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Ryan’s Journal: Thought Leadership in Vegas

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kozumel/4972048347/

This week I have the privilege of spending time in Vegas for the BMC Sales Kickoff for 2018. (I work for BMC.) It is a lot of excess and excitement, as are most things in Vegas.

However, there is a profound impact being made as well when it comes to how we go to market and create true value for our customers.

What I have found about being at these events is that energy matters. How you think and act will impact your outcome.

I had the opportunity to hear from leaders in tech that all said one thing.

Your mentality will determine your outcome.

If you don’t believe, you won’t get to your goals. It sounds simple, but it’s profound.

Our belief shapes our desired state.

What is your desired state and how do you get there?

Image credit: Camilo Rueda López

Ryan’s Journal: The Art Of Thanks

Thursday, November 23rd, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/anjanettew/16148577365/Tomorrow can be a day of thanks for a lot of people. It gives us time to pause and share good times with friends and family.

There are a lot of things I truly appreciate about the holiday.

I live pretty far from family, so it’s nice to come home, catch up and relax.

It can also be a time to remind myself of why I work and what I am grateful for.

I have been thinking about this concept of thanks for a while now as I try to further it within my life, both professionally and personally.

I work in sales and my life is directly affected by the actions of my clients. As a result there is much to be thankful for. My challenge now is how to convey that. I am also realizing the benefits of giving thanks.

As I consider the topic I find that when I give thanks it not only edifies me, it enhances the person being thanked as well.

It’s essentially a power source that keeps going and building. Have you ever been thanked for something in a genuine way? How did they make you feel? How hard would it be to do the same for another?

Meditation can be helpful and when I meditate I consider those I am thankful for and it immediately rejuvenates me. I feel more compassion, joy, and energy.

So as we head into the holiday, maybe look around and see where you can impact in a positive way.

It would be a nice change from the grind of the world… at least for one day.

Image credit: anjanettew

Golden Oldies: Your Energy Banks

Monday, September 19th, 2016

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time. I wrote the following way back on 2006 and believe it applies even more now.

 People spend great effort learning new skills and pushing themselves to grow. They are busier, with more claims on their time; social media and FOMO eat hours and all of them require energy — especially change. Even the people who successfully juggle all this feel no joy; the zest is gone and happiness is a dim memory. Listen to their voice and you can hear that their energy is almost non-existent. Now, as then, I hope this post is of use.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Do you have an energy budget? You should. Everything you do takes some kind of energy and your energy at any given time is finite.

As with any resource, it’s important to know where you’re spending it, how much you have left, and when you need to make a deposit.

It’s also important to recognize that you can spend energy moving forward or spinning your wheels—the first is an investment with discernible ROI, while the second is a waste.

There are three kinds of energy

  • physical,
  • mental, and
  • psychic (different from mental)

and you draw some of each for any given task. This is especially true when working to change something in your MAP because you need to

  • be awake and alert,
  • think, and
  • actuate, i.e., make the changes real.

Three kinds of energy, but only one bank for each type—not one set for professional use and one for personal.

Since an effort to change is ongoing, you’ll be drawing on your three energy banks at various times and in various amounts. These requirements need to be added to the energy needs for the rest of what you’re doing, both personally and professionally, and prioritized. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew.

As with any bank account you need to make more deposits than withdrawals or you’ll end up like Enron. It’s your responsibility to keep them filled, just as it is to keep money in your bank account if you plan to write checks and gas in your car if you’re driving somewhere—it doesn’t happen by accident.

Moreover, what replenishes your spouse/SO/kids/pets/whatever’s energy won’t necessarily replenish yours (and vice versa).

That means that you need to learn what actions/inactions replenishes each kind of energy for you and then do them.

Entrepreneurs: the Enigma of Emotion

Thursday, July 24th, 2014

kg_charles-harrisIt’s incredible how much emotion can completely boost or derail absolutely everything at work and in life.  It completely changes the color and tenor of any discussion or experience, though actual reality remains unchanged. In fact, I’m coming to believe that almost everything is emotionally driven in human experience – history, sociology, culture, psychology, biology, health, etc. 

Emotion is that elusive, inexplicable thing that gives or takes away will and energy, determines perception and choice and, to a large extent, outcomes in life. Yet we know almost nothing about it—or at least I don’t. I know how it feels and what it does, but not where it comes from, what causes it and, most importantly, how to optimize it.  

I do know that hormones and whether I am rested, hungry, etc., influence my emotions. However, I am reflecting on how easily I see exactly the same thing as positive or negative depending on how I feel. How strongly emotions determine my ability to deal well or badly with large, or even the smallest, matters.

Building a company is about creating an emotional drive in a group of people to accomplish something together. I’ve noticed that whenever I’m convincing people to join or am working out problems it is not just a conversation or intellectual work, but a significant outlay of emotional energy.

It’s as if my emotions are a vibration at a certain frequency that has the ability to cause vibration in others as well, as if emotions are sound or music. If we take a comparison to physics:

“If you were to take a guitar string and stretch it to a given length and a given tightness and have a friend pluck it, you would hear a noise; but the noise would not even be close in comparison to the loudness produced by an acoustic guitar. On the other hand, if the string is attached to the sound box of the guitar, the vibrating string is capable of forcing the sound box into vibrating at that same natural frequency. The sound box in turn forces air particles inside the box into vibrational motion at the same natural frequency as the string. The entire system (string, guitar, and enclosed air) begins vibrating and forces surrounding air particles into vibrational motion.

The tendency of one object to force another adjoining or interconnected object into vibrational motion is referred to as a forced vibration. In the case of the guitar string mounted to the sound box, the fact that the surface area of the sound box is greater than the surface area of the string means that more surrounding air particles will be forced into vibration. This causes an increase in the amplitude and thus loudness of the sound.”

This is exactly how you build an organization—as the entrepreneur and founder, it starts with my emotional vibration and transferring that emotional vibration to other competent people who can help me build my vision. And a large part of doing that is to accept that this vision is no longer mine, but that it’s now the vision of the people to whom I transferred the emotional vibration. 

That means, building an organization is like creating the sound box in the above example—it amplifies the effect of the emotional drive towards goals.

I recently spoke with my father about the fact that everything in my life and the world seemingly being emotion-based; that emotion is what provides us with the energy to have a vision within ourselves and the force to transfer it to others while maintaining it within.  

He said that the transference happens in a variety of ways—facial expression, gestures, word choice, etc.—and that the mix of these and other tools can enhance or detract from the vibration.  

In other words, we need to actively think about emotional transference and the tools we can use to promote it. What can we learn from the physics of vibration?

Beyond physics there’s biology. If I know that I am deeply affected in my emotional states and my dealings with people by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, as well as rest, nutrition and other factors, then to what extent I can control this? Clearly it is necessary to maintain good physical condition, which includes rest, exercise and proper nutrition. My father believes we can determine the hormone levels in our bodies by thought and training; perhaps this is what the practice of Buddhist mediation is all about—the end to suffering through changing our perception of reality.  

Ultimately our emotions determine our perception of reality, so a slight change in chemical balance will enable us to achieve great things or completely derail what we’re attempting to accomplish.  

Some try to use chemistry (pharmaceuticals & drugs) to optimize this, but unfortunately the tools and substances used by psychologists and psychiatrists are woefully crude and we are just in the beginning phases of understanding how this can function.

Emotion is a central aspect of elite athleticism. We obviously can optimize like athletes, so why don’t we? They start by influencing the natural factors that they actually can control, i.e. nutrition, rest, positive environment and focused exercise. 

Shouldn’t optimizing our biology be just as primary a task for entrepreneurs as it is for athletes in order to enhance our ability to execute?  

Why are so many of us neglecting to utilize this tool to help us achieve our goals?

Note: KG Charles-Harris is CEO of Quarrio (former CEO of Emanio). KG’s company was recently awarded SIIA’s (Software & Information Industry Association) NextGen Awards in 2 of 3 categories – “Best Overall” and “Most Disruptive.” Quarrio won from a pool of several hundred applicants. The runner-up was Junyo, co-founded by Steve Schoettler, co-founder of Zynga, and funded by Mitch Kapor, Learn Capital and others.

Entrepreneurs: Get Involved

Thursday, January 23rd, 2014

http://www.innoafrica.org/uganda-completed.html

Entrepreneurs who make a difference are my favorite people, whether they do it in for-profit or non-profit mode.

The two I’m highlighting today are both non-profits and both are doing the kind of innovation you’ll want to support.

What do you consider the most basic need for the poor, isolated, rural villages in African nations? If your response is sanitation, clean water, access to healthcare or education you would be one level too high.

All of those mentioned are like apps, but apps that need a common platform to work. So the most basic need; the one that makes the others possible is energy.

And energy is what Sivan Borowich-Ya’ari’s non-profit supplies.

Innovation: Africa, a non-profit that brings Israeli innovation to African villages. In five years, Innovation: Africa has provided electricity, clean water, food and medical care to more than 450,000 people in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda.

While solar panels solved the energy-generation problem, the system wasn’t sustainable, because there was no money to replace the needed light bulbs and batteries.

Innovation: Africa solved that by helping create a micro business that generated enough revenue to pay the replacement costs.

People come from the villages surrounding the clinic to charge their cell phones, paying 10 to 15 cents. That money is collected, deposited in a bank and used for two things. One, to buy light bulbs. Second, to replace the batteries. So, we are providing the villagers the solar energy and also a way to generate income so that they can sustain it.

Sound interesting? Why not put a group together and adopt a project?

The best practice would be to adopt a project; we have at least 38 villages now that are waiting for energy. We know that it’s quite urgent. We would like to do it by 2014. …adopt a specific school or an orphanage, a medical clinic and speak to those children directly and figure out their needs.

D-Rev is a non-profit product development group whose solutions sit atop that energy platform.

Its original focus was to redesign medical devices for poor areas (the first is a phototherapy system that addresses the widespread problem of infant jaundice) and then work with third-party, for-profit distribution companies.

But that didn’t work.

“We thought if you design a good product, it will scale on its own,” Krista Donaldson said. “That works in efficient markets, but most developing communities don’t have efficient markets.” (…) D-Rev has had to become far more involved than it expected in financial models, licensing deals, consulting services and manufacturing arrangements. In essence, it is redesigning not only high-tech products but also supply chains and procurement systems.

I hope you will take a few minutes to read the articles and choose to get involved; if not with one of these then find something that ignites your passion and, as Nike would say, just do it.

Image credit: Innovation: Africa

Self-Improvement

Wednesday, June 26th, 2013

self-improvement-to-self-acceptanceThe other day I was asked the same question by two different managers, one Gen X and the other a leading edge Gen Y.

The subject was improving and strengthening weaknesses.

They both wanted to know if/when enough is enough.

That’s a question I found an answer to a long time ago, so I shared it, with the caveat that just because it worked for me didn’t mean it was right for them.

The short version I shared is that I stop a specific self-improvement effort when the ROI is too low for the energy (mental, physical, psychical) expended; in other words, there is no viable payoff.

Of course, “viable payoff” is strictly subjective, but any self-improvement effort includes certain expectations (your own, not other people’s) that should include a minimum.

Minimum not met means no viable payoff.

That isn’t to say that I fall back on the tired “that’s the way I am;” instead, I always found ways to off-set whatever action or attitude I’d spent energy changing as far as made sense.

Part of this comes from measuring ROI, but it also comes from intelligent prioritizing, which requires the recognition that time is finite and one needs to pick one’s battles.

Perhaps that’s what life, both personally and at work, is really all about—much like the saying that the journey is the best part.

In fact, I hope that when I’m gone those who knew me will say, “From self improvement to self acceptance. A good trip.”

Image credit: JJChandler.com

Wordless Wednesday: Explore Your Country

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Now learn how to disengage your people

Image credit: University of Kent on google images

What Kind Of Manager Is Your MAP?

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Phil Gerbyshak (whose new book, Help Desk Manager’s Crash Course, I edited) has a great post on being a glass-is-half-full, high energy manager.

“This is how I live my life and my job: targeted, yet half-full and open to the possibilities that I can, and my team can, achieve more.”

Sure, you read this stuff all the time and you probably wonder if this is the real person or a public persona.

Well, I’m here to tell you that Phil is 100% real; in current jargon he’s completely authentic.

How can you get to be like Phil?

Read books, such as the one he mentions? Read blogs like his or mine?

They’ll help, but first look in the mirror. What do you see? Do you see the type of person that Phil’s describing? Is that what your family, friends and team sees?

If not, then before you spend the time on the books and blogs spend time on your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), because if your MAP isn’t in sync with the action you want it isn’t going to happen.

It’s said that the best things in life are free; I think that the best things in life are chosen.

Choose to change or enhance your MAP today!

Image credit: code1name on sxc.hu

How valuable is ‘mea culpa’ when changing?

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Image credit: eocs CC license

What does change really entail? Should the focus be doing things differently from this point forward or does it require admitting publicly that the previous approach was flawed?

I get asked this more often than you’d think. It seems as if many people feel that the mea culpa is as important, if not more so, than the new behavior.

I vehemently disagree.

It’s actually far easier to talk about a fault than to actually change it, especially when the cause is rooted in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

I wrote about this last fall at Leadership Turn. Changing manager’s minds and the comments are a good example of why I don’t believe that mea culpa matters.

As I said then, ‘When admitting the change is tantamount to saying “I was wrong” you’ll find few people jumping up and down to do it.’

Change is difficult enough without the added burden of ‘you/they are right and I’m wrong’. The admission accomplishes nothing more than opening the door to ‘I told you so’—four words that aren’t high on anyone’s motivational phrase list.

What do you think?

Personal energy usage way up

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Image credit: RAWKU5

All kinds of energy prices are rising—not just those that are petroleum or corn-based.

Think about the energy you expend each day dealing with your family culture, company culture and social culture, not to mention your personal culture, AKA your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)

And not just one kind of energy, but three

  • physical,
  • mental, and
  • psychic (not used as a synonym for mental)

I’ve already written about the importance of budgeting your energy, which involves saying ‘no’ without guilt, so why am I bringing it up again?

Because the current storm (no, it’s not perfect) of rising gas and food prices and global competitive pressures in a shaky economy has the potential to increase your energy use exponentially.

Just as you’ve changed, your driving patterns to conserve gas you need to revisit your personal energy spending and adjust your usage. You also need to increase your energy production by saying yes more often to those things that generate energy for you.

Take the time to (re)read them. Along with better energy management you may even find more time for creative thinking.

What are you doing to conserve your personal energy?

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