Category: Brain

You Are Enough, Period!

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Mastin Kipp shares this thought today…

Where we get our source of approval from is everything. As children we look up to and make our parents our Higher Power. We think they are perfect, infallible human beings. We eventually learn (some earlier than others) that this isn’t the case. Part of stepping onto and into The Path of our Highest Potential is learning to re-parent ourselves.

This means realizing that our parents are not perfect people and loving them anyway. We realize that The Uni-verse has perfect love & approval for us and that we need not chase. We are approved of and loved as we are, where we are and for who we are right now. This allows us to take a step back and no longer need perfect Love from our parents and instead, we can be grateful for their role in our lives as stewards of our lives instead of masters of our destiny.

Once we begin to heal this process, the other relationships of our lives improve. When we no longer assign magical qualities to our parents, or if we were never loved by our parents or assign magical qualities to other people, we see reality and take our power back. When we know that we are already approved of as Children of The Uni-verse, we no longer need to seek approval in business, with sex, with drugs or with status and stature. We can instead rest in the perfect imperfection of who we already are and let it be.

No longer seeking approval, we now have the confidence, self-esteem and personal integrity to create relationships of a higher caliber. We no longer need to use sex as a way to make us feel loved, but instead as a byproduct of love and intimacy. We no longer are defined by fancy things or big houses, because “stuff” doesn’t validate us.

When we can allow ourselves and everyone in our lives to be imperfect and love them anyways, we have taken a massive leap towards Love.

What would your life look like if you lived it without the compulsive desire to show your parents how awesome you are, or to get their approval? What would your love life look like? What would your professional life look like?

How would your life be different if you KNEW in every cell of your being that you are enough, right now, as is… PERIOD?

via thedailylove.com
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Protecting Your Relationship during Conflict

As sure as death and taxes, you can count on the fact that all couples will experience conflict. Since we can know with relative certainty that disagreements are going to occur, it would be in our best interest to learn how to manage disagreements in a constructive manner. Just like the Geneva Convention helps countries to fight “fair” while at war, having written rules can aid couples as they engage in the “battles” of marital life.

If you can agree on rules before you’re in the throes of an argument, you can avoid getting caught up in emotional aspects of the discussion. They provide guidelines for what is in bounds and what is out, who can speak when and in what way, and how both will listen to the other. Rules do not remove the emotions or solve the problem; instead, they make the disagreement manageable by setting the stage for constructive communication. Finally, rules allow the real issues to be uncovered much faster. So here are a few things we suggest to keep in mind to protect your relationship during a conflict.

1.    Honor

Let this be your goal in conflict.  Remember in all of your words and actions to honor your spouse. 

2.    Time, Place and Time Out

Select an appropriate time and place. In the middle of a grocery store or at 10pm may not be the best place or time to address your issues.  While you can’t always control when conflict will occur, you can decide not to continue a discussion that you know is headed for an argument.  Likewise, sometimes it’s necessary to take a break to cool off.  However, remember to finish the discussion once you’re both level headed.

3.    Communication

This action involves speaking and listening; they work together.  To take communication a step further, say things that reflect you’re listening.  Asking questions or repeating what you’ve heard show that you understand what the other person is saying and how they feel.

4.    Solution

Agree upon a “win-win” solution where the needs of both sides are met.  If it is a need avoid compromising.  Techniques like brainstorming, pros v. cons list, and 1-10 scale of importance are helpful.

5.    Protect

There are two aspects to protecting the relationship—protecting from external threats and internal threats.  To protect from external threats, have the discernment to know when to spend time with friends and when to stay in.  To protect against internal threats, forgive each other and be responsible for your actions.  Don’t let resentment or mistrust build between you.

via familyminute.com
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I’ve been following industry oracle Guy Kawasaki for over 25 years and I agree with him almost all of the time. He was right about the Mac, he’s right about Posterous and he’s right about Alltop. He’s right about so many things. When he speaks, I take notes. This time, however, I take issue…

He posted a recent article on the topic of Facebook pages recently and this is one of the rare times I need to take issue…

“Q: I’m a small business entrepreneur, and I’ll be introducing a consumer product soon. Should I create a website for my company or a Facebook fan page?

A: I faced a similar question a few weeks ago for my book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I had three options: create a site for the book, add a section for the book to my existing website, or create a Facebook fan page.

After five minutes of thoughtful deliberation, I decided to add a bare-bones section to my website (which I haven’t gotten around to do yet—which should tell you something) and create a Facebook fan page but not to create a website for the book. Here’s why I did not choose a website:” Source: Ask the Wise Guy: Facebook Fan Page or Website? : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum

Guy goes on to elucidate 4 reasons why he did not choose a website and 8 reasons why he chose a Facebook page along with 3 potential ‘gotchas’ — go to the source and read the entire article if you’d like…

Here’s where Guy and I part thinking. In business, the answer is rarely either/or. Frequently it’s both/and. Guy’s advice is great for someone launching a product or a book, but it’s not really great long term advice for an entrepreneur launching a company. As a short term strategy I recommend that entrepreneurs buy a domain, set up Google Apps and create a Facebook page. Google Apps will give them the ability to send corporate email from their domain and their domain name can be temporarily directed toward their Facebook page until they build a blogsite. This will give them a total ‘appearance package’ that will allow them to look professional immediately while they contemplate their website and further social media strategy and tactics…

On this issue I side with author Lisa Barone who recently posted…

“Brace yourself: Facebook is trying to take over the world. Or, if not the world, at least the entire Internet. With Facebook partnering up with popular sites like Yelp, many SMB owners may feel as if their load got lighter. I mean, why waste time worrying about your building your blog or your own site when you can grow your Facebook presence instead? If Facebook’s opening up the doors so that people can take you with them, you don’t have to worry about anything else anymore, right?

Wrong!

It doesn’t matter how hot Facebook or any of the other social media sites are looking right now. You still need to be focused on using your blog to create your own authority and brand.” Source: 10 Reasons Not To Ignore Your Blog For Facebook

Reason #1 she cites? “You don’t own Facebook”…

The problem with Facebook from my perspective is that you’re not only a renter, you’re a free renter and you can expect all the rights and privileges thereof. In other words, you have no rights on Facebook — not even privacy. You use it at your own risk. Facebook can — and has — made major changes to their technology without notice or recourse. Using a Facebook page is a great place for an entrepreneur to start but not to stay. I agree with Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse and other internet visionaries who propose an internet ‘homebase and outpost‘ strategy that puts a blog at the center of your online presence. The key is that you have to own that presence and be ‘master of your domain’ name and internet brand…

In the future, these homebases may become less important as more people understand the wisdom of David Sauter and his team at Envano. Their ‘autobahn’ model describes a future where a website becomes less important as a company embraces appropriate social media tools to build their internet presence, but the lack of an ‘easy button’ or unified social media dashboard makes this more of a future vision than a present reality…

Guy, I love you, your thought leadership and your content, but just this once I think your Q&A might have done the reader a disservice. Readers? Questions? Feedback? Please comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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Beauty is nothing without brains

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I do! It’s one of the most important skills or disciplines I’ve developed over the past 3 years. Lifehacker recently surveyed their readership to find the best mindmapping tools…

“Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.” Source: Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications 

Go to the source and read about the 5 favorites. Personally, I use Freemind, Mindmeister and Xmind in that order. What are your favorites? Comments please…

Update 10/21/09: Since I wrote this post back in March of 2009, I have become disenchanted with Xmind due to their difficult to manage licensing scheme. I have become enthralled, however with MindManager Pro. Whenever I have something I need to figure out for myself or want to explain to someone else [like a screencast] chances are I’ll mindmap it first to help me make sure I cover all the bases. I also use Mindmeister quite a bit primarily because of their cloud computing approach to mindmapping. I can publish a mindmap on the internet and embed it in a post like this:

They also have an iPhone app that flawlessly syncs with the online version. These days, chances are I’ll start my map in MindManager Pro and make it public in Mindmeister when it’s ready to go. Only problem is that MindManager is very $$$. You can duplicate the same workflow with Freemind [which is free] and Mindmeister. Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me — if you contact me, I’ll send you an invitation to try out Mindmeister!

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All the topics that interest US in the past 24 hours…

 

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Looking for a way to get your mental ‘act’ together? Try MindMapping…

Mind mapping software is an incredible canvas for exploring your thinking and recording, manipulating, distilling and converting your insights into white papers, blog posts, presentations and other forms of content. No other type of productivity software gives you this level of flexibility and creativity.

Mind mapping software is particularly valuable in helping you to build thought leadership because:

It exposes your thinking, converting it from indistinct thoughts in your head into concrete words and phrases on your computer screen. That’s very powerful, because your conscious mind can only hold only 6 or 7 thoughts at one time. By freeing up your “mental RAM,” mind mapping helps you to tap into a deeper level of thoughts and ideas. Because mind mapping leverages your brain’s powerful associative capabilities, it helps you to access ideas that are at the edge of your thinking. This may be territory you rarely get to explore, unless you have thinking tools that can help you to drill down below the veneer of your usual thoughts.

Mind mapping is a marvelous tool for enabling you to view both the forest and the trees, and to see connections and relationships that weren’t visible any other way. It’s a marvelous tool for systems thinking!

Finally, mind mapping is a boon to thought leaders because it enables you to envision “white space” ideas – ideas that are between the existing or known concepts, strategies and orthodoxies in your niche.

via mindmappingsoftwareblog.com
Mindmapping is one of the the single most important things I do in my workflow. Not only does it help me to get my thoughts together, but it also helps me to communicate much more effectively. Comment or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to your organization…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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Something to ponder…

Are you about to start a conversation with a statistic?

Stop.

Emotion must lead, reason must follow.  Because that’s how you commune with the human brain.  Emotion first, reason second.  Heart, then facts.

Please, REMEMBER THIS.  Whatever your cause, whoever your audience, you must start every conversation with the emotional heart of your cause, not the facts of its scope or scale in the world.  If you don’t create emotional space in the mind for your cause, there will be no place for your information to find a home.  And if you do not create a social landscape for a relationship, there is no place for human connection.

If I had a dollar for every person who asked if this applied to them, I’d have a lot of money for my nonprofit.  My answer is always this: There are no exceptions to the rule that you must awaken the heart to arouse the mind.

David Brooks says this so very eloquently in his new book, The Social Animal:

“Reason is nestled upon emotion and dependent upon it.  Emotion assigns value to things, and reason can only make choices on the basis of those valuations.  The human mind can be pragmatic because deep down it is romantic.”

Decision making is not a point in time, says Brooks: “We are primarily wanderers, not decision makers… We are pilgrims in a social landscape.”

So true.  So well said.

via nonprofitmarketingblog.com

Hmmm. I’ll have to think long and hard about this one. How many times have I started a class or a presentation loaded with statistics? I’ve lost track!

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Gee Brain what do you wanna do tonight?

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Language and your brain

Via Voxy.

All about linguistics.

via holykaw.alltop.com

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Reaching out to mobile travelers is good business, especially where I live on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. Every year, thousands of wired [that means “internet connected” for you folks from the U.P., eh?] travelers drive through our area on their way to Door County. The smart restaurateur should be looking at ways to figure out how to get their fair share of that mobile business! Here’s a interesting article that I found on the topic…

“For my project, I had a chance to develop top-level social media strategies and participate in the day-to-day management of social media presences. There is no better way to to hone your social media skills than to roll up your sleeves and “just do it” as this process gives you a way to see firsthand what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Based on my experiences, I have come up with a list of “7 Must-Do’s” for the restaurant industry. Some of these tips are no-brainers and can be implemented immediately. Some of the other tips are bigger projects and tasks that will need to be updated and monitored on an ongoing basis. Each of these tips will contribute to what should be the social media goals of any business: expand corporate mindshare, augment and expand existing marketing channels and increase the number of customer interactions.” Source: 7 Social Media Must-Do’s for the Restaurant Industry « Social Media Musings by Tom Humbarger

You’ll have to click through to the source to get the author’s thoughts, but here are the tools he recommends…

  • socialmention
  • Google Local Business Center
  • Yelp for Business Owners
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Wikipedia
  • Blogging

It’s all great stuff and I recommend the tools he suggest for any small business looking to connect with wired travelers. Unfortunately, however, he forgot to mention Foursquare which is rapidly emerging and Snacksquare which is a location based coupon provider that sms’s coupons to people looking for places to eat in your area. Here’s the skinny:

“Users can get a glimpse of deals on a map, filter by category, check in at venues and have specific deals sent to their mobile phones. From a consumer perspective, Snacksquare offers a nifty way to explore deals before heading out.

The site also caters to hungry business owners anxious to get into the location-based promotion game. Essentially, merchants can use Snacksquare to add their venues to Foursquare (Foursquare) and to compile an SMS contact list of past and present customers for push marketing purposes.

Merchants can send friend requests to customers via Snacksquare and the customers that accept these requests can opt in to SMS messages from the merchant in question. Merchants can then use this SMS list to blast out automated location-based alerts to customers within a specified radius of the venue based on their most recent checkin. The service does come with associated costs, but businesses that sign up for the upcoming Foursquare Day can get free beta access.” Source: Snacksquare Connects Foursquare Merchants to Customers

Cool, huh? At the time, though, only ONE restaurant in northeast Wisconsin is using Snacksquare — The Pub on Main Street in Green Bay. What about your restaurant? Offering deals to wired travelers is what’s next and I can help you figure it all out…

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It’s always easier to just buy an ad.  There are people that will take your money and use it to produce a commercial, tv spot or print ad.  People will see your ad and a few of them may even come into your store if your ad has a good call to action or a coupon.  There is a problem with that strategy.  There’s an easier way that takes more work.  How can something be easier and take more work?

It’s more work to…

…gather contact information for all of your current clients or members.

…communicate with them about things other than your organization, store or “sale of the century”.

…talk to individuals instead of buying an ad for the masses.

But it’s easier to…

…get information of your current clients than to get information from strangers.

…talk about what’s important to their lives if you’re listening  on their terms (Facebook or Twitter come to mind).

…talk to individuals and get a response than to buy an ad and get the attention of the masses.

As with all things worth while it’s easier in the long run if you do more work in the beginning.

Stop throwing money at the masses and start talking to individuals.

via andytraub.com

Nice post by Andy Traub. For me, it’s like Guy Kawasaki says ““If you have more Money than brains, you should focus on Outbound Marketing. If you have more Brains than money, you should focus on Inbound Marketing.” [Just in case you’re not sure, ads are outbound, social media is inbound.] One of the things I love about social media marketing is that it takes more time than money! All of us are working hard in the current economy but imho, the smart ones are channeling that effort into inbound marketing in the form of social media. Questions? Feedback?

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…Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has some suggestions for getting back into blogging after a vacation…

“Yesterday was my first day back at blogging after a 10 day vacation with my family and on Twitter I commented that I was finding it a little hard to get my brain back into blogging mode. @Mikeachim responded by suggesting I write a post on the daily rituals that I use to get my mind into gear. 

I thought I’d take his suggestion and jot down a few notes – both as a way of getting my head back into blogging but also because looking at the tweets I received this morning it’s a problem many bloggers face.” Source: 13 Ways I Get Back into Blogging after a Vacation

While technically I wasn’t on vacation in Europe [I was managing the ACGO online community from Agritechnica] I was so busy coordinating social media for my client that it probably LOOKED like I was on vacation based on the number of posts to the site…

Lesson learned? Tending a blog is like tending a farm or raising animals — it requires constant care and feeding! I was in Europe 11 days starting on the 6th — even though I posted a couple of times and my blog automatically recycles old posts using ‘Old Post Promoter’ my traffic suffered a pretty good hit…

That’s why I say blogging is not something that you do, it’s something you are. It’s more of a lifestyle than anything else and requires a little bit of attention every day…

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Boy, do I need this!
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