“Money often costs too much.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can make more money, flow more value, and expand yourself.  It all starts with a simple question:

… How much is an hour of your time worth?

One of the best ways to change your game is to change the value you put on an hour of your time. Why? Because it helps you focus and make trade-offs in how you spend your time. If you make $5 an hour, chances are that the activities that would make you $50 an hour are very different. In fact, it might not just a different skill set … it’s a different mindset, and a different set of expectations. It’s also a different set of jobs and experiences, and a different life style. If you want to make $50 an hour, then you do less of the $5 an hour things, and start doing more of the $50 an hour things.

Don’t get hung up on the money part.  Instead, use your hourly rate as a gauge and a yardstick to grow your capabilities and prioritize your time.  Also, use it to improve your efficiency and effectiveness, while driving from your life style, and finding creative ways to spend more time doing what you love.  And, always remember that you climb better ladders if you stay true to you.

Think in Terms of an Hourly Rate

How much are you selling your time for?  If you’re paid by the hour, you already know how much you are selling your time for. But that doesn’t mean that’s how much your time is worth. My first surprise was many moons ago during my early consulting days, when I found out I was being billed out at $100 an hour. I remember I wasn’t being paid that, but I was surprised that somebody thought my time was worth $100. Then I found out others were earning more, but working less … Hmmm, I thought to myself, “I’m doing something wrong.”

A friend of mine taught me a quick trick for figuring out how much your hourly rate is. He said, if you’re on salary, simply chop off the thousands and divide it in half. For example, if you make $20,000 per year, then, take 20 and divide it in half, so you are paid $10 per hour. If you make $40,000 per year, then take $40 and divide it in half, so you are paid, $20 an hour. If you make $100,000 per year, then take $100 and divide it in half, so you are paid $50 an hour. It’s not an exact science, but it gives you a working ballpark.

Is Your Time Worth More

I remember one of my friends asking the question, should Bill Gates pick up a penny? … or a dime? The default response is, “Of course” or “Why not?” Aside from the philosophical perspective, the point behind the question was that Bill Gates’ time is worth so much, that it costs him more to pick up a penny then spend that same time thinking up the next best thing. In other words, it’s a distraction, and it undermines spending his time on more valuable things.

How many metaphorical pennies do you pick up each day?

Asking the Question, Starts the Process

Simply by asking the question, what are $50 an hour activities? What are $100 an hour activities? What are $10,000 an hour activities, you start to see patterns and opportunities. For example, some coaches like Tony Robbins have charged $10,000 an hour. You can ask yourself, what sort of problems did he help solve that were worth that much?

If you start looking around, you can find models and examples of people that make more per hour. You can look at career paths and possibilities and you can see how much different types of jobs make per hour. More importantly, you can see the limits and limitations. For example, would it be realistic to expect to make $10,000 an hour waiting tables? If so, then where? If not, then what are some other paths, if making $10,000 an hour is an important benchmark for you.

The point is to cast a wide net and explore the paths, know the baseline, and know the ceilings of what’s possible. This will help you adjust your own expectations, as well as pick better paths.

It’s a Minimum, Not a Maximum

The point is to expand yourself and put more value on your time. After all, some say, time is all we’ve got. Just because you set your eyes on $100 per hour, means you should limit yourself to $100 per hour. In fact, you may find it easier to make $100 per hour, by going for $10,000 per hour. In the words of Bruce Lee, “Aim past your target.”

To do this, it means getting clarity on a few things. What is the market value of XYZ? For example, how much are people paying to do XYZ today? It means figuring out what skills you already have are undervalued, or you are not making the most from them. It also means getting clarity on what skills or experience you need to grow to move up the stack. The beauty is that models are everywhere, once you start looking for them.

In order to play this game though, it does mean you have to experiment and it does mean you have to play in arenas where you aren’t limited in what you can make. For example, as an entrepreneur or an Infopreneur in today’s world, you can test creating amazing products that change the world, while you’re changing your game. As a consultant or freelancer, you can test upping the ante on people paying a premium for your service or time. You can test splitting your offerings, by having a lower priced offer for one market, and a premium offer for another. Regardless, the point is to make it possible to explore what’s possible.

The Difference that Makes the Difference

The difference between the $10 an hour or the $100 an hour or the $10,000 an hour, might not be what you expect. While part of it might be skills and experience, a bigger part of it may in fact be how you build perception. At the end of the day, it’s not the intrinsic value, but the “perceived value” that people will pay for. And perception is reality. That’s why brand is such an extreme way to change the game. If two things are created equal, the better brand wins.

If you keep brand simple and think in terms of the three, five, or seven attributes that you want to be about (quality, value, beauty, etc.) then you can bake those into what you do. The other key is to make sure these align with your own values so that you can be authentic and play to your natural strengths. This is a more sustainable way, and by aligning your values, you gain advantage in terms of energy, passion, and ultimately personal power.

Don’t be surprised if when you start looking through this lens that you see many people working less, but making more. All your preconceptions about how much something should be worth, may be vastly different than what the market pays, or the perceptions that people have built. Don’t be blinded by your own assumptions, and don’t be blind-sided by how the market works. Especially don’t be surprised that by simply changing your arena or your container can suddenly boost your hourly rate. For example, your skill might be worth $10 in one part of the country, but $100 in another. The reverse is also true. In fact, the Web makes this especially interesting because it’s a world wide market. What you do for $100 an hour, somebody in the world might do for $10. But remember too, it’s not just the intrinsic value, it’s the market value, the perception, and the brand.

So the keys that make the difference, aside from changing your own mindset, beliefs, and assumptions, and expanding your skills and experience, is testing arenas, and testing possibilities, and exploring the models that are already out there, while coming up with some models of your own.

Getting Started with Your New Hourly Rate

A great place to start is to start from where you already are. To do so, try this …

1. Figure out your current hourly rate. If you’re already paid by the hour, then good, you already know this number. If you’re paid by salary, then chop off the thousands, and divide it in two. For example, $60,000 is $30 an hour.
2. Identify what you want your hourly rate to be.
3. Explore the options and possibilities of how you can pull that off. Find some examples to model from and test. When you get stuck find mentors and people in your life that can help you see what you don’t see.

Good luck and may your skills be with you.

My Related Posts

• The 8 Steps to Wealth
• The Good Life
• Time is the Limiting Factor

Photo by TheRitters.

“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.”— George Burns

Do you have a proven system that gets you the results you want, each and every time? Better yet, do you have a way to speed up your results and jump to the end in mind? Do you have a success formula you can count on?  Read on to learn about a success system you can use for the rest of your life to produce outstanding results in all areas of your life.

If we look across the stories and studies of success, we find some common themes. By looking to the patterns of success, we can identify a repeatable system. Let’s call this system, The Way of Success. The Way of Success is basically a method for improving your success in a systematic way. By making the approach explicit, you can improve it, and fine tune it, to achieve better, faster, and simpler results.

One of the most useful things in life is to have an approach for achieving what you want in life. That’s where”The Way of Success” comes in. You can use The Way of Success as your personal recipe for success.

Why The Way of Success?

The beauty of The Way of Success is that we can enjoy both the journey and the destination toward achieving our success.

If we have a trusted system, then we can explore and experiment with speed and skill in a more reliable way. We can learn at a faster pace. We can enjoy a higher level of success. We can reduce the pain along the way. We also learn how to more effectively avoid the dead ends and fruitless paths.

The Way of Success

Here are the key steps to The Way of Success:

• Step 1. Envision the Future
• Step 2. Map Out the Goals
• Step 3. Model the Best
• Step 4. Map Out the Possible Paths
• Step 5. Identify Your Tests for Success
• Step 6. Test Your Results
• Step 7. Change Your Approach Based on Feedback

Step 1. Envision the Future

In this step, imagine how the world will be different when you accomplish your goals. Ask yourself, “What will success look like?”

This is the most important step. This is about painting a picture of the future with enough clarity and conviction that it creates a burning desire. Imagine the possibilities and make it vivid. Step into this future and feel what it would be like if you were to make this happen.

The key outcome of this step is a vivid mental model of the future. Your mental model will guide your actions, thoughts, and feelings. The richer your mental model, the easier it will be to get resourceful. Your mind will get creative in finding ways to make your vision a reality.

Perhaps the most important reason for getting clarity in your mental model is to reduce conflict. If your mind, heart, body, and spirit want the same things, then you have all of you working on your side. The last thing you want to be fighting against is yourself. A fractured or conflicting vision will fork your focus, fork your energy, fork your priorities, and basically make anything you do, ten times more difficult. The opposite is also true. When all of you is fully aligned to the end in mind, you fire on all cylinders and your mojo helps you make things happen. Almost like magic.

Step 2. Map Out the Goals

In this step, you map out the goals that will inspire you. Your goals turn your vision into achievable steps and results along the way.

State your goals as clear and simple wins. Keep them simple and to the point. As a suggestion, write down the wins you want as simple one-liner statements. By keeping your goals lightweight, you can easily evolve them as you get a better picture of what success will actually look like. It’s like a picture slowly coming into focus.

Step 3. Model the Best

In this step, you find the find the best stories, people, and examples to model from.

You can start from scratch or you can start from examples. By starting from examples, you can “Stand on the shoulders of giants” and leapfrog ahead. More importantly, you can use the examples to model from and inspire and guide yourself with skill. They will help you avoid dead ends and glass ceilings.

You can always choose to ignore what other people have done. But that should be an explicit decision. One of the best ways to speed up success is to build on the patterns and practices that work. Success always leaves clues. You can learn from the success of others to tune and prune your own success path.

Another key reason to have models, examples, and case studies to draw from is so that you can see whether you really want what you think you do. There is an old saying to the effect, “be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.” This is true. The grass is not always greener, on the other side of the hill. What might look great at first blush, might not be so great when you take a closer look. For example, you might find that the life style just isn’t worth it because it conflicts with your values or how you want to live.

Step 4. Map out the Possible Paths

In this step, you map out the various paths you can take.

The key is to identify, figure out, and explore possible strategies. Aside from inspiration, the models you found help show you the different potential paths you can take to reach your goals.

The key here is to cast a wide net before locking down on one particular path. By mapping out the different paths, you can compare and contrast the time and effort that the different paths take. You might find that one path takes a week, while another takes a year. You may also find that one particular path requires some extraordinary sacrifice that you just aren’t willing to make.

The key here is to find the path that will most likely succeed based on your goals and constraints, while looking for the most effective results. At the end of the day, it’s all about effectiveness. You want a path that works.

Step 5. Identify the Tests for Success

In this step, you identify tests that help you know when you are on track, and to know when you are done.

Having goals is one thing. The key here is to figure out how you will test them. Having a short set of test cases helps you make your success criteria even more explicit. This helps give you clarity, but it also helps provide a way to evaluate your results, and to help keeping shaping your actions towards your final result.

Step 6. Test Your Results

In this step, you take action. You break your big goals and big wins into little goals and little wins. The most important thing is to take action. Taking action will produce results, and as you produce the results, you’ll get feedback.

The point behind testing your results is also to find the best paths forward. As you take action, you may get surprised as new opportunities, new doorways, and new possibilities unfold. Success is often serendipity. As my friend’s father put it, “Luck is when skill and opportunity come together.” By taking action and testing your results, you’re increasing your “luck.”

Step 7. Change Your Approach Based on Feedback

In this step, you change your approach based on the feedback you are getting from taking action. This is where your tests for success help you see whether you are getting closer or further from what you want to accomplish.

A very simple cutting question here is, “Is it effective?” If the actions you are taking are not being effective, then you go back to your models, find the insight, and change your approach.

When you take action, you produce results. Those results are either going to be getting you closer or further to your goals. They will also be leaving clues and insights. You can use these clues and insights to do more of what’s working and less of what’s working, or to decide and change the approach all together. As obvious as it sounds, sometimes the best approach is to do the opposite of what’s not working. You can at least test this as a strategy.

This is also a key stage to leverage your mentors. You can share the approaches you tried and the results you got, and an experienced mentor will help you evaluate your results and perhaps identify alternative strategies or tactics. One of the best things you can do here is start asking better questions to help reveal more insightful answers. If you’re not getting the results you want, it can be helpful to ask “how” questions over “why.” When you ask “how” questions your engage your brain in a more resourceful way and it starts helping you find a way.

An Example of The Way of Success

One of my key achievements was creating a book that was downloaded 800,000 times within the first six months. This was an extraordinary result at the time, and I used The Way of Success to achieve it.

I started by having a compelling vision for how the book would change the lives of many practitioners in the field. I identified the goals in terms of challenges that the book would solve and awards that it would win. I didn’t care about the awards, other than to create some aspirational benchmarks to shoot for.

I then rounded up the best of the best books that I could find within that space. I also met with several authors to find out their approach to explore possible paths. By taking a look from the balcony, I noticed that the most successful books were more action-oriented, were more task-based, and made it easy to “execute” the guidance. I also noticed that the best books had very simple way to organize and share complex information in a sticky way. A common pattern of the best books was to have simple headings that made it easy to skim and take away key insights from the book.

By using all of these patterns, I was able to design a more effective way for building knowledge platforms and writing guides to help change the world.

A Simple Way to Think About The Way of Success

A simple way to think of The Way of Success is — dream it, plan it, do it. The most important point here is to actually figure out what you truly want to make happen, and create a vivid model of that in your mind. When you can see it in your mind’s eye, you’ll have an easier time focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions that bring you closer to your goal.

Mapping out your success plan is a great way to see the journey before you start. While you don’t need to know every point along the path from A to B, you do need to have a frame of reference, and a way to keep getting back on track. Your map will be your guide.

Making it happen means taking action and testing your results. The trick is to keep taking action, and testing your results. If you are moving closer to your goals, then great. If you are moving further away from your goal, then change your approach, and keep changing your approach until you start getting the results you want. Use your model and your maps to guide you. Use your failures and setbacks as feedback. Keep finding the lessons and use them to propel you forward. If your approach is not working, then change it.

The fastest thing you can change in any situation is yourself. If you keep changing your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions, you’ll keep producing different results. Use this insight to keep making progress and finding your way forward.

May The Way of Success serve you well and help you achieve the results you want in a more effective way.

“Don’t strive to be perfect. Strive for excellence.” — Victoria Principal

As Sean of Writer Dad says, “Life is better with the right words.”  I have to agree.  And sometimes one word really says it all. Recently, one of my most insightful mentors gave me just such a word.  That word is … “Arete.”

In a nutshell, it’s “excellence.”   And I am a fan of excellence in action.  By choosing the path of Arete, while remembering that we’re human, fallible, and with feet of clay, we create an arena to be our best, in our own way.

Here is what Wikipedia says on Arete:

“Arete in its basic sense, means excellence of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one’s full potential. Arete in ancient Greek culture was courage and strength in the face of adversity and it was to what all people aspired.”

Along those lines, I like these words from Philip James Bailey:

“We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”

Whenever I think of excellence, people like Bruce Lee, Tony Robbins, Edward de Bono, Guy Kawasaki, John Wooden, John Maxwell, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rick Kirschner come to mind.  It’s people that push their own limits while helping the world see what’s possible.

I also think of Alik Levin, Bryan Thompson, Diggy, Donald Latumahina, Dragos Roua, Emma, Evelyn Lim, Farnoosh, Hilary Melton-Butcher, Ivana Sendecka, Jannie Funster, Jeff Fryling, Jimmy May, JK Allen, John deVadoss, Karl Staib, Lance Ekum,  Lynn, Mark Curphey, Mark Rogers, Melody Fletcher, Michael Kropp, Mike Walker, Nadia, Patricia, Per Vonge Nielson, Rick Maguire, Rob White, Sandra, Scott Hanselman, Sibyl, Tina Su, Tobin Titus, Vered, and many others all around us.   People who live life on their terms, live their values, and show others what’s possible.  People of excellence are all around you.  And what does Voltaire say? … “By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”

“Excellence” has strength and the key to remember is that it’s a journey, not a destination.  And it’s a journey of trials and triumphs.

If the call of Arete makes your soul sing, welcome the challenge to be YOUR best.  Not to prove anything to anybody else, but do it for you.  If that means being the best finger painter you can be, go for it.  You are a lion, now let’s hear you roar.

Photo by Robert Bejil Photography.

“The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” — Margaret Carty

A lot of the work in today’s world is done through virtual teams (V-Teams.)  As a project leader, it’s unlikely that you can always have everyone report to you.  And as an individual contributor, it’s a common scenario that to get things done, you have to influence other people.

Knowing how to V-Team with skill helps you make things happen.  It’s also one of the best ways to scale your impact.  When you partner and pair with other people, you can bite off more than you can chew alone.   With a V-Team, you have a team of capabilities versus a team of one.

Here is a seven step process for building effective V-Teams from one of my mentors with a proven track record …

7 Steps for V-Teaming

Here is a recipe for getting things done with v-Teams:

1. Identify what you want to accomplish. (your goal)
2. Build agreement around common goals.
3. Identify who owns what.  (Stakeholder Map)
4. Gain visibility and ownership. (who will do the work)
5. Identify the plan. (how and when will the work get done)
6. Report the status.
7. Arrive at the goal.

Here are some additional ways to improve your success as a V-Team Maestro:

• Set visibility and context first.  Why are you are doing what you are doing?  Examples – you see integration points, shared problems, or ways to achieve shared wins.
• Get clarity on stakeholders and who owns what.  If they own, but don’t care, then figure out who are the right folks to get acting on this.
• Use status and tracking as your friend.  Progress builds momentum.  Know who’s signed up for what, and know what’s on the line. (Don’t wait until people drop the ball.)
• Report status in a meaningful way.  Map status back to what stakeholders care about.
• Get agreement.  You can’t hold people responsible if they did not agree.
• Use email when it’s efficient, but stop when it’s not effective. Go until it fails.  If it’s not working, change the technique.  Some things have to happen face-to-face or a phone call.
• Maximize your joint pool of resources.  Find ways to get synergy and exponential results or eliminate inefficiencies.
• Get sponsorship and support.  There are always setbacks, but an angel or two can help you over the humps.
• Evaluate your approach based on the situation.  Be intellectually aware — it’s people, not a task force.  Focus on the intent, and find better ways to arrive at the goal.

Photo by lululemon athletica.

"I have developer’s disease. I love to sit at a drafting table and draw plans for hotels, wrestling with problems of traffic and the flow of people. That’s what turns me on." — Steve Wynn

Don’t put your passion on a pedestal.  Your ideal job is not “out there” somewhere, just waiting for you to come along and find it.  You can grow your passion for your job right under your feet. … But what if you don’t feel passionate about anything?  … Or what if you don’t feel passion for the job you’ve got … is there something you can do?

Srikumar Rao offers some powerful advice you can use to transform your job in his Leading@Google talk on  Mental Chatter, Mental Models, and  Me-Centered Universe.

What Passion in Your Job Feels Like

What’s it like to have a job that lights your fire?   Your heart sings and your mind soars.   Srikumar describes it like this:

”You get up in the morning and your blood is singing at the thought of being who you are and doing what you do, that as you go through the day, there are several moments when you come intensely alive, that you’re completely, completely absorbed in what you’re doing, that you feel that, YES you are doing exactly what it is that you were put on the Earth to do, and just vibrantly, radiantly alive."

Your Ideal Job is Not "Out There"

The mistake we make is thinking that our ideal job is out there somewhere, and all we have to do is go find it.   Srikumar says:

"The mistake that most of us make is the same one: We think our ideal job is out there, and we have to find it.  And if we can find it, life will be great.   We define our ideal job in terms of a bunch of parameters:  Here’s how much it pays, here’s the type of person my boss is, here’s how big my office is, here’s how deep the carpeting is, and here’s how much I travel … and once I can find that, then I’ll be passionate about my job.  You might have 10 or you might have 15, but you have a bunch of parameters, but once I can find that, I’ll be passionate about my job. … Wrong!"

Ignite the Passion, Right Where You Are

If you don’t find the passion inside you, then you’ll never find it.  Srikumar says:

"First of all, that exact concatenation of circumstances does not exist, and, if it did exist and you were plugged into it, it probably would not take more than six months before you were the same sorry, miserable self there as you were where you are because one of the things that we have to realize that we don’t is … passion does not exist in the job, it exists in us.  And either we find it in us, right where we are, or we will never find it.  And the best thing is you can ignite it insight right where you are.  And the beautiful thing is that if you ignite the passion inside you right where you are, the external world has a marvelous, mysterious, miraculous way of re-arranging itself to suit the new person you are becoming."

Pick a Project and Transform Your Job

You can transform your job, right from where you are.  Srikumar shares three steps to transforming your job:

1. Get out of the space from which you are observing.   Take a notebook along with you at all times and systematically note the things that are pretty good about your job.  The act of doing this moves you to a different space.
2. Pick something significant.  Pick any one of these things that you came up with that is important to you and significant for the company.  For example, if you like working with a particular customer, you can challenge yourself with, how do you get more customers like that, or how do you transform your relationships with all your customers to be like that.
3. Make it a one month project.   Simply come up with a one month project where you are going to increase that one component.  Every day do one thing.   Do something every day, ideally in the morning.

You can change your focus each month to another aspect that you enjoy.  If you don’t make the progress you expect in the month, then give yourself more time.  Unless, the excuse is you didn’t do anything during the month toward your project.  Then there is no excuse.  But if you did a little something toward your project each day, then simply give yourself more time.

Remember Two Things Whenever You Get Frustrated

Whenever you get frustrated, angry, or disappointed, there are two things that are always true:

1. You’re focused on what’s wrong, instead of what’s right.  Srikumar says, “First, you’re concentrating exclusively on the two, three, or four things that are wrong with your job … more precisely the two, three, or four things that YOU think are wrong with your job, and completely ignoring the 30, 40, or 50 things that are actually pretty good about it.”
2. You’re living squarely in a “Me-Centered” universe.  Srikumar says,“It’s extraordinarily difficult to live any kind of fulfilled life if you’re living in a me-centered Universe.  It just doesn’t happen.” And you know you’re living in a “Me-Centered” Universe, if your mental chatter goes something like this, “Poor me, poor me … I’m so bright, so talented — why do I not get promoted instead of that turkey in the next cubicle who is a Cretan but somehow or other he sucks up to bosses and therefore he’s got promoted … now how caustically unfair life is … poor me, poor me.”

You’ll find that simply spending more time in what you enjoy will transform you, your job, and your world around you.

My Related Posts

• Career and Workplace Effectiveness Books
• Career Growth and Finding Your Way Forward
• Thinking About Career Paths
• How To Figure Out What You Really Want

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.” – Steve Jobs

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jacob Sokol.  It’s the story of how he found his happiness path.

I say path because it’s a journey.  What Jacob figured out is how to drive from his happiness. That doesn’t mean there are no setbacks and things don’t go wrong.  They do.  But driving from happiness mean Jacob sets the stage to spend more of his time doing what he loves, having less regrets, and enjoying the journey along the way.  Happiness is his North Star and guide through life.

I think we can always learn from other people’s lessons and stories.  I’m really enjoy learning how people find their paths of happiness.  I especially enjoyed Jacob’s story and I think you will too.

Without further ado, here’s Jacob …

I had just turned 21 and narrowly escaped college. With my departure came an associate’s degree that landed me a position at a suburban sports bar. Not quite what my Mom had imagined when she hung my diploma on her office wall just weeks earlier.

I partied hard that summer and had some of the best nights of my life, but then, something surprising happened that suddenly change everything… I landed my dream job!

My Dream Job
I was taken under the wing of a wise young CEO for an IT consulting firm, who over the years would evolve into a great friend and invaluable mentor. The consulting company felt just as much like a frat house as a technology firm and was located in the heart of Times Square NYC – WOW! It was the birth of my career and I didn’t even know what a “server” was.

Life was Good
Over the course of that next year, I learned more than I ever could have imagined: mail-servers, domain controllers, BES servers, SQL servers, SharePoint services, virtual machines plus a massive amount of technical jargon. Most of all, I learned how to talk to “adults” – ones who managed 100s of millions of dollars – just as we managed their networks. My growth was explosive and I was happy to put partying in my past for the opportunity to evolve.

As the years rolled forward, I found that the learning curve was catching up to me. What once had the thrill of new and adventurous, had turned into a monotonous and regular routine.

Something was Missing
Sure – it moved me outta’ my Mom’s place and into a pad of my own. And yeah – I enjoyed having a nice car to go along with my motorcycle. That year I became certified in the future of technology, something called VMware. I was 23 years old and making good money. But something was missing ….

No Enthusiasm, Peace of Mind, or Purpose
I was missing an enthusiastic feeling when I woke up in the morning. What didn’t exist was peace of mind when I laid down at night. What was most absent from my life was a purpose for existing. Ouch.

I didn’t know what to do about that. I didn’t know what the next step was. But I knew a change needed to come.

Off to Europe … Alone
I was now 24 years old and had told myself by the time I turned 25, I would go to Europe. So I managed to finagle my way into five weeks off from work (I’m telling you, best boss ever!) What ensued was an exuberant trip that ended up altering the course of my life forever.

There’s one little itsy bitsy minor minute detail worth mentioning: no one I knew was willing to come with me! Although at first disappointing, that crucial component and key detail ended up being the best possible scenario there was. And so, I went alone!!

How My Trip to Europe Changed Me
Could you spend five weeks without anyone that you know? It’s a wild thought and I want you to think about what would happen if you tried. Here’s what happened to me:

• I found myself. I developed an undeniable sense of who I am. The only person who was making decisions for my life during that time was me. I never realized back home how easily my friends’ and family’s opinions would sway me in a particular direction. Being forced to figure things out on my own helped me find a deeper understanding of who I am.
• Live to work, over work to live. I learned that not everyone in the world is a workaholic with an anal affinity for spending their life in front of a computer. I bet you didn’t know that but it’s true. In fact, the feeling that I felt in Europe was that most people worked in order to live. Quite the contrary concept since unconsciously in America, most people live to work. Without our jobs, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves and our time.
• I became comfortable talking to everyone. I had to speak to strangers to survive so being shy was not something that would work. I used body language, hand-signals, facial gestures, and most of all, BIG SMILES to communicate with people who didn’t even speak the same language as me.
• I broke my patterns. I broke my “patterns” and THAT was the game changer. What I realized is that I’m not my thoughts. Our thoughts are actually just habits and patterns and they can be changed! Studies show that 95% of your thoughts today are the same as they were yesterday. Imagine thinking that those thoughts are fundamentally who you are… they’re not!! Research shows it takes 21 days to develop a habit. Without people reaffirming to me who I was (and supposed to be,)  I started to let myself just be me.

After about 3 weeks on the road, I fundamentally felt that I was no longer my mind. With that epiphany came hope that I could change my thoughts, and as I found, I could and I did!

Snapped Back to “Reality”
When I came back to NYC, I knew a change had to come. So, I spent the next six months figuring out how to reduce my reoccurring expenses. These were some things I did:

• Sold my motorcycle
• Sold my car
• Canceled my cable TV
• Canceled my home phone
• Stopping buying new clothing
• Cut back on going out socially
• Learned (through practice) how to cook
• Brought my own lunches to work

My family and friends thought that I had lost my mind, and on some level, they were right!!

Opening Up to the Unknown
During this time, two quotes from Steve Job’s Stanford commencement speech kept coming to mind:

• “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
• “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

After 6 months of saving, I left my job. I had no clue how the dots would connect looking forward, but I thought Hawaii would be a good place to find out. An old roommate of mine had moved there and she said I could sleep on her floor for six weeks! So I subleased my apartment, threw up the duces, and said peace out New York.

Asking Quality Questions for a Quality Life
Introspection through Quality Questions leads to a deeper understanding of self, and according to Socrates, that’s what it’s all about! There’s no “knowledge of self” class in college though – this is work that you’ll have to do on your own. As Tony Robbins said, “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”

During my time in Hawaii, in between surf lessons and camping on the beach, I was introduced to the concept of Quality Questions. I got acquainted with the idea of consciously creating what my ideal life would look like in my mind. Here were some questions that I asked myself:

• What do I want my life to look like in 50 years?
• If I had all the time and all the money in the world, what would I do?
• What makes me most come alive?
• What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?
• Where do these 3 circles meet: my passions, my strengths, and a service that the world is willing to pay for? (also known as the hedgehog concept)
• How can I get paid to do what I love?
• Does this path have a heart?

Here’s a heads up if you decide to ask yourself some of these questions: the answers don’t always come right away (although sometimes they do.) Don’t give up! Rather, hold the intention lightly and give the answers space to appear.

If you get funny looks when you ask these questions, a quote from Krishnamurti comes to mind: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Being a Non-Conformist
Emerson has a way with words and I like the way he sheds some light on non-conformity:

• “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each share-holder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity.”
• “And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!”
• “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Live with Virtue
A few things come to mind when I think about the “recipe” for the journey I’m enjoying. Let’s start with some meditation from Marcus Aurelius. Marcus says:

“No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.”

So since death is inevitable, does it matter if you die tomorrow, or die 100 years from now? Marcus says it doesn’t, but what does matter, is how you live while you’re still alive. His strong suggestion is to live with virtue! You know … wisdom, courage, love, justice, spirituality, temperance, etc… I think about that often.

Support Yourself on Purpose
There’s no question that we westerners live in a material world. While living with virtue is essential, there’s no denying that we still need to find a way to pay the bills at the same time.

I’m going to lean on my homeboy Deepak Chopra and bring up his 7^th spiritual law of success. Deepak says:

“Everyone has a purpose in life … a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.”

It can sound scary, daunting, and even horrible to have to face figuring out what makes you different from everyone else. So I would suggest starting with figuring out what it is you love – what makes you most excited in life? Once you’ve played with that, start journaling around how you can do it in some type of service to people. With service come value and with value comes money. For me, it’s sharing what I’m learning surrounding how to create and extraordinary life.

A Path with a Heart
The next thing I like to keep in mind when figuring out what I want to do is ask: does this path have a heart? You know, is it helping people? Is the world a better place because you’re doing this? You don’t need to solve world hunger but will benefit from you doing this? If you are becoming a better person because of it – the answer’s yes!

I got this concept from Carlos Castaneda. Carlos says:

“Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”

Make an Impact
I was once watching a seminar where a guy named David was speaking. He told a story about meeting Eric Schmidt, the CEO of a small company you may have heard of… GOOGLE!  David had the opportunity to ask him one question and he went this route:

“How is it that Google is able to retain the top talent in the world?”

Were they paying these people more money than other companies were willing to pay them? Nope! Eric’s answer was this: our employees work for IMPACT (and not primarily for money!) This is something I think about all the time – how can I create massive impact (that inspires and empowers people).

The How of Happiness
50% of your happiness is said to be come from your genes.  Where does the other 50% come from?  Here’s the shocker: it’s been scientifically proven the material affluence only makes up for 10% of happiness. That includes how much money you make, your marital status, what kind of car you drive, etc…

Where does the other 40% come from then? Well that’s supposed to be the solution. These are the things you can control on a daily basis, like how you behave, what you think, and the types of goals you set. Positive psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky wrote an acclaimed book about this called The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want that scientifically proves how to be happy.

Here are Sonja’s 12 happiness-generating activities:

1. Expressing gratitude
2. Cultivating optimism
3. Avoiding over-thinking and social comparison
4. Practicing acts of kindness
5. Nurturing social relationships
6. Developing strategies for coping
7. Learning to forgive
8. Increasing flow experiences
9. Savoring life’s joys
10. Committing to your goals
11. Practicing religion and spirituality
12. Taking care of your body

Being Unrealistic
Since the day I decided to sign my resignation papers from the rate race, there’s something else I’ve become super passionate about. Most call it “doing the unrealistic.” Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich says this:

“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming.”

When you dare to dream big, it’s like taking a spiritual syringe and giving yourself a strong shot of enthusiasm laced with adrenaline, right in your forehead! There’s something magical about it. I used this mindset to go to a Jets game with Gary Vaynerchuck and demonstrate to people that following your heart is possible. My current “unrealistic” goal is to inspire eight million people.

Balancing Tomorrow with Today
There’s a paradox of time in my mind and I think about two periods often. The first period is right now. The second is 50 years from right now.

Each day that I wake up, I remind myself that I will soon expire. I don’t know if it will happen today, or tomorrow, or in a week. What I do know is that I have to love what I’m doing every day of my life. There is no other time to live but right now!

Here’s the paradox: there’s a possibility that I’ll live for another 50 years. And with that in mind, I make sure I’m on my way to becoming the man I want to be then. I’ll leave you with a quote from Tal Ben Shahar:

“Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”

I hope that this article will help you with your climb – enjoy!

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Orna Drawas.  Her focus is on helping working professionals become rock stars at work, while achieving work-life balance.  She is the author of the book, Perform Like A Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch and her book was recently on the Amazon’s list of Top 10 Books for Business Success.

As a business trainer and coach focused on leadership and productivity challenges, Orna works with professionals in Fortune 500 and smaller companies, who are striving to up-level their performance and achieve more than they ever thought possible.

As you read Orna’s words, think about how you can apply the concepts to your own situation.  I find her simple framework resonates with my experience, and the beauty is in the simplicity.  It’s elegance in action.  One thing I’ll add is whether you get a promotion or not, make it a point to enjoy the journey by living your values and playing to your strengths on the job.

Without further ado, here’s Orna …

Good News! According to CNNMoney, companies intend to increase salaries and promotional opportunities in 2011 by doing everything they can to retain and develop top talent, rather than risk losing key employees. So there is no time like the present to angle for that promotion.

It’s 2011, so what’s on tap? Well, it’s time to do The Double-Rung RAP!

Up the corporate ladder, it’s a long way to go
Been workin’ long and late, but the goin’s awfully slow
Need more than one rung to be true to my map
That’s why I keep practicing the Double-Rung Rap.
Work on big things that’re worthy of da’ man
With a good attitude – I’ll make him a fan
It comes down to results ‘cause they’re what really matter
As I skip a few rungs on the way up that ladder.

The best thing about a rap is it tells it like it is!

What can we all learn from Snoop Dog, Eminem and Jay-Z about getting a promotion in the corporate world? The RAP no doubt! The RAP applies to everything in life… from the crib to the boardroom!

The world has changed. It used to be: more, faster, bigger – stay the course and you will get ahead. Not anymore. The impact of technology, globalization and flatter organizations have changed that old paradigm forever. Now it’s about real RESULTS, a passionate ATTITUDE and all the right PRIORITIES!

(R) Real RESULTS.
Those who get results get ahead. Period, end of story. In real estate, it’s location, location, location . . . in business, it’s results, results, results. Simple as that. Who really cares that you work 80 hours a week, respond to every e-mail and personal request within five minutes or cross 50 things off your list. In the end, it all comes down to the Big R – Results. What have you accomplished – really accomplished – that is helping move yourself, your team, your company, your product or service to the next level?

Hey, Lady? What you mean – results? Simple, dude. Understand your customers better. Find ways to help them. Make it easier for them to do business with you. Try to innovate. Develop a new service or product feature. Fix an old problem. Find new solutions. Improve broken processes. Think of new ways to drive revenue. Get out of the freakin’ box and have an impact. Go above and beyond to do more than is necessary. It’s not that hard.

And one more thing . . . don’t be a slacker. The world hates slackers. Don’t come in late, sneak out early, miss a couple of deadlines (even just by a little) and barely get the job done. Surprise! Everyone does notice. And no, you will not get promoted (much less keep your job).

(A) Passionate ATTITUDE
Hire for attitude, train for success. That is the executive motto for finding the best candidates to lead an organization. Pride, passion and belief do more to move an organization forward than the cleanest computer code, the cleverest ad campaign or the most balanced budget … which are all good, but require passion to make them great. “Employers want to see a whatever-it-takes attitude and a solution-oriented team player poised for promotion,” writes V. Jean Maye in LATimes.com.

The attitude problem has gained increased attention as studies have shown that behavior — good or bad — is actually contagious! Dr. Will Felps at the Rotterdam School of Management recently published a study that measured the effects of negative behavior on a team. Groups in his study infected with a Bad Apple performed 40% worse than similar groups without a Bad Apple.

Let’s face it, those with the best attitude are sought after for the most important projects, given the biggest clients and asked to lead the best teams. Somehow, a good attitude translates into: reliable, competent, intelligent and likable. You want to be that person!

And whatever you do, don’t be difficult. It’s good to stand out from the crowd according to CareerBuilder.com, but not in a negative way. If you are high maintenance, complain a lot, sweat the small stuff and generally make life more difficult for your boss and others . . . no promotion for you.

(P) The Right PRIORITIES
What are your top priorities? And better yet – do they align with your boss’ top three? If the answer is ‘not exactly’, change them … now!

Fact is, no matter how hard you work, how long your hours or how much you think you’re accomplishing, if you are not focused on those things that are most important to your boss and the organization, you are not doing a good job, at least according to him. And frankly that’s about all that matters. He honestly doesn’t care that you worked late or over the weekend, that you missed your daughter’s soccer game or that you checked e-mail while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. All that matters to him is whether you were or were not accomplishing those things that help him and the company move forward and be successful.

This is even more important when you finally realize that getting a promotion is not as simple as being the best person for the job. In FastCompany.com, Bill Breen points out that “you’re not typically competing against many other candidates when angling for a promotion. But in reality, most of the time, the new job is pre-wired. Many managers already know exactly who they want to promote and only that person gets real consideration.” Fact is, your boss is your best promoter. Bring him value by helping him accomplish his most important objectives and you set yourself up for rock star status.

RAP to Success
So, dude, there are no shortcuts. But one thing is for sure. The journey is full of rewards. As with everything in life, the more you put in, the more you get out. Make it your mission to make the most of every opportunity. Live your life with passion and give it all you’ve got every time. Put faith in knowing that the rewards will exceed your expectations and that promotion you’ve been longing for can be within your grasp.

Step into the hood and kick it up a notch or two. You’ll see it’s worth it when you do!

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

One of the best ways to deal with change is to anticipate it.  At the beginning of each year, I take a step back to see the forest for the trees.

This is my summary of key trends to watch for 2011. Putting it together is a time-consuming exercise, but it’s one of the most important things I do for the coming year. It helps me see the bigger map. With the bigger map, I have a simpler way to understand what’s going on, anticipate what to expect, respond more effectively, and most importantly – make better bets on where to spend my time.

Don’t read this as a definitive list. Draw from it to help you create your own lens to make sense of the landscape and find your path forward. It’s long, I tried to keep it as scannable as possible. I didn’t want to cut it short for the sake of simplicity. Instead, I wanted to provide a solid map with sources you can draw from as you plan your road ahead.

What’s a Trend
Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve describes trends in this way:

“Our Trends are not fads. Our Trends endure. Our Trends evolve. They represent underlying forces, first causes, basic human needs, attitudes, aspirations. They help us navigate the world, understand what’s happening and why, and prepare for what is yet to come.”

Key Questions I Ask to Find and Rationalize Trends
These are some of the basic questions I ask to find and rationalize key trends:

• Where are the investments? (e.g. Where are the CxOs betting?)
• Where’s the growth?
• Where’s the pain?
• Who are the pillars in the relevant niches and what are they saying?  … more importantly, what are they doing?
• What are the results?
• What’s the data say?
• What are consumers doing?
• Is it a real trend or just a fad? … and does it matter?

The Short List – 5 Keys to the Future
Before the longer list, I want to shine the light on 5 key things:

1. Clouds and Clients.  This is a key growth spot.  How else do you keep up in a rapidly changing world, deliver services. disrupt the game, and bring new game changers to market faster than ever before?  It’s the cloud.  It marks the commodization of IT and computing.   Companies can now innovate and disrupt at speeds and cycles we’ve never seen before.   One simple metric is how quickly you can reach a million users now with a new service or product, compared to five years ago.  If you want to stay relevant, you have to be thinking about your cloud and virtualization story.  The opportunities here are amazing from the one-man band code slinger who spins up a Web farm for their app that changes the world to businesses that expose new capabilities to the World and help build the programmable Web.  It’s also a way to simplify computing and move up the stack.
2. It’s a gamer’s world.   I don’t just mean Farmville.  It’s like Second Life meets the real world.  With virtual goods on the rise, and more people connecting and having fun through games online, it’s a sweet spot for innovation.  To fully appreciate why it’s a gamer’s world, check out Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk on how gaming can make a better world.   (Here’s the gist  — Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds and the incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems?)  BTW – way to go Activision Blizzard.  World of Warcraft: Cataclysm shattered previous sales records, by selling more than 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.  I expect more lines to blur with work and fun and edutainment, as companies find ways to use gaming approaches to motivate today’s Web worker world.  It’s gamer + education + business + life.
3. NUI experiences.  NUI (Natural User Interface) is in.  Great user experiences are the differentiator that drive adoption and make things stick.  This is a great area for innovation, patterns, and practices.  Speaking of innovation, how cool is the Kinect for XBox 360?  It’s a hands-free controller.  Talk about a game changer (and talk about getting closer to interacting with computers Minority Report style.)   When you think about the possibilities of rich media, touch, speech, location-aware services, and “you-as-the-remote control” (think Wii and Kinect), the possibilities for amazing and immersive experiences are endless.  More importantly, we can finally start showing how software improves productivity, effectiveness, efficiency, and fun.   Have you also noticed the explosion of 3D into the cinema and living room?  What’s next … 3D gaming?
4. The Mobile Internet.  Take the Web wherever you go.  It’s a powerful platform and ecosystems that bring the power of software to everyday scenarios, anywhere and everywhere.  With Apple iPhone and iPad, Google Android, Windows Phone 7, the Web is truly in the palm of your hand, and the app story is just going to keep getting better,
5. The Year of the eBook.  This is THE year.  Earlier this year, Seth Godin said, “I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way.”  With the Apple iPad, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, and of course the Amazon Kindle, the game is on.  Oh, yeah, and Google has a shiny new Google eBookstore.   (You can read about the new Google eBookstore in Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices.)

One way to be thinking about changes is to put them into context.  You can think in terms of home, on the road, and at work.

Key Trends for 2011
Here is my summary of key trends for 2011:

1. Analytics / BI (Business intelligence).  Data-driven decisions win over guesswork.  It’s tough, especially when statistics lie and we want to trust our instincts over our indicators.  Start by asking, how do the great businesses drive their great decisions?  Between information markets and crowd sourced intelligence and social networking, the real issue is how you leverage the data and turn it into intelligent decisions and smart feedback loops, and how you learn and respond.
2. "Consumerization" of IT.  A while back, Gartner said Consumerization Will Be Most Significant Trend Affecting IT During Next 10 Years … I think we see that accelerating.
3. Cycles of change speed up even more.    Life cycles shift to warp speed and lines blur between versions, creating living, breathing products.  This creates pressure to master change management, adopt more Agile methods, figure out compliance and governance for the new landscape.
4. Digital Health.   This is where cloud, BI/analytics and diagnostics can seriously change the game.  There is also a shift to more user empowerment.  If you take a stroll through Best Buy, you might notice the expanding Digital Health shelf.  This is an area where more people may start to outsource their health to smart applications that can see patterns, provide monitoring, and alerts.
5. Education 2.0.   Have you met Bill Gate’s favorite teacher, Sal Khan?   Khan created Khan Academy.  The Khan Academy is the free classroom for the world with hundreds of free videos and exercises and it’s mission is to provide a world-class education to anyone, anywhere.
6. Global distributed development.  Competing in a global market means finding and using the best resources at the best price, anywhere in the world.
7. Location based services.   Talk about relevancy in action and just-in-time ads.  It’s all about specialization + location.  Location, location, location takes on new meaning and relevancy.  Jim Carroll says, “Consider the concept of a ‘location-intelligence professional.’ Today, this involves someone working within the insurance industry, learning how to link the extensive data-sets of geographic oriented information – think Google Maps – with existing insurance underwriting information, and with other statistical databases.”
8. Micropayments and virtual currencies.  Second Life really set the trend here a while back, but it’s becoming more important in today’s world.  This paves the way for real money for micro-transactions.  It also creates a model for reputation based systems, which is important in a reputation-based economy.
9. Private cloud.   The time is ripe for Enterprises to move to the cloud, and private clouds and integration will be key stepping stones.
10. Reputation based.   It’s reputations that cut through the clutter and rise to the top, helped by word-of-mouth marketing and raving fans.
11. Standards / open systems.  One of the way so win in today’s world is to build great experiences on top of open standards.  Optimize for open over closed.
12. Talent Economy / Skills-for-Hire Economy.   Specialization, market maturity and rapid cycles of change drive a demand for key skills.  The key is to balance “generalist” skills in business and technology, along with specialized skills that the market values.
13. The rise of Social media / social networking.   Between world-of-mouth marketing, raving fans, and real time information markets for customer feedback that can make you or break you, embrace and leverage the power of the people.
14. Tribes.  Tribes are who you’re making your products for.  Tribes are your network.  You’ll find your next job through your tribe, or you’ll help members in your tribe find their next job.
15. User empowerment.  It’s the rise of the spider and the fall of the starfish in a federated world.
16. User experiences.   This is where reputations are built and raving fans are won.  Think speed, simplicity, immersive experience, visualization, how you feel … etc.  Design working backward from the end experience in mind.  If the resulting experience suck will suck, don’t even start to build it.
17. Virtual goods.  Whether it’s eBooks or information products or rewards in game worlds, virtual goods have real-world potential.
18. Web TV.   Web TV is truly here.  Improvements in broadband have certainly helped.  Whether your box is  Roku, Playstation, X-Box, Wii, Apple TV, an internet-ready blue-ray, or an Internet-ready TV, and whether you stream from Amazon video-on-demand, NetFlix, or Hulu, video-on-demand has become a reality.  With Google TV on the scene, things really get interesting.

The Meta-Pattern for Trends
These are some of the patterns I’m noticing about the patterns of the trends:

• “Built to Change” Over “Built to Last.”  Again, this goes back to shifting from a static world, to a dynamic world and embracing change over fighting it.  Run with it.
• Consumer patterns drive Enterprise patterns.  At the end of the day, people are consumers and the patterns show up in the Enterprise.
• Decentralize and federate.   Think starfish and spider.
• Differentiate.  Differentiate by giving your best where you have your best to give.  Compete by dividing the niche and small is the new big (so you win with a portfolio that’s flexible and responsive to market demand.)
• Execution is king.  Operational efficiency and innovating in your product cycle is how you survive and thrive.
• Prosumer.  Think Consumer + Producer.  Get your customers into your production cycle earlier so they help you create and innovate in your product line.
• Pull vs. Push.  Know the mental model from push to pull.  In Push Me, Pull You–Dueling Business Models, Steve Bosserman says, “Through the three hundred-year reign of the Industrial Age, businesses “pushed” their products and services onto consumers. Limited choice accompanied by considerable marketing hype was enough to make the consumer buy. It was a sellers’ market. Now, thanks largely to the Information Age, consumers are evolving into customers who can select what they want from a variety of providers. It is becoming a buyers’ market.”
• Relevancy is king.  Google taught us this.
• Reputation and brand are king.   In a social networked world, it’s the network that says who the authority is and what works and what doesn’t.
• Simplicity.  Simplicity always win in the long run when it comes to adoption.  Find ways to reduce friction and make things simple out of the box.  Design for simplicity and keep things simple where you can.
• Social Value / Community Good.  Green is not optional.  In a green world, if you’re business doesn’t play well with green values, it’s not a sustainable path.
• Results are king.  Talk is cheap.  Results speak for themselves.

There are a lot of kings here.  In checkers, it’s easier to win when you have a lot of kings.

The Way Forword
What’s past is past and the future

• Absorb what is useful.  Do it Bruce Lee style — take what you need, adapt it, and throw out the rest.
• Agility. Stay adaptable.  Flexibility is your friend.  See The better adapted you are, the less adaptable you tend to be.
• Anticipate change.   Look ahead.  Build your anticipation skills.  Know the system.  Things don’t just happen.  The more you know the system and the ecosystem, the more you can anticipate what’s coming down the line.  Pay attention to market leaders, trend setters, patterns, and cycles.  Everything happens in cycles whether it’s growth or decline. best.
• Be the Best on the Web.  there’s no room for #2.  Be the best at what you’re the best at.  This is Good to Great in action.
• Build a firm foundation.  Know Maslow’s hierarchy and prioritize taking care of your basic needs.  Know your “monthly burn” and be mindful of your decisions to support your firm foundation.  The stronger your foundation is, the more you can help yourself and others when they need it most.
• Compete where it makes the most sense.  Compete on price, or quality or customer and don’t mix them up.  This depends on which stage of the maturity cycle you are in, what the state of the market is, and what you can be the best at.  For example, in a commodity market, don’t be the most expensive.  Turn competition into collaboration and find the win wins to really change your game and rock the world.
• If it doesn’t help you be your best, cut it out.   This means living your values, and playing to your strengths.  It also means giving your best where you have your best to give, as a person, and as a company.  It’s how your survive, and it’s how you go from surviving to thriving.   Any other way drains you in the long run and you get priced or pushed or competed out of the market.  It’s the sustainable path.
• Follow the Cycles.  Knowing the path from cradle to grave, gives you an edge.  It helps you anticipate what to expect and it helps you apply levers where they count.  At a meta-level, there is a pattern for market maturity cycles.  According to Alonso Martinez and Ronald Haddock, the 4 stages of market maturity are: 1) survival, 2) quality, 3) convenience, 4) customization.
• Follow the Data.   With all the usage data and analytics power of a Web world, you don’t need to guess at success.  It’s very easy to use surveys to figure out what your customers want.  It’s easy to provide options for customers to provide actionable feedback.  Drive your decisions with data and make informed decisions.  Do A/B testing and experiment your way forward.
• Follow the growth.  Follow your own growth, and follow the growth in the market.  For example, in the tech industry some growth areas are mobile and cloud.  Along these lines, create the growth.
• Follow the money.  Where there’s money, there’s growth.  You can look to where CxOs are investing, or even where you company is investing and making its bets.
• Follow the people.  Great people have track records for a reason.  Find the people who are connected and always seem to be ahead of the curve.   Great ideas flow from great people and this is an idea economy.
• Get back to the basics.  Practice the fundamentals.  They work.  Among the chaos, there are always core principles, patterns, and practices that you can bank on.
• Hone your personal brand.  Make the most of what you’ve got and make sure your differentiation is obvious.  For example, one of my differentiators is “getting results.”
• Invest in yourself.  Inner-engineering always pays off.
• It’s your network and what you know.  People sort and sift through people they know.  In a skills-for-hire economy, your network is how you find the opportunities.
• Know the cycles of things.  For example, know the Four Stages of Market Maturity, the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, and the Diffusion of Innovations.
• Lead yourself from the inside out.   Follow your values, play to your strengths, and follow your purpose.  It’s the sustainable path.
• Learn and respond.  Your ability to learn and respond will drive your best results.  Innovate in your process and your product.
• Model the best.   You can speed up your learning curves and avoid costly mistakes by modeling from best practices and working examples.  Whenever you think you’re faced with a new problem, first ask, who else might share this problem, and see if you can find three good examples of how this problem was solved.

Key Sources
I primarily draw from my own experience working with customers, and paying attention to what they’re paying attention to, as well as paying attention to my mentors and smarties across Microsoft, and whoever they tell me to pay attention to. One of the easiest ways to see where the action is and where the growth will be is to watch where companies put their best people and where they invest (I call it a “charter and bets check”). I also draw from the following:

• Jim Carroll – Jim helps me see the trends across industries and look to patterns. He’s also great at identifying where the growth and opportunities are, and more importantly how to frame the landscape in a way that makes it actionable instead of analysis paralysis.
• Trend Hunter – It’s effectively “crowd-sources insight” and it’s a great source for consumer trends. I’m a big believer that consumer trends pave the path for Enterprise trends. By watching consumer trends, I learn what to expect. I then watch how it shows up as I work with my customers. This pattern serves me well.
• Internet Trends by Morgan Stanley –  This is a data-driven view of the emerging trends.  What I like about this report is how the data is used to help identify and illustrate the patterns.
• C:Insights Trends – They focus on consumer trends and they specialize in research and advisory services.  I look to them for patterns and key words in consumer trends.
• Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft – Mundie has been in the business for more than 35 years, and he’s a forward thinker.   I pay attention to Mundie because he is in the center of a lot of action.  He’s also good at being able to see the forest from the trees.
• Faith Popcorn – I first heard about Faith from Tony Robbins and I can see why he looks to her for patterns and trends.  Her super skill is finding the more pervasive trends that shape the culture, consumers, and the community.  She specializes in turning the insight from trends into actions for business and weaving them into strategies and tactics for business.
• IBM Executive Exchange – The beauty of the IBM Executive Exchange is that it’s real insight from actual CIO, CFO, and CEOs.  If you want to know what kinds of things will be getting attention in the coming year, simply look to the CxOs.  The CxOs have an important vantage point in their company.  They know their company’s strategy, top pain points, and key investments.  You can expect ripple effects from their decision.
• IDC (International Data Corporation) — IDC is an analyst that specializes in analyzing the future.  I look to them to see what insights and trends they see across various sectors include energy, financial, government, health, manufacturaing, and retail.
• JWT Intelligence – JWT is all about finding trends and turning cultural shifts into opportunities.  I find their synthesis and the way they name their trends, insightful and compelling.   I cross-check them against the other consumer trends I see.

With that in mind, here is a quick roundup of key trends to watch for from these sources  …

C:Insights Trends
20 Mobile Trends for 2011 — http://www.slideshare.net/CinsightsTrends/20-key-mobile-trends-201011

1. Trend 1 – Augmented Reality (AR)
2. Trend 2 – Social Search
3. Trend 3 – Social Gaining
4. Trend 4 – Mobile social Networks
5. Trend 5 – Mobile Discount Coupons
6. Trend 6 – QR Codes
7. Trend 7 – Micro Blogging
8. Trend 8 – Video Sharing
9. Trend 9 – Instant Networking
10. Trend 10 – Niche Networks
11. Trend 11 – Multitasking
12. Trend 12 – Virtual Personas
13. Trend 13 – Mobile IM
14. Trend 14 – Social Music
15. Trend 15 – Organic Technology
16. Trend 16 – Conversational Content
17. Trend 17 – Open Source Applications
18. Trend 18 – Peer Advertising
19. Trend 19 – Social Media Aggregators
20. Trend 20 – Mobile Apps

CIO Insight
Lundquist’s Top Tech Trends for 2011 – http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/IT-Management/Lundquists-Top-Tech-Trends-for-2011-656290/

1. The CIO as Services Maestro
2. IT Services
3. Reverse Consumerization
4. The Mobile Enterprise
5. Virtualization, Cloud Computing
6. Big Blue vs. Big Red
7. Remember PCs?
8. Tablets
9. Video
10. Apple Stores

Computer Economics
Technology Trends – 2010/2011 –- http://www.computereconomics.com/images/default/ISS2010/TechTrends2010sample.pdf

Computer Economics identifies 19 hot spots for focus and where the action is:

1. Application Consolidation
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
3. Data Center Consolidation
4. Desktop Virtualization
5. Enterprise Social Networking
6. Enterprise Resource Planning Software
7. Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) Systems
8. Help Desk Self-Support Systems
9. Infrastructure Cloud Computing
10. Legacy System Renewal
11. Microsoft Windows 7 Migration
12. Mobile Applications
13. Open Source Business Applications
14. Predictive Analytics
15. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems
16. Software as a Service
17. 10G Ethernet
18. Unified Communications
19. Video Conferencing Systems

Craig Mundie
Reimagining Microsoft’s Future, Financial Analyst Meeting, July 29, 2010 -

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Downloads/Events/Mundie_FAM_2010.docx

Mundie identifies three trends that are coming out of the labs and showing up in products:

1. Clients and Clouds – “The combination of the client and the cloud to create the new computing platform that will redefine both how people develop applications and ultimately how people consume them and what kind of things are possible to solve.”
2. Natural User Interface – “As the computer has become more and more powerful, and yet it’s more and more pervasive in our lives, we need ultimately to change the way in which we deal with the computer. There have been many technological trends that we’ve been studying in research for 10 or even 20 years, and they’re all starting to come together, enabled by this revolution in the microprocessor capability and networking, to some extent.”
3. Working on your behalf – “For time immemorial, computers have been a great tool, but increasingly, the world has so much stuff available to us that if we have to navigate it all by hand, it just becomes tedious. So, we’re now starting to turn a lot of the power of the computer to helping us get things done.”

IBM Executive Exchange
2010 IBM Global IT Risk Study – The Evolving Role of IT Managers and CIOs

The Evolving Role of IT Managers and CIOs

http://www-931.ibm.com/docs/vrmhost/GBE03365-USEN-00.pdf

Top 5 Emerging Technologies in terms of risk:

1. Social networking tools
2. Mobile platforms
3. Cloud computing
4. Virtualization
5. Service-oriented architecture

Additional insights …

• “IT risk management and compliance has remained largely immune from budget cuts or cost reductions.”
• Risk management helps defensively with business continuity, protecting reputation and proactively with a company’s agility, creating growth, and reducing costs.
• Business continuity is about building a “risk-aware culture” and baking into the tools, processes and methodologies.
• “IT security (vulnerability to hackers and unauthorized access/use of company systems) is the number-one concern among 78 percent of the IT professionals surveyed.”

Analytics: The new path to value

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/thoughtleadership/ibv-embedding-analytics.html

• How the smartest organizations are embedding analytics to transform insights into action. The success pattern is to use analytics over best guesses – “The tendency for top-performing organizations to apply analytics to particular activities across the organization, as compared to lower performers.”

Smarter Cities – Cities are getting smarter. Watch the trailer on Smarter Cities

http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/thesmartercity/index_flash.html#/home/trailer/

• According to the video, cities around the world are tackling: “How to keep traffic flowing, cure a health care system, protect citizens while protecting their privacy, and how to demonstrate how one decision affects millions of people and involve them in making their city a better place to live.” Check out http://IBM.com/TheSmarterCity

IDC
Worldwide System Infrastructure Software 2011 Top 10 Predictions – http://www.idc.com/research/viewtoc.jsp?containerId=225895

1. Private Cloud Plans Will Mature, Dominate the Enterprise Infrastructure Software Agenda in 2011
2. Battle for Next-Generation Cloud Platforms Will Shift Focus from IaaS to PaaS
3. Microsoft Windows Azure Will Get the Respect It Deserves
4. New Enterprise Mainframe Will Create Integrated/Hybrid Solution Opportunities for Management Software Vendors, But MIPS Wars Will Continue
5. Server Virtualization Will Continue to Subsume High-Availability and Replication Functionality
6. Client Virtualization Will Become a Strategic, Mainstream Desktop Choice in 2011
7. Big 4 Will Become the Big 5 — Microsoft Will Displace HP as the Number 1 Global Distributed Systems Management Software Provider
8. Social Collaboration Will Force Shift in IT Service Management Support Best Practices
9. Enterprises Will Push for Broad ELA Subscription Pricing as ISVs Struggle to Accommodate Elastic Infrastructure and Cloud-Scale Operations
10. Novell Acquisition Will Be Catalyst for Linux Market Upheaval During 2011

IDC Predictions 2011: Welcome to the New Mainstream – http://www.idc.com/research/viewtoc.jsp?containerId=225878

1. Worldwide IT Spending Growth Will Be Solid, with Hardware Moderating and Rebounds in Software and Services
2. Emerging Markets Will Continue to Lead Global Growth in IT
3. Public and Private Cloud Adoption Will Surge, Two Cloud "Power Position" Battles Will Enter High Gear, and a Buzzword Will Get Ready to Fade
4. Cloud-Driven Datacenter Transformations Will Pick Up Speed
5. The Mobility Explosion Will Continue — with Huge Device Volumes, New Form Factors, and Billions of Mobile Apps
6. Broadband Networks Will Struggle — and Innovate — to Keep Up
7. Social Business Momentum Will Drive Consolidation, SMB Adoption
8. The Expanding Digital Universe Will Drive Cloud-Friendly Information Infrastructure and Real-Time Analytics for "Big Data"
9. "Intelligent Industries" Will Put Mobility, Social Networking to Work
10. Industry Positions for Customers Demanding "I Want My Web TV!"

2010 UtiliQ Rankings: Top 25 Intelligent Utilities

http://www.idc-ei.com/research/UtiliQ.jsp

In their “Looking Ahead” section, IDC provides a set of guidelines for strategies and investments for companies that want to improve their position:

1. Partner with the customer. “Recent customer backlash in some areas is in large part due to insufficient communication with the customer. Develop a b communications plan to make the customer aware of the long-run advantages of intelligent investments and use pilot programs as a testing ground for customer partnership.”
2. Drive company cultural change.” Becoming a more intelligent utility has a lot to do with people. Your employees need to understand your company’s vision, your strategy for getting there, why it’s important to all major stakeholders – including customers and regulators – and what this all means to your employees on a day-to-day basis.”
3. Improve processes for both "lean" and "green." “Efficient processes drive down the cost of maintaining the current environment and free up resources for innovation and growth.”
4. Make intelligent technology investments.” Find ways to get the best return from your technology investments by ensuring that your spending on information, communications, and energy technologies is in line with the business.”

Jim Carroll
Trending in 2011: 10 Major Trends to Start Thinking About Now!

http://www.jimcarroll.com/2010/10/trending-in-2011-10-major-trends-to-start-thinking-about-now/

1. The expectations gap. "Western society is defined by an increasing divergence between what people expect, and what they will get."
2. Industries blur. "The world of fashion and healthcare are going to merge. We are going to see an increasing number of bio-connectivity health care devices that will be used for the remote monitoring of health care conditions."
3. Energy gets smart. ".. Continued high-speed innovation with renewable energy sources, and velocity with grid-parity: the point in time at which the cost of producing renewable energy equals that of carbon based sources."
4. The collapse of attention spans. "If you don’t know how to think, market and promote at nano-speeds, you’re not ready for the future!"
5. Faster market evolution. "New products flood the market at ever increasing speeds, and fast-consumers snap them up in a moment and evolve their lifestyles quicker."
6. Innovation partnerships. Companies can’t keep up and just innnovate on their own … "enjoy greater success through open innovation and other external innovation partnerships."
7. The fight against workplace boredom. "Organizations are fighting back against boredom by trying to keep staff engaged."
8. American-Idolotry. People love heroes. "The future of workplace and partner renumeration is all about the red-carpet, the spotlight, and the celebration of success!"
9. The big impact of small incrementalism. "Everyone is learning that one way to win the future is by having a lot of small wins that add up to big gains."
10. Communities redefined. Community ergonomics will be a high growth industry. We have a growing senior population, which means communities need to be "rethought, re-designed, and reconstructed."

JWT Intelligence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtTk2J935Bg&feature=player_embedded

1. All the world’s a game
2. The urgency economy
3. Non-commitment culture
4. Eat, pray, tech
5. De-teching
6. Retail as the third space
7. Creative urban renewal
8. Worlds colliding
9. Hyper-personalization
10. Outsourcing self-control

Morgan Stanley
CM Summit, June 7, 2010

http://www.slideshare.net/CMSummit/ms-internet-trends060710final

1. Mobile Internet – Unprecedented Early Stage Growth
2. Innovation — Unprecedented Intensity?
3. Online Advertising — May Be Entering Golden Age, Finally
4. Online Commerce – Mobile Should Be Share Gain Accelerator
5. Communications — Share Shift to Sharing
6. Cloud Computing — Consumer First, Enterprise Next
7. Technology — What’s Next …
8. Beyond Technology — It’s Complicated …

Internet Trends, April 12, 2010

http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/Internet_Trends_041210.pdf

Morgan Stanley on the “Mobile Internet” …

1. Wealth Creation / Destruction is Material in New computing Cycles — Now in Early Innings of Mobile Internet Cycle, the 5th Cycle of Last Half Century.
2. Mobile Ramping Faster than Desktop Internet Dic and Will Be Bigger Than Most Think — 5 Trends Converging (3G + Social Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices).
3. Apple Leading in Mobile Innovation + Impact, for Now — Depth of App Ecosystems + User Experience + Pricing Will Determing Long-Term Winners.
4. Game-Changing Communications / Commerce Platforms (Social Networking + Mobile) Emerging Very Rapidly.
5. Massive Data Growth Driving Carrier / Equipment Transitions.
6. Growth / Monetization Roadmaps Provided by Japan Mobile + Desktop Internet.

Rudolf Melik
Ten Major Trends for 2011 and How They Impact Professional Services and Project Delivery

http://www.psvillage.com/pulse/ten-major-trends-2011-and-how-they-impact-professional

Rudolf, CEO of Tenrox, does a great job overlaying his experience and perspective against Jim Carroll’s map of 10 majory Trends for 2011. Check out his article, but here is a quick blurb from his take on how the workforce will shift to more project-based execution.

• Rudolf on Hollywood movie style execution — “More companies are also adopting a Hollywood movie style execution strategy by bringing people together to shoot the film (execute the project) and then disband the crew (the team) just as quickly as it came together once the film is completed (project is closed).”
• Rudolf on project history over employment history — “Project workers are increasingly giving more importance to the next project they will work on instead of the company they will work at. More and more personal profiles take the form of an individual’s project history rather than their employment history.”

Trend Hunter
2011 Trend Report Samples

http://www.trendreports.com/2011-Trend-Report

1.  Interactive Retail – “Stores focus on customer engagement as primary business strategy.”
2. Social Shopping – “Shopaholics are using social media for networking and retail therapy.”
3. Perpetual Adaptation – “Obsessed with aesthetics, society embarks on the eternal makeover.”
4. Democratic Selling – “Online retailers rely on customer votes to push production.”
5. Radical Rebranding – “Pushing boundaries of reinvention to gain consumer attention.”
6. Hyperrealism – “Real life is simulated in photorealistic artworks that defy deception.”
7. Geriatric Couture – “Seniors become the anti-fashion inspiration for young people.”
8. Augmented Reality – “Augmented reality combines reality and virtuality, offering a new way to imagine.”
9. Half Formal – “Classed up business casual is a reflection of the new corporate attitude.”

What else is important that I should know about or have on my radar and heat map?

“If you don’t design your life, someone else will design it for you and you just might not like their idea of balance.” – Nigel Marsh

Work-life balance continues to be an ongoing challenge as the boundaries between work and life blend and blur in our “always on”, increasingly connected world.  If you embrace the challenge, and make small changes, you can win the ongoing battle of work-life balance.

In my experience, work-life balance is really a matter of mindset, setting boundaries and buffers, and driving from my life style (i.e. choosing the jobs and paths that match the life style I want to create).  To master work-life balance, means both knowing the nature of the beast (i.e. the job I’ve chosen) and my personal habits and patterns.  To set effective boundaries, I’ve found it helps to think of my life as a portfolio and set minimums or maximums for key Hot Spots in my life, such as career, body, relationships, etc., and stay flexible in my approach.

Nigel Marsh on Work-Life Balance
Nigel Marsh is author of Fat,Forty,Fired: One Man’s Frank,Funny,and Inspiring Account of Losing His Job and Finding His Life.   Nigel was a corporate warrior that was eating too much, drinking too much, working too hard, and neglecting the family.   He spent a year off of work with his wife and children in an attempt to turn his life around and address work-life balance.  In the end, he found it was easy to balance work and life when there was no work, which wasn’t very useful when there wasn’t any money.   He’s spent the 7 years since, struggling with, studying, and writing about work-life balance.

Nigel shares his lessons learned and observations in this short and inspiring video about how to win the battle for work-life balance.

Video – Nigel Marsh – Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle
This is Nigel Marshes TED talk on how work-life balance is an ongoing battle:

• TEDxSydne – Nigel Marsh – Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXM7MpoVAD0

An Idea on Work-Life Balance Worth Spreading
At the heart of Nigel’s presentation, is an idea worth spreading.

Nigel writes:

“Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life.  With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life … moreover,  I think, it can transform society … because if enough people do it … we can change society’s definition of success … away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money dies wins to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well-lived looks like … and that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.”

Nigel’s 4 Observations on Work-Life Balance

1. If society is to make any progress, we need an honest debate.
2. Face the truth, government and institutions aren’t going to solve this problem for us.
3. We have to be careful with the timeframe that we choose upon which to judge our balance.
4. We need to approach balance in a balanced way.

Observation #1 – If society is to make any progress, we need an honest debate.
On Observation #1, Nigel makes the following points:

• Flexi time, dress down Friday, maternity leave just mask the core issue.
• Certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged with a young family.
• Acknowledge the reality
• Don’t fall into the trap – work long hard hours at jobs they hate to enable things to buy they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.

Observation #2 – Face the truth, government and institutions aren’t going to solve this problem for us.
On observation #2, Nigel makes the following points:

• Take control and responsibility for the types of lives we want to lead.
• If you don’t design your life, someone else will design it for you and you just might not like their idea of balance
• Never put the hands of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation.  Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with, even the good, well-intentioned companies.
• We have to be responsible for setting and enforcing the boundaries that we want in our lives.

Observation #3 – We have to be careful with the timeframe that we choose upon which to judge our balance.
On observation #3, Nigel makes the following points:

• We need to be realistic, we can’t do it all in one day.
• We need to elongate the time frame upon which we judge the balance in our life, but we need to elongate it, without falling into the trap of, “I’ll have a life when I retire” … “when my kids have left home” … “When my wife has divorced me” … “my health is failing” … “I have no mates or interests left” … a day is too short … after I retire is too long … there’s got to be a middle way.

Observation #4 – We need to approach balance in a balanced way.
On observation #4, Nigel makes the following points:

• Being a fit 10 hour a day office rat isn’t more balanced, it’s more fit.
• There are other parts to life … there’s the intellectual side, there’s the emotional side, there’s the spiritual side … and to be balanced, I believe we have to attend to all of those areas, not just those 50 stomach crunches.
• The small things matter.

Enjoy the video and share any of your observations or lessons learned in the game of work-life balance.

My Related Posts

• Work is a Rubber Ball that Bounces Back
• Setting Boundaries and Buffers
• Life Frame

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” — James Openheim

One of my former managers is going on their next adventure and we got to talking about how you know when you’re making the right moves and what really matters. It really comes down to just a few vital things that you can use to stay the course of life.

It’s easy to lose ourselves as we bend ourselves more and more to fit into this situation or that particular job or that particular place.  Eventually you can break yourself against your own values or lose your lust for life.  How do you get back to what really matters?  As your job changes under your feet or as the world around you changes in ways you didn’t expect, how do you find your way forward? … How do you get back “on path”? … or how do you get “on path” to begin with?  You need a simple mental model of your path.

Don’t Break Yourself Against Your Values
If you don’t have a simple mental model of your path, then you can lose yourself in the process of adapting to your world.  You stop spending time in the things that you enjoy from the inside out.  You take on more things that suck your life force out, while giving up the things that fuel your fire.  You start to change yourself in ways to fit the mold that break you against yourself … it’s a slippery slope and it can be tough to know what to hold on to, or what to let go.  Life’s a crazy game of Chutes and Ladders but with a twist … only you can decide how to respond and what success looks like for the life you want to lead.

A Simple Model for What Really Matters
I think the ultimate keys to a simple mental model are this:

1. Who do you want to be?
2. What experiences do you want to create?

From there, you can balance against a small set of inputs and drivers:

1. Are you fulfilling your mission or purpose?  (What do you feel compelled to do or what puts the spring in your step?)
2. Are you giving your best where you have your best to give?
3. Are you living your values?
4. Are you spending time in your strengths or your super skills?
5. Are you spending more time on the things you want, and less time on the things you don’t?

Why Does This Model Help You Achieve More of What Matters
Let’s walkthrough why this model can help you achieve more of what counts:

• By spending more time in your strengths (your natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing), you give yourself limitless energy and limitless capacity to carve a path forward in a bountiful way.  The opposite is also true, if you spend all your time in your weaknesses, then just like the game Gauntlet, you can actually feel your life force running out.
• By giving your best where you have your best to give, you unleash your unique, competitive advantage in a Darwin world of survival of the fittest.  At the same time, you also unleash your unique contribution to the world in a way where you are the world’s number one candidate for that unique position.  This is a Blue Ocean strategy way of driving your day, instead of competing in the Red Ocean.
• By living your values, you set the stage for more happiness and fulfillment in your life.  If you value adventure, then lead a life of adventure.  If you value family, then make your family a priority.  If you value learning, then lead a life of continuous learning.  The key here is to boil your set of values down to a handful of five that you prioritize the rest of your life with.  This is your personal recipe for getting fire in the belly.
• By spending more time in the things you want, you spend your ultimate, unique, and priceless resource … your time.  Some say time is all we’ve got.  By finding ways to spend more time in your strengths and more time in your values, you automatically improve the quality of your time.  This doesn’t mean you have to chase after the wild blue yonder, but instead, you can grow happiness right under your feet.
• By fulfilling your mission or purpose, you bring it all together in a compelling way forward.  As Covey might say, it becomes your “North Star” or your “internal compass.”

Stack the Deck in Your Favor for More Happiness
Here is one more key.  It’s the key to happiness.  You have two chances at happiness all the time.  One is how happy are you, in the moment.  The other is how happy are you with your life?  The first case is about how happy you feel in the moment.  The other is about fulfillment.  By spending more time in your strengths, values, and the experiences you want to create, the more often you’ll experience happiness in the moment.  The more you drive your purpose and give your best where you have your best to give, the more directly you’ll address fulfillment.

So that, my friends, is my story of what really matters.

If you want a step by step approach on building this simple mental model, see my free eBook, You 2.0.

Photo by DaizyB.