7 Sad Reasons You'll Fail To Have That Breakthrough Business Idea

You're in a meeting, and a problem is on the table that you and your colleagues are stuck on. The meeting is dragging on to no foreseeable end, and the challenge remains unresolved--not even close! You have an inkling about something that could open up the conversation to a possible solution, but you hold it in. Here's why you're not going to provide that breakthrough idea:

1. You think it's dumb: Remember when you were in grade school, and teased to no end for giving an answer in class that was unconventional? Well, you've taken that jeering too much to heart, and it's now cramping your creativity. Remember: there are no dumb ideas.

2. It's unclear: Of course it's unclear--it's a new idea! And often new ideas are hazy when they enter your mind; and sometimes require some batting around with other colleagues before it becomes that breakthrough that everyone's looking for. If it's unclear, you could be on the right track.

3. You don't want to own it: Sometimes a new idea can be shot down right away before others in the room realize it's a possible solution--but you don't want to own that rejection, even if it means taking one for the team. It's your idea, it's rattling around in your brain--own it!

4. It's been partially said before: Your idea may take another trip around the block that your colleagues could be weary of. That's ok. Ideas work on iterations, meaning the more you repeat them and spell them out and ride around the block with them, the clearer they can become. Besides, maybe the idea wasn't said before, but you for some reason think it was. Doesn't matter--just say it.

5. You hate the limelight: You're afraid your idea might make others in the room--especially your manager or boss--look bad. Or, you really don't like standing out among the crowd. You'd rather remain quiet than draw attention to yourself. Don't fall into this trap. Having a new idea--even if a breakthrough--is not a big deal.

6. You don't want your boss to steal it: Steve Jobs was brilliant at this: he would tell an employee his idea was crap, and then turn around the following day and announce his new brilliant idea--the very one he scoffed at the previous day! Who cares. We all have ideas, and it's difficult to verify were we got them from. It's all osmosis. Your idea is most likely a recycled one from a previous meeting, or something you stole from FastCo. Magazine.

7. It's unconventional: This is related to the "you think it's dumb" excuse. Your solution is so unconventional you'll be classified, at first, as a lunatic--perhaps even a rogue or troublemaker. Business meetings are no different from grade-school classrooms: the unconventional ideas are cast out until they become conventional--usual deemed such by the top dog. You might need to take the hit on this one until the boss comes around to it--but don't let that deter you.

TV And Mobile Use Is Exploding And It's Killing Our Creativity And Innovation

In a previous post, I laid out a number of ways your mobile device is killing your creativity and innovation. There is something strange that happens when we tune out and turn on our devices and gaze at them all day: we are less present for the moment, more susceptible to advertisements and consumption, and more interested in how we appear to others than being becoming who we uniquely are.

But how much time are we spending on media? And how often are we using our devices? Are we spending more time or less time?

In a report by Adweek, US adults are spending an entire hour more on media than last year. This is based on the recently released Total Audience Report by Nielson.com, which shows, among other things, that TV viewing remains on the rise. A large contributor to this is the rise of Netflix and the way it has changed how TV is watched. And with the success of a number of Netflix's original series, others, like Amazon for example, are getting into the biz too.

Another study done, reported in the Daily Mail, shows that the average mobile phone user touches his/her device 2,617 times per day--that's over 1 million times per year! The study was done by dscout, covering the phone usage of 94 Android users. On the heavy side, people were tapping their phones over 5,000 times per day. The average phone sessions per day were 76. The heaviest use is between 7am and dinner time, with heavy users still interacting with them past 3AM. Only 3 apps were responsible, on average, for phone use, with Facebook as the most common, followed by text messaging.

What does this research tell us? For one, we are growing more obsessed with media, especially TV and Facebook. The problem with increased TV use is it is known by experts to be the lowest brain-stimulating activity--lower than using the toilet. When we watch TV, we zone out--what it's intended to do. As TV viewing continues to grow each year, our collective creative output diminishes. This is a problem because the times we are living in are demanding more creativity from all of us. With Netflix, the ability to binge-watch shows is enhanced: you don't have to do a thing but ride the hookah-wave of televisual phenomena, which means you are more likely to spend more time watching it, rather than doing things that will actually stimulate your brain and new ideas. And while Huffington Post tries to tell you that watching TV can make you happier, we know that we are happiest when we are in flow and creating and stimulating our minds, which TV does an overall lows job at.

The problem with increased access to Facebook is that people are becoming more obsessed with what others are doing and spending more time posting content that they think others will like. How can one become a unique individual when so concerned about putting on a prefect image for others? We know that Facebook leads to heightened levels of dissatisfaction and despair--this is not freedom, and certainly not the freedom one needs to grow in one's unique talents and gifts.

8 Common Mistakes That Totally Kill Innovation And Creativity In Your Organization

Innovation remains a popular word; and many people and businesses and non-profits--even various religious institutions--seek out greater ways to innovate, to come up with new solutions. 

As I've written countless times on this blog, our world is a very complex one. The problems we have today--many of which are driven by rapid developments in technology--require new ways of thinking and collaborating. A problem is that while technological development is demanding new institutional structures and ways of working, the institutions themselves are often stuck in old patterns of thinking and working. Many people are apprehensive of new structures and patterns for fear of failure, which sets up a seeming dilemma: on the one hand, many organizations are being forced to change in response to disruptions in the marketplace, and yet on the other there is a fear of changing those very structures that brought the company success in the past. This is one of a number of innovation killers, which I will outline below:

1. Stale thinking: This is a big innovation killer. When seeking innovation, it's important to think in new ways, to think about new things, and to think in divergent ways. For example, if you're trying to think about a business solution, think outside business: look at breakthroughs in science, or other areas of research--that conflict of thinking will force your brain to process in a different way, thus shocking it into a new idea.

2. Poor environments: The most depressing thing as a business consultant I had to face was the dreadful boardroom: the conventional polygonal table, rolling chairs, fluorescent lighting, suits, ties, and vinyl portfolios replete with cheap conference ballpoint pens--boring! You need a completely different environment; one that fosters lots of movement, fun--yes fun!--drawing, sketching, researching large picture books and articles and magazines, food--lots of good energy food--, oxygen from plants, music--yes, music during a meeting!--and natural light. Just by doing this one thing differently, your meetings will generate totally different results.

3. Bad attitudes: If you have complainers, and you're trying to get new ideas, leave them out of the meeting until you've got some big ideas marked out and you need people to kick the can--then bring them in. Winers, complainers, black-hat doffers are brutal when you need innovation. Think of your ideas as seedlings--the last thing you need is someone clumsily stomping over them when the poor things have hardly had a breath of air. 

4. Conformity: Workplaces are tribes: they have culture, belief systems, and policies that keep everyone in check. The problem is that people not only dress the same (whether the same blue suits and ties, or checkered shirts from Banana Republic), but also talk and think the same. This is thought of as successful cultural development--but it kills innovation. You want alignment around the vision of the company, but not about the ideas that will bring it to fruition. You need misfits, rebels, artists, outcasts--people who are committed to the organization, but not interested in conforming to cultural expectations that mean little to the bottom line. 

5. Alignment too early: This is a killer of innovation, because it typically comes a) out of pressure to please the CEO, or b) out of laziness to come to a solution before it's time. Innovation can take a long time, and it often requires a lot of oscillation and conflict for a new idea to emerge. Typically, organizations will jump to the first idea or solution that comes up, not realizing they haven't scratched the surface of the problem their facing and what a solution would even look like. 

6. Relevance: Those who try to innovate while keeping every idea relevant to the problem at hand or to the current structure of the organization or 'focused on' the problem often fail. The whole point of innovation is to create something new, and, when it's at its best, disruptive. And to do that, you've got to turn over all kinds of stones, and over turn innumerable boxes--and it's not always going to look relevant. Those companies really good at innovation are working on solutions decades in advance, and unrelated to the current direction of the company. 

7. Conventional structures: Innovation is a disruptive activity--its very purpose is to up-end the status quo and create something new. And yet, many organizations believe they can innovate by calling more meetings, or having more brainstorming sessions (whatever that means), while keeping their organizations structured the same. Do you have a full-time R&D department? Do you have a full-time Innovation Department? Do you have people working on stuff that is totally outside of your current issues? Do you have people researching the future, reading Wired Magazine, and taking routine field trips to massive research libraries and zoos and museums and art galleries and hanging out at trendy cafes? If not, you need to rethink. 

8. Lack of structure: As Whirlpool, for instance, experienced, it needed to put a series of structures around how innovation would be done by everyone everywhere. This took years to work through and fully understand--but they took the time, and built the structures and practices necessary for it to take place. Innovation is a set of beliefs, it has a cultural expression, and it ought to have policies in place to help it flourish. Innovation is a kind of art; and any artist will tell you that creativity doesn't just happen without structure and routine in place. If you want innovation, you have to go through a process of building it into your organization.

These are only a handful of innovation killers--there are many others. If you're new to all of this, there's a wealth of information out there. Some of it's good, some of it's not--the whole thing takes time and a fair bit of trial and error. The key is if you're leading a company, or starting one, you've got to take this innovation thing very seriously--you've got to make sure you have structures in place to do it. 

5 Very Clear Reasons Why You Should Tape Up Your Computer's Camera--#5 Is The Clincher

Check the video camera on your laptop, desktop, or mobile device--got a piece of tape on it? If you do, bravo--you may move on to another post on this blog, preferably the benefits of staying up late--; if you don't, however, there are very important why you should, which I will list as follows:

1. Your computer and mobile device is hackable: Think about the complexity of the technological age we're in. Think your computer or smart phone is iron-clad? Think you've got finger-tip control over all the hacking software and hackers in the world? Of course not. One of the easiest ways to hack into your life is to hack your video camera. 

2. Research proves it: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University three years ago proved they could hack a video camera without the indicator light turning on: This study was ground-breaking--three years ago. Here's an excerpt: 

In a paper called "iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED", Brocker and Checkoway describe how to reprogram the iSight camera's micro-controller to allow the camera to be turned on while the light stays off. Their research is under consideration for an upcoming academic security conference.

So why hasn't covering the camera become a common practice? 

3. IT Security experts do it: But they're all paranoid, right? If a car expert inspects your vehicle and informs you of several places where it's vulnerable, do you listen? If a professional locksmith tells you where your doors are most vulnerable and how to increase home security, do you listen? Then answer this: why would it be any different with IT security experts putting post-it notes and band-aids and cigarette paper and electrician tape on their video cams? Read this, and come to your own conclusion:

Mr Hypponen also noted that the man behind spying software FinFisher and FinSpy, which is sold to governments, was recently snapped with tape over his MacBook's web camera. Another prominent security expert, also publicly outed for using tape over his MacBook camera, was public-key cryptography expert Whitfield Diffie, at the AusCERT security conference in 2010.

4. A 14-year old can hack your cam: There was a case--as I'm sure there have been countless since--of a 14-year old boy who admitted to hacking the video cams of unsuspecting females. The tool is called a Remote Administrative Tool or RATs, and is a simple malware tool used to hack into computers and gain access of all its activity. It's a fairly common tool, which should give all of us pause. The landing photo for this post is of Jani: a 10 year-old boy who received a tasty $10,000 reward for flagging Instagram to a security flaw after he hacked into its servers and was able to delete comments. 

5. Mark Zuckerberg does it: Case closed--no, really. What other evidence do you need? According to a recent New York Times article, photos of the mega-CEO have circulated tacitly revealing his covered up cam. 

Is he just crazy, or does he understand the risks of using technology? The article quotes a couple of IT security experts. Here's one of them:

Covering the camera is a very common security measure,” Lysa Myers, a security researcher at the data security firm ESET, said in an email. “If you were to walk around a security conference, you would have an easier time counting devices that don’t have something over the camera.

It's simple: unwittingly click on an unsuspecting link and your computer is open to malware that allows hackers to operate your camera and spy on everything you're doing, including the rooms and belongings found in your home. 

So what are you going to do now? I suggest you find yourself some tape...

Hold The Phone: Toyota Is Entering The Robot Manufacturing Business!

We've seen the movies, we've read the books, we're reading the articles all over the place--the fact is, robots are coming and they are poised to overwhelm the human population in the next 20 years. In my last article, I wrote about the future of intelligence; that according to two powerhouses of technology, Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom, if humans do not create a neural layer to hook into machines, we'll be completely taken over. 

This is an important issue that continues to gain momentum as the race to build these machines are shifting from fringe companies to household names such as Toyota. Yes--TOYOTA . . . the car manufacturer. 

Back in January, Gill Pratt, the head of Toyota's Research Institute, gave a talk introducing the expansion that the car manufacturer is making into artificial intelligence. Pratt made the claim that the difference between manufacturing cars and manufacturing robots are really the same thing. Moreover, if people love their cars, how much more will they love their robots--the corollary of course being that Toyota plans to make some pretty adorable robots. 

In fact, according to Bloomberg, Toyota is "forging ahead in robotics as Google, the technology giant and a challenger in the race to develop driverless cars, shows signs of pulling back. Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. has put Boston Dynamics up for sale after concluding it isn’t likely to produce a marketable product within the next few years . . . . Toyota Research Institute is among the potential acquirers, a person familiar with the matter said." 

In a related article, ITPro claims robots will outnumber humans by the year 2020. This may sound implausible, but when you have massive multinational companies like Toyota building manufacturing plants for robots, and then you begin to think about the potential for self-replicating machines, it's not a strain on the imagination to see how this projection could be true. 

Many see robots as the panacea for human service, health care, and geriatrics, which thus warrants their mass production. The Toyota push for robot manufacturing, according to Bloomberg, is partially being driven by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a “robot revolution” in Japan, with a a target to more than quadruple the nation’s robotics industry sales to 2.4 trillion yen ($23 billion) by 2020. 

Let's face it, there will always be justification for artificial intelligence. The issue is, however, that robots will grow in advanced intelligence. They will continue to get smarter, and once they have the power to self-replicate, they will be able to produce indefinitely. This may seem like a cute idea when you think of a team of robot assistants at your home bringing you cold ice tea on a hot summer day; but what about self-replicating military weapons?  Eric Schmidt of Google recently gave a talk at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity about the tech giant's development of AI technology, during which he sloughed off the question of the dangers to humans: 

 "To be clear, we’re not talking about consciousness, we’re not talking about souls, we’re not talking about independent creativity," said Schmidt. “We’ll make make sure that people know how to turn this stuff off should we get to that point,” the exec said, though he wasn’t clear on how.

That said, Schmidt did include the importance of AI an military power, which seems to call into question his previous point:

"There are a large number of issues of automation from a military context, and Google has taken a very strong position in not being involved in that. But remember that for every offensive scenario you can think of, you can also think of a defensive scenario that’s just as intelligent," he said. "And remember, these systems learn by training, so the more examples they have, the more they can protect you."

The more we see robot manufacturing on the rise--and you can imagine how Toyota's shift to robotics  will cause a trend across the auto industry--the more we'll see further pressure forced down upon human intelligence. As well, we'll begin to see further threats of nuclear attack and even human subjugation. It's a critical issue. But even though Schmidt, which seems tongue in cheek, diminishes Google's involvement in military, as the world heats up politically, the prediction of a mass produced population of advanced AI seems ever more plausible. 

Elon Musk Brings The Chips And Nick Bostrom Brings The Dip: The Future Of Human And Artificial Intelligence

What happens when you put brain chips and AI together? A very complex 

challenge, and most likely a series of unintended consequences. 

But this is what we have this week as two famous intellectuals got media coverage, one who brought brain chips, the other who brought the AI dip. What do I mean? 

Elon Musk is no stranger to this blog. Behind the posts on afternoon naps and night time soporifics is a thread of preparedness for the future. And Elon Musk is one of those with his finger on the pulse of the future that is rapidly slinging toward our present. Musk is now advocating for the entire human race to be brain chipped. At the Code Conference 2016, he explained the problem with AI advancement leaping far in advance of human intelligence, and thus leading to at least two scenarios. The best-case scenario he calls the house cat: that our intelligence compared to the machine would render us pets to AI beings. The worse case scenario is that we are completely wiped out as a species, if not completely enslaved. His solution? An AI layer that would create a third layer in the brain thus creating symbiosis with machines. “If you think about it,” Musk explains, “you’ve got your limbic system, your cortex, and then a digital layer, a third layer above your cortex, that would work symbiotically with you.” The problem with human intelligence is that we have serious input/output restraints contrasted with AI. “We’re already cyborgs,” Musk explains. “You have a digital version of yourself online with social media and email; and you have basically superpowers in your computer and phone. . . . The constraint is input/output. Your output level is so low—we are reduce in our output to two thumbs tapping on our phone screens.” Merging with digital intelligence, that third AI layer, the “neural lace,” would limit the input/output restraints and thus give human intelligence a chance to grow somewhat requisite with AI intelligence. “It’s easy,” he concludes, “you could insert something basically into your jugular . . .”

Nick Bostrom is the one bringing the AI dip to the party. His claim to fame is his New York Times best-selling book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, which has been recommended by Bill Gates and—surprise surprise—Elon Musk. (Incidentally, Musk gave Bostrom’s Future of Humanity Institute £1m.) The Future of Humanity Institute is a research faculty at the University of Oxford (similar, it seems, to the Cambridge Centre for Existential Risk) “established a decade ago to ask the very biggest questions on our behalf. Notably,” according to the Guardian, “what exactly are the ‘existential risks’ that threaten the future of our species; how do we measure them; and what can we do to prevent them?”

Bistrom’s book, as the title suggests, lays out what he believes is the greatest threat of all—again quoting the Guardian—“the possibly imminent creation of a general machine intelligence greater than our own.” The problem with this scenario is that it includes, now quoting Bostrom, an “intelligence explosion” that will take place when AI orders of magnitude more intelligent than us begin to design machines of their own. Bostrom explains: “Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb . . . . We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound.” 

Bostrom’s book coincided with the open letter signed by more than 1000 top scientists and presented at last year’s UN Conference on Artificial Intelligence.  

So what’s Bostrom’s solution? Cryogenics. His other solution is called ‘maxi pox: based on the idea that the “objective of reducing existential risks should be a dominant consideration whenever we act out of an impersonal concern for humankind as a whole. Maxipox means “maximizing the probability of an OK outcome, where an OK outcome is any that avoids existential catastrophe.” 

 In essence, getting back to Musk, becoming AI house cats . . .

How To Get Back On Track When You've Been Rejected Or Failed At Your Dreams

Sometimes things don't go our way--well, actually it's almost most of the time. Our world is complex, and often it's the ruling masses that determines the current of life than the individual. This can be a sobering fact. We want to world to work with us advancing our desires and ambitions, and not against us. Being realistic about this fantasy is the first step in moving beyond it and embracing sobriety and personal responsibility for your actions. 

But we still have disappointments. We still have rejections. We still face moments when the world speaks and it's not in our favour. Here are some ways to handle rejection and disappointment:

1. Grieve: We feel loss when things don't go our way--it's normal. People try to numb the pain through self-destructive activities and distractions, rather than dwelling in the moment and grieving the experience. Grieving is important for healing. Instead of numbing, dwell in it. 

2. You are not your accomplishments: Your accomplishments and failures don't determine who you are; yet in our neoliberal society of ambition, success, and willpower, it's easy to fall prey to this deception. You are much more than what you do. When things go wrong, think about those who love you. Think about the larger world around you. You'll be able to put things into better perspective. 

3. Breathe: When we are disappointed, or when we fail, we can often grow fearful. When we are fearful, cortisol rushes from our adrenal glands to our brain, which causes a momentary decline in IQ. Breathing is a way of calming your mind and giving your brain the oxygen it needs to think through the experience.

4. Don't give up: "Doubt not o' poet but persist!" is what the great American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about persistence in the face of adversity, along with this daring statement, "Throw yourself at the target after all your arrows are spent!" Wonderful stuff. When you are in the dumpster of your life, don't give up but persist. Those who overcome great adversity don't give up but keep going.

5. Time is on your side: Often we go into hyper-active mode when we suffer failure or rejection; but it's often not the best thing to do. It's good to be patient and take your time to work through your emotions and get enough distance from your circumstances before jumping to the next thing. It could take months; it could take years. The important thing is not to panic, but let time take its course. You'll know when you're ready for the next steps.

6. Plan: What else are you going to do? When you experience disappointment, and have taken time to grieve and breathe, and persist, you need to put another plan together. Did your graduate school application get rejected? Did you get passed over on an expected promotion? Did your book get rejected from a publisher? Did you lose that long-term client or miss out on a big business deal? Keep going, keep planning. Get up tomorrow morning and keep going. 

7. Re-evaluate: It could be the case that you suffered disappointment or rejection based on your plan of attack: maybe you applied to all the wrong schools, or submitted your manuscript to the wrong publisher, or there wasn't a fit with that company you've been pitching to. Sometimes rejection can be just good feedback. If so, re-evaluate. Talk to some people you respect about it and get their feedback, and then re-evaluate your approach. 

8. Go with your gut: It sounds cliche, but there's truth to it. You may get feedback from others and they may all tell you to go in a different direction, but you have to be the one who makes that decision; you have to take the risk one way or the other. It could be that you need to keep submitting that manuscript, or applying to those ivy-league law schools, or pitch that seemingly failed product--regardless, you need to be go with what your gut is telling you. Often failure can be the place from which new opportunities arise. 

We all suffer disappointments, rejection, and loss. What makes us or breaks us is our attitude and ways of responding and reacting to our circumstances. It's important that you keep your chin up and persist. 

These 5 Popular Sports Can't Compete Against Soccer As The Greatest Sport In The World

Soccer, or European Football, is known to many enthusiasts as "the perfect game." In fact, soccer tops the list of the world's most popularly viewed sport at 3.5 billion people annually--hockey doesn't even make the list. 

Why is that? I will give you a very simple yet profound answer: 

Soccer has the greatest complexity of movement and drama with the greatest simplicity of rules and equipment. 

The rules are simple: kick round object through goal posts, using only your feet, head, and chest. The equipment even simpler: round object, and anything representing posts--that's it. Do you need special field markers or lines? Nope--the offensive player's position relative to the defender's dictates off-side. How do other sports compare? They don't. 

1. Hockey: Yes, it's Canada's game; and yes it can be thrilling to watch--but it doesn't stand up to my criteria above. Rules--too many of them. Equipment: stick, skates, ice. . . Can it be played in Sumatra or Brazil or Bali? How about the favelas of Brazil? Nope. As well, it's a bit of a clunky sport aesthetically: all pads and helmets and sticks flying everywhere. The ice is really the slickest thing about it.

2. Baseball: This is one of the most complicated sports both in terms of equipment and rules: 3 strikes, 4 balls, walks, RBIs, batting averages. . . Equipment: bases, leather (or synthetic leather) glove, bat, ball, bases (or something designated as such). And it's a nice game to fall asleep to on a Sunday afternoon, but has nothing on the excitement and drama of soccer. How many times can you watch guys lounging around dug-outs spitting sunflower seeds and adjusting their equipment? 

3. Basketball: Might be a little closer in simplicity of equipment, but you still need hoops set up somewhere, which makes it too complicated for people to play all over the world to the extent soccer is. There can be some finesse to it and some elegance (one only needs to see old reels of Michael Jordan to get the picture), but not compared to soccer. Basketball is in fact the 9th most popularly watched sport worldwide--tied with American football--at 400 million viewers. 

4. Tennis: Pretty simple equipment requirements, but let's face it, even cheap tennis rackets are expensive, and you need a ball and something to hit it over. Then there's the whole scoring thing with love this love that, etc. And tennis clubs are expensive also. Again, soccer can be played with a rag ball or a head of lettuce--it's that simple. 

5. Golf: It is watched by 450 million viewers--more than football and basketball--but it's way too complicated: you need clubs, balls, bags, caddies, and special holes out in back fields somewhere--not to mention a solid lawn mower. Then there's all the etiquette (I was told once to take off my Toronto Maple Leafs hat on a golf course), and the myriad rules--certainly not a sport that can be embraced by billions of people worldwide. Besides, it's pretty boring to watch, and even playing it is something a good book or stroll can rival. 

There are other sports as well that just don't compare: cricket (that has a billion less viewers than soccer), field hockey, table tennis, and many others. If you don't agree with me, take a look again at my criteria: simplicity of rules and equipment with the most complexity and elegance of movement and drama, and you've got the perfect game in soccer. It's the reason why it holds the attention of almost 4 billion people worldwide, and is the passion of children and adults around the globe. If you don't watch soccer, give it a try. If you play it and watch it, you'll most likely agree with me. 

8 Powerful Ways To Boost Your Performance And Success

I've written previously about habits that destroy your creativity and ability to produce. In our world, whether you're an accountant, a lawyer, doctor, professor, writer, or entrepreneur, the ability to perform at your most optimal is paramount. For this, you need to be in a certain kind of groove. You need to have certain things down pat that are almost habitual so you can concentrate on what you need to be doing, namely performing at the highest level possible, and adapting and foreseeing a great deal of change. 

Here's list of things you need to function at your best:

1. Sleep: Pretty basic stuff. Burning both ends of the candle will lead to burn out. That's not to say it's not wise to do once in a while. As I've written previously, staying up late can lead to wonderful bursts of creative energy and productivity. Pushing that practice over 72 hours of work without sleep can lead, however, to burnout. People can function well on different hours of sleep. For me, 6 hours works well, but I need a quick afternoon nap to top off my energy and get me through to evening.

2. Nap: Indeed, a nap. There's a growing body of research on naps that shows its importance not only for physical but also mental health. Many think of the lazy nap on a Sunday afternoon, and thus doubt its practicality for daily use; but researchers are noting that a 10-15 minute nap is all you need to get that energy boost and perform optimally. There are famous people who have insisted on naps, such as Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, and Thomas Edison. Try it out. If you have a place in your office to nap, do so. If not, go out to you car at lunch, recline the seat, set your phone for 15, and recharge your brain.

3. Diet: Big carb loads during the day will kill your brain function and leave you drowsy and your stomach gassed up. The best is to eat a protein-rich lunch with plenty of greens. If you can, take into work with you a good smoothy. Coffee's good too, if you're into it, but not too much. If you're drowsy, and you can, resort to #2 above--nap. Skip all the cheap sugars and energy drinks that'll simply hype you up then send you into a tail spin. 

4. Hydration: We are made up of 90% water. When we're dry, we can't think straight. To keep your mind alert, make sure you're hydrated--but not over-hydrated. There are people walking around with massive canteens of water that they're guzzling all day--it's probably over-kill, not to mention gets you running to the toilet every 15-20 minutes, which can really disrupt your productivity. 

5. Walking: You don't need to hit the treadmill and pound the weights at the gym to stay fit. In fact, you can add a walk into your work-day that will both keep you fit and get your brain stimulated. A walk is one of the best things you can do for your mind and body--and that will in turn optimize your performance. Steve Jobs was a consistent walker: he strolled around the outside of Apple HQ for everything from having meetings to clearing his head after a big hissy-fit. Try it.

6. Routine: This is one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of high-functioning high-performance people. If you don't have a daily routine, you need to get one. And I'm not just talking about when you shower and have your breakfast, but the things you do everyday at the same time related to your life, your productivity, your work and leisure. If you have to produce a lot of material, having a routine for producing, and then getting other tasks done will help you operate on auto-pilot and thus give you the focus you need. If you look at the lives, for instance, of great writers, they had a daily routine that was maintained without fail over years and years. 

7. Mindset: Also vital for high-productivity. If you believe you're a loser and unable to perform, chances are that's where you find yourself. If you have a fixed mindset, believing you can't grow and improve, you'll go through your life and work that way. If, however, you have a mindset of growth, that you can get better at whatever you try with hard work and persistence, you will accomplish whatever you put your mind to. Check out the book Mindset by Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck.

8. Flow: This is the state you're in when you're doing something at a high level of focus. Watching TV, for example, is one of the lowest states of flow you can be in--lower than using the bathroom. Reading, studying, writing, painting, doing something manually are all high-level flow activities. You want to increase the amount of flow exercises and decrease those that take you out of flow. If your work is boring and repetitious, and you've always been drawn to paints but never had the courage to buy them, pick some up and use them somehow in your work. Use modelling clay to create a new idea. Learn mind-mapping and do all your work notes in that fashion rather than linearly and sententially. Take up a creative hobby. All these things will increase flow and thus teach you more skills for high-performance and creativity. 

We all need to brush up our lives once in a while. Our lives and jobs are demanding. Finding that sweet spot when work is pleasure is critical to high-performance. Applying yourself to these tips, and routinely researching others, will reap tremendous personal and vocational benefits.

11 Secrets For High-Performance Meetings

Meetings are at times necessary; some, however, are just plain time-wasters. One of the first things to do before you call a meeting is ask yourself if you're better off just emailing the person. If a meeting is necessary, these few tips will help you make the most of it--especially if it's with 3 or more people. 

1. Read-ahead: What do you need your team to know ahead of time? Rather than brief them on it in the meeting, send it to them as read-ahead material. This can be anything: documents, articles, news headlines--whatever will be pertinent to the meeting, have your team read it before-hand. 

2. Rules of the game: Every game has a set of rules--meetings should too. If you want honest work, you have to create the space for honesty. One rule you can have is 'whatever is talked about in the meeting stays in the meeting.' Or, there'll be no recourse for honesty. You want to have your team candidly, but respectfully, giving their input. This requires very clear rules and boundaries.

3. Have a facilitator, if necessary: If you're working through some really complex issues, consider having a paid facilitator to serve as an objective voice and 'referee' as it were. Often a leader has blinders on that block him/her from seeing the issue objectively. As well, if there are team dynamics that create barriers to a solution, a facilitator can provide a way through that. 

4. Document: How often do you leave a meeting and you have little to no record of what was actually talked about? Don't rely only on your team to take notes; have someone either in the meeting or an outsider be a documenter. You may also want to consider having different levels of documentation, such as video recording, audio recording, minutes taking, etc. If you use whiteboards, make sure someone is responsible for taking pictures of everything. 

5. Environment: The location of your meeting will either help our hinder its outcome. Working in a cramped room with low-ceilings and blinding fluorescent lighting will attenuate your outcome. What kind of meeting is it? If it's a long meeting, consider working in a space in which furniture can be moved around. If you're in a boardroom and the table can be moved, push it against a wall and use it as a serving table for refreshments. Get large sheets of paper up on the walls and work standing up. Get music in the background that will enhance creative flow, such as baroque. Get bricolage, legos, and other such building materials in the space to get people working kinaesthetically on solving a problem, rather than just in 1-dimension. Make sure there's plenty of natural light and a variety of plants. 

6. Good food: If you must have a lunch meeting over several hours, DO NOT serve complex carbohydrates such as pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, large sandwiches, etc--you and your team will be sleepwalking through the afternoon, no matter how much coffee you've had. Instead, you want simple proteins--beef, chicken, or fish--and plenty of greens and other vegetables, sprouts, nuts and seeds. This food will give you the energy you need without the glutted belly and drowsiness that come from carbs. And yes, have plenty of coffee and water on hand--tea as well. 

7. Diverse information: Meetings are often counter-productive when people are using the same thinking to solve a problem that created it in the first place. Too often, people draw on the same ideas and experiences while trying to create something new. To break this habit, you need to get new information in the meeting space, such as books, articles, magazines, and periodicals. Cultural etiquette for meetings is typically that reading during a meeting is rude. Trash this antiquated rule and give your team plenty to read--and give them material totally outside the issue at hand. I've worked with many teams that came up with great ideas on medical solutions after reading books on architecture and sea-creatures. It's called the power of divergent thinking. By introducing divergent ideas and frames of thinking to a problem, the brain is making new connections which produce new ideas. 

8. Have a plan: A meeting can stretch on for hours with little result. You need to have a plan--not an agenda, but a plan. A good rule of thumb is to get people working on stuff to report out after a set period of time. Synthesize the ideas, then break out again. If you have 10 people, have two different teams working on stuff. If you have 3-5, break out individually to tackle a different side of a problem and come back to report after a set period of time. Break up the time of your meeting into stages or frames that deal with a different part of the problem. 

9. High to low and low to high: You want to work broadly then into greater granularity; by this I mean, if you're working on a problem, look at the broader social, economic, political, technological issues of the problem. Then, look at how those global issues are impacting your industry; and from your industry, look at your company. From your company, work your way down into your particular department. When you work on your solution, work bottom up from your department to your company to your industry to the world. 

10. Cascade: You should think of meetings as cascading from one another. Work on big meta-issues and lower into granular ones; from a large-scale vision to individual tasks. Take the documentation of the last meeting and use it to create the next meeting, that way your solutions will build on each other. Don't think of one meeting; think of several over the next month that build on each other.

11. Diversity: Don't think just your department, but where you can invite others from different parts of the company to give you a better vantage point. Consider also having people join the meeting from other companies or industries to help give you a different view of the issue. Invite someone who knows nothing about your area of work or your company's solutions to sit in and offer feedback, especially from a customer perspective. For new ideas, you want diversity coming from everywhere--even a competitor. 

You will need to think differently about meetings. The standard sit-down and have one person talking all the time doesn't work. You need to think about how you're going to get new ideas from everyone, and how you're going to capture those ideas and put them into action plans. There's plenty of information out there about ways you can do this. Read FastCo. or the Steve Jobs biography, or books by Tom Kelley of IDEO. 

7 Ways To Becoming More Creative

Creativity is needed everywhere. If you don’t know you are creative, you should read some of my other posts. Indeed, as a unique individual, you are endowed with creativity. The problem is that you live in a world of manufactured ‘roles’, ‘looks’, and expectations that are more about subservience to the crowd, the gang, society, than about being uniquely you. To find and work within your uniqueness is one of the greatest things you can do in life. Here are a few tips along the way of that journey:

1. Don’t accept the status quo: Whether you’re designing a business solution or writing a play, the status quo is like the F on a term paper in school—it’s to be avoided at all costs, especially at the outset of an idea. If you are looking for a job, try instead to create a new one. If you have a job, try to innovate on your role, bringing your responsibilities closer to who you are as a person.

2. Experiment: Play is a vital part of being creative. Whether it’s a Fortune 500 CEO or the prudish colleague, as humans we like to play. You can indeed have serious play, especially when creating a new idea for a business platform or solution. Experiment with new ideas. Don’t look at last week’s stuff, but try to find something totally different.

3. Be vulnerable: If you aren’t vulnerable, you’re not creative. Try it. Throw something crazy out there in a meeting, prefaced by “Here’s something out of left field, but what if we tried . . .” Many people have a hard time with creativity because it means taking off the masks that protect them from identity damage. The irony is, the mask isn’t who they really are—it’s a fabrication. So people are protecting fabrications with fabrications pretending they’re being real. Vulnerable can burn off those masks real fast, allowing you to be more uniquely you, and thus more creative. 

4. Be Collaborative: You can’t solve everything alone—the world’s too complex.You need others—period.

5. Be Reclusive: That said, you also need to spend time alone. You need solitude to reflect deeply on your experiences to find the solutions you need to come up with. If your’e with the crowd all the time, you’ll think and act and even dress like the crowd. I’ve seen companies that are struggling with innovation, and everyone is dressed the same. Being by yourself, having solitude, will keep the crowd from rubbing off on you too much.

6. Learn: As humans we can’t help but learn—we are always experiencing things, making new connections, re-establishing old connections, and building more neural connections. Nevertheless, what you want to do is learn new things—even hard things. Are you looking for a business solution, pick up a volume of Einstein’s theory of relativity, or learn something about architecture. The more divergence, or difference, you can bring to your learning, the more creatively you’ll see things around you.

7. Draw: Don’t know how to draw? Learn. There are all kinds of amazing sketch and mind map books out there. Check out Amazon, and purchase a few—and make sure at least one of them is the Draw Squad! You need to have a few basic skills of taking what’s in your head and being able to represent it on paper or whiteboard.

8. Keep moving: Don’t stop working and trying and failing and getting back up again. The greatest killer of uniqueness and creativity is resistance. Read some of Stephen Pressfield’s books—he’ll tell you what’s up. Whatever it is you’re doing or want to do, you’ve got to keep doing it. If you fail, get back up. As Rocky said, “It’s not how many times you fall down, it’s how many times you fall down and get back up again that matters.” (Or something like that . . .) 

The world is changing rapidly. It’s a great time to be you. You have a unique way of seeing the world that no one else has. With hard work, patience, and resilience, you can work authentically in the world. Give it a try. Step one: eat your eggs a different way than you usually do (I’ve been eating mine hard boiled, which I vowed I’d never do—it works.).

7 Ways To Have More Friends, Become A Greater Human Being, and Be More Authentic

We all want to do better at having relationships. As social beings hardwired for community, being able to foster relationships is an important part of thriving as a human being. Sometimes we fall into ruts or into fixed ways of looking at the world. Sometimes we act selfishly, seeking only our own desires over against the comfort and dignity of the other. Sometimes we are too self-centred to remember another human being’s name. Sometimes we want our ideas to rise to the top at the expense of everyone else’s around us. Sometimes we treat others around us as possessions and not as unique human beings with free will and inalienable rights. Sometimes we use people as objects for our own ends instead of as ends in themselves. 

All of these orientations to the other lead to breakdowns and break-ups in relationships. If you’re married and treat your spouse as a mere object for your own ends, chances are you’re marriage is not a healthy one. If you have co-workers whom you ignore or disrespect through tireless ambition and unflappable contempt, then chances are your workplace isn’t healthy and while your co-workers may obey you, they certainly don’t respect you. 

Inspired by Dale Carnegie’s classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, here are a few tips that might help you develop, repair, and even restore relationships with others. 

1. Don’t criticize others: When you criticize people you create an unsafe space for them to make mistakes, fail, and try again, which are, incidentally, critical to developing as a human being. People don’t always like to hear a critic spouting off negativity. And often critics are those who are somehow distanced from the thing they’re criticizing; they're often those who tear down rather than build--indeed polar opposites of one another. 

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation: This requires seeing the good in people and ignoring the bad. Often when we judge others, we’re judging what we don’t like in ourselves. Often the voice of judgment is a mask that covers our own shame and inadequacy. When we are ok with our own shortcomings and our own failures, we can see and appreciate the good in others. When we encourage people out of that place of authenticity, we create a space around us for safety and community.

3. Treat the other as an end in him/herself: What this means is that each of us is a free human being. We have free will, meaning we can make our own choices, have our own tastes, and pursue our unique purpose in life. Where difficulties emerge is when we try to use other people as a means to our own happiness. Carnegie called this “arousing in the other person an eager want,” which means arousing in the other person a desire to want what you want to “get what we want from the other person. It’s important to work with people—but not to use them as objects for your own desires. Working with people is helping one another achieve freely what he/she wants to do, not manipulating another to work toward your advancement.

4. Become genuinely interested in other people: This comes out of care for others, which isn’t always easy to achieve. The emphasis here is on “genuine.” To genuinely care for someone means you respect that persons way of seeing and being in the world. It means you care about their beliefs, ideas, dreams, and even pain. It means you are there to help the other when or if he or she is in need. It means care, not for yourself or in what the other can ultimately do for you or advance for you, but simply in themselves as unique, free, and equal.

5. If you’re wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically: This takes tremendous humility—how many of us hate being wrong? It’s easier to stick to your guns and fire away than, even when you no longer believe your own opinion, than admit you fell short. But this is important for being in community with others. Sometimes you need to ask forgiveness. Sometimes you have to humble yourself to the other to restore the relationship. It doesn’t mean letting another walk all over you; but it does take humility and authenticity to admit you’re wrong for the purpose of maintaining a relationship. So many relationships that could have been beautiful are destroyed because of pride and brittleness.

6. Communicate simply: One of Carnegie’s points is “Dramatize your ideas. Truth isn’t enough—it has to be made vivid, interesting, and dramatic.” No. Truth reveals itself as truth; and often it’s not when we’re being entertained to death by bells, whistles, and shiny things. Truth is often quiet, sober, and present. The term ‘bombastic’ comes from ‘bombast’ which was a word used to describe fluff that’s used to stuff something; hence, to be bombastic means to say things that are unbalanced in terms of thought and the manner used to express that thought. Don’t dramatize your ideas; state them simply and honestly. 

7. Be gracious: Treating people with grace means to overlook wrongs, and be forgiving. Again, it all comes back to ourselves. And overlooking wrongs doesn’t mean you don’t acknowledge a wrong or don’t communicate with the other about it; but it means being willing to forgive the other without holding grudges or trying to get even. Carnegie’s point in this was to get people to like you so they’ll work for you or advance your cause, but that’s not authentic. Being gracious, again, is an orientation to others for the purpose of being in community with them, of having relationships with them, of bringing your vulnerabilities, your shortcomings to the table and engaging truly and authentically. You offer grace, and by virtue of that you are creating a safe place for others to be gracious also. 

We all need relationships. People these days are often skeptical of relationships because our society is growing more self-centred. We can see when someone is being fake with us, or using us for his or her own ends. When we try to build authentic relationships, we are making ourselves available for true community; and by virtue of that we are becoming more human. 

Carnegie’s book laid out a plan to influence people toward one’s ends. As much as the points in his book seem genuine—at least that’s a word he uses consistently—it has an air of pomposity to it that doesn’t sit right. And forming friendships is not an act of winning—as if another human being is a trophy you’ve earned—but an act of humility, vulnerability, sometimes weakness, and a lot of give-and-take. In the end, you have a friend; but o’ how quickly that relationship can be destroyed when the other’s dignity and freedom are for an instant compromised or mishandled. 

5 Things You Can Do When You Don't Know What To Do

So you don't know what to do, but you have to do something. Humans are doers--even 'being' is a verb. If you don't know what to do, you can read some of these tips and try them out--incidentally they're derived from some of the  more popular posts of this blog.

1. Stay up late: If you don't know what to do, try doing that till late into the night and see what happens. Strange things take place in the quiet of the night: you start thinking differently, ideas seem to come to you as you're in a state of half-consciousness, and by breaking your routine, you're stimulating your brain in a different way. Not to mention that it's one of the only times--if you have kids--that the house is actually quiet. 

2. Buy a book on creativity and/or innovation: Often we need a boost of fresh ideas, which can be obtained through books. If you don't know what to do, join others who have had to wrestle with not knowing what to do, but have turned that predicament into something really useful or cool or lucrative. Check out Peter Diamandis's book Abundance, or the founders of IDEO's book Creative Confidence. If you need something that will blow your mind, order up Ray Kurzweil's classic work The Singularity. 

3. Turn off the internet: Not knowing what to do can be a result of too much stimulation, especially from computers and the internet. There's such a thing as an internet hangover that creates similar symptoms to an alcohol hangover: headache, nausea, fatigue. If you don't know what to do, trying figuring it out away from what's stimulating your ennui. As well, if you don't know what to do, the last thing you need is to binge-surf on Facebook glutting your eyes on all that your 'friends' are doing. 

4. Reflect on the good stuff: Often we feel inadequate when we don't know what to do, but feel we should be doing something. It's easy to feel like a loser when you think everyone else is doing something and you're stuck doing nothing. Look inside: chances are your heart wants something different than your head. What is it that the heart wants? To call a loved one? To volunteer time with something you might need company? To give your kids a big hug and take them for ice cream? When you see what your heart wants, you'll also find gratitude, which is a big brain booster. When you are grateful, you are making new neural connections--your brain is actually growing and getting stronger. 

5. Prepare for the Future: We don't know what the future will precisely hold, but we can build scenarios and models of it and prepare for that. There are many claiming that some kind of catastrophe will strike in the next year, especially as tensions are mounting globally. If you don't know what to do, try thinking about the future and how you might get prepared for it. You can build more community and family ties, create a list of all the things you need to survive a major power outage for 48 hours, get in better shape. 

When you don't know what to do, maybe the best thing is just to sit in stillness and reflect on your life, your loved ones, your dreams and goals, and just be in the moment. By being, you're still doing. It's ok to sit in stillness for a period of time--in fact there are some great benefits. You don't have to try to solve it. Often it's when we step away from the pressure that the ideas come to us.