Bill Baren Blog

I’m off to Burning Man for the next week. I’ll be completely unplugged from this world and in another Universe. I’ll miss posting, but I know I’ll come back completely recharged and ready for anything.

Burning Man is:

• A temporary society based on a gift economy
• An experience in creating for the sake of creating
• An annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance.
• The greatest party on Earth
• Impossible to comprehend without experiencing it

Lis Strauss reminds us of the importance of creativity and curiosity in our business. We can get closer to our essential zone of genius by being more like a three-year-old.

Three-Year-Olds:
** Test drive everything to get information.
** Ask “Why?” and don’t stop until the answer satisfies them.
** Know and use many more options than most adults do.
** They’ll try anything once, because they don’t know the rules.

Find your Zone of Genius by being a Three-Year-Old CEO:

• Try everything - learn from experiencing it
• Always ask yourself and your team “WHY?”
• Know what you want and simply try all the options to see if you can get there
• Forget the rules

We have no competitors. It’s not about measuring our self or our business against anyone else. It is about continuing to refine what’s unique about what we do. It’s about zeroing in on your essential zone of genius.

Shift into the mode of creating peak performances for yourself, your team and your business away from the mode of comparing yourself to others.

When your business starts to become more about you and less about your competition, you will cease to have any competitors.

The explorers of our time are people who are exploring the depths of what’s possible for themselves personally, for human kind as a whole and for the process of creating ideas and bringing them to life.

Prosperous Entrepreneurs are explorers. They ask the questions:

• Who do I have to be in order to create what I want?
• How can what I do continue to move the human race forward consciously?
• How can I continue to stretch the boundaries of what’s possible creatively?

It really irritates me when my cell phone provider creates incentives to lure new customers yet does nothing to incentivize me to stay. How much good will could they generate if they lowered prices for me once I’ve been a customer for 5 years or more? How would I feel about my cable provider if they sent me a thank you certificate worth $25 towards paying my bill on my 3rd anniversary?

I know. I know. It doesn’t seem to make much sense for them to spend time, money and effort on me when they know I am probably not going anywhere.

Yet, is simply keeping me as a customer setting the bar just a bit too low? The goal is for me to be a loyal satisfied customer that will be happy with and about their service. Perhaps then I might tell a friend or two.

Treat Every Customer as a New Customer.

• Mail them a personal and genuine thank you card
• Send them a gift certificate they can give a friend or use themselves
• Send them a gift
• Or simply call them to let them know how much you appreciate their loyalty

Wouldn’t that be innovative in an old-school sorta way!?!?

(*** the cost of keeping an old client is less then getting a new one ***)

Creative, Fascinating and truly Remarkable.

Wouldn’t we love to have our customers talking about our products and services in this way?

Check out this truly creative, fascinating and remarkable video. It has been viewed over 6 million times without YouTube or Google video.

Historically, our society has rewarded us for being great thinkers and for possessing an analytical mind. The 21st century is bringing a shift to this trend. We have entered the era of the Great Non-Thinker.

• No more worrying
• Less of that little voice that is telling us we can’t do something
• More control over our mind and our thoughts

We spend a lot of time dwelling on our problems without really doing anything to solve them. This often happens while we are doing something else. We might be thinking about a meeting scheduled for tomorrow or about an argument we just had with our business partner, while in another meeting or even while talking to an employee. This takes us out of being present in real time and puts us either into the future of planning or into the past of reliving our argument. It diminishes our ability to enjoy and be effective in what we are doing now. So what I am suggesting is we can all use the permission not to think about things all the time. Problems can also be solved in our subconscious. How many times have you gone to bed needing something solved or a new perspective, only to wake up with a solution or a refreshed outlook on a situation? Often, it is precisely when we step away from a problem that an answer comes to us. I am not suggesting that we stop thinking all together. I am suggesting that with greater control of our own minds, we can lead happier, more present lives and design the business of our dreams.

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What can you do to set aside time to solve a problem your business is currently having while giving yourself permission not to worry about it in the meantime?

**Monday morning inspiration.**

Envision it. Believe it. Make it happen.

“People living in scarcity see the cup as half empty.
People who are positive thinkers see the cup as half full.
People living in abundance see the cup as overflowing.
But people Living into their Greatness ARE the Cup.” — Kim George

“Focus on what’s going great for you in your business.
Do more of it, living into your greatness.
Be a cup for what you want most next.” — Sylvia Warren