that’s it.  easy as pie.  but if it’s so easy, why won’t you do it?  because you never got past the first part of step #1.  you never closed your eyes, which is essential to developing a vision (dream) for yourself because your sight is the enemy of your vision. it’s counterintuitive because seeing is how we make sense of our world.  but sight, which we have grown so dependent on, is also the same thing that prevents us from imagining and believing in a better life. why?  because sight convinces us that what we see is reality for both today and tomorrow.  but both of those are lies.

gregory burn, tackles the first lie (today) in his book, iconoclast, where he explains how our eyes are simply digital cameras that transfer light to the brain, where our mind makes sense of what we are seeing based on past experiences. therefore, one’s sight is not reality, but instead contrived perceptions manufactured by the brain and based on old news.

in terms of the second lie (tomorrow), when we take our current sight (what we are seeing/feeling/experiencing today) and use it to predict our future (i’m single today so i’ll never get married, i couldn’t find a job for the last two months so i’ll never find one, etc.), we close our eyes to the true possibilities that surround us, waiting to be discovered.  hence the great proverb: “you think with your eyes so you are easy to fool.”

it is not until we can remove ourselves from our past and present (close our eyes) and dream-thus infusing our future with imagination, creativity, & new options-that we can actually begin to change life as we know it.  the choice is up to you: will you close your eyes and dream?

if you choose to close your eyes and dream, let me know in the comments.

since reading the post i have not been able to drop this concept from mind but, unfortunately, i haven’t done anything about it.  i find myself with some incredibly difficult business challenges to solve yet no time to even give them the five minutes they deserve.  i complain about having no time.  but in some weird twisted way i even notice that sometimes my complaining is secretly mixed with bragging – as if the fact that i am so tied up with meetings is a testament to how important i am.  terrible.  but at the end of the day, one thing is clear and that is that nothing changes…i make nothing.

so this week i am trying something new.  monday will be spent in meetings getting alignment with the team and client on what needs to get accomplished that week.  tuesday through friday i have blocked off every morning from the time i get into the office until 1pm to “make;” i am calling them “maker morning sessions.”  1pm through the rest of the day will be for meetings, emails and the likes.  i’m not sure how this will work but i think i owe it to myself, my team, and my client to take some time to shut up, stop managing, and make something.  we’ll see how it goes.

anyone want to join me in my experiment?

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p.s. while searching for images for this post i found this image…thought you might like it:

i like this quote because it contains two important ideas for generating new ideas: consume everything relevant to you and steal.

#1 consume everything relevant to you. inspiration may seem to come out of thin air but it doesn’t come from nowhere.  in order to be able to generate ideas, one can not just sit on the couch and wait for an aha.  instead we must consume, consume, and consume more.  discover your passions/loves and consume them.  don’t know them, consume different things until you do.  if you take nothing in, you don’t give yourself the chance to spit something brilliant out.

#2 steal. once you consume, feel free to steal from it.  too often we spend too much time trying to invent a new wheel and we fail to recognize that most wheels that need to be created probably exist in some form.  we make an old wheel new by taking what we have consumed and providing a new twist on it, such as: taking it to a new medium, designing it for a different target, using it in a different context, pushing it to the next level, combining it with something else, working together on it with someone else, showcasing it through a different lens, or filtering it through our experience.

the brilliance is created when what you have taken in speaks to you and is pieced together in what seems to be a new idea…for now.  if you find someone beat you to the idea, feel free to start over at #1 or #2.

(quote discovered and stolen from kissmyblackads several months ago)

1. when do my loved ones call me? look for patterns in the things the people closest to you consistently reach out to you for.  are you a great problem solver or adviser?  perhaps you’re just a great listener or happen to know a lot about a certain subject.
2. what are people often celebrating about me? the things that people celebrate are the things that make you stand out from the crowd.  what are they?
3. what are people telling me are my weaknesses? often our greatest weaknesses stem from our greatest strengths.  people often tell me that i am not patient enough.  while this is true, i know that it stems from one of my unique factors.  i am an action-oriented person, which means i get things done.
4. how do i spend my free time? what are you doing when no one is making you do anything?  what do you do when you are determining what you do with your time?
5. what has previously made me successful in life? think of a time when you were extremely successful,  what specifically was about you that led to your success?

still looking?  ask your friends and loved ones some of these same questions.  like i said, it’s some times easier to identify what makes some else unique.  after all, there has to be something about you that your friends wish they could do.  there are also quite a few tests that can help you find a few answers.  if you’re looking for a place to start, try here.

which one of these questions or methods worked best for you?  what other ways  do you know to help people identify their unique factors?  leave your answers in the comments below.

so while the work must get done, the direct result does not come from the energy the leader pours into the project but from the energy the leader pours into his people.  while this is perhaps a simple concept to understand, putting it into practice can prove much more difficult because it often requires different behaviors and skills from what got you there in the first place.  nevertheless, the benefits of adopting this philosophy are well worth it.  here are three benefits that immediately come to mind:

1. you will see more growth in and loyalty from the people you lead as you help them become great
2. you will have more impact on the problem you are trying to solve.  leveraging twenty people with different talents will typically yield better results than any one individual alone
3. you will free yourself from the details and minutia of the job, which will allow you to focus on the larger picture

i encourage you to try it on for a week.  before you respond to the email, decide who leads the pitch, write the deck,  or walk into the office you should mumble to yourself one time, “it’s not about me, it’s what happens through me”  and see what happens.

“we forget how much our perspectives influence our perceptions.”

not too long ago i saw this tweet and it made me think: if you don’t like the way things are going or appear, try changing your perspective.  feeling down and out?  can’t find a solution?  boss isn’t happy with your performance?  try changing your perspective.

• make the friendship a priority: great brands make their consumers their focus.  they are constantly looking for new ways to engage them, help them, surprise them, and make them smile.  they wake up everyday thinking about how they can make their customers’ lives better.
• hug it out: great brands not only only have rational connections with their customers but they also have strong emotional connections.  the relationship between brand and consumer has to be more than just transactional to be sustainable.
• the miracle of free long distance: the best time to engage your customer is not just when they are in your store.  thanks to technology (web, mobile, social media, etc) there are a million relatively inexpensive ways to talk with your friends.  just because they are not in your face, it’s not an excuse to ignore them.
• face time: although technology is great, there is no time like “face time” with your customer.  when they are purposefully choosing to spend time/money with you, recognize that moment as a privilege.  there is no time like face time to deliver on your promise and remind them why they chose you.

application to life. all of these ideas are applicable to individuals.  for example, while it’s important to spend face time with your audience (employers, employees, friends, family, etc), never under estimate the power of talking to them via other channels.  it would be impossible to talk to my entire network all of the time, but i am always amazed at how much they all know about me from following my updates on facebook.  think about these four tenets, what could you be doing better?

ultimately, we are looking for our unique passions, strengths, talents, personality, etc.  to search for the answer we can look to several places.  below are a five tools to help you in this discovery phase.

1. strengthfinder 2.0 – this is an amazing tool that will help you identify your top 5 talents/strengths.  I wrote a post on how the philosophy behind this book changed my life.  you can see my results to the leadership version here.
2. myers-briggs – this is perhaps the most popular personality test out, designed to bring insight into how you prefer to interact with the world, handle information, make decisions, and deal with structure.  there is a facebook version here.  here are my results.
3. google/facebook/twitter/linkedin – welcome to the new millennium where jobs are won and lost in social media.  What can you learn about yourself when you google your name (even no results says a lot), survey your facebook wall and photos, analyze your tweets, or read your linkedin profile.  I guarantee they say a lot about you.  if you have trouble getting anything from this exercise, put yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer (employer, investor, etc).  now what do you see?  Here are my google results; you can access my social media profiles by clicking on the links above.
4. ask around – remember, your brand is in the mind of the individual. whatever they think, so your brand is.  consequently, if you want to know about your brand, ask around.  ask your boss, employees, friends, parents, and anyone who knows you.  if you need a tool to give to others, perhaps you can try jullien gordon’s superhero survey.
5. authentic happiness questionnaires – the study of positive psychology is booming and, as far as i know, the authentic happiness center at upenn is a leader in the field.  They have several questionnaires that you may find useful.

along your path to discovery, keep a list of everything that you think is unique and/or core to who you are.  we will use it later.

related posts:

1. the real definition of a brand
2. what do people think of when they think about your brand?

there is always something competing for your time.  another blog to read, another email to send, another call to make, another urgent meeting, etc.  the constant distractions can be detrimental to accomplishing the things that are necessary in order for you to make progress.  if you are having trouble making the type of progress you want to be making, perhaps you should develop a “top 5.”

your top 5 is a list of the top 5 things that must get accomplished that week. in an ideal world, you would have annual objectives and a top 5 for each quarter that laddered up to these objective(s).  afterwards, you would develop a top 5 for each week that will help ensure you reach your quarterly goals.

your top 5 should be prioritized, meaning, the #1 item on your list should be the one thing that will really hurt your progress if you don’t get it accomplished. after establishing this weekly prioritization of what has to get done, you should manage your schedule accordingly.

here is my personal top 5 for this week, which is heavily focused on life management because i believe mine is a little out of wack right now.

detavio’s personal top 5 – w/o 7.20.09

1. reinstitute my morning routine (pray, exercise, and swim/run daily).  regardless of sleep, i feel unstoppable when this is in place.
2. be healthy.  eat healthy and go to sleep no later than 11pm everyday (the latter will be extremely hard for me).
3. set new personal goals for the remainder of the year
4. publish a short-series on how to develop your personal brand
5. analyze mid-year performance against annual globalhue objectives and revise quarterly priorities as necessary.

it’s monday, do you know where you will be spending your energy?