If you read my original post about SpinVox a few weeks ago you will have seen the testimonial from one of my clients about how great he thought the system was.

Just to remind you, it is a free facility that allows you to call a service, dictate a message and have that e mailed to you within minutes.

Well Carl is a busy person but I managed to track him down and get him on the phone to find out more.

He is an accountant and the service is free but listen to this short telephone conversation to find out why he would even be willing to pay for it!

 So if you are still not convinced by Carls experience, here are 7 great ways you can benefit from using SpinVox:

1.   Capture reminders of things you need to do as soon as they occur to you.

2.   Instantly record your flashes of inspiration as and when they spring to mind

3.   Use it to notify staff members about something when you are out of the office without interrupting what they have to do with a (probably unwlecome) phone call

4.   If you can't remember jokes and you hear a great one, just SpinVox it!

5.   Record the address and contact details of someone you have met and have them typed up when you get back to your inbox.

6.   Make quick notes after a meeting of your main action points.

7.   At the end of a training course call in and record the top three things you have taken away from the course that you definitely will put into action.

Try it out and let me know how you get on.

 

So it is just a few short days into the New Year and if you set your New Year's Resolutions on 31st December, how are you getting on with them?

Have you kept to your commitment or, like millions of others, have you already wavered in your pledge to stop or start whatever it was you decided to in your drunken midnight haze?

Many rely on gritted teeth discipline to try and seem themselves through to keeping their resolutions but unfortunately, except for the stubborn few, this is not enough.

The reason many people fail to keep to the goals they set on New Year's Eve is because of this process called the "Cycle of Performance"

In our mind we have a collection of mini self concepts about just about everything we do.

These collectively form our identity - it is who we are (or at least who we believe ourselves to be).

We will take actions that are consistent with who we are and get results accordingly.

Consciously and subconsiously, we will reinforce our concept of ourselves by the observation and analysis of the results we get.

So we find ourselves within this loop.

The problem with the impulsive New Year's Resolution sustained by grit and determination is that we are working from the outside in.

Let's say for example that we decided to start exercising every day as part of our commitment for the New Year.

On days 1,2 and 3 we probably find it easy to get down to the gym.

Day 4 is a bit of a struggle and day 5 we might have to really drag ourselves down there.

Day 6 something crops up and unfortunately we had to miss it.

Day 7, we might go back but day 8 and 9 was very hard to find the time because we went back to work etc etc Blah Blah Blah.

And so quite quickly we find ourselves back where we were on the 31st of December.

Now the reason for this is quite simple.

Of course we have to take actions to do get the results we want, but willpower only goes so far.

The reason we stop is because in our identity, our self concept, we do not believe ourselves to be the sort of person who goes to the gym every day….if we did, we would be already doing it!

So the secret to keeping your New Year's Resolution is to work on the INSIDE as well as the OUTSIDE.

There are 3 simple steps to doing this:

1.   VISUALISE yourself being the sort of person who does exercise (or whatever you are starting/stopping) everyday and IMAGINE yourself like that person - do this twice a day with as much emotion and realism as you can muster

2.   AFFIRM that you are the sort of person who exercises every day - say positive, supportive and uplifing things abouthow fit, healthy and energetic you are.

3.   CELEBRATE the success of keeping to your resolution.

Steps 1 and 2 will quickly help you shift your self concept to one that is consistent with the actions you are taking and so you are more likely to keep doing them.

Step 3 will reinforce to your brain that taking these new actions is a pleasurable experience and that you should keep doing them.

Combined together, the three steps form a potent force that will help you stick to your resolutions and help you become the person you want to be.

Whilst the DOING bit is important, you have to get the BEING bit right to make those actions stick.

Try it out and let me know how you get on.

+++++STOP PRESS++++

Stunning news…..

Has the violence in Gaza ceased?

Is the cholera epidemic coming to an end in Zimbabwe?

No….

Britney Spears is going to try and stop biting her nails in 2009.

Bet you are delighted to hear that and I am sure the world will be a better place for it.

Oh by the way Happy New Year to you too….

So a topical issue combined with one of the most featured (and certainly recently controversial) stars of our times and we have a winning story on our hands.

Another new year and if you are reading this then no doubt you have made or are considering making your resolutions for 2009.

Before you do, maybe running the risk of being just a tad superficial with your resolutions for 2009, have a quick look at my New Year's Resolution article from a couple of days ago.

There you will find a way of making sure your resolutions actually mean something to you and therefore are more likely to be achieved.

So once you have decided what your resolution is, are you going to keep it and if so how?

Well many people rely on good old will power and determination to keep to the commitments they make on New Year's eve, usually when the clock is striking midnight.

The trouble is with this will power thing is that it often does not last very long.

I take my hat off to those who can make a decision, start (or stop) a habit and then keep to that for the rest of their days.

However most people I know (and I include myself in this) have in the past fallen by the wayside within the first few weeks or more likely the first few days.

WIll Power and Determination are Not Enough…The Usual Story

January 1st, 2nd and 3rd are probably quite easy and our new thing (stopping smoking, starting exercising, reading our goals daily etc) is easy to do.

Then perhaps by the 4th or 5th we get back to work and are doing what we usually do.

Still we persist and whilst it might be a bit of a struggle, we still keep up with our new regime.

Then perhaps around the 6th or 7th of January, something comes up that either gets in the way of our new commitment or we weaken and go back to the bad habit.

We berate ourselves, grumble a little bit and then try to get back on to the path of righteousness on the 8th.

Maybe we keep to it for the 9th but something a little less stressful allows us to deviate from the path once more on the 10th and come the 11th we start making excuses why we can't today (but we promise we will get back to it tomorrow).

And so the slippery slidy slope to reverting back to how we were on the 31st December has begun and despite the best of intentions our New Year's Resolution fails to get us past the end of the second week of the year….AGAIN!

Here is a Simple Solution To This Age Old Problem

Here is a technique I have used my self in the past and will be using again this year to help me GUARANTEE that I will stick to my resolve to do good stuff.

First of all why it works.

Robert Cialdini in his great book "Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion" talked about how we have certain behaviour patterns hard wired into our very being that pretty much work EVERY single time.

Dan Ariely in his book "Predictably Irrational" also shows us how there are certain types of behaviour that whilst irrational are actually predictable.

One of the things that Robert Cialdini talks about is that of commitment and consistency and in his book he says of commitment:

"If I can get you to make a commitment (that is to take a stand, to go on record), I will have set the stage for your automatic and ill-considered consistency with that earlier commitment.  Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand"

So this commitment that we make actually can be used to help us keep consistent with it as time goes by.

Now many people think they are making a commitment on New Year's eve when they make their resolution but in reality it is just an "I wish" statement that they think the turning of the New Year will help them fulfil.

We could go into the power of goal setting (writing them down, reviewing them daily, creating a plan, taking small consistent actions every day) but despite the value of that, the only people who do that are the really successful ones (mmm there's a thought!) so we won't go there.

So lets go back to making the New Year's Wish (like Britney's desire to stop biting her nails) and seeing how we can supercharge that tentative effort for self development into something that may actually work.

 A Check Mark a Day Helps Make The Resolution Stay

So back to that commitment and consistency thing again.

If you take a piece of paper and create a little chart with a column for your resolution(s) and then 31 columns (one for each day of January, you have your own ready made New Year's Resolution Progress Sheet.

It might look something like this:

Let say you were going to stop smoking and start exercising, you would write those two resolutions in the relevant box.

Then all you have to do is every day you have a clear day with no cigarettes (or what ever it is you are stopping doing) then you just place a simple tick in the column for that day.

You would do the same for the new habits you are going to develop.

Now the G, S and B on the form stand for Gold, Silver and Bronze and this is a way of giving yourself some flexibility in just how much you do each day.

So if you want to start exercising daily think about what you would consider the absolut minimum you would let yourself do and still feel you could, hand on heart, have kept to your resolution.  This is your BRONZE level.

Then you go to the other end of the spectrum and decide what you consider would be the amount of exercise to make you feel especially proud of yourself - how you were going above and beyond what could normally be expected for that resolution.  This is your GOLD level.

Then with those two extremes, find something mid-way between and call that your SILVER level.

Here is How It Works

So when you do keep to your resolution, you now have a little bit of flexibility to ease off a little or even push yourself even more depending upon how you feel.

What this sheet gives you is a visual way of keeping score - a way of monitoring your progress.

But more importantly, the sense of satisfaction you get from making a simple check mark when you have kept to your resolution for that day is extremely rewarding.

Over a few days, as you see the check marks build up, you will have a reminder of the progress you are making.

BUT…and here is the key…When you get a run of consistent check marks, the last thing you will want to do is to break a winning streak.

So whilst the idea of keeping to the resolution is appealing and you know you will benefit from it (otherwise why make the resolution in the first place), what you will begin to strive for is to keep up that onging run of check marks.

And you can only do that by sticking to your resolution….

There is method in the madness.

Then once you have got to the stage where you are doing something every day, if you haven't already done so, the next goal is to get all the check marks to at least the silver level and then eventually to the gold level.

You will find this is an extremely compelling way to stick to your resolution.

So my gift to you to help you stick to your 2009 New Year's Resolutions, is this sheet which you can download here (just right click and "save as" to your desk top)

It is a pdf document and has a sheet for January 2009 and then a blank sheet that you can use any time of the year when you want to start and instil a new habit.

Download it, try it out and let me know how you get on in the comments below.

If you have an even better suggestion for sticking to New Year's Resolutions then let me know in the comments below.

P.S  So Ms Spears, if you ever get to read this and you truly do want to stop biting your nails, just download the New Year's Resolution Progress Sheet and start adding those daily check marks.

 

I always find the week between Christmas and New Year is a bit of a no man's land.

The festive balloon that  had been hyped to full capacity from sometime in August when the first Christmas cards started to appear in the shops has deflated - rather more rapidly than previous years (or is that just me?)

Next year is still somewhere in the future and doesn't really exist yet and with only a couple of days left before the next party, it hardly seems worth starting anything.

So I feel like I am in limbo which according to the Oxford English Dictionary is "an intermediate state of condition awaiting decision".

I am sure I am not the only one feeling this way and I am pretty confident over the years, many others have felt the same way too.

Of course I can't prove that but please go with me on this one as the next statement in this post sort of rests on this premise…

Perhaps this is why our forefathers used this time for introspection and reflection on the deeds of the past year and how the next 12 months could be even better…

And so the New Year's Resolution was born.

Ok lets get past the dreary stuff and rather long winded introduction to a topical and timely subject and face the facts.

It is December, in a few days it will be January.

Of course straddling that annual monthly changeover between the two coldest months of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) are the antics of the New Year's Eve celebrations.

One of which is the setting of our New Year's resolution.

Do a quick search on "New Year's Resolutions" in google and you will get a raft of articles (like this one) about the topic.

As I write this it on the last Sunday of the year you can expect every newspaper published today will have something about this annual dabbling with temporary goal setting.

The "top ten" format is a popular one and so just from a quick scan of the interweb here are a handful of these classic lists for you:

Top Ten New Year's Resolutions - A Collection

1.  Lose Weight and get fit 2.  Stick to a budget 3.  Debt Reduction 4.  Quality time with family 5.  Find my soul mate 6.  Quit Smoking 7.  Find a better job 8.  Learn something new 9.  Volunteer and help others 10.  Get Organised

1.  Spend time with loved ones 2.  Get fit 3.  Lose weight 4.  Stop smoking 5.  Enjoy life more 6.  Stop drinking 7.  Get out of Debt 8.  Learn something new 9.  Be more charitable 10 Re-organise my life

1. Get a better job 2.  Get into shape 3.  Spend less/pay off debt 4.  Give up a bad habit 5.  Get a better education 6.  Find a mate 7.  Take a trip 8.  Be more organised 9.  Find a hobby 10. Buy a house or move

You can see these are quite general but across the lists there is a degree of consistency and if you have not set some of these yourself I am sure you know people who have. 

Of course New Year's Resolutions need not be confined to the general.

A deeper search on the topic reveals top ten New Year's Resolutions that include recommendations for some of Chicago's top athletes, Scientists' top ten (#1 is to protect Americans from unsafe drugs, toys and products) and financial resolutions (mmm editors jumping on the credit crunch bandwagon again!).

 Breaking Your New Year's Resolutions

Now I am sure we don't mean to do it, and I am convinced we all set out with the best of intentions but let's be honest with each other here - how many times have you set a resolution and find you have broken it?

I hold my hand up to that one too and I think just about every year I have done the make and break dance, probably with pretty much every resolution you can see on those lists above.

Apart from the "lose weight" one - I am proud to be blessed with a lean and slender physique  and if any of you decide to call me skinny I shall ban you for life

If you do conduct your own search for New Year's resolution tips, in addition to finding lots of "top ten" lists you will also find plenty of articles about how to prevent yourself from breaking them.

So why do we break them?

There are many reasons it could be and it will be different for each person but if I reflect back on my own experiences I would say that each resolution has been an ideal - a wish.

They are usually made in the throes of Auld Langs Ayne with little thought to their relevance or impact on my life beyond the "well it would be nice if …."

So what  I have done is superficial goal setting at the very best and at worst tentative and impulsive wishful thinking.

Creating Better New Year's Resolutions - Ones You Are More Likely to Keep

What can we do about it then?

We could look at the whole goal setting thing and explore how to set better goals but I think there is something more fundamental that we can do to help us make and keep better New Year's Resolutions.

As I have reflected back on my own experiences of setting and achieving goals in my personal and professional lives, I have noticed that the more relevant to my current situation the goals were, the more likely I achieved them.

What do I mean by that?

Well of course getting into better shape and improving my fitness is always going to be a good idea, but I need to take into account what my exercise preferences are, just how fit (or not) I am right now and what opportunities I can use to assist me in the process.

The closer I can align the changes I desire through the setting of a New Year's resolution to my current situation the better the quality of that resolution.

Whilst we can make huge changes in the way we do things, such radical instantaneous adjustments are rare.

So the better understanding we have of the incremental steps needed to keep that resolution, and the closer that first step is to where we are right now, the more likely we are to keep it.

And it all starts with a high level of self awareness and introspection.

As I started to look at my own resolution setting I turned to the advice of Internet business guru and coach Rich Shefren.

I am currently part of Rich's business coaching programme and his wisdom extends beyond just the nuts and bolts of building a multi-million dollar business.

Whilst watching Rich on his most recent live coaching session he was talking about the difference between success and failure and suggested that the New Year is a great time to reassess where you are and where you want to be.

For the last few years Rich has carried out exactly the same process to get his mind in gear for focussing on making the impending New Year his most successful yet.

5 Questions To Guarantee New Year Resolution Success

He asks himself these 5 questions at the end of every year and uses his answers to help shape his New Year:

• What were my greatest accomplishments of the last year?
• What were my biggest disappointments of the last year?
• How did I limit myself in the last year and how can I stop that?
• What did I learn from these last three questions?
• How can I use this information to make the next year unrivalled?

By giving himself the gift of this feedback, he is able to quickly identify what is working for him and continue doing more of that as well as putting his finger on the shortcomings that have held him back.

The output from this exercise is a better understanding and realisation of where he is right now and what he needs to do to move himself forward but more importantly what he needs to stop doing or change that has been holding him back.

You might want to see these questions in action on Rich's blog amd how he answered them for his 2007 New Year and  2008 New Year.

I am a firm believer in modelling what successful people do (if you want the results they have achieved) and so I shall be sitting down with my journal this afternoon and working through those questions myself to help set up my 2009 to be my best year yet.

Not only will I get my 2009 on track before it has begun, but I am pretty sure when it comes to midnight on Wednesday, the quality and longevity of my New Year's Resolution will be far superior.

So go get a piece of paper and a pen, find a quite place and work through those questions to see what comes up. 

I can guarantee that your New Year's Resolution setting will be much better because of you new found realisations and who know's, this year might be the first year you stick with them?

Let me know how you get on with this and what differences it made to your New Year by leaving me a comment below.

P.S. Keep your eye on the blog over the next week as I will share with you some other proven techniques to helping you stick with your resolutions.

 

Watch this short video or read the rest of this post to find out how you can sign up for and start using a really impressive free voice to text transcription service that you can use from your mobile phone

I was out walking the dog the other day and found myself in the middle of a muddy field miles away from the dry, warm comfort of home trying to keep track of Jess as she scurried around looking for sticks to be thrown.

It was early evening, the sun had gone down, it was cold and so I was wrapped up in multiple layers barely recognisable under so much clothing.

Because it was dark, keeping track of Jess was easy because she had one of those flashing blue and red lights on her collar. 

When a dog needs to be walked twice a day in and in winter that means two walks in complete darkness on some days you go through these collar lights quite quickly and so on this day we had a brand new one.

I think we must have changed brands recently because this flashing blue and red light was illuminating pretty much half of Oxfordshire.

I half expected to arrive back home to find the Royal Air Force Police on my doorstep to complain about ruining the night vision of their pilots as they fly overhead in their helicopters! With all the jobs they have to do I bet they don't expect that sort of treatment from the locals!

So it was whilst watching Jess adding to the local lighting footprint (undoubtedly being track by some foreign power's spy satellite) that my mobile phone went off.

It was now a race against time to remove the gloves, unzip my waterproof coat, unzip my fleece jacket, undo the zip on my walking trousers' pocket, fumble in the pocket to retrieve my phone from my hankerchief, keys and loose change, before the phone switched to voicemail.

After much cursing and cavorting I found the phone, dragged it out, spilt the rest of the contents of my pocket onto the muddy field and dropped my gloves in a puddle.

Fortunately I managed to catch the caller before they were subjected to my daily voicemail message which sometimes only needs a powerpoint presentation to be a fully fledged seminar on why I can't answer the phone right now.

It turned out to be my buddy John Cremer who uses improvisational techniques when working with clients.  He also runs The Mayday Players who are an impressive and highly entertaining improvisational theatre company.

Now John and I have been working together on a project with the Academy of Chief Executives which we completed on Monday (we co-facilitated their most recent Speaker Showcase event on Monday) but when John phoned, we were still going through the preparations for the event.

"Michael, it is John….I have got a great idea for something we can do on Monday and I am in the car right now and want to tell you before I forget"

"Why don't you write it down?" I asked

"Because I am in the car and don't have a pen and I know you will remember it…"

Now John and I are completely different people and when it comes to thinking, we work at completely different ends of the spectrum.  John is totally right brain dominant and even chaos is far too organised and structured for him whereas I am very logical and systematic in the way I think.

The man is utterly brilliant at what he does but trying to get him to focus at all on anything for longer than a nanosecond is like trying make a pig sing - the results aren't very good and you will only upset the pig!

The laughs we have had as we have seen the utter conflict and confusion in our individual styles as they have come together on this project have been frequent.

So John told me what it was and I made a mental note of it but I said to John "Have you ever heard of SpinVox?"

"Spinvox….?" He said

And then there was a short pause…..

"No…never heard of that?"

Had I been with him I am sure that I would have seen his eyes glaze over, roll over into the back of their sockets and see him wither into a "too much information" overload state - it is sort of like the thinking equivalent of the foetal position.

"Yes SpinVox." I said "It is a free service that allows you to dictate short voice messages that are immediately transcribed into text for you and emailed directly to you.  If you had been signed up for it, you could have phoned in, recorded what you wanted to remember and have the text sent to you via email"

It still seemed like too much for John to take in without me being there to draw pictures, so I put together the video you will see at the top of this post to explain just how easy it is to sign up and use and if you prefer to read more about it, then do read on.

What is SpinVox?

SpinVox is an impressive box of tricks that creates a very easy to use and convenient way of capturing those ideas that come to mind that we want to capture but often don't have the means to write them down.

Kenny Harris, one of the brilliant speakers from the Professional Speakers Association, recommends that you always carry around a small notebook and pen to capture those ideas that come to mind and since hearing that from him a couple of years ago I have always done that.

It is something I now also recommend, and still do, but there have been occasions, for whatever reason, when I have found myself with something I absolutely must make a note of but have neglected to carry said notebook and pen with me.

Then whilst working with a client about a year ago, they recommended that I try SpinVox out…and I am glad I did.

They have a number of paid for services such as the voicemail to text conversion, but their memo function where you can ring in a short message on your mobile phone and have it transcribed is absolutely free.

How do you sign up for SpinVox?

This is extremely simple.

All you need to do is go to www.Spinvox.com and follow the prompts from the "Get SpinVox" Link at the top of the page (see below) and follow the selections for "Memo" or go direct to sign up page, select your country and "memo" and press submit.

SpinVox is available in the UK, US/Canada, France, Germany and Spain in the native languages for those countries.

You will need to give them your mobile phone number together with your e mail address and after clicking on a confirmation e mail, you are all set to go.

How do you use SpinVox?

Once you are set up, it is extremely easy.

I recommend you programme the SpinVox telephone number (sent to you in the confirmation e mail) into one of your speed-dial options so you can access it with a single press of a key.

Here is all you need to do:

1. Your amazing flash of inspiration comes to mind
2. You dial in to the SpinVox system
3. You say what you want to capture
4. You check your e mail inbox next time you log in.

It really is as simple as that.

What Could You Use SpinVox For?

I am sure there must be dozens of things you could use SpinVox for, but here are just three to get you started that initially I have found the most useful:

1. To capture those reminders of things you must do at some point in the future.
2. To dictate short e mail messages that you can later cut and paste when you send the email
3. To capture those brilliant flashes of inspiration that come to you when you are furthest away from the nearest pencil

So if you want to have the peace of mind to know those little things that come to mind that you need to remember are going to be captured and stored where you know you definitely will retrieve them then simple sign up for SpinVox at www.Spinvox.com and start using it immediately.

When you start benefitting from this, make sure you come back and add a comment to this post to let me know how you are using it and what value you are getting from it.

++++++STOP PRESS++++++

Yesterday I worked with a client's senior management team and recommended Spinvox to them.  Less than two hours later, here is the email I got from one of them:

Hi Michael,
 
Have used it twice already whilst in the car and can tell that it will change the way I keep my to-do list, as I can simply flag and task the email when I return to the office.
 
I think it will also save the admin team some time as they don't have to take the call, write down a note, and be distracted themselves.
 
I can't believe they don't charge for it!
 
Best regards,
 
Carl

When your organisation has a "company day" are you excited by the prospect or do you groan at the thought of hours of death by powerpoint (DBPP) and tedious presentations from people who seem to say the same things over and over again (often whilst they are looking at the screen with their backs to you)?

Now I know that happens alot because every day there are probably thousands of company or departmental get togethers around the world full of people ready to get their blackberry out under the table so they can get some work done.

Unfortunately this is almost the norm these days and even if the company splash out to bring in an external speaker, it is still likely to be a tedious day.

Now this doesn't mean it is not an important or even vital day, it is just that it can be such a backside-numbing experience that any real value is lost.

The challenge with these sorts of events is that they are set up to be primarily one way communications.

Even if there are break out sessions to "workshop" various issues, all we really have are fairly mundane round table discussions with someone taking a few notes.

Now am I painting a rather bleak and distorted picture of these sorts of events or is there some truth in what I have described?

Well as someone who worked in a rather large government organisation for 5 years before I started out as a professional speaker, I can tell you that my description comes from personal experience.

And now as a person who is brought into meetings like these as the external speaker, it is not really very difficult to make a lasting impact on an audience who have been stupified by masses of graphs and slides with far too much information on them.

I have been aware of this problem for these sorts of meetings for a while and a couple of years ago I was invited to speak to a company day in Brussels.

It was actually a departmental gathering for a very large multinational company and they wanted a speaker to break up the day.

As all good speakers do, I grilled my client on the day, the set up, the organisation, their objectives, the other speakers and the programme.

And it became very clear it was going to be a death by powerpoint day punctuated by my session.

[I should stress here that I am not against Powerpoint, in fact I use it extensively in my sessions, I am just against the poor use of Powerpoint which is the problem - don't blame the message or its medium, just blame the idiot who puts it up word for word on powerpoint slides]

I pointed this out to my client and explained what was likely to happen in terms of lack of attention, loss of engagement and overall boredom threshold.

To cut a long story short, I managed to turn my one hour keynote into a consultative design and facilitation package that created a memorable day that was inspiring, insightful and far exceeded their expectations in terms of the value they got (their words not mine).

Well last year I was asked back to do the same, this time a 2 day event and in October I will be returning for the third time to design and facilitate a one day organisational get together.

So what do I do?

Well the first thing to get absolutely clear with the client is to identify what their objectives are and what outcomes they expect.

This is the most important part of this consultative process and often the hardest to get them to define.

Meetings and get togethers like this always happen, have always happened and probably will continue to happen so to have them challenged on it is something they are not used to.

Asking "How will you know you have met your objective?" and "What evidence will tell you that?" helps clarify their thought processes and forces them to get clarity on what a successful event looks like.

Once I have that information, the rest is relatively straightforward.

It is just about choosing the right sort of activity from my accelerated learning toolkit to use to get the desired objective in a way that is engaging, interactive and fun.

And than with lashings of the right sort of facilitation sauce we have an enjoyable and productive day where the client achieves the objectives they want, the people attending enjoy the day, feel they have contributed and have been heard and I have a professionally stimulating and career enhancing experience.

So if you are of the old school and are having your people sit down to listen to lots of presentations on your company day then you are really missing out on an opportunity to not only tap into the creativity and energy of your people but also to get a good handle on the underlying feelings and thoughts of what is happening on the coal face.

At last years event, I was wandering around with my client, looking at the output of one of the exercises from his organisation and he suddenly realised that his understanding of the way his people were perceiving the issues surrounding the changes they were going through was very different from reality.

The right sort of environment, coupled with the right sort of exercises, facilitated by the right sort of person can make more progress in couple of hours than a whole day of "old school" presentations.

So if your organisation is heading down the DBPP route for your next meeting, get in touch and I will give you some pointers on how to revitalise this tired old format.

 

If you are anything like me then you probably subscribe to lots of e mail newsletters and are on lots of lists.

I receive information about playing the guitar, about improving my health, lots about marketing and business development and a whole host of stuff from people who think that because I have given them my business card, it gives them the right to send me their e mail newsletter.

Don't you hate that?

Opting in to someone's newsletter on line and clicking that confirmation link in the follow up e mail tells them that you definitely want what they are going to send to you.

Exchanging business cards at a meeting or conference merely says "yes we have met, put me on your database and perhaps if there is anything I can do for you in the future then give me a call".

It DOES NOT invite you into my e mail inbox with your automated mass mailings.

Grrrr…

Ok I got that off my chest.

Now the of the stuff I do subscribe to 20% is dreadful, 70% is so-so but there is 10% that is absolute pure gold.

Unfortunately not eveyone provides the same consistent quality so that is why I suffer some of the dross because I know sooner or later that person will send something of use.

One of the regular sources of pure and unadulerated gems and pearls of wisdom is internet marketer Gary Bencivenga.

He only sends out stuff every so often - just enough to remind you he is still around and not so much that he p***** you off.

But what he does send out is excellent.

His latest "bullet" (that's what he calls his output) came to me a week ago and is very interesting indeed.

It was titled:

3 Secrets for Multiplying Your Productivity, Success, Income, and Personal Happiness as a Copywriter or Marketer

Forget the copywriter or marketer bit because this will apply to you what ever your do.

I am not going to steal Gary's thunder by telling you what he wrote, just know it is good and if you apply his 3 secrets, you WILL definitely see an improvement in your productivity and effectiveness.

Thinking of doing something but can't because you don't have the time?

Well the solution might well be at the end of this link.

Let me know what you think.

Have you heard of the Pit Bull of Personal Development?

Or how about the World's First Irritational Speaker?

[Both those terms are trade marked by the way]

Well these are references to a professional speaker called Larry Winget.

He has just released a CD programme called "Success is Your Own Damn Fault" with Nightingale Conant and after the marketing blurb hit the doormat I decided to try it out and see what it was like.

I expected it to be good having seen him live a couple of years ago and it certainly was.

Hard hitting truths about what it takes to be successful, wrapped up in brutal honesty, humour and a genuine desire to share his knowledge and experience to help others become successful.

However don't let that fool you into thinking he is the sort of guy who wants to become your Buddy.

They don't call him the Pit Bull of personal development for nothing.

So if you can take some honest advice and are strong and psychologically stable enough to have a good look at what you are doing right now that might be getting in your way, then this programme might just be the thing that tips you over and helps you achieve your goals.

Have a look at my Speed Reading Blog for a post about one of the things I have specifically got from his programme.

You can get Larry Winget's Success Is Your Own Damn Fault from Nightingale Conant.

I think I must be on a bit of a roll in terms of my media exposure just lately.

First of all there was the BBC Asian Network guru slot, then the interview for the industry leading "Mind Mapping Software" Blog with Chuck Frey and now WIRED Magazine have had me on the blower doing an extensive interview with me on one of my areas of specialisation.

Yesterday (yes I know it was a Sunday but the reporter had a deadline to meet and I am an obliging subject), I had a good old chat about Speed Reading.

Now if you go to my Speed Reading Blog you can find lots of great information about that topic so I won't go into great depth here.

And of course you will have to wait until the article is published to find out exactly what was said (or what they thought I said!).

That is due in either the November or December issue, unless of course I get bumped off the schedule by some breaking story.

Anyone else like a chat…?

I watch YouTube.

Do you watch YouTube?

There is some rubbish on there (and plenty of it) but there are also a few gems.

One of my friends and colleagues Stateside, Terry Brock, puts out a weekly video blog on good stuff related to his niche which is relationship marketing or as he says "It's about R commerce, not E Commerce".

He also syndicates his videos on You Tube.

His most recent video was called "Your Bucket List and Relationship Marketing".

It struck a particular chord with me because….well it just did.

The Bucket List is that list of things you want to do before you die.

It is what you are passionate about…it is what you love to do.

In it he talks about the (now famous) Stanford University address given by Steve Jobs in 2005 and of course the film called "The Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.

He talks about finding your passion and helping others too as part of that passion.

Rather than me wax lyrical about Terry's video, watch it for yourself and take from it what you will.

I have also taken the liberty of adding the YouTube video of Steve Jobs Commencement address (well worth watching) and the trailer of "The Bucket List".

Enjoy and I hope this inspires you as it has me…..

Terry Brock and "The Bucket List and Relationship Marketing"

 

 

 

Steve Jobs' Stanford University Commencement Address 2005

 

 

Read the Transcript of Steve Job's Address Here

"The Bucket List" Trailer