We all had our reasons; vindicate our training and tough talk, to remind ourselves that we’re brave and capable, to satisfy our thirst for epic adventure, to do a little team building, to demonstrate leadership, and perhaps most important- to have a good time and enjoy the adventure. Staring from the starting line, knowing what was in store, I was more excited than afraid. Doing the Tough Mudder after recently pulling a hamstring, I’ll admit, was an intimidating notion. I knew we’d survive. I knew we’d get it done. I trusted my team and I wasn’t going to allow myself to quit, come hell or compound fracture.

Joe Rohde (RohdeWarrior) lost 50lbs training for this race. Micah (aka Desert Rat) eats adventures for breakfast and I love running neck and neck with him. Dave  Burges or “Shirt” as all USAF  First Sergeants are known, was the team’s very own version of the Hulk. This was to be an epic moment spent with heroes, in support of heroes. A portion of the proceeds is donated to the Wounded Warrior project.  Wave after wave, mob after mob of fellow mudders, there was no way I’d let a bum leg stop me from enjoying this moment. We were ready Bringing our own bravery; delivering on what was stamped across the shirts for Team Heroik.

Running through the orange smoke to the tune of Scotland the brave played by a nearby bagpiper was an epic way to start. An uphill sprint and battle cry as we started, sprinted up the mountain; covered in woad (war paint) and sunscreen. instantly sucking the wind out of my lungs, left me begging for the first mud pit. Meanwhile, my smarter teammates, Joe and Micah, who trained longer at elevation ran ahead.

The Death March seemed to be the main theme. The Death March wasn’t just an obstacle, it was everything you did between the other obstacles.

Less than a mile into the course and my hamstring is screaming. An endless hike up the mountain to High Camp.

I think we were more intimidated the day prior than the day of the race. We saw a few survivors of Saturday’s events and heard tales of the effect of the ice pit. Buckets of ice loaded into pools by bulldozers, making a freezing bath that you’d have to swim through, duck under a plank, and push up through the ice that collects on the other side.

The stories haunted us the rest of the day. Once we pushed up through the foot of ice on the other side of the pool and pulled our numb, useless legs out of the ice bath, we knew we had it.

The Everest challenge was a great rush. People would create leaning human pyramids to reach the top of this quarter pipe. A mob of helpful racers cheers on the mudders and pulls people up through the obstacle. They dangle ropes and shirts and tell you to grab on so they can pull you up. Occasionally people would fall. There were some gnarly wrecks, but the comradery of the Tough Mudders was felt all over the place here. We saw people who weighed over 300 lbs get pulled up and over this and our own Hulk, Dave, was reeling them in here too. Helping out once we reached the top was far more fun than reaching the top.

Pulling up at the Funk Monkey obstacle, getting yelled at by the Marines, and I was lucky enough to know one of them; my best friend’s kid brother, now a marine, taunting me, “You better not fall in. I made it. You’d better.” And I did.

Seeing the Marines reminded us of yet another reason we were there, to honor our heroes, our service men and women, and spill some of our blood in the same mud, and support the Wounded Warrior project. Connecting with what even a fraction of what our military does in their work day through this experience was an honor, and the feeling never went away.

Micah demonstrates why you should always remember your game face.

Higher than High Camp-Going up in elevation, well beyond High Camp at Squaw Valley was a surprise. High Camp disappeared in the distance as we continued up and up, through the snow, through Devil’s Beard and beyond.

All the sunscreen had washed off with each dunking, and you feel the sun become a factor quickly.

In the drink again, after jumping a 20 ft platform into freezing water. The Underwater Tunnels require you to fight your instinct and submerge your head under the water, and on the other side, you want to pop up and get out as quickly as possible, but you might find out the hard way that there is barbed wire a few inches above you as you continue through the obstacle. This was a check in point. If you had a weak swimmer on your team, here is where you found out. We cheered each other through it though you could see a slight panic in a few of us.

We dried off and carried on to the Boa Constrictor. Big Deal- I thought- a muddy tunnel. What they don’t tell you is that the muddy tunnel is full of sharp rocks and debris. If you weren’t bleeding before you’re definitely scraped up here.

Another Day at the office. We eat mudders for breakfast.  Surviving the Boa, we started getting cocky at this point and were thirsty for more.

Mighty Joe, takes his time across the wobbly planks, thinking he’ll finesse his way across…

Everyone falls in the drink sometimes. Yet your team is there to pull you out and share a laugh.

I’m sure the rest of the team would agree their favorite moment was at Electro Shock Therapy, when I yelled “Let’s go!” as I proceeded to charge through and get hit with God knows how many thousands of volts of electricity. I dropped like a rock and all I hear behind me is my team laughing at the leader. The joke was on me, and they proceeded to sneak through the dangling wires and we all crossed the finish line together.

Orange Headbands and beers in hand, we held our trophies high. Hard work, team work, respect, helping out, and charging forward are but a few reasons that the Tough Mudder is a required course for the Heroik MBA. The Tough Mudder teaches you about teamwork, leadership, endurance, and once you’ve done it, you lose your fear and excuse privileges, as everything and anything becomes do-able.  Perhaps the underlying life lesson here to is that life is what you’re alive to. If your open to the challenge and welcome them into your life, you’ll find yourself a bonafied, Heroik bad-ass, capable of just about anything.

I spared some obstacles and will leave them to mystery. Want to know more? Sign up for the Tough Mudder in your town and find out first hand.

People were STARING.  They could have been pointing too, though I didn’t actually see it.  You’d think they’d never seen a home-made sledge stacked high with trash being dragged across the beach before…

So that’s a bit of the cart before the horse, so let me begin again.  Nicholas McGill (lastofthechivalrous) started things off.  Thinking about it, he started way before the actual event, by signing up for the Tough Mudder scheduled for September 2011.  I followed and joined his team as part of my Path To Fitness last year.  Micah and Dave rounded out the team and we all committed to training.  Nicholas wanted to get some team building going, and suggested a Road Trip to Point Reyes.  Micah and I joined in and off we went.

We camped at Samuel P. Taylor Park after searching around for a site.  Being up in the trees was great.  The raccoons not so much.  Even though we knew better there had been food left around and they definitely got into it.  Interesting in that it nearly put them into a protein coma, so they didn’t leave very quickly.

The next day was set aside for Training and after driving around fairly aimlessly we pulled over at Abott’s Lagoon Trailhead and decided to hike to the beach.  It was only 1.3 miles and the first part was all gravel, leveled and graded.  This devolved into a rutted path near a cow pasture, but was still pretty.  Arriving at the beach we skirted the area reserved for the Snowy Plover and set off along the strand.  We wandered around, along the bluffs created by the tides, and Micah caught (and tried to make out with) the Sand Crabs.

That’s where Nicholas picked up an old float from among the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shore.  He laughingly said he’d be leaving it in his Dad’s truck as a way to flabbergast him.  Then he found another and we began noticing just how much crap there was on the beach and it was ‘on’.  We all began combing the beach, picking up trash large and small, putting littler things inside of bigger things and collecting, collecting, collecting until all of us had our arms full.  OK we said, now what?  We settled on a dump site where it would at least all be together and continued on our merry way.

Funny though; once you’ve begun to notice the detritus you just can’t NOT see it anymore.  No one that knows me would accuse me of being a ‘green’ person or taking on causes, however…the sight of this litter all over the place was galling, at least for me.  I guess for the other guys too because we all continued picking stuff up.

Luckily one of the things we dug out of the sand was a large sheet of VisQueen and when we got back to our cache, arms once more full, we were able to tie most of it up in a bundle.  Taking turns with the bundle we started back, picking up more and more trash.  Then it happened.

Nicholas said “Couldn’t we make a travois (he didn’t know this word, but it’s what he meant) that we could put everything on so we can just haul it?”  Lo and behold, a pallet ‘appeared’ before us and we quickly lashed the trash to it, attached the ropes we’d unearthed and started dragging it along the beach.

Sounds great?  Not so much.  No matter what angles we tried the nose dug into the sand and we were quickly dragging as much extra weight as the whole load itself.  And Nicholas spoke up again, saying “There’s GOT to be something we can attach to the front that will let the pallet glide better.”  Scanning the beach what did we see but a section of phone pole, wrapped with a semi-rigid plastic sheet.  We raced over, grabbed the pole and started pulling and prying at the plastic.  Weathering caused the nails to loosen and shortly we had a three quarter circle about four feet wide THAT FIT RIGHT OVER THE FRONT OF THE PALLET.  Providence!

Suddenly dragging the sledge became MUCH easier and the three of us were laughing, stopping to pick up more trash and, evidently, creating a spectacle because that’s when folks started staring (and pointing).  And you know, it just wasn’t enough for Nicholas, who said “If only we had a tire.  A BIG tire to throw on top would be SO COOL!”  And you know that one appeared, but this wasn’t just any tire.  It was a Truck Tire.  A truck tire with the WHEEL.  Can you say heavy?

But hey, we were being studs and we rolled that big sucker over, tossed it on top of the load and off we went.  To more staring since we were laughing, and now were back to straining at the increased weight.

I’ll spare you the details of the rest of the trip back.  Suffice to say that there were challenges going uphill and especially over the rutted path.  The cows were staring.  Oh yeah, lifting the pallet overhead proved to be a ‘bad idea’ too.

But here’s what chaps my ass.  Back at the parking lot we stopped and took some photos and when some tourists came by asked them to get us in a picture.  In their Northern European accents they said yes, but wanted to know “Why?  Why are you doing this?”  Really?  Did we need to explain that all of this crap doesn’t belong on the beach?  And it gets worse…

Another couple showed up, returning from the beach as we were tossing our collection into the dumpster.  They stopped to talk and said they were happy with out effort but that “We saw all kinds of trash along our way too.”  Now I KNOW that at least some of that was stuff dropped from our load but my, unspoken, question was “So where is the stuff?  You mean you just left it there?”

Hiking on the beach with my pals:  Fun

Picking up trash and using it as a training and straining exercise:  Rewarding

Recognizing that people at best have blinders on and at worst can see but just not give a damn:  Priceless

Check out the full gallery for more shenanigans

Awesome-Grams, or, notes, displays and deeds of thanks, praise and appreciation are easy to write, lovely to read, and can boost productivity, rapport and improve a relationship personal and professional. Sending these is a great replacement behavior for the bad habit of nasty-grams.  And for all you Ebineisers out there, sending awesome-grams as a habit can save you real dollars, bring more material perks as well as present new opportunities and prospects. Thank you’s are affirmations of appreciation. They help us acknowledge and celebrate the good things in our lives and counteract our tendency to simply note the negative disruptions and experiences. The smile the awareness brings puts a spring in our steps and we can sail through our days with light and happy hearts. How do we get started? Who do we thank? What are the perks? Have any examples: Read on kind sirs and madams.

The Goal

The purpose of sending an awesome-gram is to:

• Send praise when we feel it and recognize that credit is due.
• Cultivate an appreciation for what we have and enjoy in our lives right now.
• Strengthen relationships- Nurture the real ones with real interactions where, when and how we can.
• Enjoy the fruits of being a person who recognizes the value of others and expresses that value.

Yes, it takes more time to do these things, but chances are, when it comes to personal and professional relationships, you’ve spread yourself and your efforts mighty thin across all the networks floating around out there. To make up for the time, retract some social networking time to focus on engaging the relationships that you recognize as meaningful, and pour some TEE (Time, Effort and Energy) into making their epicness felt by all involved.

Choose a Target

In search of a new high to boost your energy and excitement? Start with an attitude of gratitude. Think of the people and things you really love and appreciate write now. If you are struggling to think of specific people, take a look in your pockets, purses, and briefcases, consider the services you depend on and maybe take for granted.

Consider these examples:

• The FedEx/delivery Man
• Local barista at your favorite cafe (Note to self: Send Frank @NakedLounge on 11th and H an Awesome-Gram)
• Family- surprisingly, many of us are pampered, spoiled and supported by family and fail to really acknowledge as we should.
• Team members and support staff who help make your work rock! Your secretary, personal assistant, CPA, lawyer, etc.
• Last but not least, your SPOUSE! Don’t forget them. As George said in his two commandment bit, the first commandment is “Honor and cherish the provider of thy nookie!”

If you are still struggling or just want to add to your Awesome-Gram recipient list consider this:

Behind every app, service, company, there are people. Stop thinking, B2B, B2C, get back to P2P, People to People and Person to Person.

More potential recipients:

• Web services you adore but don’t consider their epic nature: Amazon Prime, Dropbox, Logmein, Netflix, WordPress,
• Restaurants and cafes you love and frequent (if only for their free wifi), who consistently give you a culinary experience worth coming back to- even chains deserve love. Chipotle,Khatmandu Kitchen, India Oven,Starbucks, Panera, etc.

How to Reach them

Great Mediums for Awesome-Grams:

What do I say?

Awesome-Grams as an On-Going Practice Not a One Time Event

It’s true, you’ll meet limited success by delivering one awesome-gram.  The goal is the habit, of consistently reaching out and nurturing the meaningful and important relationships, over the course of time. This is not a quick fix or Jedi Mind trick. It’s frosting, and if you lack substance, I strongly recommend you cultivate that before reaching out for frosting. It’s the tendency of our society to attempt to solve problems by consuming products and services, putting lipstick on the pig rather than face the pig itself and cultivate intelligence, awareness and discipline to truly transform ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to sell whatever you’d buy, but here @ Heroik, we encourage the cultivation of skills over blind consumption.  A few books to boost your soft skills in this scenario: The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness and Emotional Intelligence 2.0. These are very short, straight forward books full of practical exercises and awesome-gram mentality.

ROI on Awesome-grams:

Yes, I saved this section for last, just to make the Scroogey types cruise through the more wholesome motives. If you’ve read the High Cost of Nasty-Grams, you’re familiar with the TEE (Time, Effort and Energy) and associated costs that come with managing them. Awesome-grams work in a different way. It takes a tiny bit more TEE, a small added level of effort to show appreciation in a relationship. The small things count a lot.

•  You’ve set a positive tone for the relationship. The more you reinforce this, the more the other party will work to remove road blocks and obstacles on your behalf.
• Thoughtful acts breed other thoughtful acts. We get invited to social gatherings, simply for making a habit of saying thanks and you’re awesome in various, creative ways.
• It’s who you know- remember? How do you get to know them? You’re usually introduced by someone who thinks highly enough of you to stake their reputation on the introduction.
• Smart businesses  reward, protect and connect their best customers. They know that it’s better to get less money per transaction from happy customers who continue to business with them. Who are their best customers and clients? They’re not always the ones who spend the most money. They’re often the uplifting, dare I say even nice personalities, who brighten up days for everyone, have good manners and show appreciation for services rendered.
• It costs little to say Thank You. And an added effort of appreciation, in whatever awesome-gram form can pay in big dividends down the road.

It $aves to be nice!

Here are some real-life examples of how we reward our clients for sending awesome-grams and verbal appreciation our way.

For some clients, we’ve kept costs the same for over a decade. Others are given awesome discounts simply for being appreciative, nice and easy going. Consider the increase in costs over the past 10 years. Think specifically of the rise in fuel and food costs both going up over 20%. Now consider the power and savings of an awesome-gram!

As a consultant, when I’m called upon to sort out a crisis or important project for a particular lobbying client, every phone call ends with the client telling me “Thanks man. You’re my hero.”  5 words that have kept their costs down and in the friends and family circle for over 10 years.  That’s the power of an awesome-gram.

We’ve all experienced it; customers wanting to get more for their money by adding in ‘just one little thing’ that ‘shouldn’t take much time at all’. Of course they want more for the same amount (or preferably even less), we all do. And as consultants we always want to say “Yes!” when what the client wants is within our ability to accomplish. That doesn’t mean we have to DO the work, just cause it to be done and charge for the additional overhead.

However, there’s a not so fine line that separates work that fits within the core engagement and the potentially time sucking, project sinking, energy draining activities that the client is trying to ‘train’ us to accept. Not only is it important to define the boundaries for the first engagement, it’s key in setting expectations and precedents for how future work will be added. After all we all know what happens if you let the camel put it’s nose inside the tent.

Knowing the right way to communicate the boundaries, establish accurate expectations and  define the scope of your work; what’s included and what’s extra is an important skill that many independent contractors struggle with and need to hone.

So when the client opens up their can of worms, talking about the problem they can’t fix themselves, the effort they don’t have time to pursue, or the ‘new’ idea they’d like to incorporate, how do we get to the “Yes!” with mutual satisfaction? It’s all in the language and positioning. The goal is to be in complete agreement (considering you DO agree with their ideas) while making clear that it’s going to cost them. Use statements, proposals, and choices worded positively that also make clear that they are adding to their tab.

Here are a few of our favorite phrases that work:

• That’s a great way to augment the services we provide in our standard engagements.
• We’re always interested and excited to expand our relationship into new areas.
• Shall we expand the scope of our contract with that service from the outset?
• I’ll create a draft of the the Work Assignment for the new efforts and send it to you for approval.
• We can create a separate workflow to get that done in parallel with the main tasks so it’s ready for integration without delay.
• Collaborating on differing action plans takes more time, but can be worth the investment.
• We’ll want to be sure that extra work will give you the return on investment to make it worthwhile.
• Customization to that level requires additional time, effort and energy, when you decide you want to pursue it.
• We regularly define custom activities like that with our customers and increase our level of involvement.
• Have you budgeted for that?

Logmein, one of our favorite and essential services has an even more epic mobile app called Ignition. Logmein Ignition is a mobile application for iOS/Android/Windows that allows you to remotely access your computers and then some.

Let’s start with just the basic version.

If you’re a logmein free user (which everyone should be- it’s free, secure, remote access), you’ll get your standard on screen affair via wifi or 3g/4g. You’ll see your desktop and it’s easy (even from a small screen like the one on my iPhone4) to navigate and click around. The real magic of this app happens, the moment you start to use it- anywhere your mobile provider’s coverage map allows.

Pro Version: Where the Fun’s @

When I first bought Logmein Ignition, it was $35 dollars, and it was worth it then. Fear not they have a free version now. Yes, I paid $35 for an app. However, I also did the following with the help of this app:

• Troubleshoot client computer systems – from my iPhone while Kayaking in Lake Tahoe. Yes- on the water, and everything.
• Deploy ad campaigns to partners computers from my computer to theirs while camping in Bodega Bay
• Instruct my computer to record my favorite TV shows
• DJ music for parties from the couch
• Control the projector on movie night.
• Copy files over to Google docs and dropbox (just in the nick of time before access was revoked and folder deleted )
• Watch HD movies over 3G- and Hulu and anything else I could get my hands on- just about anywhere.
• Installed Splashtop (a $.99 competitor to Ignition) – but read on about that episode

If you’re an Ignition pro user, there is some added support for HD video, etc. So you can watch flash content, like say HULU in HD on your mobile device.  I’ve had this app from the beginning, it now saves your login and password which are all securely stored, but a godsend- you don’t have to thumb tap login everytime you want to use the application. It just works.

Yes Ignition Pro is $40 a year- and that’s a steep price but it’s worth it if you enjoy mobility. I’m an outdoors man and adventurist- not a desk jockey. So I’ll pony up the dough if it means not being tied down to the desk.

I’ve seen other people recommend Splashtop – a $.99 application that offers remote access and HD over 3g. So for you dear readers (and to satisfy my own curiosity) I spent the dollar and low and behold you get what you pay for. Splashtop doesn’t work for me and my PC at least in a few critical ways

• Splashtop uses Google /Gmail login to authenticate and connect you to your computer when you are not on the (LAN local area network). So if you’re not on wifi, theoretically, you’d sign in with Gmail credentials. However, The brilliant folks at Splashtop didn’t do such a good job at making this actually work, so although you are entering accurate account information, the notification you will receive tells you the information is wrong. In short, it’s inherently broken.
• So I just paid $.99 for someone to harvest my Gmail account information. Sounds like a potential scam already.
• I checked the Splashtop Forums and this is a known issue since May of last year. They’re still selling the product and haven’t delivered the promised functionality at all.
• I Gave up on 3G and  tried to connect to my PC via Splashtop over wifi. It didn’t like my access code. I changed it to something basic. It still refused it.

So for me (windows 7, yada yada) Splashtop is not a valuable alternative. It’s a waste of money, time, effort and energy. I’ve more than recouped the high cost of Logmein’s Ignition. The free version can empower you, the pro version gives you HD, cloud transfer abilities that are lifesavers.  We’ve been using and abusing Ignition at Heroik Media for 2 years now and has proven itself to be every bit of it’s tag line of being the One App for Ultimate Access. Get it Here.

Eli Pariser explains in  The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, how big companies, specifically search engines like Google, are personalizing search results based on your individual activity. So now, if you Google your self/business for example, you’re likely to see yourself climb the charts so to speak, but this isn’t what the rest of the world sees in their search results. So you may be fooled into thinking that your business is in good standing in terms of Google ranking, without realizing you are nowhere near page one of the search results for your primary category and keywords.

For example, a plumber may search for a plumber in Arkansas on Google and then find himself and click on his own link repeatedly. Doing this trains Google to present you with that result higher on the list. Again however, when the rest of the world does the same search, the plumber’s listing may be in a completely different page/position altogether. So how do you assess your real Google rank? Simply go Scroogle yourself.

Scroogle, is a nifty little website that allows you to do an objective Google search, removing all of the cookies, and personalized data that skews results offering you fresh eyes and a clean view of where you really stand.

1. Visit this link to get directly to the Scraper tool or go to  www.scroogle.org and click on Scroogle Scraper on the right hand side.
2. Select the number of results you’d like to view (I usually click on 100)
3. Search for your category (line of work) and city, and/or a keyword or two and see where your business is.
4. If you aren’t on page one, read this post, or learn about the FPE service here.

If you’re curious about the Filter Bubble, I recommend checking out Eli’s Ted Talk and watch the video below.

Also checkout the Filter Bubble Website

You might be amazed how many people deal with this contact conundrum- the years and in some cases, decades build up of contacts. Layer upon layer of stale and duplicate contact data rotting your Outlook database and virtual Rolodex of various flavors. Avoiding the inevitable time consuming, manual, contact reconciliation. After years spent fighting a losing battle, finally there’s a solution out there that doesn’t put your data at risk and minimizes the time, effort and energy required to sort it out. It’s a service called Scrubly.

Scrubly is a very secure, cloud-based contact clean-up service, that saves a ton of time and minimizes the time, effort, and energy.

Scrubly | Duplicate Contact Remover from Bob Thordarson on Vimeo.

Big Features

• Automatically backs up all of your contacts throughout the process. In case something goes haywire, you can always go back. The backups are stored securely on their servers,
• Merges compatible contacts- Scrubly shines better than most applications here.
• Removes Duplicate contacts from Gmail, Google Apps, Outlook, and Mac email clients.
• Outlook features include dealing with multiple PST’s, specific, individual folders or all of them.
• Flags contact records with limited info for reconciliation, helping you quickly decide if you need to junk a contact or not.

All of these wonderful features are done quickly in a very user friendly environment, that makes each and every step a blissful progression towards contact clarity.

Brass Tax

Let’s talk pricing:

• $10 one time allows you to scrub an unlimited number of contacts for that instance. I chose this option to clean up an Outlook, Gmail and Google Apps contacts into one accurate database.
• $25 Gets you a years worth of contact scrubbing, which is a good option if you plan on using the service on more than 2 computers.
• Free for 250 contacts and under. 250 Contacts is the threshold for when you could probably sort it out yourself.

How it Works

1. Sign up for an account (takes seconds)

2. Select the type of contact database you’d like to scrub.

3. Install the little client.

4.  Process  the contacts- a little time needed here to reconcile, remove duplicates and merge contacts, but scrubly by far, has the most efficient and pleasant process for this step.

5. Update the contact lists all around.

Check out Scrubly here.

What skills and wisdom are required to thrive and lead a balanced life? What wisdom can we carry over from the industrial age? Which practices and mentalities are obsolete? What are the new rules, guidelines and best practices, for life and business in a global, information based economy? If we are to honor in our professions the belief systems and principals we hold personally and individually, how would we go about that? These questions were filling my head in 2010, when I started down a path of seeking answers, cultivating experience, wisdom, skills, discipline and a eventually finding a new Way, new models, that scale and profit in more than just dollars.  I’ve since been reviewing and organizing the practice into what I call the Heroik MBA.

I bought a bookshelf, and began to read, note, experiment, and expand on the best of business minds old and new, while adding unique value. So, a full 2 years later, I finally get to share the experience here, in the Heroik collaboratory. Here are some of the topics and ideas I’ll be diving into and sharing here:

• Leveraging Information, visualization of data, controlling the rate at which it’s processed to affect value.
• Digital Liquidity- The flow of digital information and how it’s processed, and how it affects value.
• The importance of soft skills- There is no B2B, no B2C, only P2P- person to person, people to people.
• The emphasis on TEE-Where are you pouring your Time, Effort, and Energy? Measure the return on your efforts (personal and professional). How can you train your brain to get more value out of all your efforts?
• Getting H.R.T. Hands-on-Heroik Resilience Training: we’re not only interested in empowering businesses or individuals in strictly an either/or personal/professional sense. We want to encourage, advise and build a community of well and able bodies, with adaptive and open mindsets.  We’ll be cultivating Kung Fu of all kinds; sharing stories of how to boot strap and put foot to ass in work and life.
• A New Look at Leadership and management- How do we motivate, inspire, guide and help others improve and increase productivity. How do we butch up leadership without the abusive micromanagement practices of yesteryear? Oh yeah, we’ll be taking on this topic and calling out corporate douche-baggery where we see it. Put simply, let’s shed what doesn’t serve us, in business model, for our teams, partners, stakeholders, employees, customers, associates, colleagues, and God only knows whatever flavor of the month business term used for people these days.
• Cultivating a Tao- Operating System for life. Let’s stop the separation of work and personal and encourage integrity across the board in every practice. Consistency in word and deed.

For those looking for concrete offerings; cheats and work-arounds

• I’ll be sharing the tools of the trade, the weapons and wonders, the books and resources,
• Services that can save you a lot of time, effort and energy and of course the almighty dollar.
• They alone won’t empower or serve you. If you can’t incorporate tools,  habit, process,  and policy or integrate them into your practice with awareness, wisdom and discipline, ultimately, you will leave a lot of value on the table. Don’t miss out.

How did SEO become a four letter word? It seems to roll off scorched tongues of businesses who have been burned; paying through the nose for services that fail to land their websites on page one. It seems the SEO industry and Google/Bing algorithm folks are chasing each other in circles. When the SEO people learn a new way to optimize your site, the search engines change the rules,  business rankings slip, and the SEO folks pass the buck, without taking responsibility. The endless cat and mouse game creates a persisting headache for businesses looking to attract customers on the web.

To avoid the headache, many businesses avoid SEO altogether, choosing instead to focus on authentic content. There hasn’t been a headache free business model, until now. For less than a fifth of the average monthly cost of  all of these SEO services, you can get guaranteed position on page one of search results on Google. Isn’t this the original goal/objective that businesses wanted from these SEO services in the first place? How about something that just works for a fraction of the cost? There is a new model out there for this search results, called FPE, First Page Exclusivity.

How big is the SEO headache? let’s measure in dollars and take a look at average cost range for SEO services out there. Take a look below:

Average SEO Cost Breakdown

If we take the median pricing for both First Page Exclusivity, and the average of mid-range costs of your standard SEO engagement, analysis, retainer, link building, content development, etc., here’s how it stacks up with FPE.

On annual price alone, we see that FPE is less than one-fifth the cost of SEO. Now, let’s compare performance. How reliable is your typical SEO effort to keep you on page one while you’re paying them to do it? The answer is appalling- if you’re stuck in a typical SEO contract.

Since First Page Exclusivity is performance based and guaranteed, meaning, if you’re not on page one, you’re not billed, we can clearly see a performance discrepancy between SEO services and the FPE service.

So, clearly, it’s time to eliminate the headache, call your SEO guy and say “Page One Now!”  Ask for a First Page Exclusivity. Below are the terms and key phrases you’re looking for from your SEO firm.

What does First Page Exclusivity mean?

• Guaranteed position on page one of  organic search results (not paid ads) for Google for at least 3 of your 15-20 keyword or you don’t pay that month. Period.
• Exclusive service to your business (or category) for your city. Why pay an SEO company that is also working with your competition? Demand exclusivity.
• Multiple entries on search results to add to your prestige and (BONUS) bump your competitors down or even off the list.

Oh- and if you can’t get it for under $6,000- Go to this website and see if the listing(s) you want are available for the city(ies) you want. If you don’t want to go through the headache of negotiating these terms with an SEO firm who’s not offering these features out of the box, click here, Get Started Now with FPE.

References:

SEO MOZ

Our job is to inspire others to Get Heroik. This site is chiefly, an entertaining collaboratory for Heroik Media; a repository for our quixotic adventures (and misadventures), projects, insight, tools, and lessons about life and business in an empowered work environment.

Here you’ll find useful and entertaining tidbits about:

• How we deploy practices to empower our clients and our lives as well.
• How you can empower your business and life
• The cultivation of skills and wisdom over the hoarding of tools.
• The Heroik MBA: How to Master Business With Balance;
  • cultivate the right skills and habits while preserving your time, effort and energy
  • creating businesses that scale to fit your life-style.
  • Bootstrapping Boot-camp: The real entrepreneurial spirit
  • Bare Knuckle Productivity Boosters
  • How to bring more play into your life and increase wellness and productivity.
• Hands-on Heroik Resilience Training- in all aspects.
• Team Building Exercises of Epic Proportions.
• Pursuit of life and work with an attitude focused on fun, laughter, awareness and discipline
• Tools and tricks of the trade- a fool trusts his life to tools, a master cultivates the skill to wield them
• Success stories of all kinds- not just our clients, but our heroes, and their wisdom as well.
• Posts from the Heroik Community- Surprise guests and heroes from many walks of life, and all the wisdom they can bring to the page.
• Stories from the road, tales of cafe culture, and the importance of pursuing authentic relationships in all walks of life.
• Reading, Writing, Adventure and Play.

What you won’t find:

•  Boring, watered-down, washed-out, business as usual posts here. We have no interest in being a content farm. Authenticity and consistency in word in deed are part of our practice.
• Overt commercial spam posts and commercial pitches. We’re kid tested and mother approved here. We practice what we preach and you’ll see plenty of that.
• Bullshit- Hold us to this please.

We encourage you to BYOX- Bring Your Own Bravery, an open mind, positive outlook, willing body, ready to try new things, interact and contribute to our efforts as well.