Facebook entry: Coach Gelwix and Highland Rugby

Q&A With Anthony Cannon: Coach Gelwix Taught Us Never To Give Up

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 11:21am

Anthony Cannon played under coach Larry Gelwix on the Highland Rugby team for four years.

What motivated you to play for Coach Gelwix?

I was introduced to HR at an early age. My brother was playing for the team, while I was in Elementary school. He had such a good experience that it made me want to play. But something else happened while my brother was playing, our dad passed away, it was a tragic event. I remember that Larry came over to our house several times to meet with my brother to talk with him, and find out how he was doing. As I little boy I saw that, how he was coming to check in and take care of him, find out how things were going though a difficult time. While it meant a lot to my brother it also meant a lot to me. Someone was taking an interest, not just in my older brother, but in our family.

Larry treated me kindly and even gave me a t-shirt. He invited me to come play for them. When I wore that shirt to school, I felt important; I was being recruited at such an early age to come play Highland Rugby. So when I did reach high school, I was excited to go play for Larry, to play for the rugby team. I was excited to experience this team that I had heard about, and finally have my own experiences in.

What made Highland Rugby different than other sport teams you played with?

Larry had a way to teach principals to the players. I remember feeling there was a greater sense of unity for this team, compared to other teams I had played for. Larry’s leadership was different than I was used it. He would call on players at the end of practice to say how they thought the teams overall performance was. It wasn’t just team captains he would call on, he just wanted everyone to have the chance to stand up and speak to the team. It meant a lot to me, because I could see how boys would take ownership of the team when they had a chance to stand up and share their opinions.

Going to Nationals and your experience working as a team?

My junior year, I was captain on the team. We had a difficult time coming together that year. We were a small team. We didn’t have as many boys who were big and strong, as we had in years past. We had lost a lot of the talent from the previous year. We were having a difficult year coming together and playing well. And this was not typical for the Highland team, who has a reputation for having a good team with plenty of talent, who works hard and perform well on the field. We did make it to finals that year, struggling through the season, but made it to the finals. At our first game in the National Tournament, we struggled performance wise. We just couldn’t come together well. We made it though the game but it was ugly. Larry let us know that it was ugly, and that we needed to make a decision as a team. If we were going to come out and play as a team, because it was do or die. We were either going to be sent home ashamed or we were going to turn around and step up and meet the tradition that Highland has set. Larry encouraged us to work together on our own. We talked our problems out and tried to figure out what we were doing wrong. That was a turning point in our season; we came back for the next game, the semi-finals in the tournament and played as the Highland team should play. We turned it up; it was a great feeling. We felt like we were fighting for one another. Like we were playing for our brothers. We made it though that game, and then faced our archival in the Championship game. We came out and went head to head with them and it was one of the greatest matches I have ever participated in. The people from Rugby Today said it was one of the greatest games for High School rugby they have ever seen. We ended up winning that game, but more than that we found what we were missing that year. It was our brotherhood, our feeling of tradition and responsibility that was handed down through the years from past players. It was incredibly rewarding experience. I think about that often and reflect on being disciplined and committed to a common purpose, and developed to unity on the team.

What did you learn playing on Highland that helped you to serve a mission?

One thing I always remember Larry teaching us at practice was that it didn’t matter how tired we get; we still have a job to do. We aren’t going to give up till we finish what we are going to accomplish. That was a principal that helped me as I served a mission; I am going to work hard regardless of how I feel and I am going to not give up until I get the job done. One of the team motto’s is never give up, that stuck with me. One other thing that I learned was accountability; at times at practice, Larry would call on random players to give account of their personal running program. I remember being a freshman and being terrified to be called on to report. It taught me that I needed to be ready to give account for what my responsibilities are. At the time, we needed to be able to stand and tell the coach and team that they went out and did our running. Larry never would have yelled at you for not doing it. Rather he would have been disappointed in you, and that disappointment was worse than any kind of yelling or swearing storm he could have done. When I went on my mission, I knew I was accountable for my time and my efforts.

What do ou personally think of Coach, and his character?

Larry is a tremendous guy. I was impressed with him from the get go. And playing on the team allowed me to get to know him personally everyday. He valued other people’s opinion. He said that you can tell the value of a person by how he treats others he doesn’t need. He compared this to a senior on the team, how he would treat a freshman, or someone he didn’t need. Larry practiced this by asking the team how we were doing, it didn’t matter their position. He asked what he thought we could do better as a team and that he could do better as a coach. I remember being taken back at the question. I didn’t think he needed to do better, but I was impressed that he would have that idea to ask my opinion of how he was doing as a coach.

Tell us about the interaction with your grandfather, Elder Worthlin, and playing for a World Championship in South Africa?

In 1998 Highland Rugby went to South Africa. I had an older brother and a cousin playing that year, so I went to the airport to see them off. My grandfather, Elder Worthlin, went as well. That meant a lot to Larry and the boys. It meant a lot that he showed support for the Highland Rugby team. My grandfather, Elder Worthlin, became a supporter of the Highland Rugby team because he had four grandsons who played for Coach Gelwix. I remember when my grandfather would come to my games; it was a special thing, that he was showing that much support for us. Larry adopted the practice of the having the boys coming up after to shake my grandfathers hand. I know the boys enjoyed it, and my grandfather felt privileged to have some part in the Highland Rugby program. My grandfather would often tell me that it was a great experience to be associated with that team. I remember whether I was in season or not, he would ask how the rugby team was doing. I said, that were doing well and starting practice in a month. He would do his characteristic head nod and say, “It’s a great program and that’s a great coach. He has done some amazing things”. I remember thinking that it was an amazing thing that my grandfather was aware of what I was doing, but he was endorsing my involvement with Highland Rugby.

I remember even after my time at Highland Rugby was finished, in 2007, I attended the National championship as a spectator watching Highland Rugby play in the championship. I remember looking over in the stand and seeing my grandfather there with my aunt. I was impressed that he was not just showing his support while I was there, but was showing his support even now when he didn’t have a grandson on the team. I still remember Larry bringing my grandfather down on the field after Highland had won and the boys coming up one by one shaking his hand. I remember thinking this was a great thing that he could be part of this story and give the boys this memory as well.

Every season, Larry would get a group of boys together and take them up to my grandfather’s office down town. That was a special visit for all of us as we got to sit in the office, shake his hand, and listen to the council and experiences he shared with us. He would share lessons that he learned from playing football for the University of Utah, and how those later helped him on his mission to Germany and Switzerland. Then he would tell us that we needed to believe in the lessons that Coach Gelwix was teaching us. He instructed that there was no better way to prepare than for working hard and being dedicated to the Highland Rugby team.

What was it like being a team captain for two years?

When I was a junior, I was elected to be captain. It was a frightening experience for me because usually it was the seniors who were captains on the team. I remember being uncertain if I could live up to both the culture and tradition of Highland Rugby. I remember Coach taking me under his wing and teaching me how to be a captain. It was basically pretty simple; you have to be the part. Larry taught me that I needed to be a “doer” and that was the best way to be a captain on the team. That year was a hard time coming together as a team. And it was a difficult time for us as a team, so we had to fight together as a group of boys to live up to what we had been given by previous players for the Highland Rugby team.

I think the best experience I had being captain, was not just one experience but rather the culmination of lessons being there taught by coach Coach. He taught me the principals of discipline, hard work, honesty, commitment, and not doing anything to embarrass yourself, your family, or our church. These are principals that I was able to carry on my mission, that have helped me since that time. I think about them often as I am placed in positions of influence or when I am placed in organizations where I have influence.

Tell us an experience where you used these leadership skills?

I think the number one principal that stands out in my mind, was the principal of not giving up. It was demonstrated on the team when I played by just working our tails off. That was something I took into the mission field - where you are working hard every day and sometimes feel like you want to go in and call it a day. But remembering what my experiences were on the rugby team, helped me to work hard and be Forever Strong. And that was a way that I was able to apply those into my mission experience.

Coach Gelwix and Highland Rugby: "Build Quality Boys"

Rugby Forever Strong: "Build Quality Boys"

Coach Gelwix 30 year tradition of leadership was dramatized in the movie, "Forever Strong". As a leader of boys highschool Rugby team in Highland Utah, Coach Gelwix used the opportunity to make a difference in boys lives.

Quality is on the inside. Strength from the team comes from each persons commitment to honor and listen to what is right, live clean, and never do anything to embarrass oneself, one's team, or one's family. Honor, Spirit, and Tradition (BYU Football, no?) provide a sense of duty to do one's best and honor those who have gone before.

The boy in the movie, "Rick Penny" is raised in a pretty heartless fashion by his father who blames his old Rugby coach for an ACL injury his senior year. The boy gets in trouble with the law, and ends up in Juvenile Detention where he can be released early if he plays well for the Highland Rugby team. Along the way he learns true friendship, putting the team first, that one cannot truly win without honesty, honor, clean living, and doing one's best.

Coach Gelwix wants each boy to do his personal best. When they lose, they did not play their best and he focuses on their efforts to improve themselves. He cares deeply about each one of the boys, and knows a quality rugby team will naturally result when quality comes from the inside of each of the boys.

This movie taught me that leadership is about also caring for your team members and wanting their success; realizing they can only attain it by not cheating themselves, and committing themselves to the highest principles possible. "Never embarass yourself, your team, or your family" is a key lesson for each player. "I am not building a quality team, I build quality boys" is the leaders lesson. This applies to my organizational efforts at work by caring about the person on the team first.

Peter Drucker: Managing Knowledge

Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself

by Peter F. Drucker

Leader To Leader, No.16, Spring 2000

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time -- literally -- substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.

Throughout history, practically nobody had choices. Until about 1900, even in the most highly developed countries, the overwhelming majority followed their father's line of work -- if they were lucky. If your father was a peasant farmer, you were a peasant farmer. If he was a craftsman, you were a craftsman. There was only downward mobility; there was no upward mobility.

Now suddenly a large number of people have choices. What is more, they will have more than one career, because the working life span of people is now close to 60 years -- three times what it was in 1900. People in my executive management program (who are 45 years old on average and very successful) tell me, to a person, "I do not expect to end my career where I am working now."

Abundance of Choices

Knowledge gives choice. It also explains why we suddenly have women in the same jobs as men. Historically, men and women have always had equal participation in the labor force -- the idea of the idle housewife is a 19th-century delusion. Men and women simply did different jobs. There's no civilization in which the two genders did the same work. However, knowledge work knows no gender; men and women do the same jobs. This, too, is a major change in the human condition.

To succeed in this new world, we will have to learn, first, who we are. Few people, even highly successful people, can answer the questions, Do you know what you're good at? Do you know what you need to learn so that you get the full benefit of your strengths? Few have even asked themselves these questions.

On the contrary, most are proud of their ignorance. There are human resource people who are proud of the fact that they can't read a balance sheet. Yet if you want to be effective today, you have to be able to read one. On the other hand, there are accountants who are equally proud of the fact that they cannot get along with people! That, of course, is nothing to be proud of, because anyone can learn to work smoothly with others. It is not hard, after all, to learn manners -- and manners are what allow people to get along.

Knowing Yourself

Throughout human history, it was the super achievers -- and only the super achievers -- who knew when to say "No." They always knew what to reach for. They knew where to place themselves. Now all of us will have to learn that. It's not very difficult. The key to it -- what Leonardo da Vinci and Mozart did -- is to record the results of our decisions.

Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen. The most important decisions in organizations are people decisions, and yet only the military, and only recently, has begun to ask, "If we assign this general to lead this base, what do we expect him to accomplish?" Three years later they look back at what they had written. They have now reached a point where 40 percent of their decisions work out.

The Roman Catholic Church is just beginning to ask the same question about bishops. "Why do we put the bishop into the diocese? What do we expect?" And the Church finds that a great majority of appointments do not fulfill expectations, because they get no feedback on their performance.

Building on Strengths

It's easy to understand our strengths by tracking our results. Yet most of us underestimate our own strengths. We take them for granted. What we are good at comes easy, and we believe that unless it comes hard, it can't be very good. As a result, we don't know our strengths, and we don't know how we can build on them.

We also seldom know what gifts we are not endowed with. We will have to learn where we belong, what we have to learn to get the full benefit from our strengths, where our weaknesses lie, what our values are. We also have to know ourselves temperamentally: "Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? What am I committed to? And what is my contribution?" Unfortunately, nobody teaches us these things. In the next 30 years most educated people will have to learn to place themselves, in work and in life.

Improving Productivity

Understanding

our strengths, articulating our values, knowing where we belong -- these are also essential to addressing one of the great challenges of organizations: improving the abysmally low productivity of knowledge workers. The productivity of teachers, for instance, has not improved, and may in fact have shrunk, in the past 70 years. (Of course teachers in the 1920s enjoyed the advantage of not having faculty meetings to attend.) And nurses and sales workers are only two-thirds as productive as their counterparts 70 years ago.

Yet we know that hospitals can improve productivity by asking their nurses two simple questions: What are you being paid for, and how much time do you spend doing that? Typically, nurses say they are paid to provide patient care, or to keep the doctors happy. Both are good answers; the problem is that they have no time to do either job. One hospital more than doubled its nurses' productivity simply by asking them these two questions, and then hiring clerks to do the paperwork that prevented nurses from doing their real job.

Effective organizations put people in jobs in which they can do the most good. They place people -- and allow people to place themselves -- according to their strengths.

The historic shift to self-management offers organizations four ways to best develop and motivate knowledge workers:

• Know people's strengths.
• Place them where they can make the greatest contributions.
• Treat them as associates.
• Expose them to challenges.

The greatest competitive advantage of the United States is that it attracts top knowledge workers from around the world -- not just because they earn more money but because they are treated as colleagues, not as subordinates. Knowledge workers don't believe they are paid to work 9 to 5; they believe they're paid to be effective. Organizations that understand this -- and strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers' way -- will be able to attract, hold, and motivate the best performers. That will be the single biggest factor for competitive advantage in the next 25 years.

Role of the Social Sector

I take a dim view of most of the programs companies create to develop their people. The real development I've seen of people in organizations, especially in big ones, comes from their being volunteers in a nonprofit organization -- where you have responsibility, you see results, and you quickly learn what your values are. There is no better way to understand your strengths and discover where you belong than to volunteer in a nonprofit. That is probably the great opportunity for the social sector -- and especially in its relationship to business.

We talk today of the social responsibilities of business. I hope we will soon begin to talk about the nonprofit organization as the great social opportunity for business. It is the opportunity for business to develop managers far more effectively than any company or university can. It is one of the unique benefits that the social sector can offer -- to provide a place where the knowledge worker can actually discover who he or she is and can actually learn to manage him- or herself.

Forbes Article on Peter Drucker, Manageing Oneself: Sept 2009

A vital milestone in becoming an effective leader is the ability to manage oneself. It is on this subject we come upon one of Drucker's classic pieces, "Managing Oneself."

http://academy.clevelandclinic.org/Portals/40/managingoneself.pdf

The piece, originally published in 1999, was republished in the January 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review. Drucker died in November that year, eight days short of his 96th birthday. (The essay was also part of a Drucker book, Management Challenges for the 21st Century.)

In his characteristically crisp style, Drucker poses a number questions as the starting point for reflection. Among them:

What Are My Strengths?

How Do I Perform?

What Are My Values?

Where Do I Belong?

What Should I Contribute?

His conclusion puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of each and every one of us: "The challenges of managing oneself may seem obvious, if not elementary. And the answers may seem self-evident to the point of appearing naive. But managing oneself requires new and unprecedented things from the individual, and especially from the knowledge worker."

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Innovation of rapid Innovation

The New, Faster Face of Innovation

Thanks to technology, change has never been so easy—or so cheap

• 
  

By ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON And MICHAEL SCHRAGE

Call it innovation on steroids. Or innovation at warp speed. Or just the innovation of rapid innovation.

The Journal Report

See the complete Business Insight report.

But the essential point remains: Technology is transforming innovation at its core, allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They can stick features on Web sites and tell within hours how customers respond. They can see results from in-store promotions, or efforts to boost process productivity, almost as quickly.

The result? Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can often be started in seconds for cents.

And that makes innovation, the lifeblood of growth, more efficient and cheaper. Companies are able to get a much better idea of how their customers behave and what they want. This gives new offerings and marketing efforts a better shot at success.

Harry Campbell

Companies will also be willing to try new things, because the price of failure is so much lower. That will bring big changes for corporate culture—making it easier to challenge accepted wisdom, for instance, and forcing managers to give more employees a say in the innovation process.

There will be even better payoffs for customers: Their likes and dislikes will have much more impact on companies' decisions. In globally competitive markets, they will ultimately end up getting products and services better tailored to their needs.

Already, this powerful new capability is changing the way some of the biggest companies in the world do business, inspiring new strategies and revolutionizing the research-and-development process.

"In the U.S., we do the vast majority of our concept testing online, which has created truly substantial savings in money and time," says Joan Lewis, global consumer and market knowledge officer at Procter & Gamble Co.

What does all of this experimentation look like in practice?

Consider Google Inc., which runs 50 to 200 search experiments at any given time. In one case, Google asked selected users how many search results they would like to see on a single screen. More, said the users, many more. So Google ran an experiment that tripled the number of search results per screen to 30. The company found that traffic declined.

What happened? On average it took about a third of a second longer for search results to appear—a seemingly insignificant delay that nonetheless upset many of the users. The greater number of results also made it more likely that a user would click on a page that did not have the information he or she was seeking.

In an environment where experimentation is this quick and efficient, many traditional practices make less economic sense. For instance, current research-and-development efforts are often driven by considerations that the company's technicians think are important but customers really don't care about. Mobile-phone companies, for one, had a reputation for piling on features that added more cost and complexity than value.

But it's not just Web-based companies that are taking advantage of technology to run crucial experiments.

Even retailers—who might seem to have tremendous logistical challenges implementing rapid experiments across lots of stores—can tap this new approach, thanks to the rise of sophisticated tracking systems that make measuring customer behavior more agile and less expensive.

These systems—which track everything from purchases at the cash register to how products move through the supply chain—allow stores to cheaply collect terabytes of data on their customer interactions, the performance of products in the field, employee productivity and other factors. Traditionally, companies have simply rooted through all of that data to look for patterns and trends; they've mined their data. But some retailers are beginning to realize that they can get much better results by using their digital systems to run experiments.

Michael Schrage talks with the Journal’s Erin White about how managers can strike the right balance in giving employees guidance on innovation—avoiding being too restrictive on the one hand or allowing a free-for-all on the other.

Take Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which frequently runs comparative in-store experiments with signage, displays and shelf layouts to see what influences shopper decisions. Wal-Mart can test different arrangements in a number of stores for a week or so to see which approach boosts sales the most. If different sign colors or unusual merchandise juxtapositions increase—or depress—relative sales, the stores can quickly share the information and implement the same plan. That said, store managers also have the ability to make decisions at their store to meet individual customer needs.

Other companies, meanwhile, have blended digital technologies and conventional systems to test out ideas. For instance, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. uses advanced information systems to analyze data from its Total Reward Card and field experiments throughout its casino and hotel network.

The Speed of Change

• The Evolution: Technology is allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago.
• The Effect: Innovation, the lifeblood of growth, is growing more efficient and cheaper.
• What's Ahead: Innovative companies will shift away from traditional research-and-development methods. Managers will change the way they solicit ideas. And much, much more.

Gary Loveman, the chief executive who brought the experimentation mindset to 70-year-old Harrah's, quips, "There are two ways to get fired from Harrah's: stealing from the company, or failing to include a proper control group in your business experiment."

Where will all this lead? Experiments will become far more pervasive and persuasive as information technology improves and testing grows faster and cheaper. More companies—and more enterprising individuals who work in them—will recognize that experiments don't have to be time-consuming and expensive, and they will propose more tests that exploit those economies.

Increasingly, the more innovative companies—the Googles and Harrah's of tomorrow—will shift away from traditional research-and-development methods. Five years ago, for instance, a leadership team might have reviewed two or three "big" innovation proposals from consulting gurus; executive teams today might compare the outcomes of 50 or 60 real-world experiments to decide which ones to act upon.

For Further Reading

See these related articles from MIT Sloan Management Review.

• The Era of Open Innovation
  By Henry W. Chesbrough (Spring 2003)
  Companies are increasingly rethinking the fundamental ways in which they generate ideas and bring them to market—harnessing external ideas while leveraging their in-house R&D outside their current operations.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/4435
• Institutionalizing Innovation
  By Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson and Joseph V. Sinfield (Winter 2008)
  Building an engine that produces a steady stream of innovative growth businesses is difficult, but companies that are able to do it differentiate themselves from competitors.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/49216
• An Inside View of IBM's 'Innovation Jam'
  By Osvald M. Bjelland and Robert Chapman Wood (Fall 2008)
  IBM brought 150,000 employees and stakeholders together to help move its latest technologies to market. Both the difficulties it faced and the successes it achieved provide important lessons.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/50101
• The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate
  By Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott and Inigo Arroniz (Spring 2006)
  Companies with a restricted view of innovation can miss opportunities. A new framework called the "innovation radar" helps avoid that.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/47314
• Creating New Markets Through Service Innovation
  By Leonard L. Berry, Venkatesh Shankar, Janet Turner Parish, Susan Cadwallader and Thomas Dotzel (Winter 2006)
  Many companies make incremental improvements to their service offerings, but few succeed in creating service innovations that generate new markets or reshape existing ones.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/47213

All of which guarantees huge changes for corporate cultures. Challenging conventional wisdom, for one thing, becomes immeasurably faster, cheaper and easier. And there's a subtle shift in how people view innovation. People don't talk about running experiments months into the future—they're into immediacy, because they see that they can test ideas right away, and the company culture starts to actively encourage speed. A provocative hypothesis proposed during a morning meeting might graduate into a full-blown experiment by day's end.

Even if a test doesn't produce a workable idea, there's usually something important to be gleaned from it. "Genius is born from a thousand failures," says Greg Linden, an entrepreneur who has been an innovator at both Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. "In each failed test, you learn something that helps you find something that will work. Constant, continuous, ubiquitous experimentation is the most important thing."

This new environment also has big implications for managers. Simply put, bosses must be prepared to give up some control. With testing so cheap, easy and accessible, there's less need to ration it as they have in the past. Managers used to directing the company's innovation efforts must give their workers the freedom to come up with ideas on their own and pursue them without lots of red tape.

Some of the best experiments come from outside the chain of command. At Amazon, for instance, innovators initially developed the company's recommendations feature—which suggests other products customers might want—without explicit approval from higher-ups.

Not only do we expect managers to solicit and welcome more ideas from lower down in the ranks, we expect that lots more people will be invited to review experiments and make changes. Customer-service and maintenance people, say, might chime in on experiments proposed by manufacturing or distribution.

That might seem hard to believe, given the turf battles that can arise over new ideas. But when experiments become more abundant—and easy and inexpensive to change—those proprietary issues won't come up as much. Think of the difference between improving and sharing presentations back in the day of transparencies and 35mm slides versus PowerPoint presentations, which can be modified with a few clicks of a mouse.

Harry Campbell

As more people get involved in experimentation, companies will also need to change their focus in education and training efforts for innovation. Instead of just getting workers to creatively interpret large volumes of data, companies will need to help them develop the skills to rapidly design provocative experiments. Passive analysis will be subordinate to active experimentation.

Another crucial development down the road will be "scaling." Digital technology, as we have seen, allows companies to test new ideas quickly and easily. But the technology also lets companies easily scale those ideas—or implement them rapidly and cheaply throughout the whole business. We predict that as companies realize the power of this idea, they will focus on experiments that not only can be tested rapidly but also can be put into wide effect just as quickly.

The most obvious example of scaling is a Web site. Companies can test out a new feature with a quick bit of programming and see how users respond. The change can then be replicated on billions of customer screens.

But that kind of scaling becomes rapidly possible in the bricks-and-mortar world, too, as more business processes become digital—supply-chain management, customer-relationship management and so forth. When a retailer identifies a better process for screening new employees, the company can embed the process in its human-resource-management software and have thousands of locations implementing the new plan the next morning.

We think the future of innovation and the future of experimentation will continue to evolve, thanks to the improving economics of digital technologies. As a result, the next decade of innovation in the global marketplace will be even more tumultuous than the last. That's a great opportunity for innovators—and even better news for customers and consumers world-wide.

--Dr. Brynjolfsson is a professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Mr. Schrage is a research fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Leading Clever People, Forbes Aug 2009

Leadership

The Odd Clever People Every Organization Needs

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, 08.13.09, 04:45 PM EDT

Here's how to identify them and lead them.

As we ponder how the Western economies can navigate their way out of the recession, we might easily make the harsh judgment that clever people got us into it and we'll need clever people to get us out of it. The investment banks at the heart of the current financial malaise were full of clever people. So what went wrong? Is it possible we didn't really understand how to lead them?

The truth is that organizations need a particular kind of clever employees--people with a propensity for innovation and even iconoclasm. People who happily tread on organizational sacred ground while seeking new ways to produce sustained economic growth. They can add disproportionate amounts of value, and they become more productive when they are well led. They are people like Will Wright of Electronic Arts ( ERTS - news - people ), the originator of "Sim City" and "Spore." They need teams--teams that have their own high-octane dynamics. To develop such teams, businesses must become clever organizations, magnets for these people who can sustain innovation over long periods.

How do we identify such people?The first and most obvious point to make is that they are not simply those with the highest IQs or most impressive academic qualifications (although many of them do meet those standards). Our conversations and observations have led us to develop a simple definition:

Clever people are highly talented individuals who have the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that an organization makes available to them.

When we first set out to research these smart and powerful, yet often recalcitrant clever people, we thought they would be consultants, lawyers, investment bankers, research-and-development wizards and other similar smart professionals. Many of them were, but we also found value-creating brilliance in a huge variety of places--in schools, in hospitals, in fast-moving consumer-goods businesses, in breweries and not just in those institutions' R&D departments. Clever people can be schoolteachers, university and hospital administrators, museum curators. But as disparate as they are, they are all capable of creating huge amounts of value for organizations.

Many highly talented individuals are capable of producing remarkable results on their own, outside of any organization. Such standalone clever people include most famous artists and solo musicians. But those aren't the people we're talking about. We specifically mean talented individuals who need an organization to achieve their full potential. The brilliant engineers at Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ) need the organization and their colleagues as they seek to revolutionize the way we work, learn and play.

In the U.S., we know, being clever carries connotations of being ostentatiously smart and difficult. We prefer the English meaning, being skilled and talented, with the understanding that being smart usually comes with a few rough edges. The truth is that these people are both talented and difficult.

Why must they be difficult? Because they all share these qualities:

--They know their worth (their skills are not easily replicated).

--They ask difficult questions.

--They are organizationally savvy.

--They are not impressed by corporate hierarchy.

--They expect instant access to decision makers.

--They are well connected outside of their organizations.

--Their passion is for what they do, not for who they work for.

--Even if you lead them well, they won't thank you.

How do you spot the clevers who really make a positive difference? In recent years organizations have been obsessed with identifying talent. Most large organizations have singled out what are often called "talent pools" and "high potentials." We would sound a note of caution: Look more for past outcomes than for potential. Clever people develop track records of organizational success.

Once you have identified them, how do you lead them? The conventional wisdom is that you should act as a benevolent guardian. Explain rather than tell, give space and resources, provide recognition, protect from organizational noise, connect with other clevers and so on. This may be necessary, but it is insufficient.

In the clever organization, benevolence is balanced with discipline. Clever people are most productive when they're given boundaries. As much as they need autonomy, they also need structure. Creating the right sort of space--large enough to allow clevers to express themselves, but also with systems and structures to help them focus their efforts--is vital. One without the other is dangerous and ultimately unproductive.

Cleverness thrives in response to real-world challenges with real-world constraints. This is exemplified by the careers of the world-renowned consulting engineers Ove Arup & Partners. They responded to the peculiarities of their assignments by producing the Beijing cube swimming pool and the Sydney Opera House.

It is sometimes suggested that people can be energized to achieve goals by leaders encouraging them that everything is possible. That kind of optimism often doesn't work with clever people. They seem to prefer the reverse. Tell them something isn't possible and they'll be highly motivated to prove you wrong. The world needs them to be right.

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones are the co-authors of Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People. Rob Goffee is a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. Gareth Jones is a fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and a visiting professor at INSEAD.

Know-How by Ram Charan

Know-How : The 8 skills that separate people who perform from those that don't
by Ram Charan

What the book meant to me:

Know-How to me is a giant skill, that combines leadership qualities (have the vision where the group should go, singular clarity on the single most important concept necessary to get there, picks the hedge-hog concept, etc.) with the skills of great management (reads peoples passions, skills, strengths accurately and matches them to a job they will succeed in, plays chess with future needs and human resources, captures efficiency by delegating a task to a specialist in the group, etc.)

So, if Know-How is the combination of great leadership and management, then it is the link between Buckinghams "One Thing You Need to Know to Succeed" and Jim Collins "Good to Great" Hedgehog leadership clarity.

Know-How is someone who reads the current market and future conditions accurrately, translates that to a "Where can we win?" question, and rebuilds everything to produce the next level of change needed: the social system, reporting and communcition, culture of being candid, openness in groups to new ideas, accountability. Success of the company is the most important thing, and other considerations take a back seat (egos, personal fear of failure, unnobtainable goals, group fears of change, etc.)

The beauty of this book is the way Charan explains that a group decision can be better than any single individual when solving an internal problem. External problems are probably best read by the CEO doing in depth research, investigation, probing, market watching, and setting up systems to follow key metrics, etc. Internal change is bought into when the right people are in the right seats in your 1st level group. You have evaluated them and placed them in positions of their strengths for their own and your groups success.

These key people together can solve their problems when they know everything the leader knows about how the future outlook appears and how the company can win. Realism, experience, and previous repositioning successes can help you gain credibility and opportunity to make these assessments. The group candidly, regularly, and under the tutelage of the leader forges the solutions.


The Eight Know-Hows
1. Positioning and Repositioning: Finding a central idea for business that meets customer demands and that makes money

2. Pinpointing external change: Detecting patterns in a complex world to put the business on the offensive.

3. Leading the Social System: Getting the right people together with the right behaviors and the right information to make better, faster decisions and achieve business results.

4. Judging People: Calibrating people based on their actions, decisions, and behaviors and matching them to the non-negotiables of the job.

5. Molding a Team: Getting highly competent, high-ego leaders to coordinate seamlessly.

6. Setting Goasl: Determining the set of goals that balances what the business can become with what it can realistically achieve.

7. Setting Laser-Sharp Priorities: Defining the path and aligning resources, actions, and energy to accomplish the goals.

8. Deatling with Forces Beyond the Market: Anticipating and responding to societal pressures you don't control but that can affect your business.


Personal Traits that can help or interfere with the know-hows:
Ambition: to accomplish something noteworthy BUT NOT win at all costs.
Drive and Tenacity: to search, persist, and follow-through BUT NOT hold on too long.
Self-confidence: to overcome the fear of failure, fear of response, or the need to be liked and use power judiciouisly BUT NOT become arrogant and narcissistic.
Psychological Openness: to bre receptive to new and different ideas AND NOT shut other peopel down
Realism: to see what can actually be accomplished AND NOT gloss over porblems or assume the worst.
Appetite for Learning: to continue to grow and improve the Know-Hows AND NOT repeat the same mistakes

Cognitive Traits that improve the Know-Hows
A wide range of Altitudes: to transition from the conceptual to the specific
A Broad Cognitive Bandwidth: to take in a broad range of input and see the big picture
Ability to Reframe: to see things from different perspectives.

How to be Happy in Business

Retweet @cooltweets June 15 2009

Leadership: do Good

Leadership

Your Business Can Inspire People The Way Nonprofits Do

Terry Barber, Forbes.com

It's not so hard, if you do real good, as nonprofits do.

Look at some of today's best corporate promises and slogans. You would think they belonged to nonprofit organizations. Here are a few of my favorites:

"To inspire and nurture the human spirit"--Starbucks ( SBUX - news - people ).
"Your potential, our passion"--Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ).
"To improve the lives of the world's consumers--now and for generations to come"--Procter & Gamble ( PG - news - people ).

Those aren't just lines from press releases about social responsibility. They are core statements of mission and purpose displayed on the corporations' Web sites. As brands today attempt to differentiate themselves from their many competitors, more and more of them have to be truly inspiring.

Companies that can genuinely leaven their commercialism with a sense of higher purpose are more likely to build powerful connections--intellectual, emotional and spiritual--with their customers. Those are exactly the kinds of connections you need to acquire and sustain a loyal and passionate following these days.

However, it isn't easy. Unless you are willing to genuinely associate with and support an inspiring cause, your customers will strike back with a vengeance. As the Cone 2004 Corporate Responsibility Report noted, when a company is perceived as acting badly, 90% of its customers will consider switching to other products or services.

In anticipation of a new wave of businesses entering the waters of inspiration, I'd like to provide four guiding principles that I have used with nonprofits for years. They can be used by anyone in business who aspires to inspire.

1. To inspire the consumer, you must help him believe in something he once thought was impossible. This is where innovators will thrive and hidebound institutions will die. Innovators think in quantum-leap fashion. Most institutions think incrementally. If you can only describe your company's dreams and ambitions in the context of a percentage of growth, you will inspire no one.

Here are two types of inspiration busters to avoid: "We want to be the best," as in AutoNation's ( AN - news - people ) "Driven to be the best," and "We want to be the most recognized," as in United Airlines' mission statement, "To be recognized worldwide as the airline of choice."

Both are noble. Neither is the least bit inspiring. Making me believe in something I once thought impossible takes words like imagine, dream, accelerate, change, empower and energize. A dramatic illustration of this was when Microsoft announced its HealthVault initiative, with a vision to build a platform that would store electronic medical records for every American--for free. It would then sell the service in other countries and ultimately transform health care for good.

Ask yourself this question: What would the world look like if you were to fulfill your mission tomorrow? Try asking that at your next team meeting. You will learn very quickly whether or not you have the capacity to inspire.

2. To inspire the consumer, you must show genuine appreciation for her business. Most nonprofit organizations are exceptionally good at making their donors feel special. Even the small contributor receives a thank you note, and usually at the $100 level there's a phone call too. By those standards, how many companies should you have received a thank you call from? I should get calls from the CEOs of Whole Foods ( WFMI - news - people ), Starbucks and American Express ( AXP - news - people ).

Loyalty programs are effective for retaining customers--until a better loyalty program comes along. People recognize that things like so-called customer-appreciation days are typically traps for more selling, so their loyalty is understandably tentative and short term.

Conversely, expressing genuine appreciation can start a lifelong relationship. Imagine how you would feel on receiving a voice mail that said simply, "Thank you for being such a great customer. We are not calling to sell you anything. We only want to say thank you." I received such a call recently. It was from my local nursery guy, on whose business my wife and I spend much of our discretionary income. His call was short, genuine and simple: "I am calling to tell you how much I appreciate your business." I received a similar call from someone at DirecTV ( DTV - news - people ) the same week. Now I won't even consider going elsewhere to buy plants or get a television signal.

3. To inspire the consumer, you must help him see that he is a part of a community of world changers. One of the most powerful fundraising terms is the word join. "Join the fight." "Join the cause." "Join me." Those exhortations all indicate that you can be a part of something bigger than yourself. More than ever before, our identity is defined by the communities we are a part of, even virtual ones.

If business wants to follow the lead of nonprofits, its leaders should participate in social media for the sake of connecting customers to other customers. Customers will then, like donors, show the way to new relationships and new markets. Create or tap into platforms for connecting people in and around your mission. Harley-Davidson ( HOG - news - people ) has done this very effectively with its "Join the Family You Have Always Wanted" campaign. What can your business offer that consumers will enthusiastically join you in?

4. To inspire the consumer, you must convey how you are making the world a better place. A short time back I had the privilege of traveling to Guatemala with the child sponsorship organization Compassion International. I had supported CI in a modest way for years, but after that firsthand look at how my dollars were being used to help truly impoverished children, my giving level will never be the same.

I saw this principle illustrated most dramatically when I toured the Huntsman Corporation's ( HUN - news - people ) offices in Salt Lake City. Throughout the building, wall photos showed people in towns and villages around the world where the company and its employees were providing medicine, clean water and education. The underlying message was: What we are doing as a company is helping make the world a better place. I also see this when I walk into a Chick-fil-A store and see a life-size poster of the founder, Truett Cathy, side by side with pictures of young people in whose lives his company is investing. I see it at the headquarters of International Paper ( IP - news - people ), on whose Web site there is actually a link to donate to the World Food Programme.

No matter what kind of business you are in, you can learn from the nonprofit sector how to inspire your customers--but only if you are making the world a better place and can show it. Give them something to believe in that they once thought was impossible. Demonstrate genuine appreciation for their business. Help them connect with other customers as part of a larger community. And communicate how your business is improving the world.

Terry Barber is chief inspirator for Grizzard Communication Group, which advises nonprofit health care organizations and colleges and universities on philanthropic branding. His latest book is The Inspiration Factor. His Web site is www.inspirationblvd.com.

Positivity.org


If you're successful half the time, try doubling your efforts.

Build on the Good that you have now --- family, happy clients, whatever it is you have you love - make it better, build on your strength!

On a positive note I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. · ·

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. · ·

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. · · I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." · ·

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. · ·

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can,happiness will find you. · ·

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. · ·

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. · ·

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch - holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. · · I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. · ·

I've learned that you should pass this on to someone you care about. · ·

I just did. Sometimes they just need a little something to make them smile. Note: People will forget what you said, People will forget what you did, but People will never forget how you made them feel... "

Positivity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Positivity is a term popularized by journalist Albert Nerenberg to mean an emphasis on the positive in the face of the gloominess of the 21st Century. Nerenberg was surprised that officially, Positivity is not truly recognized as a word. The term was featured in a series published by the Montreal Gazette^[1], which featured new trends in culture and science which emphasized hope, intelligence, and human progress in face of war, fear and climate change. Also the term might simply be a calque or loan translation from the French positivité, something possible in a city like Montreal where language interference (English-French and French English) is a common occurrence.

PositivityBlog.Org

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
- Anais Nin

I think that one of the most effective ways to improve your life is simply to think in a more positive way.

This is of course nothing new and not that simple. If it was, well, then at least most of us would already be doing it.

So, why aren’t we more positive? I can think of a few reasonable reasons.

We think it is like it is - It´s easy to confuse what has happened to you, the story of your life, with now and the future. The past does not necessarily equal the future. If you believe it does then it does. But if you don´t if you believe it does then it doesn´t. If you change your way of thinking you can change your behaviour, habits and your life.

Social programming – A big reason many think that things are like they are and will always be that way is because no one ever told them that there was an alternative. The school, newspapers and other influential forces tells us we have a life and an identity that is us throughout our lives. And at least in much of the media, negativity is the normal filter to view the world through. We hear this every day when we are young and very impressionable. Then we continue believing it and it becomes a part of our sense of self. And we continue our lives on that path.

Lack of energy – Changing the many negative and neutral thoughts in our day to day life to positive ones can take quite a bit of energy. If you are stressed out by work and your personal life, if you aren´t eating and sleeping well and don´t take time to exercise there will be a lack of energy. And with that lack it´s easy to just feel too damn tired to change your thoughts, to just give up and revert to the familiar way of thinking.

Too reactive and mindful of what others may think – You may think, if I change and become more positive, what will other people say? That I´m weird, hyper, over-compensating or unhappy on the inside? Will they laugh, mock me and question this change in outlook on life? Or perhaps, they will actually like it and it will give me new opportunities down the line. Maybe it will bring success and my relatively comfortable life will be shaken up and change. Yeah, such thoughts can be some scary thoughts.

Lack of motivation –Not knowing exactly what´s in it for me on a personal and beneficial level.

Wanting to be right – Most of us have an ingrained sense that what we believe is right. Even though a belief we have might not be that useful. Or makes our lives out right miserable. It can be hard to give up a belief because then we have to give up being right.

We tried but failed (once or twice) – Throughout our lives, in school and society we are taught that we should not fail, that it is bad. This can make us very reluctant to take chances and keep trying beyond the initial attempt.

A lack of knowledge/too much disempowering information – You will most likely fail several times at first. You will make mistakes. You may be met with negativity or disinterest. It may take more than a weekend to get the success you envision. It may take longer than you think, perhaps months. And that is ok, that is normal.

Not knowing how the world (most of the time) works can discourage you. And the information about how the world works that you get from media, the people around you and society may not always be that accurate and effective. Instead, seek out relevant information for yourself to set your expectations to a reasonable level. Get information from a variety of different sources. And get it from people that have experience and knowledge about what you are interested in. A good starting point can be your local library, bookstore or amazon.com.

10 reasons why you should become more positive

1. You will create a better world around you as your surroundings will become affected and change due to your positive thoughts and actions.

2. You will make better first impressions. Everyone stereotypes, whether they want or not. A positive first impression can mean a lot in many situations and have a lasting effect throughout your relationship with that person.

3. You will focus on the good things in people. Not their faults. This will make things much better overall and improve all kinds of relationships.

4. It´s easier to become more productive when you stop laying obstacles in the middle of the road in the form of negative thoughts.

5. Work becomes more fun. Everything becomes more fun.

6. You become more attractive. People like positive people. Positive people make other people feel good about themselves and they don´t drag the mood down. Also, a positive attitude is an indicator – and source - of high self-confidence, a quality that just about everyone is attracted to.

7. Being negative has very little concrete advantages and is not a very empowering way to look at life.

8. It opens up your mind to focus on other ways of looking at things. Sometimes wonderful new ways you might not ever have thought about or experienced before.

9. It puts the Law of Attraction to better use. The Law of Attraction basically says: whatever you think about you attract into your life. As you replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts you will start to attract more positive opportunities and people into your life.

10. You´ll waste less time. Negativity can be like a self-feeding loop. First you think one negative thought. It leads you to three more. And then you start examining your life in deeper detail through a depressing lens. When you get into a vicious cycles like this it can eat up hours, weeks and years of your life. It can drain a lot of your energy whilst trapping you in paralysis by analysis. And you probably won´t become that much wiser in the process. As mentioned in the Where is you time really going?, we live for about 24-28 000 days. Don´t waste them.

The how to do it

“Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.”
- Viktor Frankl

The Positivity Challenge is this: For 7 days you will try to only think positive thoughts. Whatever happens to you will see the good side of it and what positive things you can learn and take away from it. By the end of the week you will have started to discover the very real benefits of a positive thinking, how much negative thoughts there are both in you and the world (you might be surprised) and begun establishing a new habit to replace your old, less constructive one. And then you can continue from there.

What I suggesting here is not a mindless kind of positive thinking where you pretend everything is ok whilst the house and your bed is actually on fire. Instead it’s you noticing a situation or stimuli and then choosing a positive and useful response to it instead of reacting in a knee-jerk way.

It´s you focusing on what could be a more positive and useful solution for you. Or even better, what could be a win-win situation if the situation involves other people (which many important situations in our lives do). A win-win solution is more often an even more satisfying and beneficial solution than the one where only you win.

Now, how to go about it? Here are three tips for the first week.

Cut the negative threads quickly. Only allow yourself to go on a negative thread of thought for a set time-period, perhaps 30 seconds or a minute. Then just cut it off, drop it and think about what positive things you can get out of this situation. Don´t feed the negative thoughts with more energy or you might trap your mind in a downward spiral for quite a while. If you start going down a negative thread of thought it is important to cut it fast.

Realise that it is possible to choose what you think about and how you react. You don´t have live your life in reaction. Being reactive to everything is not very empowering. You have a choice. But it might take some time to make this click in your mind. Even though I understood this intellectually pretty fast it took a longer time to understand and accept it emotionally and on a deeper level.

Focus on the gap between stimuli and reaction. The more you think about this and try to use it by consciously choosing, over time (for me it was months but it can surely be achieved quicker) the gap will appear larger and larger and that will make the process easier.

Accept your feelings, don´t deny or refuse them – Although it´s often possible to just quickly cut off negative thoughts sometimes it might not be enough. Negative emotions can build up within you over time or you might feel be overwhelmed by a certain situation. Then you can try the counter-intuitive way and not keep the feeling out by fighting it.

Instead, accept the feeling. Say yes to it. Surrender and let it in.

Observe the feeling in your mind and body without judging it. If you just let it in and observe it for maybe a minute or two something wonderful happens. The feeling just vanishes. It sounds weird but give it a try.

In addition, here´s a bunch of other suggestions – some of them you might not be able to use fully within a week but instead over a longer time-span - to make this challenge easier and improve your life.

Get the physical fundamentals down. If you don´t have time to sleep a healthy amount of hours, eat properly and get exercise then you need to reprioritize. If you don´t do this it will be harder to become and stay positive. If you do reprioritize, your general sense of well-being will increase, you will feel stronger and have more energy. Use Where is your really time going? and Prioritize with the Pareto Principle to make better use of your time. Decrease stress using those two articles and the rest in the series How to double your productivity. Also, check out this simple way to feel really relaxed.

Act as if. Smile to feel happier. Move slower to relax. Use positive language. Act as if you are a positive person and you will start to feel and become more positive. It might feel weird at first, but it really works.

Start your day in a better way. Check out these five tips for a better beginning to your day.

Limit your time with really negative people – Some people feed on negative energy and whatever you try it never pleases them or changes their sour minds and moods. If nothing you do works then finally you might have to cut them out of your life or at least limit your time with them.

Model positive people. Find positive people in your surroundings or anywhere in time and space (through documentaries, biographies etc.) and learn from them. Find out how they handle everyday life, problems, setbacks and compare it to your own thoughts and how you would handle similar situations.

Focus on the now and future, not the past. A lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about on the mistakes they made in past. A better way is to think about the mistake you made and what you can learn from it. Then stop wasting your time and shift your focus to the present and the future where you can actually make a change.

Redefine “failure” and “proof”. You don´t have to learn much about successful people to realize that one of their key-strengths is that their way of looking at failure is widely different from more common one in society. As Michael Jordan said:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Also, in a similar vain, thinking one example represents the whole world might not be the most helpful belief to hold. Yes, someone may have cheated on you, treated you badly at work before you were fired and your first business venture may have gone down in flames. But applying one or two bad examples to the whole world and the rest of your life will cause suffering for you long after those hurtful events happened. And could set you up for even more pain and disappointment through self-fulfilling prophecies and the Law of Attraction.

I don´t think these all these words are the truth about how the world around you and me works. Just as a pessimistic (or realistic) view of the world is not the truth either. I don´t believe there is one truth, but rather that the world changes due to the beliefs you have about it and the actions you take based on your beliefs. I do believe that this is a more useful model of how to view and interact with the world than a pessimistic one and that it´s a more enjoyable way of thinking. It is a way of thinking that increases happiness and joy in life. Something I think just about everyone wants.

“Though I might travel afar, I will meet only what I carry with me,
for every man is a mirror.
We see only ourselves reflected in those around us.
Their attitudes and actions are only a reflection of our own.
The whole world and its condition has its counterparts within us all.
Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change.”
- Kirsten Zambucka