Get RSS updates
In Brisbane we now have a regular entrepreneurs’ networking event called The Hive, based on a successful predecessor in Melbourne. Whether the association is intentional or not, the title of the event resonates with Seth Godin’s viral marketing metaphors, which also include Purple Cows and the mystical, driven Sneezers. Sneezers hang out at hives, where the latest purple cows are discussed over drinks at bar prices. It’s a potent cocktail - entrepreneurs (mostly but not all young), compelling metaphors and of course a few drinks at bar prices. This isn’t the first time Godin has been mentioned in this blog, not necessarily because his strategies are effective but certainly because his imagery is.
Psychological research has shown that conscious deliberation can be surprisingly ineffective for successful decision making. In fact, the more you think about a complex choice the more likely you are to include irrelevant information, and the worse your decision will be (from the standpoint of rationality, post-choice satisfaction, and accuracy).
So is the answer snap decisions?
There is better way: use your conscious mind to acquire information but don’t analyse it. Let your unconscious mind digest it (while you think about other things) and then go with your gut.
Ap Dijksterhuis “When to Sleep on It” Harvard Business Review Feb 2007
Everyone is coaching or being coached; there are life coaches, career coaches, personal coaches, fitness coaches, executive coaches, coaches for getting out of bed in the morning and coaches for getting to sleep at night. Why do we need coaches so much and so often?
Could it be that the old, well-worn and predictable pathways - any path to anywhere and every path to everywhere - are dsiappearing, the maps no longer even remotely relating to the territory? Are coaches our conceptual cartographers?
The success of any business is generally measured by results, be it products sold or clients booked. But when we, as entrepreneurs, judge and reward ourselves on the same basis we risk becoming:
- Paralysed – If nothing ‘counts’ unless it gets results, we are likely to spend more time trying to predict outcomes and less time doing and learning.
- Disheartened – Results take time, especially if you are starting a new business.
- Disempowered – We cannot directly control results. We can carefully plan and skilfully execute, but some days we just won’t get results (and others we will).
The solution: begin by rewarding action, not results. Focus on what you can control; make consistent action your goal; build momentum and motivation by celebrating effort; know that persistence will yield results, one way or another.
When you are involved in a pleasurable social learning experience, your brain is stimulated by a series of natural chemicals - dopamine, adrenalin and endorphins - often associated with the high experienced using drugs such as cocaine. Human beings have an organic electro-chemical reward system geared to learning, evolved from the days when the smarter guys and gals were the ones who ended up passing down their genes (and way before unpleasurable experiences such as schools, where the reward for learning is usually not even remotely related to a ‘high’). And it’s a high that keeps on keeping on, without a hangover, as learning progresses and the rewards of learning being apparent. We experience the ‘firing of dopaminergic neurons’ as a pleasure/reward, which increases the motivation for more of the same. Learn > reward > high > more learning > more reward > higher.
For more highs, check out Flaherty, A.W, (2005). “Frontotemporal and dopaminergic control of idea generation and creative drive”. Journal of Comparative Neurology 493 (1): 147–153
