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Sarah Robinson, the famed Escaping Mediocrity blogger, interviewed me, asked my side, as a business coach and mentor, about Building an Awesome Company Culture.
No need to really say more – it’s worth the 1 hour listen -
Download it here… http://bit.ly/crhpHM – only takes 45 seconds…
It should really be called Dagney & Hank…
For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.
People won’t think to use your product or service if they don’t know your brand.
Since you have to wear clothes, why not put them to work marketing your product or service? It’s an easy win for your company, and in some instances, such as networking events and conferences corporate clothing will help you stand out in a sea of suits.
Every time I wear branded clothing, someone comments and asks me about my company.
Even as far back as College Pro Painters, our painters wore shirts emblazoned with our logo, so that while they were up on ladders people would see our brand. This also proves helpful when recruiting for new employees: one summer I had my painters wear their painting shirts with huge logos to the university pub. I bribed them with free beer to do it, and needless to say, it helped me find new painters every time.
While building 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, I would place my branded jacket on the outside of chairs so it would be seen while I was sitting down. On planes, I’d fold it in such a way that the logo stood out even when placed in overhead bins. I was relentlessly getting my name out to prospects. I even made license plates with my company name on it for two companies I built. At conferences of sometimes 2,000 people there were four of us in 1-800-GOT-JUNK? fleeces with huge logos on our backs. People thought there were at least 20 of us walking around because they saw our logos so often in the middle of all the suits.
Ashton Kutcher A+ Video List
If you doubt the power of Twitter, here is one example of how it has helped me this year.
I wanted people to know about & share my TEDx Video with all their friends. Here is the link.
So I decided to send that link to everyone I’m connected to on Twitter. I also sent the link to some of the Top business people on Twitter like @tferriss I also tried sending it to Oprah – she hasn’t sent it out yet – she will 
Two weeks ago I noticed a tweet from Ashton Kutcher asking for recommendations of Videos to add to his A+ Top 10 Videos of the Week to Watch. I sent him my TEDx talk. And yes. He added it to his list.
You’re right. Twitter is a waste of time. For MOST people and companies. It’s a waste of time because they haven’t figured out how to use it.
However, when you spend two years building relationships with & helping people on Twitter. Others on Twitter begin to help you.
Thanks Ashton @aplusk on Twitter. 23,000 people have now watched this video in its first 2 weeks live. I want people to see Entrepreneurs differently. And help kids aspire to be entrepreneurs. Your video mention helped.
I’m not sure why it’s so common, but entrepreneurs tend to overwhelm themselves with guilt for not working around the clock. Often our non-business owner friends wonder why we work so hard, or why we can’t ever ‘disconnect.’
Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.
And stop feeling guilty about unplugging and taking time off at the random times you need it too. Think of it like plugging in your iPhone. You don’t feel guilty about that.
For more information on this topic, check out: The Emotional Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurs.
On April 8th – I woke up at 4am for what was set to be a busy week but one that felt doable. I had no idea how hard the travel would be.
I was set to speak in:
You can’t make this shit up…
Flight to Edmonton went fine. My talk in Edmonton went great. My flight to Calgary from Edmonton went fine. And the lounge in Calgary was empty and I waited 2 hours for my Calgary to Frankfurt flight which was to leave at 4pm.
I boarded the plane at 3:30. At 3:35 it started snowing. At 7:30pm we were still on the tarmac and they canceled our flight as the crew would now have been on too long. Re-scheduled for 1am. So the next five hours were mixed with me spending time on cell phones to Air Canada trying to re-book my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Bahrain – after 28 min on hold I hung up by accident, then calling a 2nd time I had to phone while sitting on the floor to keep my phone plugged in as the battery was down to 3% – amazingly they said they’d make it happen. OK. Now for food. Everything was closed. The Calgary airport was under lockdown due to a 2 hour power outage from the storm. And the lounge was also closed. At midnight I found a little shop that had left their fridge unlocked. So like Jean Valjean from Les Miserable I took a bottle of water and a handful of crackers from the bar area – and I left a $5 bill in the fridge so as to not get called a thief We boarded our plane at 1am – and that flight was delayed until 4:20am due to the ice buildup on the plane. The crew gave it a 4:30am cut off and said if it was’t ready they’d be cancelling this one too – we finally left Calgary 12.5 hours after our scheduled start – luckily I was in Business Class – unluckily I’d already missed my new re-booked connections in Frankfurt so I was showing up there with no booked flight to Bahrain.
On the whole flight I knew I needed to have a few people ready to help me on arrival in Europe, so while all the other passengers complained and ranted, I became the best friends of three flight attendants. I told them how much I needed a connecting flight to appear – and they got on Telex to the airport while we were in flight and made it happen for me. I was met at the gate by the Concierge for Air Canada Super Elite passengers (I’m only Elite which is still pretty high up) – Air Canada had purchased a Business Class ticket for me on Emerites Airlines – no questions asked – and they wisked me past hundreds of lined up people at Security where I just made my flight to Dubai.
On landing in Dubai I raced to get the connecting Bahrain flight – and dripping with sweat I boarded as the gates closed. I was wearing a Blazer at every interaction with airline people to try to look professional – even though I’d been traveling for 28 hours at this point – and awake for about 40.
My flight to Bahrain went perfectly until just as we were getting ready to land a DHL plane crash landed on the only runway – causing our flight to be diverted to Dumman, Saudi Arabia for 3 hours. In all I made it to Bahrain in time to do my talk – however I arrived 16 hours later than planned.
And amazingly my trip home was almost as crazy.
Upon arriving in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on the 15th, five minutes before my talk started I was told that a Volcano in Iceland was shutting down Heathrow where my flights were connecting to. I had a two flights connecting in Heathrow that would have had me in Vancouver 16 hours later. So the saga continues… I’m back on the phone with Air Canada from a wireless hotel lobby phone – which dies just as they are ticketing my new connecting flights via Frankfurt. So I borrow phone number two, and call back. They’ve booked me on Luftansa an Air Canada partner via Frankfurt and my trip will now be 24 hours later yet still 16 hours travel – feels OK – so I fly off to Riyadh to wait in a pre-war decorated, airport hotel, with 2 hour wireless cards that fail every 7-8 minutes.
I wake in the middle of the night thinking about the Volcanic Ash cloud and wondering if Frankfurt would be impacted – so at 4am I’m back online and sure enough German airports are beginning to close. I toss and turn all night and at 10am am frantically trying to get ahold of Air Canada or Luftansa with no luck due to time zones, and the fact that Friday in Saudi is a day when virtually no offices are open. So at 11:00am I decide to pack up from the hotel, head to the airport and take matters into my own hands. I’m determined to find a way home – and in my mind I already know that I won’t be flying via Europe – it’ll be via Cairo or Asia…
After getting lost in the Bowels of Riyadh airport at ‘airline offices’ which turn out to be where the baggage is controlled from it dawns on me – maybe there is a travel agent here. And sure enough – 20 minutes walk through 3 terminals I find one. Bear in mind I’m the only person not wearing the traditional Saudi Dress – and when everyone is walking towards the mosque to pray at noon I’m walking against the flow…
I did it though – I found a place – while booking my ticket the man looked up and said “what is your religion” I replied “catholic” – and he smiled and whispered – oh – do you like Johnny Walker Black Label – umm ya – connnection made – they ‘can’t drink’ in Saudi but most do privately I paid $3,700 for a one-way, Business class ticket home to Vancouver. Total flight time 26 hours, total time including connections would be 33.5 hours – Riyadh-Bahrain-Manila-Vancouver – but I’d get home.
And get home I did. 30 hours later than planned – but days ahead if I’d gone to Europe… 11 flights in 8 days.
And yesterday – to my surprise & joy – Air Canada blew me away and credited my $4,200 for the tickets I didn’t use coming home So I actually covered my hotel costs, wireless cards, and some of the crazy data roaming I’m sure to get creamed with…
Lessons:
We’ve all heard some motivational speaker use this one: “God gave you two ears and one mouth; use them in that ratio.”
Too many leaders race to get their two cents in, trying desperately to be heard, without hearing what others are saying first.
I used to think this saying was only applicable to CEOs but it should be applied to everyone at your company.
Are you arguing a point because you want to be right or is it because you’re passionately trying to explain yourself?
Here’s a hint: if you’re communicating with others only to tell them how you want things done, then you’re not communicating effectively.
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” wrote Steven Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
This Baja Peninsula photo is of Yanik Silver and members of Maverick Business Adventures – an organization I’m close with that takes driven entrepreneurs on trips so they can play really, really hard.
Recently, a would-be entrepreneur told me he was working constantly and struggled to read books for fun. I threw down the gauntlet and told him he’d never be a successful entrepreneur until he figured out how to get a life. I told him to read the book Endurance
I’m not an expert in work/life balance, but I’ve crashed twice, and hard. Harder than I’d wish anyone else to so I try to help as best I can.
We have all heard the saying ‘work hard play hard’, but rarely do most entrepreneurs live it. Nowadays, people do a lot of hard work, but when it comes time to fulfill the other end of the obligation, we give up, bringing our laptops, cell phones, and other ‘work’ items into our ‘play time.’ And from what I recall as a kid, playing hard didn’t include toting along our homework or smart phone. We just played–played until we dropped from laughing so hard. Played until we dropped from exhaustion and slept like babies. It’s time to return to that kind of play, not just for your individual sanity, but for the sake of those you care for.
“Mens sana in corpore sano” is Latin for “a healthy mind in a healthy body”
For more information on this topic, check out: The Emotional Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurs.
Here is the TEDx talk I gave a few weeks ago.
I have a tendency to be hyper critical of myself and this one especially so. I was really nervous. Felt a ton of pressure to deliver a new idea to the masses. I went too fast. I rambled at times. I was distracted with my A.D.D. even though I’d spent about 80 hours on this talk. And I think I could have used a few different words besides ‘sucked’ so often.
Anyway, I’m passionate about this. Hope you can get that sense.
Kids really can create companies to solve every problem the world has, and to capitalize on all the ideas they have already.
Let’s help them.
Let’s teach kids the skills they need to be Entrepreneurs. Let’s teach them that being an Entrepreneur is an awesome career.
A good friend of mine once asked me, “Are you arguing to be right, or are you trying to be understood?”
I ask myself that often – not because I argue a lot – but to remind myself that the key to good communication is listening to what people have to say, not telling them what you need or think you need to say.
Communication isn’t a one-way street – you can’t bark orders and commands and expect all employees to follow that system. In fact, that technique may even be wildly detrimental to what you’re trying to accomplish with your business.
Try reading this sentence six times – and each time put the emphasis on a different word…
“I Didn’t Say You Were Beautiful.”
If six words can mean so many different things it’s no wonder that communication within a company can be so confusing and frustrating at times.
Never stop passionately pursuing better communication with everyone around you.
This is a lesson I learned the hard way at only 8 years old.
By 8 I’d already become a certified card addict and had gotten pretty cocky with my cribbage skills.
One day at our cottage a friend of my fathers was talking about cribbage. And I proudly said ‘I can beat you.’ To which he replied, ‘don’t be so sure, and don’t bet unless you can afford to lose’. I said fine I’ll bet you $7.00.
I’m not sure where $7.00 came from but in 1974 that was a LOT of money especially for an 8 year old.
I didn’t have that much money so I said if I lost he could have my new bike. I knew I wouldn’t lose. He agreed to put up $7.00.
Ummm, I lost.
And my bike disappeared into the trunk of his car. The next day he drove away with it.
I was shocked and in tears. For three days I never saw my bike.
My father then phoned his friend and negotiated a trade. I’d do jobs around our cottage area to earn $7.00 if he’d sell me my bike back.
See the receipt attached…
Note: It’s hard to see – but I love that he even got creative and made it Invoice # 69
Quite the character. And quite the lesson. To this day. I ONLY risk what I can afford to lose. Sometimes the risk is worth it.
For more information on this topic, check out: The Emotional Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurs.
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