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!

“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!

After checking the box that cancelled the service, I was pushed to a page that made me a “one-time” offer.

Re-activate my subscription immediately and I could lock in a monthly price that was 20% less than what I’d been paying. The same screen also told me this was a one time offer that would go away and never come back once I clicked away from the screen.

Can we all say “ick” together?!

I was annoyed. Why would this solid company with a good product treat a departing customer better than a loyal user?

This left a really bad taste in my mouth. So bad that, if and when I need a similar service, I’ll now spend more time exploring this company’s competition. And every time someone asks me about the service, I’ll tell them the service was good, but also add in this story. Even though I have friends in the company (who are about to get an email from me, btw).

The same tactics used to be used by phone service and credit-card companies. You’d call up to cancel and they’d say, “oh wait a minute, will you stay if we lower your rate?” The tactic was so well known that many people would call automatically after a few months of usage and claim they were going to cancel simply as a vehicle to ensure they were getting the best rates available.

Note to businesses of all sizes, when you play games like this and what you are doing becomes public, it makes you look like a schmuck and it makes your loyal customers feel like morons and marks.

Don’t treat your best customers like second class citizens. Treat them the way you’d want someone else to treat your mom (making some assumptions here, lol).

Your most devoted customers should get the best you have to offer without having to threaten departure or begging for something better.

Instead of offering a 20% discount to customer who threatens to leave after a year, offer a surprise 20% reduction to a customer who’s been with you for a year. Talk about fueling word of mouth expansion. Do that and you’ll create an army of super fans and evangelists who’ll pre-sell everyone they meet with a killer story about the company who did them right and they’ll stay with you forever.

Not so much about the fact that they exist (well, yes, people are hating on that), but “how” they exist. Because all too often they are sources of dysfunction, rather than progress.

Enter Al Pittampalli and his new book “Read This Before Our Next Meeting,” which seeks to change the way meetings happen (or stop happening) in a effort to return a bit of sanity to the process of progress.

With permission, I’m excited to be able to share this excerpt.

Enjoy!

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Traditional Meetings Kill Our Sense of Urgency

Or as John Kotter says, our compulsive determination to move and win, now.

When did we lose our fire? When did we get so comfortable? I used to come into work with a promise to myself, a commitment to do work that matters. But having been unsuccessful in fulfilling that promise in the short windows between meetings, I now come into work with the hope of surviving the day.

I wonder when we’ll realize what a trap we’ve set for ourselves. Regularly interrupting the day to bring our best minds together to focus on the urgent makes it impossible for these people to spend their focused energy on what’s actually important. We have created a culture designed to survive the urgent by watering it down, instead of challenging our best to step up and lead us to do the important.

Peter Drucker tells us that meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. We either meet or work. We can’t do both at the same time. Real work is what moves us forward. Work that involves action, struggle, and effort. It’s that output that puts us closer to winning. If the mission could speak, it would constantly tell us, “get back to work.”

The most talented among us know that they best serve the organization by making things. We add value only by producing work that contributes directly toward our goals and by initiating amazing work that wasn’t even asked of us. Instead, we’re pulled into meetings.

David Heinemer Hansson, from 37 Signals, says meetings are toxic because they break workdays into a series of work moments. Achieving flow, the state in which we do our best work, can take long periods of focus. Interruptions force us to start over each time.

I’m tired of starting over.

Efficient systems should be organized around the output that wants to be optimized: in our case, the work. But with so many meetings called, it’s as if our work is organized around our meetings instead.

Sometimes, when I’m called into a meeting, I wonder what could possibly be so urgent that it pulls me away from my real work. As with the yellow “BREAKING NEWS” banner that appears on CNN every time I turn it on, I’m skeptical. And after the meeting is over and I’m forced to confront the truth that no, there was no real urgency, I’m disappointed, angry. I feel betrayed.

This false urgency is echoed in three common meeting types:

1. Convenience meetings
2. Formality meetings
3. Social meetings

Convenience meetings: Meetings called because it’s difficult to capture everything we want to say effectively in writing, quickly. These meetings rarely add any more value than a memo would have. In fact, they’re worse because in addition to wasting time, they rely on nonverbal communication that’s hard to refer to later on.

Formality meetings: Meetings called by managers who think it’s their job to hold them. It doesn’t matter whether these meetings are designed to give off the appearance of control and productivity, or whether they’re a way for managers to subtly exert their status; in either case, these meetings are wasteful. Even if having convening members get together to share advice or status reports results in some incremental benefit, it pales in comparison to the cost of the interruption.

Social meetings: Meetings for the purpose of connection. We sometimes call social meetings without even realizing it. I’m guilty of this myself. Unfortunately, social meetings quickly turn circular and expand to fit the time. You might want to slow down and chat, but perhaps not everyone in the room has the same goals (or time) that you do.

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So, curious, how do YOU feel about meetings?

Do you agree with Al’s assessment?

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Right now we’ve never had more opportunities to simultaneously stay connected and transcend international borders and time zones. There’s a dangerous flip side to that. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for us to say `enough is enough’. I’m going to unplug.

We believe that being constantly busy qualifies as being productive and successful. If we can occupy our fingers by texting or typing voraciously on our smartphones then we must surely be important, efficient, and cutting edge, right? We’re so proud of our latest iPad 2 or Blackberry Playbook and their ability to allow us to work from anywhere and never leave our `busyness’ behind.

Sadly they are in fact part of an epidemic where information overload and hyper connectivity are creating, for want of a Lady Gaga reference, little monsters. People who can no longer sit and do nothing, just let their thoughts drift away. Stressed out, overweight and seriously unhealthy people giving up their life to the internet. Those who can’t hold real life conversations with people right in front of them as their Twitter feed, Facebook Inbox and LinkedIn group discussion is more `important.’

As Jonathan pointed out in Creative Kryptonite and the Death of Productivity

Hyperconnectivity gives us the perception of getting more done, it makes us feel like we’re doing more, because we’re using every free moment of every waking hour.

Jonathan kindly allowed me to write about how being disconnected makes you more connected but we all know how difficult that can actually be. Luckily there is a solution and it’s right under your very nose.

We have the most amazing online tools at our disposal to help us be more streamlined, effective and organized than ever before. Tools that actually allow us to disconnect and free up time to live in the real world. It all comes down to how you view and use them everyday. Here are a few of my favourite that you can use to your advantage:

Chrometa

If you ever wonder exactly where your time goes every day then you should get to know Chrometa. This is a free application that analyses and reveals how you spend your time by automatically tracking your computer usage and then using this data to improve your personal and team productivity. It runs in the background and records everything you do while you work. It helps with project tracking so that you don’t need to start or stop a timer or use a spreadsheet to keep track. All you have to do is categorize them once. For freelancers it’s particularly useful because you can track your billable hours to the exact minute.

Rapportive

Given you already spend way too much time on email then let me introduce you to my best friend. Rapportive is a free application you install as a plugin in Gmail (available on Firefox, Chrome, Mailplane, and Safari) that replaces the ads with detailed, Web-sourced information about each person who emails you. It’s quite literally transformed how I view my inbox. Now when someone I don’t know emails me I get this pretty visual on who they are – their title, location, photo even, and the ability to connect with them from within the email on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. If you’re an MS Outlook user there’s a similar service called Xobni – (inbox spelt backwards).

Evernote

You’ve likely heard of this free downloadable app that lets you clip to the cloud Web pages, photos, business card signatures and more. Evernote pretty much enables you to remove paper from your working life, and since it’s searchable, you no longer have to rely on folders and data management. I use it to clip a website, link or blog that I want to come back to later and tag it in a way that makes sense to me. I use it for blog post ideas, travel tips and even writing my book. You can use it on your mobile too and sync across multiple computer so no matter where you are you can still access your life.

Shoeboxed

If you have a bulging wallet full of receipts you’re holding on to, to claim as expenses then it would be much smarter for you to stuff them into an envelope, along with business cards and documents. Then send them via postage-paid envelopes or camera-equipped smartphone for Shoeboxed to take care of for you. They scan and data enter every document, then organize everything in a secure, searchable online account. All of the receipts you send to them are also accepted by the IRS, so if you are ever audited, just show the images of your receipts from your account.

TeuxDeux

If you’re constantly making to-do lists then you may like the super simple interface of TeuxDeux.com ((a cute play on French words which, when spoken properly, sound like To-Do). It’s amazingly uncomplicated so you don’t need spend your time figuring out how to use the features. You just get stuff done by adding items to your list, and clicking on it to check it off when you’re done. If you don’t, all of your unfinished tasks automatically move over to the next day’s list. The beauty of this is you start to see what you’re consistently putting off, which probably goes to show you it’s not a priority so you should just delete it.

Hootsuite

For all of you social media addicts, if you want to stop wasting time and get more strategic then you should check out Hootsuite. It is social media dashboard that you can hook up to all your social media accounts including your Facebook profile, page, multiple Twitter accounts, LinkedIn and RSS feeds. You can choose which updates go to which accounts and when. You can schedule them out during the day individually or in bulk. Hoosuite allows you to set up tabs and columns with lists and people you most want to follow and engage with so that you stay focused. Along with analytics reports, you can add team members to manage your accounts, and track keyword mentions of your name so that you don’t miss out on any RTs, mentions or important conversations.

There really is no need to be a slave to the internet and the ongoing influx of media and information. It’s not going to go away so you need to use these tools to manage your priorities and time to make the most of every single minute. Life should be rich tapestry of experiences – both online and offline. Make sure you don’t miss out on them.

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Natalie Sisson is a Suitcase Entrepreneur and Adventurer who shares creative ways to run your business from anywhere in the world. She is passionate about using online tools social media and outsourcing to create more freedom in business and adventure in life.

A grad of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, he trained for years as a musician, before making the jump into the world of entrepreneurship (not that he stopped being a musician).

Over 10 years, he built industry-leading indie-music distributor/retailer, CDBaby, then sold it for $22 million in 2008…but not before transferring the entire company into a charitable trust that set aside only a modest sum for him to live on after the sale.

Derek’s blog is one of the few I subscribe to by email, I don’t want to miss what he writes. In his new book—Anything You Want—from Seth Godin’s Domino Project, he shares a collection of stories, insights and ideas that emerged from his 10 year journey launching, stumbling, learning, growing, then selling CD Baby.

What I loved about this lightning-fast read (seriously, it took an hour) is not only Derek’s genuine, easy-going voice, his insights and strong contrarian outlook, but his transparency and willingness to scale by staying true to his original vision – to help musicians – in an entrepreneurial climate that increasingly values VC over bootstrapping, systems over people, speed over congruity and exit over evolution.

A few nuggets that really resonated include…

We’ve all heard about the importance of persistence. But I had misunderstood. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.

If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no.”

…even well-meaning companies accidentally get trapped in survival mode. A business is started to solve a problem. But if the problem was truly solved, that business would no longer be needed! So the business accidentally or unconsciously keeps the problem around so that they can keep solving it for a fee.

If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you…When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like a desperate lover. It’s a turnoff….When someone’s doing something for love, being generous in stead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give.

To have something (a finished recording, a business, or millions of dollars) is the means, not the end. To be something (a good singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy) is the real point.

Will every one of Derek’s collection of 40 lessons ring true for every businesses and quest? Maybe yes, maybe no.

But, that’s the point. It’s about the conversation. These are his learnings born of his life and experiences. The questions he raises around some of the major inflection points in any business’ growth and the conversations they prompt have value. HELL YEAH value.

And, when you buy Anything You Want (at least for now), Derek’s giving away more than 200 hand-selected mp3 tunes, too.

Go, check it out. Then share your thoughts…

A few years later, looking for even higher margin product, I started checking the prices on different beverages around the house and noticed wine sold for more than juice.

I remembered an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball stood in a massive vat of grapes crushing them into wine, so I crushed a bag of grapes into a mini clay urn, sealed-off the top with electrical tape and hid it in my tree-house to ferment in an attempt to make my own wine to sell.

Chateaux Fields never quite made it to market, but to this day, I can remember the smell when I opened that urn a month later.

That graduated to shoveling driveways in winter, mowing lawns and landscaping in summer, painting album covers on jeans jackets in high-school and launching the first company I ever sold in college, a mobile disc-jockey/sound & lighting business called Playrite.

Nobody taught me to be an entrepreneur, it just felt right. But, I’ve always believed the lessons of entrepreneurship should be taught to kids as early in life as possible. And, apparently, so did brothers Adam and Matthew Toren, who co-founded the company, YoungEntrepreneur.com, and wrote a great kids’ book on entrepreneurship -Kidpreneurs.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Adam and ask him why he’s so passionate about teaching entrepreneurship at an early age and why it matters so much.

Here’s how our conversation unfolded…

Why does it matter that kids learn about entrepreneurship when they’re still kids?

There are a couple of reasons why it’s important to start teaching entrepreneurship at a young age. First, the lessons a child learns while being taught about entrepreneurship can help throughout his or her life. And just as with any important lesson, the earlier it’s learned, the better.

A good example of this is teaching kids the money side of owning a business. Financial management isn’t generally taught in the schools, and a lot of parents are either poor money managers themselves or don’t think to really teach their kids about how to properly handle money. This lack of knowledge can be disastrous to a young adult’s credit rating and, ultimately, their lifestyle. And often, by the time they decide they need to learn about how to properly handle money, the damage is already done.

On the other hand, if a kid is taught about money management at an early age, they are much better equipped to take on the challenges of budgeting and finance as an adult.

The other reason teaching entrepreneurship young is important is that there’s a lot of opportunity for young people in the business world right now! We interview teens and twenty-somethings all the time who started their first business in their teens – or even pre-teens – and are now very successful business owners. A lot of people say, “It’s never too late to follow your dreams.” We’ve always said, “It’s never too early!”

Do you believe kids have any advantages over adults in embracing entrepreneurship and, if so, what are they?

The most obvious qualities that kids naturally possess that are favorable to entrepreneurship are a natural curiosity, a willingness to take risks, and abundant amounts of energy! But I actually think the biggest advantage kids have over adults in the entrepreneurial world is lack of experience. Now, that might sound a little strange, but really, it makes a lot of sense. Adults have learned “what works and what doesn’t work” from their own experiences and from what others have told them. That can be very useful, but it can also be limiting. At some point, a lot of adults stop trying new things or lose the ability for true outside-the-box thinking because of their limiting beliefs about what will and won’t work.

We run into young entrepreneurs all the time who say that they were successful specifically because they tried something that they later found out no one thought would work, but they didn’t know any better. Not being entrenched in a particular industry or market can give a fresh perspective and a unique point of view, and that’s where true innovation comes from.

Also, because kids now are growing up in a world that is changing more rapidly all the time, they tend to be more accepting of change and are able to adjust quickly as new technologies and market fluctuations alter the business landscape. That’s an important key to thriving in business today, so it’s definitely a good advantage to have.

What additional skills, mindset changes, and experiences does entrepreneurship give kids, that can impact their lives beyond work as they grow?

In my view, all of the qualities necessary to be a successful entrepreneur are easily translated into success in life in general. To be successful as an entrepreneur, kids need to learn critical thinking skills; they need to learn to take responsibility for the decisions and their actions; and they need to be able to communicate well and get along with people. There isn’t an area of life where these skills won’t have a positive impact.

The other skill – or quality – that all successful entrepreneurs have is perseverance. Entrepreneurship is often loaded with challenges, and if a business owner hopes to do well, he or she has to have a strong will and be able to keep on going, even when they don’t feel like it. Again, this is a quality that can translate into success in many areas of life.

If a parent is not an entrepreneur, but buys your book – Kidpreneurs – for her or his kids and even reads it to them, how effective will that be in letting them understand that world? And, how effective will it be at inspiring them to explore that world when their parents haven’t made that same choice?

That’s a great question, because one of the challenges we often hear young entrepreneurs expressing has to do with parents who just want them to forget about owning their own business and focus on doing what it takes to get a good job. Parents want what’s best for their children, and in their minds, that’s often what they see as the “safe” choice.

The irony of that thinking is that these days there isn’t a job that exists that’s guaranteed safe or secure. Whereas a laid off worker might hunt for a comparable job for months or, in some cases, years, I can think of ten businesses that I could start with very little investment – right now. They would take some time to flourish, but not more time than it takes the average job seeker today to find employment.

If a parent has purchased and read Kidpreneurs for their kids, we can assume the parent has some level of interest in and understanding of entrepreneurship. And that alone can be huge. It is very difficult for children to pursue something their parents don’t believe in. Having support – or even just not having them disapprove – can make a big difference to kids trying to express their entrepreneurial spirit.

A study conducted in 2007 and then repeated with similar results in 2010, by the Kaufman Foundation, shows that kids are in fact more likely to start a business or aspire to do so if they know another entrepreneur. But overall, about 40% of kids from ages eight to seventeen expressed an interest in starting a business. So, a parent doesn’t have to be the example or the inspiration for a child to become an entrepreneur, but they shouldn’t be a hindrance.

Buying Kidpreneurs and going through the process together can be a great learning experience for kids as well as parents. Even if a parent has no entrepreneurial background, the child will, at the very least, begin to think of the possibilities of business ownership. And if that doesn’t translate into starting a business right now, they’ll still carry the lessons with them into adulthood.

What are some of the stories and/or kid-driven businesses that you’ve seen come out of the Kidpreneurs experience?

We continually receive mail and email from parents, teachers, and kids who have read Kidpreneurs and want to share their stories. Many inspiring accounts have come out of the book, from kids who have been motivated to start their own businesses to those who simply found inspiration and encouragement to follow their dreams, whatever they may be.

Some of the actual businesses that Kidpreneurs readers have started include jewelry sales, used book retailing, and a number of online ventures, to name a few. One of our big Kidpreneur fans, Sky Rodrigues, is in the movie making business, and he shot a video testimonial that’s pretty cool. A good example of the many emails we receive is this one from a teenage reader:

“Thank you Matthew & Adam for writing this book and sharing your passion for Entrepreneurship. This book really made me think about all of my potential and I have already started writing down ideas for my first business. I plan on talking to some of my best friends to see if they would like to partner with me.” – Adeena T. (13 years old)

There is little else as rewarding as hearing from a child who’s read the book and been encouraged to start their own business!

Why now? At this point in your life? And at this point in the world?

My brother and I were very fortunate to have been guided and encouraged by our grandfather, Joe, to become entrepreneurs. At an early age, he introduced the concept of entrepreneurship to us and set us up with our first business, selling these little stunt airplanes at a local folk festival. From that point on, we knew “what we wanted to be when we grew up” – entrepreneurs! Without his encouragement, and that of our mother, we might not have ever been drawn to entrepreneurship.

A lot of kids don’t have a parent or grandparent who is well-versed in business ownership to show them the way. We’ve found that many parents – even those who are entrepreneurs themselves – want to guide their children in the direction of business ownership but simply don’t know how. Knowing how to start a business and being able to effectively teach the concepts to kids doesn’t always go hand in hand. So we wrote Kidpreneurs to help parents, teachers, and kids work together to bring kids to entrepreneurship.

It’s almost cliché to say that children are our future, but it’s so true. And in today’s rapidly changing world, the old “Get good grades; go to college; and get a good job” advice is no longer relevant. The days of working for a company for 30 years and retiring with a nice pension are long gone. Kids entering the adult world need to be ready for a new paradigm – one that comes with its own set of unique challenges and opportunities; and we strongly believe that entrepreneurship, and the skills that go along with it, are what will best prepare our children for the future.

What is the single most important thing a parent can teach her child about what’s important about the way they choose to earn a living?

Regardless of whether someone grows up to be a business owner or an employee of someone else’s company, what’s most important is that they are doing something that is fulfilling to them. In our writing, my brother and I often talk about the importance of passion. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, obstacles won’t seem as big and will be easier to overcome, and your “work” won’t feel like work at all.

People talk a lot about how much entrepreneurs have to work to build their businesses, and that’s very true. But it’s not the same as someone having to work hard at something they don’t like to do. When you’re following your passion, all areas of your life improve. You’re happier, so your relationships are better, you’re likely to be more productive, so your financial picture is better, and you even have more incentive to take care of your health. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but the struggle is vastly more meaningful, which makes it less of a fight and more of an adventure!

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Adam Toren is a serial entrepreneur (Co-founded YoungEntrepreneur.com), mentor, investor and award winning co-author of Kidpreneurs (Basic Principles of Entrepreneurship for Kids). He also co-authored the soon to be released (September 2011): Small Business, Big Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right.

Some of you may remember that Bryan and I hosted a 90-minute business strategy call in January that had 750 people signed up, quickly maxed out lines out (and saw Bryan blowing participants’ minds).

So, set aside a few minutes to watch Bryan’s talk. He builds up to an extraordinary leadership concept he calls ” holding paradox,” then shares the big idea behind the title of his talk. Be sure to watch to the very end, too, where he asks a question that just might change everything for you…

So, how would YOU answer Bryan’s question?

Which leads to a whole lot of shtick. Goofy “leave-behinds,”  like squeeze balls, popsicle sticks or M&Ms with your name printed on them. Or events designed purely to get attention.

Problem is, in a world filled with attention-hungry noise, it’s not enough.

Shtick doesn’t stick.

It may be cute. It may provoke a momentary “cool!” or “cuuuute!”

But for a stunt or attention vehicle to lead to business, you need to bundle it or better yet, replace it, with an experience of not only pattern interruption, but relevance, reason and resonance.

• Relevance – the attention-mechanism is actually intrinsically-relevant to the need or desire or the person or company
• Reason – it gives them a reason to (a) prefer your solution over another’s, and (c) buy, and
• Resonance – the impact of the attention mechanism resonates deeply with the recipient and provides independent value.

Anyone can come up with some kind of shticky event or doohicky that stops someone for a moment.

That’s not the challenge.

It’s what they experience and whether they’re compelled to act in a way that benefits both of you after your “intervention” that turns an attention-mechanism into impact and business.

Now, where’d I put that personalized bobble-head order form?

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Have you heard of the feedback sandwich?

I’m sure if you’ve ever worked in the corporate sector you have, because a great many companies employ it as a way of offering criticism/feedback to employees during annual appraisals.

Just in case you’re not familiar with it, it works like this.

A manager offers the bread of positive feedback to an employee for some work well done. She then cuts to the chase (and often the real reason for the meeting) by telling the person the areas she needs to see improvements in, and this is supposedly the meat.

Then she gives the person some more bread (positive feedback) and sends them on their merry way relaxed that they heard twice as much good stuff as bad and thus will be implementing the required improvements quicker than you can say, “It’s HR on the phone for you”

It’s great in theory and sounds perfectly plausible and sensible in the same way that designing a new and better version of Coke would have sounded plausible and sensible to the senior executives of Coca-Cola in 1985.

Unfortunately, the feedback sandwich makes the Coke fiasco look like a runaway success. Whereas a glass of New Coke may leave you wishing you’d opted for water, a feedback sandwich my leave you wishing you’d opted for a different employer.

Yet bizarrely it is still used by thousands of businesses as a way of ‘helping’ their employees move toward improved performance, and it is done so for a very simple reason.

Few managers are astute enough to notice that it simply doesn’t work because they have nothing to measure it against. It’s always been done this way, so it must work, right?

Why Doesn’t It Work

Let’s put to one side the fact that so many people recognize when a feedback sandwich is coming their way and it’s the moment they get the ‘good news’.

They have probably been through this process many times and have actually started to form a conditioned response (anchor) to good news from their boss being followed by bad news.

In and of itself that is a good enough reason to look for alternative ways of delivering feedback, but it gets much worse.

It’s pretty much widely accepted now that whereas he did a very commendable job, and as hierarchies go it’s one of the best, Maslow still got his hierarchy of needs a bit wrong.

He did so by underestimating the need for love and connection as well the need for respect and appreciation. And it’s that last part that can be neatly summed up by the word ‘Status’.

Over the centuries we have hard wired ourselves to linking an increase in status to an increase in security and happiness. As such any threat to our status is seen as a threat to our potential security and happiness.

Therefore, maintaining the status of the recipient is absolutely crucial to offering feedback that is effective and will lead to improved performance, rather than forcing them to defend and/or lash out.

When somebody criticizes you (and make no mistake, that is what feedback always is), they are in effect threatening your status. That triggers a dopamine crash in your brain and the fight or flight response kicks in.

That response may be very slight such as when my wife asks me why I haven’t fed the dogs and I’ll maybe get a bit defensive by saying I was busy with clients all day…honest.

Or it may be incredibly intense and even debilitating when somebody thinks their job is under serious threat after a poor performance appraisal.

In the latter example it’s not unusual to kick start a thread of (often unconscious) rapid thought that can go something like this:

If I lose my job, I’ll lose my house. If I lose my home my family will be under threat and I could lose them and literally end up starving to death.

It sounds kind of silly doesn’t it, because few people go from losing their job straight to starvation? And at a logical level it is a bit silly, but your unconscious mind doesn’t deal very well with logic, which is why almost everybody has certain irrational beliefs and fears that no amount of conscious analyzing remove.

What Can You Do Differently?

Even though some people deal with criticism much better than others (usually by employing techniques like reframing that stop the emotional limbic system area of the brain from being activated), you have to understand that it never feels good to anybody.

So if you have to regularly offer feedback (and yes that does include any parent that gives it to their kids), then you may as well presume that your recipient is likely to go postal and adopt the following approach.

1. Lower Your Own Status

Whereas I said we hate to have our status lowered, that isn’t totally accurate. We hate for other people to lower it, but we are much more relaxed about lowering our own. The reason being is that we have control over the latter approach and there’s no external threat.

Here are some examples of lowering your own status

“I remember when I first joined the company, I was way behind where you are now. In fact it probably took me a year or so before I really got my head round things”

“It’s been a tough week and to be honest I don’t think I have managed things as well as I could have done and I’m glad that I have such a great team around me including yourself”

“Wow, it’s so great how well you are doing in math, you are much better than me and your mom were at your age”

All of those openings allow you to lower your own status and thus increase the status of the other person making them feel good about themselves.

However, that’s not enough to allow you to then just dive in and starting ripping them a new one, kid gloves are still called for if we want to keep that limbic system from getting all aroused.

2. Raise Their Status

You have already done this to a certain extent, but you can go a stage further by asking solution focussed questions such as:

“What areas of your work do you think you could improve on?”

“I’m really interested in your take on how we can maximize production in your area”

“I can’t think of any way we can get this room cleaned up in time for dinner, do you have any cool ideas?”

Questions  like those achieve two purposes. Firstly, as I said, they raise the other persons status and they do so by implicitly suggesting they are the expert and they have all the answers. Secondly, they also focus on solutions rather than any problems that may exist.

A brain looking for a solution is in a completely different state to one looking to defend it’s position and status.

We rarely come up with interesting and innovative solutions when we are under attack because cognitive function deteriorates and we get bottle necks (or impasses as they are known to neuroscientists), in the brain.  The brain needs space to work on finding solutions and the best way to give it that space is to remove all threat.

So what do you reckon? I’m just a lowly Life Coach, but I’m sure you have some really cool ideas on offering feedback or stories of when it has gone horribly wrong.

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Tim Brownson is a Certified Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner and writer living in Orlando.