the Positivity effect. This may influence you to be more susceptible to scams when you receive email about unclaimed inheritance from the prince of Nigeria, but it can also
help you maintain a rosy colored outlook that will support a vibrant and highly productive life.
9. If you’re in a good mood, you’ll remember other events and experiences where you had a similar mood. This is an example of mood congruent memory bias. Which memories do you want to tap into to fuel your day? Which do you believe will motivate and drive you to more productivity and higher performance?

Typical Troublemaker Biases

10. Remembering your past attitudes and behavior as resembling your current attitudes and behavior is called a consistency bias.
11. After putting in an effort to change or advance, remembering your past performance as more difficult than it actually was is called a change bias.
12. Remembering something as true because you’ve heard it somewhere else before from someone else before is an example of the Illusion-of-truth effect. You may perceive it as truth without validating the information. A great example of this are the many urban legends and celebrity myths that persist throughout society today. When you inaccurately remember the relationship between two moments, this is due to a bias called Illusory correlation.

Biases That We Take To Work & Beyond

13. It’s easier to remember where you put your car keys if your in the right area. It’s easier for witnesses to recall events if they stay at the scene. If you are removed from the context of an event, it’s harder to remember accurately. This is an example of the Context effect. You are better at remembering work related information while at work and home related events when at home.
14. You are better at remembering statements and/or information that you have made or created over those that other people make/create due to the Self-generation effect.
15. The tendency to forget information you can easily find online (and that’s everything these days) is said to be the result of the Google effect.
16. The Homer Simpson forehead slapping, “Doh” moments where you reflect on your memory and past events seem so predictable, avoidable, are examples of the Hindsight bias. This bias is also known as the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect.
17. Different methods you use to retain information have varying levels of effectiveness. This is an example of the levels-of-processing effect.
18. A small percentage of items on a long list are remembered but the longer the list, the more total items you’ll remember due to the list-length effect.
19. Reviewing Memorized testing material frequently improves your ability to remember things in general. This is known as testing effect.
20. People perceive an experience as the sum of it’s average at it’s peak (e.g. really good or really bad) and how it ended. This bias is known as the peak-end effect. Recollection example: It was fun until the power went out and the dinosaurs escaped
and almost ate us. This bias can cause small wins/positive moments to go undocumented and could cause you miss out on more momentum.
21. If you see an item on a list and hear it spoken out loud we are more likely to remember it. If you see something in it’s written form vs. hearing it spoken aloud, you will be less likely to remember it. This is an example of the modality effect.
22. Misinformation affects your recollection of events as well. If you are handed an “official report” on an event you participated in your experienced, the information in the report can affect your own account of the event. This is known as misinformation
effect. A conspiracy theorist might think of it as the Men In Black effect, the story you’re told to make you feel confused and cover-up what really happened. In the work place, when an employee quits, management and human resources often spin different stories
about how events occurred.
23. Those moments when you confuse which actor or character said a famous line or you confuse names with faces. Or perhaps you remember you know something but forget the source the”why” or “where” you know it from. These are examples of
confusion induced bias is an example of misattribution.
24. You remember things that persist in our head such as recurring nightmares and dreams. This is a bias of persistence.
25. Illustrated concepts, those captured via pictures are much more likely to be remembered than those presented in written form. This is due to the picture superiority effect. You are hard wired to experience things visually. This explains why you can recite every Star Wars movie or recall every scene of The Princess Bride verbatim, but forget text from your chemistry book back in your high school days.
26. There is a tendency to remember things that you perceive that you are good at, or better than others at, and you also remember things that you are bad at, are less than average. You can thank and curse the placement bias for this phenomenon.
27. You are more likely to remember items at the end of a list, followed by the beginning, and lastly middle. The items in the middle of the list are least likely to be remembered. This is a combination of the biases of Primacy effect, Recency effect & Serial position effect.
28. Things that seem overly complicated or difficult are harder to remember. This is an example of the processing difficulty effect. If you perceive remembering something as easy or very possible, you’ll have an easier time remembering it. Perception counts!
29. Remembering the glory days of adolescence and early adulthood is said to be an example of the reminiscence bump. Though society today may frown upon re-living the glory days, it doesn’t mean you should stop celebrating them and using them as
footholds to help you climb to new heights and future victories.
30. Self-serving bias is when you perceive yourself as responsible for all of the good outcomes but conveniently not responsible for any of the bad outcomes.
31. Source Confusion- misattributing the source of a memory, e.g. misremembering that one saw an event personally when actually it was seen on television.
32. Spacing effect: that information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a longer span of time.
33. Stereotypical bias: memory distorted towards stereotypes, e.g. “black-sounding” names being misremembered as names of criminals.
34. Telescoping effect: the tendency to displace recent events backward in time and remote events forward in time, so that recent events appear more remote, and remote events, more recent.
35. Tip of the tongue-When you are able to recall parts of an event or related information, but can’t recall the whole thing.This is thought to be an example of “blocking” where multiple similar memories are being recalled and interfere with each other. This is called tip of the tongue phenomenon.
36. The “gist” of what someone has said is better remembered than the verbatim wording. This is called the Verbatim effect.
37. Remembering an item that sticks out is more compared to other items is an example of the Von Restorff effect. A list of power tools with the word “banana” in there will likely earn attention and a spot in your memory.
38. The tendency to remember projects or tasks that are incomplete or were interrupted vs. remembering completed tasks is an example of the Zeigarnik effect.

Bottom Line: Do what you must to love your story and use every scar, every wrinkle and moment to power your present.

For your listening pleasure, here’s Brandy Carlile’s “The Story”

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.

By default there is room for 6 tasks, but you can add more if you like. I recommend sticking to your top 5-6 tasks that you already feel are important or conflicted about.

The Final Four Tip- If you are neurotic and decide to rate all the tasks you can dream up. I recommend taking your top 4 tasks from that effort, and taking them to the final 4. Put them up against each other and rate them again in comparison to each other. This second filter will help you drill down.

Prioritize and Organize After You’ve Rated Your Tasks.

Once you have your top 6 tasks scored, you can prioritize them based on their total score. Take the top scoring tasks and get to work.

6 Tips For Staying on Task

If your energy, motivation or momentum drops as you’re attempting to bust out your work try these tips.

1. Stay Motivated by Aiming for The Enjoyable Energy Boosters- Use the matrix to find a task that’s highly enjoyable first, and start there. Double your enjoyable score if you need a boost. The small, enjoyable win will boost your energy, positive feelings and mindset to give you the juice and the momentum you need to take on your other tasks. 
2. Limit yourself to two things to accomplish each day. It’s all about the self reinforcing victory loop: small wins reinforce good feelings, thoughts and perceptions that motivate, and inspire, fuel, and motivate you to more wins.
3. Choose two outcomes or goals within a given focus each day. Define what a small daily win would be for you. When it comes to the daily or self-micromanagement world, aim for a step ladder not the stars. What outcomes would leave you feeling alright?
4. Grab a timer and attack tasks in small chunks. Try getting things done in small increments, I recommend testing 12, 15,17, 20,23 and 30 minutes. Why so many? The idea is to get the most done in the least amount of time while avoiding the habit of subscribing to the “hourly” habit. This is about self management, efficiency and productivity not effort per hour.  The only added tool required is a timer of some kind. Here’s a revolutionary recommendation: buy a digital watch: Timex Men’s Ironman Watch ($23) or Timex Women’s Sports Watch ($15). A watch at Wal-Mart will suffice as well. Aim for simplicity. Here are a few fancier timer tools for digital devices that can help: Pomodairo Mac/Win/Adobe Air, klok (Mac), orzeszek (win), and Focus Booster (mac/win/adobe air). And for the mobile crowd, aside from built in timers on phones, I also like 30/30 for the iPad.
5. Take more breaks, play a little, be sure to move around  and for God’s sake move around a bit! Studies have shown that breaks and light exercise (movement), increases your creativity, problem solving ability, negotiating power, while boosting your energy and positive feelings. All that from a little motion? Yup. Go for a walk- get some blood flowing. I also regularly have mobile meetings in parks, stand up and pace or walk rooms when I think about tasks, and take breaks to exercise throughout the day.
6. Clean up your email habit. Avoid/limit checking email throughout the day, disable alerts on your phone and desktop. When you do check your inbox, make sure you can focus on the essential  and the important. Check out our filter pack for gmail,  or develop your own. Be sure to read our post about cleaning up the inbox habit here.