Create, Connect, Complete

This is my theme for 2012.

Create, Connect, Complete.

Two bloggers inspired me to give up on setting goals or resolutions at this time of year and instead take time to reflect on the trends of the last 12 months and establish 3 overall guiding principles for the coming 12 months.

The first is Steve Shapiro, author of Goal Free Living and my mentor 12 years ago during my time in the London office of Accenture.  He talks about making resolutions that work here on his blog.

The second is Chris Brogan.  Each year Chris picks 3 words that are his "theme" for the coming 12 months.


My 2011 words were "Local, Global, No".  (Live Local, work Global, say "No" more).  I did a pretty good job in everything except the "No" part.  I still tend to allow too many non-priority things to get into my days.

Looking towards 2012

My 3 words for 2012 are "Create, Connect, Complete".  These three words give some sense to the chaos of dreams, goals, ideas and desires for the next year.

What will I do in 2012?  I don't know.  No specific plans, but I want to know that I will reflect on each activity I take part in and ask if it is contributing to Create, Connect, Complete.

Complete is the challenge.  I have a lot of personal projects that I have got to 50-80% complete and I want to see some of those come to closure in 2012.

The importance of being Bored

I am terrible at being bored.

I fill my days with a constant stream of activities.

Three days ago, I was with my daughter on a beautiful Costa Brava beach.  We were on a journey to explore the ruins of an ancient 6BC Iberian town on the cliffs (located on the head of the peninsula in the photo below).

We sat for a moment on the rocks to see if we could see some fish or crabs.

And....

I found my hand reaching for my smartphone.

Here I was in a beautiful place, exploring nature, speaking about the time of Egypt and Carthage and what the people who lived 8000 years ago must have been like - and some part of me wanted to check email, facebook, twitter, foursquare...

Why?

I run from being bored.  It requires more effort for me to just sit and think, than to read and respond to emails, create busy-ness.

Do you do "bored" well?  How?

What is an Entrepreneur?

My definition of an entrepreneur: Someone who has more ideas than resources.

"But I don't have any ideas..."

If you don't have ideas, then you are not an entrepreneur. There are millions of things that frustrate me every day. Find something frustrating and think how to reduce the frustration. If you are not frustrated by something every day, please send me the instructions for how to live like you!

If you have too many resources, then you are lucky.

Lucky is not a great long term life strategy.

photo: Martin Deutsch

"But I can't find an investor..."

The lack of resources is a test. If you can do something with very little, then you can do more with a bit. No investor wants to give you a bit until you can show that you can make progress with what you have. Investors really want to be in projects that will work without them (just slower).


There is always a step you can take without anybody else's permission. Find it and do it. Keep doing that. The money will come when you prove you don't really need it.

Do the next right thing.  This is what an entrepreneur does.

How do I know if I have a good idea?  Here is a simple test.

This post was inspired by a discussion started by Ciara over at my Linked-In Group.

Charisma

What is Charisma?

In the words of Dr. Nick Morgan "Charisma is focussed emotion."

There are 2 ways to increase your capacity to deliver "Focussed Emotion" when you speak:

1. Remove Distractions: remove all distractions 30 minutes before you speak
2. Care: know how the message of your speech can change people's quality of life

Watch the video here on the blog.

What do you think?  Is this Bill Clinton's secret?  

5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

Carlo Cipolla

The 5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

These laws were identified and developed by Carlo M. Cipolla who was Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley up his death in the year 2000.  The full description and implication of these 5 basic laws can be read in his article The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.

• Law 1: Underestimation Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
• Law 2: Independence The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
• Law 3: Loss A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
• Law 4: Cost Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
• Law 5: Danger A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

From law 3 we have four basic categories of human action: helpless, intelligent, bandit and stupid.

The 4 Basic Categories of Human Action

If Dan does something that causes him loss, but gain to Sarah this is helpless.  If Dan does something that causes gain to him and gain to Sarah, this is intelligent.  If Dan does something that causes gain to him and loss to Sarah, this is bandit.  Now...  If Dan does something that causes loss to himself, and loss to Sarah...  this is true stupidity.

In many economic theories a human is assumed to act rationally.  In such theories, Dan would never knowingly cause loss to himself.

In real life we all regularly come into contact with Stupid Dan.

How can economists build models that take into account Stupid Dan?  How can we predict if the person in front of us, our colleague, our boss is about to choose Stupid rather than Helpless, Bandit or Intelligent action?


How can we reduce the possibility of Stupid Action?

6 Competencies for the Future of Labor

According to the report "Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce", the top 6 competencies for success in the labor market today are:

1. Networking - connecting to people and sharing your and their goals (Networking in 7 simple steps)
2. Enthusiasm - showing interest and energy
3. Professionalism - show up on time, respect others
4. Communication Skills - listening, context and timing, message (Improve your Speaking, Listen better)
5. Teamwork - acting as part of a team, sometimes leading, sometimes following
6. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking - solution orientation, data driven analysis, structured thinking (6 steps for business problem solving)