Today, that vision becomes reality with the launch of Good Life Project™ (GLP) and GoodLifeProject.com.

So, what is it?

GLP is a movement. A set of shared values. A community. A creed, bundled with a voracious commitment to move beyond words and act. First, as a manifestation of your soul. And then as a quest to have the adventure of a lifetime, and to leave the world around you changed.

Good Life Project™  is based on a simple proposition…

People who embrace the 10 Commandments of Epic Business create legendary stories, build world-shaking businesses, earn whatever they need to live well and give well, have way more fun, cultivate high-levels of freedom, touch more lives, leave bigger legacies and, straight up, live better lives.

To build what we’re here to build, we need three things:

1. Knowledge.

We need to learn how to:

• Build a peak-state mindset
• Align who we are with what we do
• Craft hyper-effective business models & growth strategies
• Master the psychology of influence and behavioral change
• Re-envision service, sales and marketing from the position of delight
• Hand craft a deliberate culture of joy and embrace soul as a business ideal
• Do a deep dive into the 10 Commandments of Epic Business

2. Hands-on, Individualized Mentoring.

We all need regular, direct access to a mentor with a proven track record, both of success in business and success in teaching, guiding and mentoring, who takes a deep interest in your success, not just in business, but in life. Someone to provide honest feedback, insights, deep knowledge, hold you accountable and speak truth when everyone around you won’t. And, maybe most important, someone who defines success not just in money and power, but in bigger “good life” terms (joy, fun, presence, lightness, impact, connection and, yes, enough money to live well and give well).

3. Circle of Champions.

We all need a close-knit, like-minded group of people with a deep, enduring connection who agree to support, rally behind, teach, help, inspire and serve as powerhouse sounding boards, collaborators and confidants.

What if you could experience these 3 critical pieces of the puzzle right now?

The mindset and business strategies needed to flourish like never before. The direct input of a trusted mentor. And the support of a small group of driven, compassionate world-shakers and friends?

And what if you could do this while traveling to some of the coolest locations in the Western Hemisphere? Immersing yourself not only in knowledge and support, but a whirlwind of transformational experiences and challenges in some of the lushest and most adventurous places on the planet?

What might your business look like a year from now? After you’ve filled your tank with the knowledge needed to build business on a whole different level, encoded a visionary mindset, and had the adventure of a lifetime with an intimate group of friends that have become your biggest champions? How will that affect not only your business, but your life?

If this sounds even remotely interesting, I’ve made something very cool & fun for you to watch…

And it all starts with a man, a trampoline, and a single question, the answer to which may well determine your success and happiness in business and in life.

Click here to learn all about it out now

(Even if you have no interest at all, head on over and watch the first 20-seconds, it’ll leave a giant smile on your face for the rest of the day!)

Big love, big happiness & big success!

Pin drop…

Beyond the fact that a good percentage of the eyeballs in the rows in front were rolling, it was my first official keynote heckle. I was talking about mindset and entrepreneurship. More specifically, how we need to embrace uncertainty and recognize the creeping emergence of decision-making based not on optimism and opportunity, but on fear and the desire to prevent loss.

My friend in the audience was bothered because he’d assumed that, in a room full of successful entrepreneurs, this simply wasn’t an issue. They all got where they got by taking risks. They were the ones without fear. The idea marauders, innovators and envelope pushers.

And, indeed, when they started, nearly every person there was. But what about now? What about a few years into their ventures?

One of the biggest misses in the entrepreneurial process and mind is the assumption that mindset and willingness to embrace risk and creativity are fixed traits. In fact, the more successful most people become, the more they abandon the very mindset that fueled their success.

I call this the Entrepreneur’s recoil. Here’s how it works…

When you are just starting out, especially if you’re earlier in life and you don’t yet have significant responsibilities, it’s much easier to be hyper-creative, to innovate, put everything you have on the line and take risks. Because you have very little to lose. At least very little that isn’t fairly easily recoverable.

So when you start a business, you adopt a do or die, all-in mindset. You come up with and are open to crazy ideas in the name of creating breakout businesses. And you’re willing to act on them. Because, beyond ego, even if you fail, the fall really won’t cause that much pain.

But, then something happens. You succeed.

You begin to build a real business. You have offices, assets, overhead, inventory and employees. People, families, are counting on you to pay their rent and send their kids to school. Your own family begins to expect a certain lifestyle. And so do you. You get comfortable. And, along with your success, you now have the perception of so much more to lose if you fail.

So, instead of continuing to take risks, your mindset begins to shift into what famed psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize for behavioral psychology, Daniel Kahneman, calls loss aversion mode.

Rather than being driven by what you can build, create and have, you are overwhelmed by  a fear of losing what you’ve already amassed. Being an entrepreneur, and innovator, an artist or a creator does not make you immune to the often irrational pull of loss aversion. Because, as Kahneman’s research points out, it’s simply a part of human nature.

Two problems with this when it comes to creators and entrepreneurs…

One – The switch from seeking gain to loss avoidance cultivates a strong negative creativity bias that makes us say no to innovative ideas. Ones that come from our own minds, as well as from those around us. And ones that, embraced, could have been key drivers of innovation and growth.

Two – Because we set the tone as entrepreneurs, when we pull back, stop innovating ourselves and rebuff innovation and creativity from employees, we create an idea-killer emotional virus that destroys the very culture that got us where we are. It breeds loss-aversion, fear and scarcity, which is death to innovation and expansion.

So, what do we do about it?

If you’re an entrepreneur, or you work with an entrepreneur or a team charged with innovation, create a monthly mindset circuit-breaker check-up. Take a step back, preferably leave the office and take a few key creators with you. Maybe get out into nature and ask a big question -

“Am I operating from a place of creative opportunity or loss aversion?”

Be honest, and task your team with a “no-repercussion” opportunity to call you out on a shift to a prevent-offense when they see it. Because very often the person least well equipped to notice this shift is you.

Most important, never assume that the mindset that got you here is the same as the mindset that guides your efforts today. It may be. But, for many, once you’re sitting atop a mountain of success, possibility long ago morphed into fear.

When you see that, own it. Then do something about it.

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P.S. – I survived the heckling, shared the concept of the recoil, moved on and, after the keynote, spent nearly an hour fielding questions from a healthy crowd of attendees who thanked me for “opening their eyes” to this and other creative mindset phenomena and myths.

Then, I promptly went home, hugged my wife and daughter, meditated…and took a foam Kaboom bat to my couch.

Kidding…kinda!

“10 Commandments of Biz”

The 10 commandements were about doing business a different way. One that was designed to lead to not just a great career that changed lives, but to the ability to love the work you do in the world, the business you aspire to build and the life you want to live.

And, in the context of the Annual Report, it was a bit of a parting bonus gift, a quick little slice of fun to leave you thinking about how you bring yourself to the world.

While the entire Annual Report took off online (more on that soon, still humbled and grateful, btw), the 10 commandments, themselves, got quite a bit of feedback, and I had a bunch of requests to release them as a standalone graphic to share.

So, for those who missed it and those who asked for it, here ya go…

Because…

Business ain’t just about business, it’s about life!

Chip Conley survived, but this experience was a bit of a wake-up call. One that set in motion a different path. For years, Conley had been a deep student of human behavior and the psychology of success. That interest, along with two decades building his company, led him to write the New York Times bestseller, PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow.

Now, having sold a controlling interest in Joie de Vivre to Hyatt, Conley is back with more thoughts on the human condition, sharing a bit of a radical approach to cultivating the mindset needed to succeed in business and in life. And he’s combining math with emotion in his new book, Emotional Equations.

So I sat down with Chip to find out what this science meets mood approach was all about. Here’s what unfolded…

[FTC Disclosure - You should always assume that pretty much every link on this blog is an affiliate link and that if you click it, find something you like and buy it, I'm gonna make some serious money. Now, understand this, I'm not talking chump change, I'm talking huge windfall in commissions, bling up the wazoo and all sorts of other free stuff. I may even be given a mansion and a yacht, though honestly I'd settle most of the time for some organic dark chocolate and clean socks. Oh, and if I mention a book or some other product, just assume I got a review copy of it gratis and that me getting it has completely biased everything I say. Because, books are like a drug to me, put one in my hand and you own my ass. Ethics be damned! K, you've been warned. Huggies and butterflies. ]

Inspired and humbled by the legendary annual reports of Berkshire Hathaway founder, Warren Buffet, I decided to expand my exploration into a full-blown 2011 Annual Report and give it a theme—”Serve, aspire, transcend.”

As you read the Annual Report, I’ll bring you deeper into my life and what I call my “business engines.” I’ll also share something that’s more personal than ever before. Not so much because I want to, but because to omit it would leave a gaping hole in the context around many of my recent business and life decisions. It’ll also provide answers to questions I’ve been asked, yet have never answered publicly.

So, get yourself a latte and some dark chocolate, this craft is taking flight…

Click here to download and read

And if you find it compelling, I’d be grateful if you’d share it around.

P.S. – The report is formatted as a PDF document, and designed to read easily on an iPad or a computer. It’s very visual, so the file a little bigger than a regular document (around 4MB). It’s also 35 pages long, so if you’d like to print it, just remember to check the box when you print to shrink it to fit the page size you are printing on.

It happened during a skype interview about swearing on blogs and in business. The whole conversation was fantastic and generated a lot of conversation and just a wee bit of controversy. But, what I didn’t know was this one moment would leave Julien spinning about something that would, over the course of the year, evolve into a book called The Flinch that’s being released today by Seth Godin’s The Domino Project.

So I circled back to Julien for round two.

In this new video interview, he shares what really happened in that pivotal moment earlier this year. We get into what led him on a quest that ended in him writing The Flinch, what it’s all about, why he did it with Seth Godin and The Domino Project and why it’s only on kindle and it’s being released at the price of…nothing.

But, as often happens when you get Julien and me talking, that conversation somehow led down the publishing industry rabbit hole, and we go off on a whole new tangent about the future of publishing for authors and publishers and how authors can leverage what’s nothing less than mass disruption for serious gain.

The Flinch is published today, it’s available only on kindle and it doesn’t cost a dime. You don’t actually need a kindle to read it, you just need the kindle app and you can read it pretty much anywhere with that. So, go download it now.

+++Good Life Notes+++

• Also out this week – my friend Chris Guillebeau has a fantastic new manifesto available for download called The Tower
• Mini-Break - Close your door, put on your headphones, turn up the volume, click here, then close your eyes and smile.

For most other endeavors, once that energy cedes to the more long-term, “get it done” nature of any meaningful creative endeavor, the discomfort and anxiety that ride along become a stronger and stronger force.

All too often, one of two things happens. The fear and anxiety lure you into wanting to move too quickly from freedom to constraint. They make you want to close off options, create rules, systems, and processes, stop exploring, adapting, testing, permuting, experimenting, and evolving. Not because it’s the right time, not because you’ve finally reached a point at which you’ve accomplished what you’re truly capable of, but because the uncertainty, the anxiety, the suffering that come from not being “there” yet or from fear of being criticized for taking a risk and getting it wrong is killing you. And you just want it to end.

Or the opposite happens. Your inability to wrangle the fear and uncertainty stops you from ever starting or makes you so freaked out about making the wrong decisions that you endlessly debate every step along the way, lose your ability to make decisions and take action, and end up stalled.

The move from freedom to constraint has to happen. If it doesn’t, there’s no output . . . and no impact.

The key is to hit that sweet spot, giving yourself enough time to play in the realm of possibilities before yielding to the limits and structures needed to execute on your best ideas.

Even when a particular project—be it a painting, book, product, service, or entity—comes into being, that’s only part of a much bigger creation journey. When you broaden your view, such endeavors become stopping points, snapshots of your capabilities and your contribution to a much bigger quest to build a body of work or a meaningful career over a lifetime. Each endeavor is a giant creation crux move on a far grander creation arc that will take decades to build.

One of the biggest awakenings as you strive to build a project, a career, and a life worthy of a legacy is that, in the end, there is no there there. No resting point. No certainty. No place to hide from either the inner or outer critics.

The book may be finished, the movie wrapped, the company launched, or the product revealed. But what will you do when you go to work tomorrow?

You and what you create will remain, to varying degrees, in a state of constant evolution. If you’re properly equipped to handle “living in the question,” that’s not a bad thing. Your ability to not only live with, but lean into and proactively seek out risk, judgment, and uncertainty—to transform it from what is, for most people, a default experience of suffering into fuel for creation—will play a huge role in your ability to create genius in every aspect of your work, your relationships, and your life, both in the moment and over a lifetime.

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Excerpted from Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance with permission from Penguin/Portfolio.

But, the deeper you get into life, the more you’ve got going on, the more you need to schedule time to not have anything scheduled.

Ritual is important. So it routine. They help create certainty anchors in your day, moments where you know what’s coming next and you can get into a rhythm that allows creativity and productivity to flow.

But, without fail, the biggest ideas, the most endearing connections, the world-changing insights come not when you’re engaged in the process of trying to make them happen, but when you step away and give your mind a bit of space. When you let your brain breath.

That’s when data coalesces into genius. Conversations blossom into love. And the playful side of life swirls through you.

The busier you get, the more important it is for you to exalt and even schedule time to be unscheduled. To pause.

As John Lennon once shared -

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Schedule spontaneity and plan to live.

What do you think?

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I always marvel at the way some people seem to rise from ground zero, to leading and dominating their market in a short amount of time. It seems as if their success is overnight, and almost supernatural.

Sadly, others spend years toiling away, working hard and their progress seems snail-like at best.

It makes me curious about what goes on behind the scenes of people that level up their business rapidly.

And I have to admit, sometimes I’ve looked at others rise to fame with feelings of envy when it seems like I’m doing all the same things, and making all the right moves, but getting radically different results.

These days I’ve gotten a lot better about not comparing my success to those of my peers. I realize that we’re all running our own race, and what matters is our competition with ourselves.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from the rapid evolution of others. I’ve become a kind of student, or mad scientist if you will, trying to find the common element that quickly elevates leaders to great heights.

Well, there’s one thing that I’ve found that may surprise you. It isn’t grit. It’s not genius, luck or even access to greater resources than average people.

Those that rise quickly to the upper stratospheres of their field are incredibly deliberate about the environments they place themselves in.

You may have heard before that it’s much easier to not eat cookies if you remove them from your cupboard (and replace them with healthier choices).

In the same way, it’s much easier to operate a higher level of genius, creativity and effectiveness when your environment makes it almost automatic.

If you surround yourself with world-class athletes, it will be hard for you to not become one.

If you go on a retreat where the only option is to create, it will be hard for you to not produce something groundbreaking.

If you wake up with a community of doers, leaders, and world-changers, it will be incredibly difficult for you to not embrace your own greatness.

So, what is it that you want to be the best in the world at? Do you want to create an empire, travel the world, or start a movement?

Deliberately surround yourself with people doing those things. Seek them out, befriend them. And above all, find ways that you can add value to what they are doing.

You may need to start small at first. It could just be drenching your twitter stream with leaders and high performers. Then you might start a weekly meeting with someone else doing what you want to do on Skype to conspire and encourage each other.

The next step might be moving to a place in the world where you’re surrounded with people that are in alignment with you are and who you want to become.

The more you do this, the more you’ll find that it’s impossible for you to not wake up and do great things.

This is the fastest way I know of to level up your work, and your life. If you want to become great, surround yourself with greatness. It’s the closest thing to making success inevitable that I know of.

As Jonathan likes to say, what do you think? What did I miss?

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About the author: Jonathan Mead is a coach, writer, and barefoot runner helping people quit their jobs and get paid to be who they are. He’s creating a high level mastermind to help people rapidly rise to new heights of success in work and life.

Sean Platt is one of them. You may know him from WriterDad.com, GhostWriterDad.com, CollectiveInkwell.com and his contributions all over the web.

But it’s a pretty radical new approach to “episodic” or serialized digital fiction with his Yesterday’s Gone series that’s turning a lot of heads these days.

In this in depth interview we look at how a new generation of authors is trying to leverage the exploding “kindle economy,” most with little success, and how Sean’s radically different approach may create a whole new model for e-fiction and beyond.

Links mentioned in the interview:

• Yesterday’s Gone (Season 1) on amazon
• SerializedFiction.com

If you’re the slightest bit interested in what Sean’s doing and how he’s doing it, I’d run and grab the entire first “season” (c’mon it’s like $4.99), read the short 100-page books and, more importantly, deconstruct how he’s writing each one differently than the typical novel and how it might apply to your own quest to bring great fiction to life, have a blast doing it and get paid well for your efforts.

+++Timely Tidbits+++

• TribalAuthorCamp – Authors and aspiring authors who are willing to do the work needed to succes – the next semester begins Monday, October 17th – grab one of the remaining seats today. Click here to learn more
• Entrepreneurs - Andrew Warner of Mixergy just posted an incredibly in-depth, 1-hour video interview we did on how entrepreneurs, founders and start-up teams can better manage and even embrace uncertainty to build better companies faster and with less suffering. Check it out here.