Bill Jensen's Blog, page 11

2014 Super-Simplified

One of my most popular blog posts in the past year was 2013 Super-Simplified. Popular enough to do it again: Let's super-simplify 2014!



If you know this from a year ago, use this deeper dive to go further. You can never get too simple! If this is your first-pass, here are the details you need…







2014 in just three words. That's it.





Of course, if it's going to be meaningful and useful, getting an entire year down to just three words takes pre-work — a lot of deep thinking...

• How much of a change should 2014 be for me from 2013?

• What is most important to me at work?

• What is most important to me in my life?

• What new skills do I need to develop?

• How will I allow for serendipity and unexpected surprises?

• What will make the biggest impact?

• How will I grow or deepen my network?

Answer questions like these and what emerges is an entire year fully focused, with hyper-clarity.




If that's not easy for you, I'd suggest going here or here or here or here — four sources with lots of aspirational words to get you started.




Once you've selected your three words, that's your super-simplified definition of success for 2014. 




For example, mine for 2014 are Grow. Serenity. Nickels. ...Grow for personal development — learn something new every day, follow my dreams, and more. Serenity as in the Serenity Prayer. (I'm pretty good at having the courage to change things I can… I still kinda suck at accepting the things that I cannot change!) Nickels as in "raining nickels," as in earning more while I sleep — more products and services that do not require me to be present in real-time (Freeing me to be present for more Grow time).
Three Steps to Lock In a Super-Simple 2014 


1. Accountability Reminder: Go to OhLife and email yourself your three-word goal, and any supporting notes you think you'll need, for delivery at specified time(s) in the future — say... 90 days into the year or half-way into the year.

2. Beer and Pizza Planning (food and drink of your choice): Over a meal with a few close friends, family and/or co-workers, share your intent to live 2014 by these three words. Ask for their help in brainstorming ways to make it happen.

3. Start Simply: January, 2014: Don't try to boil the ocean — start small. But start! Don't think about it more. Just do! Pick one or more of the three words and spend January working it. You'll be amazed at what happens!


This is a great and super-simple way to keep yourself focused on what truly matters in 2014!



(Based upon an idea by Chris Brogan)

2014: Two Secrets Everyone Must Know

Two crucial secrets to your personal productivity...

Two crucial secrets to simplicity...

It's not the tools! (Although Amazon's delivery-by-drones does sound cool!) While the latest apps and tech-tools absolutely DO make you more productive and your life-and-work simpler — they're just band-aids. Good and valuable aids, but still... They don't address your deepest needs.



For 2014, would you like to be awesomely productive?

Would you like to find and practice true simplicity? 

I have researched these practices in scores of countries across the globe, interviewed gazillions of worker bees and managers and thousands of the world's best leaders. And the solutions are NEVER the latest-greatest new thing. The solutions are ALWAYS two classic, timeless disciplines. Always commonsensical — unfortunately, uncommon in practice.



Here are the two crucial secrets, followed by a sampling of great leaders' wisdom from my interviews and other sources...



• Be You: Even if you've heard it before, take the time to let Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement speech affect you more deeply.



• Find Your One Thing: Nancy Duarte, CEO, Duarte Design

“If there’s one thing you can do, and you can be best in the world at that one thing, and be passionate about that one thing — then do just that one thing.”



• Find Yourself: Chris Brogan, Founder, Human Business Works

“It took me a bunch of different starts and stops to figure out to be the kind of owner I wanted to be…. How I started to by owning my cubicle… How I started after that by owning the vision of what I wanted to get done.”



• Connect ALL Crucial Tasks to Your Passion: Cory Booker, U.S. Senator

“If you have a task to do, connect it to your overall passion or goal. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to tick it off and move on to the next thing.”



• What Matters Is Often Outside Your Comfort Zone: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Author, Big Data


“We only advance ourselves and we only advance the human race...Not by sticking to the old fashioned intuition, but by using the disruptive technology that’s outside of our comfort zone.”



• Rules, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules: Jorge Barba, Chief Strategist, Blu Maya

“Break rules to make things better. You have to face the fear of doing that. Don’t ask for permission. If you’re failing fast and experimenting, it isn’t a big risk. The most important thing is that you believe in yourself.”



• Be Free to Reimagine Boundaries: Gabor George Burt, Author, Slingshot

“When people in companies say to me ‘How do we reimagine boundaries?’ people like that are a complete inspiration. It’s all about your frame of mind. Anyone at any time in their lives or in their business evolution is about to overstep perceived boundaries and reimagine what they do, if they so choose.”



• Know What Energizes You: Aaron Levie, CEO of Box

“I don't use many apps. I use naps.”



• Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3... Truly Epic Simplicity is Hard Work: 150 years ago last month, Abraham Lincoln gave a two-minute speech that would shape a nation. 272 words. That's it. So much about our human struggles, priorities and values are contained in the Gettysburg Address. But did you know that Lincoln worked on the ideas behind that speech for over four months? (And he wasn't even the featured speaker that day!) Or that five drafts of the final speech remain, each with minor yet-powerful tweaks?



• Early Bird Gets the Worm: Anthony Bourdain, Celebrity Chef and Traveler

“I'm honestly the first person on set. I'm there in the lobby waiting for the camera crew.”



• Tech Simplicity is Hard Work: “The journey to simplicity is not easy. It can be very long and painful.” ~Designer Abigail Brody, who was referring to all the work that she and others put into Apple's iOS.
“People think simplicity is one less button." Truly, "it's taking time to develop clarity of thought,” says Dave Morin, co-founder of Path, a mobile app for sharing your private life with others.



• Create Your Own Happiness: Rajeev Peshawaria, Author, Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders

“I don’t depend on somebody else for my happiness. If I’m happy, I created it. If I’m not happy, that’s because of me too. I feel much more liberated, much more empowered.”



• Focused Hard Work — On Your One Thing: Wendy Clark, SVP of Global Marketing at Coca Cola

“Identify a No. 1 issue, and then the next 10 things you have to do. The rest of it is checking the pulse on what people need from you.”



• Get to the Friggin' Point! (Work hard on clarity so others don't have to.) Steve Yankovich, SVP of Innovation and New Ventures at eBay

“I want people to be concise. A small screen and less-efficient keyboard force people to get the point across. You're not going to type four paragraphs on your phone.”



Of all the possible secrets: Why am I directing you to these two? Because, after more than two decades of workshops, consulting and speaking on personal productivity and simplicity... After we review all the latest tips and best practices and how to's, EVERYTHING ALWAYS comes down to these two things...



• Be authentic. Be true to what truly matters. Stay focused on that... NO MATTER WHAT.



• Be disciplined and do the hard work (that you've been avoiding) that will make whatever matters happen. You will never change anything until you change what you do daily.



Whatever matters: 

It will be difficult. 

It will require sacrifice.

It will take time.

It will be worth it!

Insights From the Love CEO

Alan Mulallay is currently one of two front runners to be Microsoft's next CEO.



Mulally is one of the most respected large-company CEOs out there. His turnaround of Ford — from multi-billion dollar loses to five consecutive years of profits — is the stuff of legend. And while some think he's the perfect choice and others think he'd be a terrible choice for Microsoft, most everyone sees him as the real deal — a true believer in the power of optimism and vision.



Years ago, on the advice of my cover blurber and leadership coach extraordinaire, Marshall Goldsmith, I sent Mulally a copy of my third book, What Is Your Life's Work?



I coach many senior teams on bringing their authenticity into their simplification efforts and Mulally seemed to me to "get" that. But he didn't know me. I figured: Best case, his admin will send me a form letter thanking me.



Instead, he sent me a hand-written note in which he detailed what's behind his leadership style…

The purpose of life is to love and be loved.


Life is really good… Be happy now…

And let it go.


The real deal, for sure.

Mindfulness, authenticity, simplicity and profits masterfully combined.

Delivering the Ultimate Presentation

You'd think now that most everyone has seen TED presentations or watched something powerful through Vine or Vimeo or Prezi or studying Nancy Duarte's slide:ology or Scott Berkun's Confessions of a Public Speaker or, or, or… You'd think we'd seen the last of boring, wasteful presentations.



Apparently not.

So… A primer on Great Presentations:



First, download the free Jensen doc, The Ultimate Ten-Page Presentation: Shoot for about ten pages per hour. The download explains how and why.



Beyond the links above: the anatomy of a great presentation…


1. You MUST Be Brief. 

Keep it short.

Keep it simple.

Before you even begin, assume everyone is already on info-overload. Use big, compelling images designed to make people think and/or create powerful emotional reactions.




2. You MUST Be Different. 

You must stand out. 

Whether that's your message, your graphics, your attire, your use of language, the stories you tell (great storytelling is a must!)…whatever it is…You must risk standing out or risk being ignored.


3. Your Audience Must Co-Create Your Presentation.

Audience interactivity is crucial.

Not just in Q&A. Participatory. Whatever they come up with must be incorporated into your presentation. (At least one-third of every presentation that's 30 mins or more should be allocated for audience co-creation.)



4. If You're Not Calling For Action, You Shouldn't Be Presenting.

One or two key action items.

Help with the How To's. Make it clear and easy for people to go do something once you're done.



5. Start With the End in Mind.

Define success.

"If I'm successful, everyone will know [fill in the blank], feel [fill in the blank], and do [fill in the blank]."



6. Finally: Remember That the Real Work Begins AFTER the Presentation

Handout design can be as crucial as a great presentation.

Especially in corporate presentations, where the real work happens after they're Wow'd, people still need more. Don't just supply copies/printouts of your slides (too little info) or reams of supporting info (too much). Create handouts that are awesome one-pagers (up to ten-or-so great one-pagers) which are infographic follow-ups to the Wow'ing. 


For more: Echoing the above, FastCo describes 7 Ways to Give Presentations People Actually Care About. And Scott Berkun provides an AWESOME freebie Checklist for Great Presentations: How to Prepare!

Fart Proudly

Everyone knows that Benjamin Franklin was one of the great statesmen, scientists and philosophers of his time.



But there is a side to Franklin that we were not exposed to in school: Franklin brought to life a bawdy, scurrilous character that was all-too eager to ignite the fires of controversy and fan the flames until they burned brightly enough to please him. A sampling…









Fart Proudly

"To the Royal Academy of Brussels: 

My Prize Question [is], To discover some Drug wholesome and not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the Natural Discharges, of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreeable as Perfumes."



Cost and Effectiveness Must Be Considered

In 1757, Franklin wrote an essay outlining how everyone for miles around could know what time it was. He proposed the building of giant sundials in yards with 12 magnifying glasses aimed at 12 cocked guns, so when the sun ignited the first gun, for example, everyone would know that it was 1 o'clock. Then he proceeded to compliment savvy readers for seeing how stupid this idea was: 

"Let all such learn that many a private and many a public Project, are like this Striking Dial, great cost for little Profit."



On Social Media Etiquette

From Franklin's essay on Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion:

"• Talk much of yourself, your Education, your Knowledge, your Circumstances, your Successes in Business, your victories in Disputes [and] your own wise Sayings and Observations.

• Seize the Opportunity of saying something…Immediately to contradict and raise a Dispute upon. Rather than fail, criticize even his Grammar. 

• If another should be saying an indisputably good Thing…Interrupt him; or draw away the Attention of others."



On Taking an Idea Viral

One of Franklin's favorite tricks was to write an article taking one point of view, then a week later, using a different pseudonym, submit a second article attacking the first one.



On Choosing a Mistress

"In all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones.

• Because they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stored with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

• Because through more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is safer with regard to your reputation."


Excerpted from Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School, Enthea Press, 1990, Edited by Carl Japikse

Letting Go Can Be Hard

Letting go of your outdated self-image can be hard. 



This is why companies and leaders fail to make the changes they need to. This is why many of us fail to make the personal changes we need to.



I had my own Aha about this as I prepared for a recent recycling trip. I, too, have failed to embrace that I am no longer who I was.



Easier Change: I took about 10 cases of my old books (by Bill Jensen) to recycling. Economics made it easy to let go. Both for sale and as giveaways, I'm now able to send digital copies to most people — without costly postage. Buh-bye self-history. Easy peasy.



Harder Change: I also took about 150 copies of Communication Arts (CA) — the premier trade publication for design, illustration, photography and advertising — to recycling.







I am a designer. At least that's how I see myself. I went to school for design. I served as designer, art director and creative director for some of New York City's best agencies and publishers. 



Yet, in reality, I left that career behind almost 20 years ago. But I still kept subscribing to CA. It was my security blanket. As long as I kept up my subscription (print, then digital) and kept all those printed back copies, I was STILL a designer! (At least in my own mind.) That's why it took me decades to let go of those publications. Getting rid of them meant admitting that, while I still dabble in it, design is no longer the most crucial part of my career, and my self-image.



If we want (or need) to move on to new stuff, we need to make room for it. We need to let go of our past self-images in order to make room for our future self.



What self-images do you need to let go of? Isn't it time to do so?

Thankful

It was February 1971 and I was pissed!



Hell, Woodstock was a year and a half ago… "Mom and Dad, are you kidding me?!?! You won't let me go into Manhattan to the Fillmore East to see Steppenwolf?!? I'm a sophomore in high school! I'm old enough! What is wrong with you?!?!"



"Well, fuck this. I'm running away from home!"



And I did for a couple nights. Stayed at a friend of a friend's house in the next town. (Pre cell-phones, so they had no way of contacting me or finding me.)





After a couple nights, after I made my point, I triumphantly walked in the back door, ready for them to apologize for screwing up my social life.



My father reached down and hauled my ass up four steps in one motion. He carried me by my collar into their bedroom and angrily said, "Look at what you've done to your mother."



Mom was sobbing hysterically, but she couldn't stop smiling as she hugged me. 



And then I got it. 



All she cared about was that I was OK. She was horrified about what might have happened to her baby, and was so relieved that I was OK, she just couldn't stop smiling.



This week, while there are soooooooooo many things I am thankful for, I wanted to send a special shout-out to Mom, who passed away in 1994.



Thanks Mom! More than ever.

Does Your Reputation Wow Everyone?

Problem: I was about to run out of business cards. Yet: Everything is going digital. Why bother? (Still, enough people like and want paper cards, so I decide to order more.)



Problem: There's nothing worse than someone who spent the first half of his career as a designer. I can't let go of even the tiniest details when it comes to packaging my brand. But the way I've been doing it is unnecessarily expensive. Isn't there a cheaper and maybe even better way?



Solution: Into my inbox pops an Amazon Local coupon for biz-cards from Moo.com. Not only super cheap, but great designs too. Let's do this!





Wow'd!!! When the cards arrive, what blew me away was more than a great product — (printing was great, everything was exactly what I hoped it would be.) But for the cheap price I paid, my expectations were a bunch of cards jammed into a cheapie box. 



Check out what came. Lovingly wrapped in ribbon, sealed with purple sealing wax (OK, a plastic sealing wax button. Still…) Upon opening it, I'm thinking "Damn, I'm important! Wow, I'm special to these guys!"



Everything about the experience about getting these cards was over-the-top fantastic! And now I'm (glady, voluntarily) marketing Moo to you!



Lesson: Your reputation (AKA brand) matters. We now live and work in the Reputation Economy. 



Which, Oh, BTW, is the premise of (my recent co-author) Josh Klein's awesome new book: Reputation Economics . Josh details how the value of individual reputation is radically changing the way business is done. A fantastic read!!



Oops, there I go again, spreading news about another Wow experience! Doing marketing for something that Wow'd me.

Vive La Difference

INSIGHTS FROM TOP DISRUPTIVE EXPERTS

Join the Disruptive Movement!

  




Nancy Duarte

Author, Resonate

Blog







PART 1: MY FAVORITE DISRUPTIVE HERO

My Husband and Business Partner, Mark. “He and I are complete opposites. When we worked on our life mission statements, his verb was to relax and mine was to conquer.



“We like to use this metaphor that I’m the steamboat above the surface and he’s the rudder to make sure we don’t go aground. Even though I’m the one who comes up with the ideas and has all these crazy ways to approach things, he’s the one who has the right timing, who tells me when to wait, tells me when to go fast.



“For so long, I henpecked him. ‘Be more passionate. Be more like me. Do everything the way I do it.’ And then I woke up one day and realized how I needed to value our differences. So I released him to be himself. And it’s turned out to be glorious.



“If I had not met him and if he had not walked beside me everyday, I never would have become what I’ve become.”


FOR MORE: See her video below




Let's Disrupt This!

We all know that we should value diversity more and learn from those who are different than us. Yet how many of us practice this as well or as beautifully as Nancy Duarte? How many of us consciously seek out those who are our opposites to keep us on track? Or to help us be the best versions of ourselves?



At work and play and life: We all need people who who are our opposites as everyday partners, helping us be our best.




What do you think? Please post...

• On Twitter: #DareToDisrupt

• Or on DisruptMovement.com

Do Epic Shit Manifesto

This is a clarion call to your future. Examine each item on this manifesto and you will find the only ways for you to survive AND thrive during an age of disruption. 



The Big So What


The people who will succeed in this era are those who figure out how to benefit from, or take advantage of, continuous disarray, disorder and disruption.




It's no longer enough to change enough to keep up with change. One hundred percent of us must figure out how to leverage every disruption coming at us as an opportunity to be leveraged. 








Will you take on the Do Epic Shit challenge? Should this be your manifesto? (Infographic is also available on Pinterest and a video version is available on YouTube.)