Capitalogix

Are You Happy?

A simple flow chart caught my eye this week.

There is a bit of truth in that; isn't there?

Related articles by Zemanta

• What's the relationship between money, ambition, and happiness? (simoleonsense.com)
• Can being happy make you less able to resist temptation? (simoleonsense.com)
• How to boost workplace happiness (holykaw.alltop.com)

Delivering Happiness

I've been reading a pretty good new book that is an interesting mix of stories, life-lessons, and business content.  It combines a behind the scenes peek into the situations, emails, checklists, sample interview questions, and "Happiness Framework" that led to some surprising results.

For example, here are Zappos' Core Values from which they develop their culture, brand, and business strategies:

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Why Should You Care?

In 1999, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine's top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

So, you might guess that he learned a few things about what worked, and what didn't.

In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life.

Here is a video of Tony Hsieh on Delivering Happiness.

Zappos is Famous For Their Culture.  Here's a Taste of It.

Here is Tony's BigThink video explaining his company's culture and belief that managers should "hang-out" with staff after work.

Other Resources.

• Here is a link to the book Delivering Happiness.
• Here is a link to the Delivering Happiness Blog site.
• Here is a link to other Delivering Happiness resources.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Where is the ROI of "happy"? (myventurepad.com)
• CEO of Zappos Top Three Books; Driving Top Line Revenue Growth (verneharnish.typepad.com)
• Tony Hsieh Explains Why He Sold Zappos To Amazon Under Pressure From Sequoia (techcrunch.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Watch Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Spin His Wheels Trying To Explain Sale To Amazon (AMZN) (businessinsider.com)
• Weekend Reading: Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh (Preview) (readwriteweb.com)

A Father's Day Investment Guaranteed to Pay Dividends.

My kids are getting older.  So Father's Day looks a little different than it used to.

But as I look back, there is an investment I made that paid-off in a big way, and I want to share it with you.

Like many parents, I wanted to teach my children that, to a large extent, they control what happens to them. One of the first ways I did that was to set up a "compensation system" for them to earn video games.

Some parents try to limit the amount of time their kids spend watching TV or playing video games. I tried something different.  Instead, my kids earned their games by reading books.  Here is a photo from way back then.

Paid With Play.

Here's how it worked. When they were younger, 10 books was enough to earn a small game. When they finished a book, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the bookstore for us to pick up the next book together. Likewise, when they finished the requisite number of books, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the computer store or game store for them to choose any game they wanted.

When they finished hundred books, they got a bonus of earning the next game system. That meant if they had a Nintendo, they could now also get a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

How Can You Encourage a Jump to the Next Level?

There came a point when I wanted one of my sons to start reading grown-up books. He was comfortable reading a certain type of book, and didn't want to read the kind of books that I read.  So, I created a bonus system that counted a particular book as three books.  I didn't force him; I just let the easier path to a reward "whisper" in his ear what to read. Once he finished that, he never went back to teen fiction.

It Is a Great Way to Learn About Your Kids.

I also used the bookstore visits to get a sense of how the boys were doing. For example, I might say "I notice that you read five books in that series, maybe you'd like this book".  Or, "That sure is a lot of science fiction; what was the last biography you read?"  For the most part, though, I didn't care what they read.  The key was to get them to want to choose certain books for their own reasons.  Ultimately, their preference meant they were learning to love reading.

It Puts Them In Control of Their Destiny and Rewards.

My younger son likes competition. He also broke or misplaced many things. So, in order to earn back the Game Boy unit that he lost, I challenged him to read five books in five days. These weren't easy books either. It was designed to stretch him, and also to teach him that he could read a book a night. The bet was that he either finished all the books in the allocated time, or none of them counted towards games or Game Boys. On the other hand, if he read a book a night for two weeks, not only would he get to have his Game Boy back, the books would count towards a game too. It worked like a charm, and we were both happy.

So, Who Got the Better Bargain?

As they started to get into their teenage years, I needed to up the ante a little. So, 500 books meant they got a laptop of their choice. Both boys cashed in, and probably felt like they were taking advantage of their dad.

I got what I wanted, though; both my boys love reading, and know that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to … one step at a time.

That's an investment that will pay dividends for a long time.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Silicon Alley Insider: PlayStation Move Isn't Much More Than A Wii HD (SNE, NTDOY) (businessinsider.com)
• Nintendo Shares Plunge After Forecasts Miss Estimates (Update2) (businessweek.com)
• Nothing Like a Good Book . . . (howtomakeadifferencenow.blogspot.com)
• 100 Classic Books Turns the Nintendo DS System into a Portable Library of Books (gonintendo.com)
• Keep kids' brains in tune with reading (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Choosing Just Right Books (brighthub.com)

A Reminder of Simple Truths

Here is a link to short video by Mac Anderson of Simple Truths.

It is a collection of quotes and simple truths set to music.  Hope you have a good week.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Worse Is Better, So Start Simple and Go from There [Quotables] (lifehacker.com)
• The Man Behind MacGyver: Swiss Army Knife or Duct Tape? [Interviews] (lifehacker.com)

The Illusion of Focus and Meaning

Recently, the concept of "Focus" keeps coming to mind when I try to make sense of what's happening in the markets.

As I review stories, news, and data, I'm trying to be more aware of where the bias is (even if it is unintentional).

Focus, Bias and Perspective.

The photo series, below, is an example of how our perception can be easily shaped.  The far left version looks violent.  The far right version looks compassionate.  It could be both (or neither).

Each of us perceives the world through our own filters.  It is as if we're producing a film (which could be edited into a comedy, drama, or thriller ... based on what we focus on, highlight, or ignore). Except that we often don't know it's just a film, edited by an amateur ... Instead, we perceive it as truth because it is what we perceive.

The point is that perspective matters.

Ted Talk About the Building Blocks of Business Success: Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose

This video provides a peek into the science of human motivation.

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.

And what's alarming here is that our business operating system -- think of the set of assumptions and protocols beneath our businesses, how we motivate people, how we apply our human resources -- it's built entirely around these extrinsic motivators, around carrots and sticks. That's actually fine for many kinds of 20th century tasks. But for 21st century tasks, that mechanistic, reward-and-punishment approach doesn't work, often doesn't work, and often does harm.

Here is the direct link to the video on Ted's site.

Here is an excerpt from the talk.

Too many organizations are making their decisions, their policies about talent and people, based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science. And if we really want to get out of this economic mess, and if we really want high performance on those definitional tasks of the 21st century, the solution is not to do more of the wrong things. To entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick. We need a whole new approach.

And the good news about all of this is that the scientists who've been studying motivation have given us this new approach. It's an approach built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, because they're interesting, because they are part of something important. And to my mind, that new operating system for our businesses revolves around three elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

• Autonomy, the urge to direct our own lives.
• Mastery, the desire to get better and better at something that matters.
• Purpose, the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

These are the building blocks of an entirely new operating system for our businesses.

Past Performance Doesn't Limit the Future

How will history view the past decade?

In my holiday greeting, this year, I chose the phrase: "I hope that you are grateful for the things that are great in your life, that you choose what you can use from the things weren't great … and that you invest those lessons in your future."

We can learn from history, so we don't have to repeat it (unless we choose to).

For Your New Year, Here is an Old Irish Blessing.

Here's to the bright New Year,

And a fond farewell to the old;

Here's to the things that are yet to come,

And to the memories that we hold.

May God be with you and bless you.

May the best of this year be the worst of the next.

May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.

May you know nothing but happiness.

From this day forward ...

Happy New Year!

A Data Visualization of the Past Decade

Here is a clever way to capture a lot of information.  It also seems like a good technique to try with personal or business information ... or (with a little modification) even to use as a planning tool.

You can click the image to get the full-size version.

From the NYTimes.

Simon Sinek Says "Start with Why"

Inspiration is stronger than persuasion.  It gives people a sense of purpose and belonging that has little to do with external incentive or benefit.

Simon Sinek, who is quite charismatic and well-spoken, is delivering this message to a rapidly growing fan-base. 

My team thought Simon was inspiring, engaging and insightful.

You can watch a short video that introduces his material below. 

In addition, you can explore more of his ideas in his book,
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.

An Example of Finding the Right Person for a Job.

Who do you believe will do a better job, someone who takes a job because of the salary and benefits ... or someone truly inspired to accomplish the job's purpose? 

Phrased that way, of course you know the answer.  Still, how can you leverage this to better select customers and employees?

For example, Simon uses the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton to illustrate this concept.  Shackleton was preparing to lead the first expedition across Antarctica in 1914. Legend has it that when seeking crew members for his journey, Shackleton placed the following ad in a newspaper:

"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.
- SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON"

When the expedition became stuck in the ice and could not be rescued for 22 months, not a single man was lost. The reason Simon gave for their unlikely survival was that Shackleton hired survivors that could deal with the situation and were aligned with the mission and purpose.

Can you imagine writing an ad like that to attract the right people to your cause?

Watch This Video.

Here is a video of Simon speaking at a Ted Conference.  It is a great intro to his stuff. 

Other Resources:

• Here is a link to Simon's Blog.
• Here is a link to Videos of Simon.
• Here is a link to an article on why to know someone else's Why.
• Here is a link to Simon's Book: Start with Why.

Related Posts:

• Getting Ready for the New Year.
• Sometimes Simple is Better.
• Is Knowing How and Why Enough?
• The Flow of Planning.

Need Energy, a Clear Head, or a Power Nap ... There's an App for That.

pzizz (pronounced puh-zizz) Relax is a power-nap app. 

Whenever you feel tired or frazzled, put on your headphones, set the time you have available - and pzizz creates a new and unique soundtrack, each time you use it.  There's nothing to learn - and no effort required by you. 

Simply press a button, and you get a surprisingly effective and pleasant relaxation session.

Increase Energy and Performance.

I've been a pzizz user since 2005.  Frankly, I'm still surprised by how much it helps when you need a quick nap, pick-me-up, or boost of energy (even if you only have 15-20 minutes).  It is nice that it works to relax you; it is even better that you wake-up feeling good and ready for the rest of your day.

Here's How it Works.

First, find a comfortable place.  Second, choose how long you want your power nap to be.  Third, adjust how much talking you prefer. Fourth, headphones are better - but not necessary.  Fifth, press the button and let yourself relax.

What Happens?

Each session has three parts, the Intro, Main Session, and Wake-Up Sequence.  Throughout all of them, a deep, cool, British voice guides you through some relaxation techniques and gives you encouragement and positive feedback.  The voice is done by Michael Breen, a well-know NLP Expert.

Sound Waves Affect Brain Waves.

In addition to the NLP guidance, pzizz  also leverages binaural beats and ambient sounds to help you relax.  Yes, there is also a pleasant background track complete with music, bells, wind chimes and other assorted ear candy designed to lull you to sleep. Bottom-Line: You'll like it.

Try It Yourself.

If this all sounds new-agey, I can't blame you. I mocked the idea of pzizz when I first heard about it. "Actions speak louder than words".  If you need proof, try it yourself. Click this link to download a sample 15 minute energizer soundtrack and a sample 15 minute sleep soundtrack to see how it works for you. 

The software is available for PCs and Macs.  Also, pzizz has two iPhone apps.

Keep an open mind and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Related Links:

• Review - Energize Your Sleep With pzizz - 40Tech
• Review - pzizz for iPhone- Gear Diary
• Review - pzizz Napping Software at Work - MacNN
• Review - pzizz "How"s and "Why"s - SleepWarrior
• 7 Soothing iPhone Apps to Help You Relax

Related Posts I've Written:

• Light and Sound Machine
• Holosync