The April Fool Prank that went right – 2014

VaultLife has its international launch 5 April 2014 so when we asked Bryan Pinehro and Donovan Black to pack for Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Nigeria they were none the wiser.

We explained to them that we could not send in the USA sales team. The quote had come back and the American medical aid and emergency evacuation insurances were too expensive. In addition the USA embassy had issued a cautionary to any USA citizen wanting to travel to these three countries.

They looked at us. We continued. .

We told them we would have to send in South African citizens who could take the heat i.e. Bryan and Donovan!

They nodded thoughtfully in our boardroom at 9am on 1 April 2014

Once in the various countries they would have to travel alone. They would be given a large amount of foreign currency that they could use at their discretion to get themselves out of difficult situations on the road. As Ebola, ecoli, yellow fever, malaria and blackwater fever are rife in these countries they needed to have a full set of inoculations before leaving.

They nodded thoughtfully.

They are asked to phone their parents to bring their passports so that we could start the visa applications.

Bryan spoke first. “Mike, I have committed to making 100 calls a day to recruit new VaultLife members. Please ensure that the phone I’m given has international roaming so that I don’t miss my targets while overseas”

Neither of them flinched although their eyes told a different story.

I value loyalty above anything else but I was blown away. These guys had what it takes. They have the passion and they have the vision. Doing business in Nigeria was do-able because they believed in their mission and in their product offering. Wow. Now there are brand ambassadors. The excitement of VaultLife overtook their fear of Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. They knew they could tell the story and sell the dream.

At 11:45am they returned to the boardroom and began the visa application process. They filled in page one. They filled in page two. They turned to page three which only had two words ie April Fool.

We all laughed till years ran down our checks but I knew I had witnessed something special. Well done Bryan Pinhero and Donovan Black.

We all have the same 24 hours but not the same productivity. Some people grow, some stagnate…

For me this is about mastering the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’.
• Do you do the same thing and therefore get the same results?
• Do you meet the same people and therefore get the same opportunities?
• Do you frequent the same places and therefore get the same perspective?
• Do you read the same journals and therefore think the same way?

By exposing yourself to a vast array of different people, circumstances and even countries, you can obtain a different result. This multifaceted diversity forms a matrix of dots that forms your business world – more dots means more opportunity and more growth.

We don’t have the same 24 hours at our disposal. A person with only a few dots in his matrix remains in the same place. He does the same things over and over again with zero prospects. A person who ‘gets out there’, who exposes themselves to diversity, who moves outside of their comfort zone (as a way of life) has a multiplicity of dots and when he joins them together he rapidly moves forward, making his 24 hours that much more productive.

There is one last aspect to my take on the Law of Unintended Consequence – expect the positive. Expect that unknown person in a room of 1000 to find you. Expect that unexplored idea in a sea of ideas to seek you out. Expect to go home with a stroke of genius because what you expect creates your reality – this is true in life and is true in business.

Self Awareness – The ability to be critically self aware in an accurate and productive way is one of the greatest strengths of spectacularly successful executives and entrepreneurs – check out the full story in Forbes

Think differently 1997 Apple ad – The Crazy Ones. The creative entrepreneur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

The people in order of appearance: Einstein, Dylan, Luther King, Richard Branson (founder of Virgin, you can also see the logo in one frame), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Buckminster Fuller, Edison, Cassius Clay, Ted Turner (founder of CNN), Callas (Soprano), Gandhi, Amelia Earhart (the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic), Hitchcock, Martha Graham (dancer), Henson (creator of the Muppets) with Kermit the frog, architect Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso. The girl that appears at the end is the niece of the composer of the music, Tarsem Singh.

You can lead your company using one of two styles. You can . . .

• Lead with the statistical facts of harsh reality.
• Look past the present circumstances and see a new world of opportunity

Does ‘future vision’ of success constitute lies and delusion or is it the pinnacle of innovation and leadership?

Delusion is defined as a ‘false belief or hope’. This is ridiculous as both ‘belief’ and ‘hope’ deal with the future whereas ‘false’ deals with present. No definition can have one foot in the future and one present; this is a contradiction – hope cannot be false and vision cannot be a lie. This has enormous consequences on the leadership styles we use when running our companies.

For the people of Silicon Valley in the 1980’s delusion and fantasy was the world of Steve Jobs the greatest creative entrepreneur of our time.

For 2014 the concept of fantasy and delusional business thinking excites me to my core.

Fantasy and reality are constantly changing concepts; therefore the line between them is imaginary. This is the world of the creative entrepreneur.

To take cognizance of thus imaginary line is to impose limitations on yourself, your company and your products. In fact it can be argued that the more formal knowledge you have the greater the limitations you impose on your future growth. When people limit their imaginations they limit their future.

Steve Jobs grew up during the 1960’s a period well known for its use of hallucinogenic drugs like LSD. LSD blurs the line between reality and fantasy mixing the senses and making unlikely associations. This is what Jobs was talking about when he refers to joining the dots (see quote). The more dots you have the likely your are to create a revolution within your industry and product lineup.

This is not to say that hallucinogens is the recommend route to product innovation! This is merely an anecdote to us as business owners to loosen up, to think freely, to think differently, to reject boundaries and to refute the ‘impossible’.

We have to find ways to broaden our experiences and to reject the imaginary line between reality and fantasy. This is applied imagination.

There are two economies. They are . . .
• ‘This is how it works economy’
• ‘I don’t want to know how it works economy’

As business leaders we made a choice about which of the two spaces we play in.

In the 1980’s IBM knew how it worked i.e. big business needed computers, people did not. Steve Job at Apple did not care about how it worked. He believed that people needed computers even if they did not know it yet. He told his team that people were waiting for their products when in fact they were not – their expectation was only in his head yet it was this ‘delusional’ thinking that drove and inspired his engineers to create not only the products but at the same time, the demand for the products.

It is up to us to decide which economy we are going to play in. If we choose the ‘this is how it works economy’ we play by pre-established rules. If we choose the ‘I don’t care how it works economy’ we are entering the Steve Job’s world of applied imagination – the creative entrepreneur.

If you are constantly having to compete on price then you are probably playing in the ‘this is how it works economy’. If price is less of a concern and you are more interested in performance , chances are you are playing in the ‘I don’t want to how it works economy’.

“Steve Jobs is a liar”.

This statement was true in the 1980’s when he spoke above the tablet that used your fingers as the stylus. Today the iPad in your hand tells us that he was telling the truth. This discussion about the truth is a powerful lesson about leadership and the leadership styles we use to run our companies.

Steve Job’s was well known for his outlandish claims. He lived in a ‘reality distortion field’. Hindsight tells us that his reality distortion was self fulfilling – his fantasy became our reality . He was the master of ‘applied imagination’ – a creative entrepreneur. (Source: “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson )

This calls into question what is ‘impossible’. The claims that Job’s made were impossible in their context but this begs a bigger question –
• Did the impossible become possible because one man had the vision to call it into being?
• If you have the vision and the courage can the impossible became a reality?
• Is impossible only impossible because no one has challenged it?

As you lead your company you have to consider the tension between the possible and the impossible (truth and falsehood).

The ‘possible’ brings mediocre success at best. The ‘impossible’ brings success beyond our wildest dreams.

The new edition of the LIVEOUTLOUD magazine (The Collection) is out. This year 2013 we focused on the five senses; the new magazine is the Touch edition and is part 3 of 4.

Last year our seasonal marketing strategy focused on The Elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Wind.  This approach keeps our publication fresh and auto suggests new directions for every edition.

Every new theme affects the content, colours and images.  Every new theme forces our editorial team to make new choices with regard to design, layout and editorial. Therefore a reader enjoying our magazine will know (at a subconscious level) that the magazine is unique, different and fresh.

Take a hard look at your own business. How are you able to make seasonal marketing work for you? It will breathe fresh air into your existing and long standing relationships with your clients and supporters.

Personally I’m very proud of the new Spring edition and the team that put it together. We have entered our magazine into the Pica awards and are confident that LIVEOUTLOUD will feature well at the gala event on 14 November 2013.

The annual Pica awards are facilitated by MPASA – The Magazine Publishers Association of South Africa

There is a magic ingredient to running a successful business . . . . i.e. finding an elegant solution to all things.

Elegance is not a soft girly word. At the heart of elegance is the concept of being “ingeniously simple” (effortless, refined, tasteful and graceful are all part of it). Because an elegant solution is ingeniously simple it is quick, easy and inexpensive to implement; it does not incur an onerous and crushing overhead.

• An elegant solution has a wow factor. Your staff love it because it is easy to implement. Your clients are amazed because it catches them off guard; they are both surprised and delighted.
• An elegant solution has a simple beauty to it; it is timeless and classic.
• An elegant solution does not incur discomfort and disturbance around it. It fits effortlessly into the existing infrastructure without major paradigm shifts or renovations.
• An elegant solution is fun and everybody enjoys participating in the process.
• An elegant solution contrasts with its surroundings; its stands out without being offensive or authoritarian.
• An elegant solution gets buy-in from all concerned, quickly and easily.

Example: The most anticipated event at the annual LIVEOUTLOUD Super Car day is the race between a super car and a helicopter around Kyalami race track . This is a typical LIVEOUTLOUD Event – it has the wow factor yet is eqasy to implement, surprising and delighting both clients and spectators alike.