Forward Steps Back

I was thinking about a situation that happened a couple of years ago that sucked. Life moved on but I still think about it. I've asked numerous people if they have events they relive in their heads over and over again. The answer is almost always yes because most of us do. But why is that?

I'm not suggesting we don't relive happy memories, but the challenges seem to cut deeper for some reason. Is it perhaps because we are still learning a lesson? I know this, the more we try and not think about those events, the more we think about them. If I was to ask you to not think about an orange elephant riding a motorcycle – good luck getting that image out of your head!

Beware of the Lizard Brain

I'd consider myself a fairly smart dude, so why can't I just tell myself to stop letting something that has already happened, which I cannot change, continue to bug me? It has to do with the part of the limbic system in our brains that is in charge of fight, flight, feed, fear, or freeze. It is our survival mechanism which decides what we do next if we are experiencing stress. It's why we can't seem to get started on the project even though we know the deadline looms.

If we have a situation, current or past, real or imagined, it will react immediately. If we are experiencing or have experienced pain, it will focus solely on that moment. When I think of that event, it's as if I am reliving it over and over again. 

Negative vs Positive

Perhaps this is more prevalent in Western culture, but we seem to do it more often when remembering negative situations over joyous ones. Do we think we don't deserve joy and need to pay for pain? I'm obviously not a psychologist but I think there's something to that. Our frontal lobe is in charge of reasoning, motor skills, higher level cognition, and expressive language. So our complicated brain starts to fight with itself. 

I've started an exercise and like most when you begin, I'm terrible at it, but I'm trying to think of five positive things in my life or events that have happened whenever a negative thought or memory crosses my mind. When I can do it successfully, it actually works. So perhaps you can try it if you can't seem to get past a negative event in your past.

I wonder how the elephant balances on that motorcycle? 

__________________________________________________________________

Clocks Back • You Forward

In parts of the world, clocks fell back an hour this weekend. An extra hour of sleep we lost in the spring. Strange things happen around these two events each year. Some find autumn tougher while others think adding an hour of daylight in March messes them up. One thing to be thankful for is that most gadgets have a clock that automatically makes the change for us.

Great ideas often come from short bursts of inspiration. Companies have been born over a lunch. An hour can be spent on the couch or used to change the world. Thirty-six hundred seconds to accomplish anything we want, what are we going to do?

60 Ideas for 60 Minutes

• Update your resume
• Empty your in-box
• Say no
• Offer your time to a charity
• Call mom
• Make cookies
• Get rid of self-doubt
• Have coffee with someone new
• Write your business plan
• Listen without talking
• Go skydiving
• Tweet
• Write a proposal
• Ignore the naysayers
• Share an idea
• Start a business
• Call a sibling
• Gain some perspective
• Plan a trip
• Apply for your dream job
• Build a chair
• Learn euchre
• Do something that scares you
• Make soup
• Stop making excuses
• Find new websites
• Call a friend
• Go for a drive and get lost
• Ride a horse
• Invent a product
• Have a bath
• Go easy on yourself
• Prepare a meal
• Take a nap
• Start a graffiti wall
• Remove negative influences
• Make amends
• Say yes
• Update social profiles
• Have lunch with a friend
• Get off your ass and do it
• Paint a t-shirt
• Quit your whining
• Watch a webinar
• Learn to juggle
• Prepare a presentation
• Call dad
• Play squash
• Help a friend
• Clear your desk
• Contact a potential business associate
• Enjoy nature
• Go bowling
• Listen to a podcast
• Plant a tree
• Help someone with their list
• Prepare your will
• Go square dancing
• Write a chapter for your new book
• Lose the fear

What are you doing in the next hour?

Kneale Mann

image credit: istock

17 Ideas That Might Just Work

It's All Up To Us

Share more than take.

Stay positive.

Move your comfort zone.

Be curious.

Ask for an opinion and listen.

No cell or text in the car.

Take a day off.

Have more face-to-face conversations.

Don’t make it about you.

Take the victory.

Do nothing else when you eat.

Accept that you created this.

Turn off your cell phone.

Ask for help and accept it.

Stay off-line for 24 hours.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

What’s on your list?

@knealemann
strategy. marketing. social media.

photo credits: filter

Have To or Get To?

Change Just One Word

Like you, I'm running fast.

I have to prospect and work with clients. I have to constantly do research and learn new stuff. I realize I am not unique.

I have to give myself a pep talk in the morning. I have to make the get done list as no one will get it done for me.

Sound Familiar?

I have to push myself when I am tired. I have to be there when my clients need me. I have to reach out and meet new people. I have to develop pipelines of opportunity and I have to network often.

I have to motivate myself. I have to prospect for new business. I have to contribute to the conversation. I have to engage and create. And so do you!

Then a friend sent me an email and reminded me how fortunate I am. She changed one word that changed everything.

Think about your situation. You have to do a lot of stuff but what if you lifted the weight and looked at things from a much more positive stance. I get to run a company. I get to help clients. I get the freedom to do what I want to do for a living. I get to understand that it’s up to me to improve my situation.

It can be tough to ensure your business is successful. We have bills. We have deadlines. We have stress.

We don't have to connect with new people on Twitter. We don't have to write a blog post today. We don't have to put ourselves in to new situations with new people. We get to do all that cool stuff.

Think about that the next time you say you have to do something.

Can you change one word and make all the difference in your business and career? Do you have to or do you get to?

@knealemann
strategy. marketing. social media.

photo credit: despair.com

A New Decade | Enjoy The Buffet

I sensed a new tone wafting through the community over the last few weeks.

It was like freshly baked bread and homemade stew – the kind that you have a second helping when you have no more room.

Familiar. Inviting. Comforting.
Nourishing. Delicious. Reassuring.

We were overdue for a feast.

This required us to remove the junk food in our minds and focus. The issues we face are very real and very steep to climb but we can approach them from a much more strategic angle if we have our heads on straighter.

We were tired of hearing the bad news. The gloom was more doom than we could endure. Greed and selfishness are not welcome here.

Then the shift began to happen and perhaps it was due to a date on a calendar but the corner was near. Conversations turned from negative to hopeful to positive. There were more reminders we can decide to work and spend time with people we like while working on projects we want.

It’s A New Year. It's A New Decade. Now What?

It's just a number if we fail use this annual marker as the starting point. Baggage is a choice, so are rear view mirrors.

Nothing we do can change the past.

2010: The year to get stuff done, to stop making excuses, to ask for help, to collaborate for real and to focus on what we want.

Ready?

@knealemann
business. marketing. social media. communications.

Resolution 2010 | 10 Things (part two)

Yesterday we covered five of the ten suggestions for next year.

10. Care A Little Less
9. Give More
8. Do Not Heed
7. Smile and Wave
6. Learn to Say No

Here are five more...

5. Of Course You Can

You have heard it, read it and seen it your entire life. You can do whatever you want if you believe and try hard enough. Are you doing it?

4. Eradicate the Naysayers

Never share your dreams with negative people. What is the point? If you have always wanted to play guitar and finally grabbed the nerve to buy one and take lessons, why would you then ask all your friends if they approve? Naysayers are as common as lint so what's the upside of listening to them?

3. Listen to the Right Voices

"If only I could get another thousand bucks,
I’d start my own business."

"If I have to work in that cubicle one more day,
I think I’m going to drive my car off a bridge."

"Why do we have to listen to her,
she has no idea what she’s doing and she’s the boss."

As soon as you stop listening to the negative voices and start paying closer attention to the ambitious ones, things will change immediately.

2. Trust Yourself More Than You Trust Others

I love to play golf, I don't play it near enough and I am terrible because I think too much. I can crank my driver 250+ yards, straight as an arrow, it is a thing of beauty. And it happens three times a round.

Perhaps it’s time we trusted ourselves more often. This is not about blind arrogance, it's about truly knowing our strengths and going for it.

There is a chance we would crank a lot more 250 yarders off the tee if we didn't over think so much.

1. Quit Your Whining

We love to complain, we find strange comfort in it, we join our colleagues after work to commiserate about our terrible lots in life. Perhaps it’s time for all of us to shut it.

Scientists have yet been able to link complaining to progress.

Happy New Year :-)

@knealemann
business. marketing. social media. communications.

The One Thing

What is the one thing you
will change to improve your career?

What is the one thing
you will do to help us?

What is the one thing you will read
to engage a conversation?

What is the one thing you will
affect to cause you to move?

What is the one thing
you will say to help me?

What is the one thing you will mean
that will create a positive shift?


What is the one thing you will create
that will ignite others?

What is the one thing
you will write that may cause us to think?

What is the one thing we will
act on which will affect a revolution?

What is the one thing I will do to help you?

@knealemann
Helping you improve your media,
marketing, bizdev and social networks

image credit: completeinnovator