• Do something you’re passionate about
• Do something meaningful
• Be bold
• Think your ideas through
• Build your company while you build your product
• Face reality everyday
• Hire the best
• Aggressively follow all leads

Makes a nice snap back to reality after yesterday’s session with China NLP on values…

Daniel Smith

“it’s procedure”!!!!!

Maybe wasting your time is “procedure” for some, but I like to not be one of those people… but it got me thinking about motivations. I realised – as I was speaking with the MBA-educated meeting convener – that she was motivated by fulfilling the criteria (going through the motions or just doing stuff), rather than actually achieving outcomes.

It really got me annoyed for a few minutes… until I got curious.

I noticed that some people sincerely believe that life is accomplished by going through the motions… it’s more than the difference between being efficient and being effective – I’m really talking about alignment. I’m talking about the importance of getting your actions and outcomes aligned with your overall direction or vision, and consistent with your values.

So where are you at? What are your values? How aligned are you? How aligned is your organisation?

There are now more than a hundred billionaires in China – and the youngest was born in the 1980s! And you can bet that they are lean, focused and disciplined to get profit… and profit is where you are better aligned to deliver value than your competitors. Fundamentally, that’s why capitalism can work so well… it rewards and challenges us to create ever-greater value.

In a world of hypercompetition, free design (as it is once you get to scale) and a boundary-less world alignment is everything… to deliver alignment you have to design it, necessitating self-awareness and the determination to understand your underlying values.

Because if you don’t, you can be sure that someone else will.

Daniel Smith

Based on my presentation in People’s Square, Shanghai, 21 August 2007.

What you focus upon you will tend to bring into your life, whether it’s what you want or what you don’t want. It’s sometimes called The Law of Attraction, The Secret and a bunch of other names, but ultimately it’s pretty simple: Focus on what you want.

The questions that you ask yourself shift your focus and are one of the main ways that we think deliberately about anything. If you ask yourself “why does this always happen to me?” you’ll get a very different answer to “how can I make this better?” So ask yourself the questions that you really want answered.

Let go of your handbrake and go for it. None of us get an ‘certificate of attendance’ for life, so embrace the moment and accept the gift of the precious present.

Really, there are only two types of problem: Either you know what you want and don’t know how to get it, or you don’t know what you want. And a lot of the time, the first problem type is actually the second type in disguise! So what do you really want?

And remember a few attributes of geniuses…

• It takes a decade to really get somewhere
• You have to go beyond knowledge towards making a unique contribution
• Postpone the need for closure and withstand conformance pressures
• Cultivate skills, processes and the motivation
• Focus your energy and effort
• Be motivated by Mastery, Entertainment, Exploration and Happiness, before than external rewards

You are talented and it’s just a little jump to lift yourself up to being a ‘genius’ – and that’s somewhere that I can help…

Daniel Smith

May I a small house, and a large garden have.
And a few Friends, and many Books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too.

The Secret made it to Oprah. It’s an amazing thought that in the next 24 hours, Oprah will be helping to transform this story/ documentary of one woman’s experience with focus and manifestation into an even more powerful international success. But it leaves a very challenge part of the story unsaid: What do you really want?

Although the heart must be made to conceive before the eye will be permitted to discover, I find that one of the greatest challenges that we face is to let go of our self-imposed blindness. “What would you do if anything was possible?” is a question that I have asked at many of my seminars and workshops (as well as in personal coaching and consultation sessions), and the recurring theme in responses is that very few people really know what is possible.

Great spirits certainly do encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds, yet the greatest challenge for a great mind is to make the leap to being a great spirit. For a great spirit to be unleashed, you must believe in yourself. Whether it is a (delusional?) sense of narcissim, an inflated sense of self-importance, or perhaps just the irrational spontaneous adoption of a belief in personal purpose and direction, for someone with talent to apply that talent in the disciplined and focused manner necessary to accomplish anything great or to develop any great skills perhaps demands something of a state of mental or emotional imbalance.
So where do we begin?

That, to me, is the primary advantage that superior educational institutions afford over ‘ordinary’ ones. Great institutions, employers and places tend to attract those with talent and ability, and in doing so give the individuals the exposure to ideas and people that can expand their minds in otherwise inconceivable ways. While I believe that the truths of ‘genius’ are still somewhat waiting to be discovered by each of us, travel, education and exposure to new ideas is one of the surest ways of expanding your mind…
If you really just want the small house and large garden, are the things that you’re doing along the way really helping?

Daniel Smith

What I thought was interesting was the structure that they gave this information. The table is structured with the following headings: Category, Objective ID, Name, Summary, Value and then which of the six themes that the objective supports. I love seeing the parallels between business and personal life, so it really strikes me that this could be a great way for people to structure their objectives.

Goal setting is great, but it’s really easy to mess it up! Goal achievement is usually more hit-and-miss than anything else; often because of a lack of personal alignment. We might want to do something, but to actually make that happen is a different story altogether once you factor in ‘divine redirections’ (aka failures) and new opportunities.

The Balanced Scorecard/ Strategy Maps/ Alignment approach is powerful, though it’s still pretty limited in application to the business world. Covey’s ultra-popular “Roles” approach is nice and neat, though lacks the power; Tony Robbins’ RPM/OPA system is beautifully presented but (like so much of Tony’s stuff) lacks the real robustness (even through his Time of Your Life course – a course that sounds so great yet delivers so little at the real front line) that would allow it to really work. The best (in my view) at personal productivity is David Allen, and while he says “consider this stuff”, he largely abdicates any structure for higher level thinking in favor of the methods that do work very well at a tactical and operational level. I believe that the ’solution’, at least for me integrates the “Roles” of Covey within a BSC/SM/A framework somewhat like the NASA outline, and, while being mindful of the Outcomes championed by Tony, structures efficiency through the GTD/ David Allen approach. If that really didn’t make any sense, ask me about it and I’ll see what I can do…

I like the notion of identifying the themes that we are trying to fulfill… trans-disciplinary outcomes that we are using a range of vehicles to fulfill.

From an education framework, to me this is an uber-cool way to introduce personal excellence and achievement into science-minded students.

Daniel Smith