thinkBIG magazine - issue 13

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The branding of kylie minogue Jay Levinson The Father of Guerrilla Marketing

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Contents Regulars 6 8 16 64 68 70 71

Editor’s letter As You Think Your story Bigger, Biggest Thought Leadership Bright Spark Inspiring Stories

Section 1: Mindset 23 24 26 28 30

Rhondalynn Korolak: Mann Gulch: A tale of survival Earl de Blonville: Face the sun Ron Lee: How do I dissolve that pyschological barrier?

Benjamin Harvey: How to change for good Cathal O'Briain: From Imagination to Reality

Section 2: Business 36 37 40 42 44 46 48

Tom Petryshen: The future of branding in a connected world David Solomon: Authenticity and service Lee De Coster: What makes the perfect business Tom Olyslagers: Affordable business mentor Angie O'Shannessy: Successfully self-employed Damian Kay: Organic growth or acquisition Andrew Vincent: Start to grow your business

Section 3: Wealth 58 Chris Howard: To keep it you have to give it away 60 Justin Beeton: Searching for value

Features

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Cover Story

Support

Guerrilla Marketing: It is written –by J Jackson

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Self mastery before mastery of others

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Fortune favours the brave –by J Jackson

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is the Best Medicine Cancer treatment and research is now having a enormous effect across the globe. With the help of benefactors and celebrities such as Olivia Netwon-John and Kylie Minogue, who have both overcome the disease, there is hope that an outright cure may be just around the corner.

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3.2 Volume 3.3

Growing up, Jay Levinson had no interest in business. Today he is considered the father of guerrilla marketing.

–by George Lee Sye Left behind in freezing cold conditions, Sye realised that you can never reach your full potential until you master your thinking.

With Siimon Reynolds as a mentor, Brian Sher's Fortune Institute, a new online learning institution for entrepreneurs, is sure to be a success.

Bring it on: Again and again –by J Jackson Risk-taking and a creative streak are just two elements that separate the serial entrepreneur from the 9-5 businessman.

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From little things big things grow –by J Jackson

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A much needed boost –by Jack Delosa

As Skinnyfish Music founder Mark Grose has found, music is a way to galvanise and empower our indigenous communities.

In spite of the labels, Gen Y has a lot to offer: just ask Janine Allis. www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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E D I T O R I A L : J O N AT H A N J A C K S O N

Our Team

Give the 'old man' a hug Originally I was going to write something politically motivated: the dangers to reputation of broken promises and half-baked schemes, or spin versus substance. I’ve been quite vocal lately about ETS, insulation, schools construction, national standards and the general waste of billions of dollars.

Politics, however, takes second fiddle when it comes to family and the things that really mater in life. At the end of April my father had bypass surgery. He’s 70, ex army and a tough old man, but when the surgeon says he has to cut open your sternum and your mortality is at stake that hard exterior softens.

He came out of surgery okay, but a scare like that makes you think hard about your life and the things you love and value. Before he went in he told me to stay fit and healthy because the family history isn’t so great. He also told me that he would see me at my wedding in August.

I already maintain my weight, health and fitness to decent levels, but there’s always something in a situation like this that has you worried about whether it is going to be the last time you see a loved one.

And that’s when you know what really matters in life. In spite of my love for friends and family, I know at times I have taken them for granted.

In the end, nothing matters more than those you love. While you can rant about current governments, immerse yourself in work, get caught up in a weekend of football matches and sport, when the dust settles it’s the touch of your partner’s fingertips, the fatherly hug and his words of wisdom and your family’s sacrifices that mean so much.

When you’re feeling like a world-beater, life doesn’t stop. You live life as it should be lived: to its fullest extent achieving all you can do and be. Sometimes, however, you need to slow it down and show some appreciation for the people you love. Don’t put yourself in the situation where you regret the fact that although you did all you could for yourself, you didn’t do enough for friends and family.

Life is short, so make the most of your relationships before it becomes too late.

I’ll be fortunate enough now to see my father enjoy the experience of watching me get married and I’ll hug him for being there, not just on the day but throughout the highs and lows of my life.

Meanwhile, now that my father is safe from harm—and the only evidence seems to be the massive scar running down the middle of his chest—I'll look to revisit a political blast for the next issue. There's a lot going on in Australian politics that has much to do with the way people think about business, life and family.

Yet, while I am writing I will be conscious of the fact that life is too short to waste by not looking after myself and others. TB

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Jonathan In the end, nothing matters more than those you love. While you can rant about current governments, immerse yourself in work, get caught up in a weekend of football matches and sport, when the dust settles it’s the touch of your partner’s fingertips, the fatherly hug and his words of wisdom and your family’s sacrifices that mean so much.

Volume 3.3

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Publisher Graham Maughan graham.maughan@thinkbigmagazine.com Ph: 02 9925 8012 Fax: 02 9925 8099 Managing Editor Jonathan Jackson jonathan.jackson@thinkbigmagazine.com Subscription/ Business Development Manager Amanda Peros amanda.peros@thinkbigmagazine.com Ph: 02 9925 8005 Fax: 02 9925 8099 National Sales Manager Paul Jackson Ph: 02 9925 8027 Fax: 02 9925 8099 paul.jackson@thinkbigmagazine.com Director Ken Wood Contributors Justin Beeton, Lee De Coster, Earl de Blonville, Jack Delosa, Lachlan Elsworth, Benjamin Harvey, Chris Howard, Damian Kay, Rhondalynn Korolak, Ron Lee, Angie O'Shannessy, Tom Petryshen, David Solomon, George Lee Sye, Daniel G Taylor, and Andrew Vincent Creative Design Abigail Paul, ASourceOfJoy Graphic Design http://graphics.asourceofjoy.org Advertisement Designer Jeanne Joy-Mouche, jeanne@mouch.name Website/subscriptions www.thinkbigmagazine.com Enquires info@thinkbigmagazine.com Mindset Media Pty Ltd ACN 129 256 300 ABN 94 129 256 300 GPO Box 519 Sydney Australia 2001 thinkbig Magazine ISSN: 1835 7733

Important Message—Copyright and Disclaimer thinkbig magazine is owned and published by Mindset Media Pty Ltd (ACN129 256 300).

The publisher, authors and contributors reserve their rights in regards to copyright of their work. No part of this work covered by the copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

No person, organization or party should rely or on any way act upon any part of the contents of this publication whether that information is sourced from a website, magazine or related product without first obtaining the advice of a fully qualified person.

This magazine and its related website and products are sold and distributed on the terms and condition that: •The publisher, contributors, editors and related parties are not responsible in any way for the actions or results taken any person, organization or any party on basis of reading information, stories or contributions in this publication, website or related product.

•The publisher, contributors and related parties are not engaged in providing legal, financial or professional advice or services. The publisher, contributors, editors and consultants disclaim any and all liability and responsibility to any person or party, be they a purchaser, reader, advertiser or consumer of this publication in regards to the consequences and outcomes of anything done or omitted being in reliance whether partly or solely on the contents of this publication and related website and products.

•The publisher, editors, contributors and related parties shall have no responsibility for any action or omission by any other contributor, consultant, editor or related party.

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Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.

~Eu ripides

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

Inspiration and genius: one and the same.

~Robert Collier

~V ictor h ugo

If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes. ~St. Cleme nt

of Ale xa n dra

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities. ~Ralph waldo emerson

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

The essential thing is not knowledge, but character.

Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Go back a little to leap further. ~ John

~f rancis baco n

~J oseph Le Con te

~G eorge Da na Boardma n

C larke

Half the failures in life come from pulling one's horse when he is leaping.

~T homas hood

The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought, reason—over every idea. ~ lati n proverb He who has imagination without learning, has wings and no feet.

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Volume Volume 3.2 3.3

~Joseph Jo u bert

The first step in the acquistion of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others. ~Solomon IBN Gabriol

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Volume 3.3

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FRESH IDEAS NEED FRESH AIR Want to think BETTER? Get OUT of the office HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU HAD A HOLIDAY? Do you struggle with making time for you and your family to get away? Do you wish there was an easier and more affordable way to holiday?

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Su Cancer research and treatment is now having a greater impact across the globe.

Jonathan Jackson looks at some of the positive actions taken by doctors, researchers, governments, celebrities and benefactors in the hunt for a cure.

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Support

is the best medicine

From obesity to cancer, there is a doctor, wellbeing practitioner or East/West philosopher who has found a ‘miracle’ diet, grain or mud treatment that prevents or fixes a particular illness.

Unfortunately, the validity of so-called miracle treatments can never really be proven. Testimonials may abound, but generally there is no hard evidence to support the literature.

Most miracle cures are based on hope, not science, and while hope and positivity undoubtedly go a long way to quickening recovery from major illness, it is usually the scientific breakthroughs that have most impact.

Science needs a home, awareness and money In the past 10 years, hope for cancer sufferers, those battling obesity, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and many other crippling ailments, has grown.

This is due to the amazing advancements in technology and the dedication of scientists to find real solutions.

These breakthroughs are also due to the generosity of benefactors who give up time and money to help find and fund potential cures. www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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Charities abound and usually attract major support from the world’s leading business people as well as celebrities including former cancer patients Kylie Minogue and Olivia Newton-John.

In 2005, Kylie was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Initially misdiagnosed, she persisted in seeking an accurate diagnosis for the lump found in her breast.

It was finally discovered that Kylie had an aggressive type of breast cancer.

She underwent a partial mastectomy and eight months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before the cancer went into remission.

She famously went on to say: “I am a cancer patient. I aim to be a cancer survivor.”

This year, for the first time since beating cancer, she has lent her experience and celebrity to the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer Campaign, a campaign that, since its inception in 1996, has raised £10.5 million (AU$17.3 million).

“I learned that you never go back to a normal state, instead you have to create a new normal state,” Kylie says about how the battle with cancer changed her

life. “I have to accept my life for its triumphs and its other sides, take the good with the bad. I experienced a world of illness and positive attitudes. These experiences contributed to making me a more mature person.”

Olivia Newton-John has gone much further in her support for the cancer cause.

The Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre located within the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia was given a AU$69 million boost by the Victorian State government recently.

The Centre aims to offer full holistic support and wellbeing to women who are suffering from cancer related illnesses.

Visiting the construction site of the Cancer and Wellness Centre, Victorian Premier John Brumby said the facility would offer cuttingedge cancer treatment and care and would be home to vital clinical research.

“The Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre will be an important weapon in our continuing fight against cancer,” Mr. Brumby said.

“About 500 Victorians are diagnosed with cancer each week, and our Government

has developed a worldrenowned cancer action plan that aims to increase cancer survival rates and save thousands of lives.

“Our $150 million Victorian Cancer Action Plan sets out ambitious targets to increase cancer survival rates by a further 10% by 2015, and by tackling the major risk factors that cause cancer and investing in new facilities and the latest technologies we are working towards that goal.

“This purpose-built, dedicated Cancer Centre will provide the latest treatment and care to patients from across Victoria, and will also be home to many important clinical trials as our researchers turn important discoveries into better outcomes for patients.”

Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the new centre would consolidate existing cancer services currently delivered across several campuses under the one roof.

“The Olivia NewtonJohn Cancer and Wellness Centre will be home to four oncology bunkers and three linear accelerator machines, providing the best cancer treatment to patients,” Mr. Andrews said.

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million to cancer research. This will allow the funding of 86 research grants including:

Olivia Newton-John with Premier of Victoria, the Hon. John Brumby standing on the site at Austin Hospital campus where the construction will be begin to build the new Cancer and Wellness Centre. Olivia gave the Premier a trowel and signed it 'Thanks for digging deep for us'.

The Victorian Government had already delivered $25 million for the first stage of the project in 2008-09, with equal contributions from the Commonwealth Government and Austin Health.

The Centre is set to be fully functional by 2012.

Working in collaboration with the world renowned Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research headquartered in New York, the Wellness Centre will be home to the largest clinical research site of the Ludwig Institute worldwide.

Through a joint program with the Ludwig Institute, the Austin Hospital—already a world leader in cancer treatment and research—can offer therapies not available anywhere else in Australia.

The Wellness Centre will further enhance the hospital’s ability to treat and research the disease and dedicated facilities for highly specialised new cancer therapies and

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collaborative research programs should benefit patients worldwide.

Australia's brighter future Centres for cancer research are popping all over the world and funding continues to improve, this means that new studies, programs and cures are being launched and researched every day.

The Cancer Council NSW has created the Investing for Life program which recognises the need for establishing a screening program for bowel cancer. The incidence of bowel cancer is the highest in the world killing 1,500 people a year. The Cancer Council website makes the point that if all current vacancies for radiotherapists were filled and all existing machines were working, over 200 extra cancer patients could be treated every day.

This year the Cancer Council has committed $15

• A colorectal cancer interactome paradigm that may influence patient survival. The findings of this study will have an important impact on CRC patients, as it aims to discover how membrane protein to protein interactions can predict poorer outcomes from CRC. • Recruitment of human telomerase to telomeres.

At least 85% of human cancers rely on the enzyme telomerase to sustain their unlimited proliferation. This research will determine how human telomerase interacts with the ends of chromosomes, which will guide future design of inhibitors of this process as anti-cancer drugs.

• Functional characterisation of the putative tumour suppressor gene MCC in colorectal cancer. This study analyses the early stages of bowel cancer, where a new gene defect has been discovered. The study will determine how the MCC gene defect promotes cancer by studying cells grown in the laboratory and by examining surgical cancer specimens.

This will determine which cellular functions are altered following loss of MCC in bowel tumours. Ultimately this will determine if the MCC defect in cancer tissue is associated with improved

or worse treatment outcomes in patients.

• Restoring epithelial differentiation to squamous cell carcinomas. The skin, mouth and throat are among the most common sites for cancer. The cancer cells there over-produce a protein, called Snail, which makes them proliferate and invade surrounding tissues.

Radiation is commonly used to treat advanced cases of these cancers, but often fails to cure the patient because Snail also causes the cells to become resistant to radiation. This project will develop new ways of restoring normal growth and radiation sensitivity by interfering with Snail activity.

One very important study that the Cancer Council is undertaking in conjunction with the National Centre for Immunisation Research looks at reducing the number of human papilomavirus (HPV) infections affecting Australian females. HPV is the name given to a group of viruses that cause skin and genital warts and some cancers.

The study found that an HPV vaccine would highly reduce the incidences of cancer in women. However, it is to be noted that the vaccine does not protect against all HPV types that can cause cervical cancer and it is recommended that all women over the age of 18 should have Pap smears every two years.

In the past 10 years two www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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vaccines have been created: Gardisil and Cervarix, which protects against two types of HPV found to cause cancer. These two types are responsible for between 7080% of cases in Australia and New Zealand.

Further encouraging research Australia is not the only country making significant progress. Recently the Food and Drug Administration in the US approved Provenge for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

This is the first therapeutic vaccine to be approved in the US for cancer treatment.

William Haseltine was one of the founders of the company Activated Cell Therapy (now Dendreon) that discovered that dendretic cells could be taught to educate the immune system outside of the body. He wrote in medical journal The Atlantic: “this observation triggered another thought. Might it be possible to train purified dendretic cells to recognise cancer cells. If so, then reintroduction of these cells might train the body’s own immune system to attack the cancer itself.”

The idea gained momentum and funding, and as William concluded in his commentary for The Atlantic, “This small step in cancer treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer provides new hope for all those with cancer. We have begun to realise the dream of harnessing the power of the immune system to fight www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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cancer. The road to here has been long and circuitous, but the path ahead is clear.”

In other breakthroughs, a team of University of California and San Diego School of Medicine researchers has discovered that common intestinal bacteria appear to promote tumour growths in genetically susceptible mice, but that turmorigenesis can be suppressed if the mice are exposed to an inhibiting protein enzyme.

“Right now people with Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP—an inherited condition in which numerous polyps form mainly in the epithelium of the large intestine), don’t have many options,” says Eyal Raz, MD, a professor of medicine at UC San Diego. “They develop the cancer relatively early in life and the only treatment is surgery, often a total colectomy. And that still doesn’t preclude the possibility of developing tumours elsewhere in the body.”

Raz believes the second part of the study is encouraging because when researchers administered a protein enzyme called extracellular signal related kinase or ERK, it appeared to suppress turmorigenisis in the mice, causing cancer proteins to degrade more rapidly and increasing the survival time of mice. If the inhibiting enzyme, which is undergoing clinical trials elsewhere, proves to be safe and effective, researchers say it could eventually provide patients with an alternative to surgery.

Other research has found

Photo courtesy Francog.

that a broccoli component limits breast cancer stem cells.

According to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, a compound derived from broccoli could help prevent or treat breast cancer by targeting cancer stem cells— the small number of cells that fuel a tumour’s growth.

The study tested sulforaphane, a component of broccoli and broccoli sprouts, in both mice and cell cultures. Researchers found sulforaphane targeted and killed the cancer stem cells and prevented new tumours from growing.

What the future holds While nobody is under any illusion that an outright cure for cancer exists, there is certainly evidence to support the fact that doctors and researchers are creeping that little bit closer. The research

mentioned in this article is just a small drop in the well of hope, as institutes around the world undertake daily testing to find treatments for the hundreds of cancer types that plague us.

In support of this research benefactors such as State and Federal Governments, private equity firms and venture capitalists are providing required funds, and celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John and Kylie Minogue among others are not only giving up their time, but are also bringing identity to the causes.

Growing awareness of the causes, treatments, cures, functions and charities must continue unabated, so that one day one well-meaning researcher really does find a cure. For the moment we can only marvel at the work that is being done—work that provides hope to those in dire situations. TB Volume Volume 3.3 3.3

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Y O U R

S T O RY

Overcoming Adversity If you awoke one day to find that your mother had been murdered and that one of the persons responsible was your only sibling... what would YOU do?

Would you lay down and give up or would you claw your way out of the pit of despair and find a way to create the life of your dreams?

This is exactly what Rhondalynn Korolak did.

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It would be difficult for anyone

to anticipate how they might react to a tragedy such as this. Many of us will never truly know who we are or what we are made of until we are confronted with a challenge so overwhelming and incomprehensible, that it shakes us to our very core. Rhondalynn Korolak is in an enviable position because she knows with absolute certainty what she would do—not because she knows herself so well that she could predict her behaviour, but because the unthinkable actually happened to her.

Sometimes there are moments in life that instantly rip the past and the future apart. Everything is irrevocably divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Life as you know it dissolves and a foreign, unwelcoming world appears in its wake. For Rhondalynn, that day was April 14, 1992.

She was studying for her final exams and had just returned home when the Dean of the Law School rang. The police hadn’t been able to find her on campus. Concerned that she would discover the awful truth on the evening news, the Dean was forced to tell her over the phone.

Her mother had been stabbed and strangled by three 16-year-old boys at the instigation of Rhondalynn's 18-yearold brother. On the promise of a $500 beaten-up truck as reward, they went to her home in the middle of the night and murdered her. They rolled her body in a rug, drove her to the countryside and dumped her in a ditch. The next day, the boys cleaned up the house and went shopping to pick out the things they would buy when the insurance money came through.

Rhondalynn was 24 years old and had lost her entire family. To lose a loving parent was bad enough, but to do so at the instigation of her own brother was inconceivable. The loss and betrayal were almost more than she could bear and she spent years working through the emotional pain and turmoil.

“All the victim support groups and psychotherapy in the world could not help me—they only served to further entrench the negative feelings and sense of helplessness I felt with being labelled a ‘victim’,” says Rhondalynn. “I began to realise that I needed to make significant changes within myself.”

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Life’s many lessons have taught her that while we are absolutely at cause for every event we have experienced or attracted into our lives, once it has happened, there is nothing that we can do to change it in the past. The point of power is ‘now.’

According to Rhondalynn, “We may not be able to change the event but we do have the power to change its meaning. We can choose to attribute a meaning and adopt an attitude that supports and empowers us toward a compelling and bright future. Or we can remain a prisoner of the past and adopt an attitude of a victim, devoid of hope and possibilities.”

In fact, the only thing we have absolute control over is our own mind— our ability to choose our own way. Even in the face of unbelievable atrocities, hope and love are possible if we plant the right seeds in our mind.

11 Tips For Moving Forward

It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of tragedy and adversity—you can easily lose sight of what is most important to your success and well-being.

These simple tips and questions will help you stay in touch with what is most essential and will move you forward. And remember, a kite rises against the wind, rather than with it.

1. Are you focused on what you want or don’t want?

Whether we realise it or not, we are visualising things all the time—visualising either what we want or don’t want. Do you talk on and on about your problems to anyone who will listen? Begin to notice how your language pre-determines your outcomes... If you are relentlessly focused on adversity or negative outcomes you will be riddled with fear and that will impact your reality.

Ask yourself a new question: "What can I do differently in order to have the result that I want?” Or “what is going right?" Notice all the things, no matter how small, that are working—write them down daily. Focusing on what you want is the first step toward changing your life for the better.

2. Are you trying to eat an elephant in one sitting?

Breaking things into bite sized chunks makes the world of difference. Having broad, high level goals is fantastic but when you are facing serious challenge and adversity, having an actionable plan is essential. A detailed, step by step plan can help you to identify how you can get from where you are to where you want to be and it will give you purpose and direction when you feel that you cannot take another step. For those of you who feel like you are wandering around aimlessly in the desert, it is comforting and empowering to remember that a journey of 1,000 miles begins with taking one small step forward each day.

3. What are you most afraid of— failing or succeeding?

There is no such thing as ‘failure’: only feedback. It isn’t about assigning blame or beating yourself up—it’s about being responsible for your choices and actions and deciding how best to move forward to attract the results that you want.

Adversity and setbacks occur—they are part of the learning process of life.

Nothing was ever invented or created by people who were afraid to try because they had previously ‘failed’ at some endeavour. Look at any successful person in history and you will find a person who continued to try and who refused to believe that their past or [perceived] limitations would foreshadow their destiny. Your biography does not pre-determine your destiny—your past has absolutely no bearing on your future.

4. Quit comparing yourself to others.

When you are confronting daunting obstacles, there is little to be gained by beating yourself up or comparing yourself to the benchmark of others. The only real measure of success is how you fair against your own personal best. If you constantly ask more of yourself, make small shifts in your thinking, expectations and results every day—you can make massive shifts over the long term. Rome wasn’t built in a day—neither were you!

Forget what others think and forget what you have previously expected of yourself.

Compete with your own personal best and as you improve your thinking, your future will transform.

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5. The MEANING you ‘choose’ is everything.

In the words of Richard Nixon, “The finest steel goes through the hottest fire.”

What if the challenge you are currently facing isn’t evidence of the fact you are ‘damaged’ or somehow broken? What if you are actually being moulded by these events so that something strong, meaningful and positive could emerge as a result? We all have scars. Some of them may be visible to others through illness, accident or disability or they may be internal emotional scars that no one else knows about. But these scars are not ‘terminal’ blemishes. They are the result of enduring the ‘hottest fire’ and they will empower you to emerge with the strength and unbending determination of ‘the finest steel’.

Life isn’t easy but perhaps it was never designed to be! Amazing things can happen, character and strength often develop through the most challenging of circumstances and whether the heat destroys you or sculpts you is entirely up to you.

6. Are you grateful for what you already have?

It is impossible to bring more of what you want into your life if you are feeling ungrateful about what you already have.

With gratitude, the whole is more than the sum of its parts—it’s not what you say, the mere words that count, but sum of the words and the heartfelt emotion behind them.

When you appreciate and give thanks as though you have already conquered your obstacles, you are giving a strong signal to your subconscious mind that you have already risen above hard times. The goal (to triumph or rise above) is not to be achieved sometime in the future; it is achieved in the here and now. And since the subconscious mind can only act on what it believes to be true (regardless of whether it actually is yet or not), you will have engaged the most powerful part of your brain in attracting the people, resources, events and opportunities necessary to bring that goal to fruition quickly and easily.

7. Are you in a bad neighbourhood?

Everyone has bad days and no amount of positive thinking or self-help information

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is going to change that. It’s part of being human. Living full time in a bad emotional place, however, is not really living at all. It’s existing. You have to be able to recognise the landscape you’re in and do something about it. Just as there are affluent and poor neighbourhoods in every city there are good suburbs in your mind and those that resemble the ghetto.

When you recognise that and can work out where you are at any given time, you can make sure you don’t stop in the bad sections of town!

If you are not in a good place emotionally, change your physiology immediately. That means get up and get moving, put on your favourite song or do the ‘dance of joy’. Whatever it takes, do it NOW. Trust your high school physics teacher: a body in motion stays in motion.

8. Never share a tent with someone who snores.

The worst thing you can do when you are facing adversity is to hang around with more people who are facing adversity and talk on and on about your challenges.

Instead, surround yourself with people who are enthusiastic, passionate and inspired about their lives. Read stories about people who have overcome unbelievable odds and focus all of your attention on solutions—not your problems. Be willing to put yourself out there and concentrate on how you can make a valuable contribution without expecting something in return. Success breeds success.

9. Shed Your Samsonite.

Have you ever heard yourself say: “last time I tried that, it didn’t work”? Even though it’s a good idea to stop doing what clearly isn’t working, it’s important to remember that the past does not necessarily equal the future. Every night when you arrive home from work, you go into your refrigerator or cupboards to find ingredients to prepare your dinner. You would never think of going through the garbage can to find produce, staples and condiments for your meal.

Then it begs the question—why would you look to your past failures, essentially the garbage can of your mind, to decide what you are capable of in the future? There are no helpful resources or suggestions there, only the past and

reasons why you will not succeed.

What you have done up until now means nothing compared to what you are going to do to change your life right now. Stop, decide and take action today to unpack your baggage and let go of the past once and for all.

10. Connect with your WHY to unleash your courage.

Looking to our fears for answers about to how to gain courage is a bit like getting in our car and attempting to drive down the freeway by only looking into the rear view mirror. Fear is always in the opposite direction of where you want to go. Put 100% of your focus on the present moment and what you want. You can't control or predict the future or other people's actions but you can control what you choose to do right now. Courage is not bred of fear or fearlessness but rather by the unyielding embrace of a calling that is far greater than fear. Connect with your WHY—your calling that is greater than your fear and impediments—and you will move easily through and past adversity and worries.

11. Create certainty out of uncertainty.

We have all had times when we were faced with massive uncertainty, where we felt overwhelmed, out of control and scared. True certainty has less to do with outside events and more to do with who we are on the inside. No one can take certainty away from you. You can only take it away from yourself by the questions you ask yourself and the habits you rely on to cope. If you keep asking the wrong questions or repeating negative habits you actually create more uncertainty or doubt and you will never have the life of your dreams.

When you acknowledge uncertainty but act positively anyway, the death of fear is certain—you lose both your fear and the need to have certainty at all costs. The more certain you are on the inside and the more you expand your choice of productive habits, the more successful you will become at managing your life and overcoming adversity. TB Rhondalynn Korolak has 17 years business experience with expertise in relationship building, the power of influence and leadership. Visit her website at: www.imagineeringunlimited.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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Guerrilla Ma

It Is

There are many theories

about marketing, but for the father of guerrilla

marketing, the only theory that matters is the one that puts people first.

Jonathan Jackson spoke

with Jay Levinson about early foundations and the incredible rise of

this stand-out school of thought.

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Marketing:

Is Written

So how could a man with little direction other than a joy for writing, become one of the world’s best read marketing experts? It seems just like any good marketer he saw a need and filled it.

Adding to the mix

Chicago

is the third most populous city in the United States, with over 2.8 million people living within city limits.

It is a cold, dense, robust area known as a centre for business and finance and is listed as one of the world’s top ten global financial centres.

It is where Jay Levinson grew up after his father moved from Detroit when Jay was just four months old. Like all fathers, Jay’s probably desired his son to become one of the world’s leading business leaders. That Jay actually fulfilled this destiny is contrary to the fact that in his early years, he had no interest in business at all.

In his teens, the sports mad son of a corrugated box company manager gave no indication of any clear professional direction. Jay knew he liked to write, yet content and style was still up for debate.

“My only interest was sport,” Jay says. “Even when I went to college, I avoided the business courses and went to the writing classes.”

This interest was further developed when he was drafted into the army.

“I learnt about spying, surveillance and interrogation, but the part I enjoyed most was when I had to write a report. That was the only part I liked.”

Today Jay is the author of the best-selling marketing series in history, Guerrilla Marketing, and the author or co-author of 58 books. His guerrilla concepts have influenced marketing so much that today his books appear in 62 languages (61 of which he doesn’t understand) and are required reading in many MBA programs worldwide.

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Jay first had to put himself into a position where he could see the opportunities. While at college (where he studied law), he thought it would be fun to write. At this point in time, there was no desire to write books, however he “learnt that you can make money in advertising,” although finding a job wasn’t easy.

“I tried to get jobs, but didn’t get any offers,” Jay says. “So I took a course in resumè writing and learnt about advertising.”

On completion he could type 80 words per minute and was willing to sweep floors to get a leg up. It meant he scored a lot of interviews and not long after found a job as a secretary with an advertising firm in San Francisco.

The company was Weiner & Gothage and its boss Howard Gothage became one of only two of Jay’s mentors.

Howard not only taught Jay to have fun while working, he gave Jay an ultimatum: be promoted to executive secretary or let Howard find him a job as a writer.

Six months later, Jay was copywriting.

His career snowballed from there. He found himself living most red-blooded men’s dreams, working for Hugh Hefner at Playboy. “He taught me about running a company, without needing any creative talent. Hugh’s strength was his vision and his ability to say ‘I don’t know, what do you think?’ He surrounded himself with the best people. I learnt about business there by writing letters and subscriptions.”

A job writing letters, however, would inevitably become boring and didn’t satiate Jay’s need for creativity. He no longer wanted to write in the structured Playboy style and found himself back in Chicago buffering against the cold confines of this seemingly year-long sub zero city.

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Though the temperatures were chilled, Jay was hot. Advertising was his niche and he became creative director at Leo Burnett Advertising in Europe and the senior vice president at J Walter Thompson.

Leo Burnett was Jay’s second mentor.

“He taught me to write in what is termed as ‘searchly English’. This means that you write in a style that everybody can understand.”

Taking this advice on board, Jay worked on some of the biggest campaigns the world has seen, but it was the Marlboro campaign which taught him one of his biggest lessons.

“Marlboro is now associated with rugged individualism, however it began as a feminine cigarette,” Jay says.

“The shareholders were ready to pull out because the transformation from feminine to masculine was taking so long, but we hung in there and created one of the world’s best known brands.

“We went out with the idea to shoot pictures of unposed cowboys on a real ranch, with real horses. Then we paid $50,000 to use the music to the film Magnificent Seven.

“It took two years to work because people don’t give up their perceptions and loyalties easily. However, I learnt one of the most important lessons in marketing on this campaign: commitment makes marketing work.”

In other words stick by your guns because as Jay says, “Marketing campaigns fail because they are abandoned too soon.”

Jay spent a good part of his career on the creative teams that made household names of the Marlboro Man, The Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr Kleen and United’s ‘friendly skies’ and even though the term was yet to be coined, these campaigns took the form of guerrilla marketing.

They became household names and brands that many people wanted to be associated with. It was at this point that Jay had discovered ‘identity ads’.

“Every brand has a personality,” he says.

The father of GM

Moving away from Chicago and back to San Francisco where he wanted to be, Jay began his own consultancy and picked up clients including VO5 earning more than he did as a senior vice president. He learnt along the way that you didn’t need a structured job to earn money.

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He wrote his first book, then his second, Secrets of Successful Freelancing, in part to cater to his own situation. The book was 43 pages and sold for US$10, but it was the way he marketed the book that brought it to attention.

“I sent a letter to a list of 10,000 freelancers, the only list available, which asked them to buy the book and if they didn’t like it they would get their money back, plus an extra dollar.”

The book sold to 3,300 people and brought his name to attention. His third book, Earning Money Without a Job, 150 Ways to Freelance, was the catalyst for his teaching post at Berkley University in California. It was here where the seeds for Guerrilla Marketing (and everything that followed) were sown.

“I was teaching a class in marketing and the students were asking if I could recommend a marketing book that would teach them new and unusual ways to make money. I looked in the Berkley and Stanford University libraries.

I looked in the big bookshops, but there was nothing that was unconventional, so I made a promise to my students to write something.”

That Guerrilla Marketing is so successful is testimony to Jay’s ability to see the market and be responsive to the needs of society—which is exactly what guerrilla marketing is all about.

Students in Jay’s class included the founders of Apple, Microsoft, Oracle

and some of the biggest and best Silicon Valley giants. These students and the millions who subsequently bought the book ensured that it reached the mandatory reading list at every major business school across the globe.

Just why Guerrilla Marketing, its offshoots and the subsequent business has been so successful is because it is simple.

Taking the principles he learnt in his advertising days, Jay wrote a book about marketing that appealed to the masses.

It espouses the principles of commitment, “Brilliant marketing is probably going to fail unless you commit to it. Start with a plan and stay with the plan. Anybody can do that. It’s the same principle that makes a marriage work (Jay has been married for over 50 years and has one daughter and three grandchildren) or gives you the stamina to run a marathon.”

Guerrilla Marketing also espouses the principles of common sense, but most importantly it is about the principles of engagement and psychology.

“Treat your customers like family and make them feel unique. They are human not a demographic group. Ask them questions about themselves and get to know specific things. They have to feel unique, so ask questions, listen and do everything you say you are going to do.”

Behaviour is the most important element in marketing. The world has changed and Jay’s books, seminars and workshops reflect this change including the onset of technology, but the fundamentals remain the same: marketing is about influencing human behaviour.

Since discovering his passion for writing, to today where he speaks about fundamental marketing principles, this most humble of sports lovers (who travels the USA in an RV out of which he works and lives), has become the most influential voice of marketing in the world.

He is not driven by money, he is driven by energy, creativity, unconventionality and imagination. These are the very facets which make his business concept so simple, yet so unique. So follow Jay’s lead and drive your imagination forward, then like the father of guerrilla marketing you may be able to do more in less time and for greater profit. TB NB: Jay is coming to Australia in September/ October 2010. For more details about seminars go to universalevents.com.au. www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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M I N D S E T:

I N N O VAT I O N

Mann Gulch: A Tale of Rhondalynn Korolak has 17 years business experience with expertise in relationship building, the power of influence and leadership. imagineeringunlimited.com

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Survival

Thinking outside the box can be the key to success.

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n 1949, 13 men—out of a highly skilled team of 16 men—died battling a relatively small blaze that turned deadly in Mann Gulch, Montana. Upon investigating the circumstances of why 13 of the ‘smoke jumpers’ died while only three lived, Norman Maclean wrote a book entitled Young Men and Fire. The book tells the true story account of the fateful expedition of these smoke jumpers—specialised fire fighters who parachute into the back country to fight fires.

Maclean found some startling and interesting facts. Mann Gulch is surrounded by steep canyon walls with the northern slope at a 75% incline. When the wind turned suddenly on the smoke jumpers, they were in a race with the fire up those steep walls. Without warning, the fire started to spread much faster than anticipated.

One of the amazing and notable things that Maclean discovered was that the 13 who died had carried their tools—heavy poleaxes, saws, shovels and heavy backpacks—while attempting to outrun the fire up those steep walls. In other words, the 13 had run as far as they could with all their equipment, even though that equipment was worse than useless in a race with the fire. Their inability to drop their heavy tools and packs ultimately prevented them from being able to outrun the fire. To these seasoned fire fighters, their tools were more than simple objects—they represented who they were, why they were there, and what they were trained to do. Dropping their tools would have meant abandoning their knowledge, beliefs, training and experience.

This might not seem like a hard choice to make to you, but because these specialised fire fighters hadn't been trained for such an unpredictable moment, they had no alternative models or maps for behaviour. In moments of uncertainty and imminent danger, clinging to the old ‘right’ way might seem like a good idea... but more often than not, it is actually deadly.

The three survivors of the blaze were

forced to think outside the box and develop alternative methods of escaping the fire. Once they figured out they were no longer ‘fighting the fire’ but were instead ‘trying to escape from it’, they realised they had to drop all of their useless equipment. One survivor used an innovative technique called the 'escape fire' where he took a match and lit a ring around him so that the fire would ‘jump’ over him.

When he tried to suggest it to the other men, they continued running up the steep slope because the 'escape fire' technique had not been part of their extensive training. Their inability to drop the tools and equipment that weren't working and seek new methods to escape is what ultimately led to them being engulfed by flames and smoke.

My question to you is this: What are the poleaxes, shovels and backpacks you're currently running with? What are the tired, worn out strategies and tools that you are lugging around? What existing beliefs and models of behaviour do you need to drop in order for you to survive and prosper? What training, attitudes, decisions or experience needs to be abandoned in favour of a new, innovative approach?

It has often been said that ‘the thinking that got you to here, won’t get you to there.’

Never has the simplicity and wisdom of this statement been more poignant, than it is today. Those of you who adopt and learn the critical skills, tools and mindset necessary to survive (and even thrive) will be the winners in all of this. Yet, this has always been true.

Survivors and successful people triumph because they are flexible and willing to do whatever it takes to get the results they desire. New or changing circumstances always necessitate a new perspective or approach: The alternative, ‘doing the same thing over and over again’ is the definition of insanity and can only lead to suffering, disappointment and pain. TB Volume 3.3

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M I N D S E T:

B L O N

O N

B L O N D E

Face the Earl de Blonville FRGS is an author, explorer, leadership entrepreneur, and founder of Bear Clan Pty Limited. bearclan.biz

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Sun

In the first of a regular series about leadership and mindset, Earl de Blonville looks at how to overcome intimidation.

T

here’s an old saying that great men cast long shadows. Any boy with a famous father knows all about this, but what if you’ve been hired, in your first senior executive role, to run a fast-growing global media company owned by an Australian sporting legend?

My client had only just finished his MBA in Europe and had no professional background in media or sales and marketing, so was beginning to wonder why he’d been selected as managing director. When unexpected management issues started to erupt, he began to think they’d chosen the wrong man.

It’s a situation I often come across in my coaching work: the executive feels honoured to have been chosen but soon has nagging doubts about his (and more often, her) personal worthiness and ability to deliver results.

Sometimes called the ‘Imposter Syndrome’, which psychologists recognise but can’t explain, it is important for aspiring executives and entrepreneurs to realise is a hazard of the game and develop strategies to neutralise it.

My client felt

that he hadn’t stamped his personality and expectations on the team early enough and didn’t think he clearly defined his expectations or created the right disciplines and team 'rules'. In his mind, the result was chaos. Not surprisingly, he feared he was slowing growth and damaging profitability. So was he doing something wrong? The answer is not what you might expect.

Instead of looking for personal flaws, we discussed the business owners. One came from an established and successful business family, the other was a global sporting name, both powerful men who could seem intimidating. My client simply felt overwhelmed.

In order to detach from the situation, I asked him to imagine he was a small bush overshadowed by two large trees, the owners.

Did they want him to remain small? Hell, no! They wanted him to grow, as fast as possible, right up through the space they’d created and into fresh sky, to take over so they could go and play golf. And being smart entrepreneurs themselves, they had chosen my client, not because he was already proven, but because they recognised his potential as an extraordinary entrepreneurial growth manager, the one person whose fresh approach, youthful energy and structured personal discipline would deliver the growth they believed was possible. All he had to do was forget being small (the imagined past) and embrace being big (the current reality), while having faith in their trust and simply allow everything to follow belief.

The business is now a proven global player and recently listed on the ASX with my client as managing director. No doubt his family is looking forward to enjoying the benefits of well-earned financial security. The owners chose well. He needn’t have worried.

Look at where the shadows fall, then turn around to face the sun. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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In the 7 areas of your life, are you entirely satisfied, or are you stuck and frustrated?

Give yourself a rating out of 10 regarding your satisfaction levels in these areas: My Career/Business My Family My Intellect/Mind My Health My Social Activities My Spirituality My Wealth The Corporate Ninja Can Help You! In the 1970s and 1980s, Ron Lee CSP, “ “The Corporate Ninja” - Interactive, inspirational comedy Hoaxes. “Zen & The Art of Success” Empowerment Keynote Presentations.

“The Art of Attracting What You Want With Less Effort” Keynote Presentations. “Empowerment + Challenge + Fun = Engagement + Loyalty + Productivity” Keynote Presentations. Strategic Implementation of these philosophies and practices in Master Classes that focus on ‘Empowerment’, ‘Life Balance’, ‘Sales’, ‘Teams’ and ‘Presentation, Speaking & Comedy’ to a performing arts standard.

“CSP” is the highest internationally-recognised speaker designation, with less than 7% of registered speakers attaining this level.

Author of “What Shintaro Taught Me - Zen & The Art of Success”.

“This great book shows you how to combine the dual powers of the insights and ideas of East and West to achieve at higher levels than you ever dreamed possible.”

- Brian Tracy, Author of Goals!

“If you are ready to courageously breakthrough all barriers, live a purposefully inspired life and tap into the Zen powers of inner poise, presence, silence and clarity then What Shintaro Taught Me is waiting for your mind

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and body to become awakened and spontaneously active.” Dr. John F. Demartini Bestselling author of The Breakthrough Experience – A Revolutionary New Approach to Personal Transformation Want proof?

DEBBIE CARR left school at age 14, was in a routine offce job for years and contracted an incurable disease. After participating in a Corporate Ninja Master Class, she was inspired to move to a beach location, start two nowsuccessful businesses, spend much more time with her two daughters, quintuple her income in one year, and her life partner. In addition, she has not needed to take any drugs for her illness in the past six years and experiences none of its symptoms.

Find how The Corporate Ninja helped her to exceed her wildest expectations: http:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0dycXFU_O0k Another client (since 1995), has been in senior management roles including CEO level in various companies and has engaged The Corporate Ninja to train his management teams. In one fnancial services company, he stated that Ron Lee was decidedly instrumental in reducing more than 50 offces to 14 and staff from 220 to 150. The result? A dramatic reduction in costs and revenue doubled in the next 18 months.

RON LEE is a “CSP”, a global distinction that is awarded to the very top level of professional speakers. He works with salespeople, managers and executives up to Executive Chairmen level on four continents. Because the power of any organization is determined by the power of each individual, the Ninja system works for small, medium and larger businesses.

If you want to increase team engagement, retention and productivity, contact The Corporate Ninja NOW! Failures ask, “What if?”

Winners ask, “What’s next?”

Which one are you?

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M I N D S E T:

B A L A N C E

How Do I

Dissolve

That Psychological Barrier?

The Corporate Ninja, Ron Lee, CSP, uses Eastern/Western philosophies, universal laws, and practical

Everything that happens to us is based on our perspectives and perceptions, but you can achieve more than you want with much less effort, writes Ron Lee.

metaaphysics to achieve outstanding results for corporations. corporate-ninja.com

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I

n the 1950s, ten diseases were considered to be psychosomatic by the general western medical community. In the mid-1990s, 350 diseases were considered to be psychosomatic.

Does this mean that over 40 years, the number of emotionally and thought-induced diseases suddenly increased 35 times? No, many western practitioners have realised that our thoughts and emotions create our physical condition.

I once knew a woman who projected happiness all the time. Everything and everybody were great. Life was all happy happyjoy-joy. There were no negatives in Karin’s conscious world. I told her, “Do you know that

whatever you try to suppress, you’ll either attract it, create it or become it?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“If you’re denying negative emotions, you will attract situations that you perceive to be negative.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Okay, you’re pushing the happy side of the pendulum out to one extreme. According to the laws of physics, where does the pendulum have to move?”

“I’ll be fine,” she replied with a degree of hesitation.

Alright, I had done my duty. If someone isn’t ready, they won’t hear you.

Fast forward six years and Karin announces that she has a malignant cancerous growth.

“So, Karin, where do you think the negativity is showing up?” I asked.

“Well, it’s occurring in my business and in my body.”

“Alright”, I said getting on with it (I’m a guy, so I like to solve things), “What is it, and where is it?”

“It’s a lymphoma on my left thigh.”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“What do you mean, of course?”

“You have a big issue with your mother, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Karin asked, clearly checking.

“Not that she’s done it intentionally, necessarily, but you’ve felt intimidated by her for a long time, haven’t you? There’s also another female involved in the dynamic. I don’t know who that is, or what it’s about, but my sense is that if you resolve the issue with your mother, the other will resolve itself.” www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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“So how sure are you about this?” She was almost challenging me.

“Actually, I have an extremely high degree of certainty about this,” I said.

“So, do you have a solution?” she asked, more convinced.

“Yes, I do.”

“Would you like to share it with me?”

“Let’s work out a Saturday afternoon that we’re both in town and available. We’ll go to a park of your choice and have a chat.”

We met three weeks later. It took five hours (it would have been three if she didn’t analyse) for her to see the truth in the situation. Every perception of a negative has a positive perception of equal magnitude; it’s simply a matter of finding it.

Three months later, Karin announced that she was in remission. Two months after that, she told a friend that he surgeon was surprised that there was no trace of the tumor.

The friend asked me how it worked.

“Although a person might be genetically predisposed to cancer, like most other ailments, it’s caused by stress.

Stress is caused by an unbalanced or lopsided perception of a person, an object, an event or some combination. If you facilitate processes that lead them to a balanced perception of the issue, there’s no stress. If there’s no stress, the cancer doesn’t have a reason for being there, so it goes.”

“How do you know it was you who helped her affect the cure?”

“I don’t really care if I helped or not; she doesn’t have cancer anymore. However, the fact that her surgeon was surprised that it had gone might indicate that it wasn’t western medicine on its own.”

A similar situation occurred with my mother, who, at the age of 83, was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

After talking with the surgeon to find out the exact location of the growth, I asked my mother, firstly, what she thought she was unable to express, and secondly, what she wanted to get rid of. Once she addressed those issues, her perceptions were neutralised. Three years later, at 3:00pm on a Thursday afternoon in August, at the age of 86, she phoned me to say that she had just seen the oncologist who told her that the cancer had gone. With mild ray treatment that did not cause her to lose a single hair, Eastern philosophies had worked harmoniously with Western medical practices.

In the next issue, we’ll illustrate the story of a man who spent most of his life in jail. After an hour-and-a-half, he had entirely resolved the issue that had compelled him to commit numerous violent crimes. TB NB: The Corporate Ninja will be staging a two-day Master Class in Sydney. Ron Lee uses Eastern/Western philosophies, universal laws, practical metaphysics and eight different forms of martial arts to achieve outstanding results for corporations on four continents and has now opened his Master Classes to the general public. For more details, visit: http://www.corporate-ninja.com/html/May2010.html www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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M I N D S E T:

C H A N G E

Part One

How to Change Benjamin Harvey has held 3,500 oneon-one coaching sessions and numerous courses for individuals and organisations like Youth Challenge Australia and Optus Communications. authenticedu.com

For Good

Benjamin Harvey looks at the nine roadblocks to creating authentic change in your life and what to do about them.

H

ave you ever wondered how to create authentic changes in your life that actually last? Only a staggering 5% of people who buy a personal development seminar or book will achieve the lasting results they desire. There is a stack of articles devoted to these 5%. But what keeps the other 95% stuck on their journey?

In my experience, knowing this is the key to changing any area of your life...and it is quicker than you might think. So, while it is true that success leaves clues, it is equally important not to overlook the fact that...

Roadblock #2—No motivation A lack of motivation stems from a lack of inspiration. It is the difference between being pushed (forced) versus pulled (attracted) towards your goal.

Solution: Focus on what you wish to change and ask yourself, "Why am I so inspired by creating this lasting change?" Continue asking until you reconnect with the feeling of inspiration and write down your answers.

Keep this 'inspiration list' handy and refer back to it as needed.

Failure leaves clues What are some changes you have tried to make in your life that didn’t stick? Eat healthier, save more money, go to the gym? Please take a moment to think about these, write them down and remember you can reverse engineer a failure just like a success.

Now ask yourself why didn't those changes stick? Find these answers and you are well on your way to lasting change. The first three of the nine most common roadblocks we find people face are:

Roadblock #3—Too complicated If someone explains a concept with 18 syllable words or gets you to do 10 things at once...run!

Nothing sucks the fun out of something quicker than feelings of confusion or overwhelm. When things are complicated, analysis paralysis occurs and people have no idea how or where to start.

Roadblock #1—Wrong information When you visit a pharmacy for a cold, what's their solution? What if you saw a Chinese herbalist for that exact same cold?

Problems arise when people try to fit you into their model of the world. They think their way is the only way and end up giving you the wrong information...for your personal needs.

So what's the next step?

Solution: Be open to trying new ideas and find out what works for you. Wayne Dyer says, "If someone tells me that crystals can cure haemorrhoids, I'm buying a crystal toilet seat!"

Shamans call this principle: 'The measure of truth is effectiveness'. This is known as finding your 'personal medicine' and everyone's is uniquely individual.

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Solution: Keep it Simple. Choose one thing at a time and nail it with clarity and certainty.

Focus on your 'inspiration list' from before.

Feel these feelings for five minutes a day. If you like, you can play your favourite song to make it fun and help keep time. And that's it!

This technique is deceptively simple, but very effective. Doing this for the next 21 days will begin changing you at the cellular level, where all true change occurs. You will be very surprised with the results from only five minutes a day.

Later, increase it to 10 minutes a day.

Next issue we will build on your progress with three more of the nine roadblocks to change Until then, remember to smile often, laugh out loud and whatever you do...have fun. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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M I N D S E T:

M I N D ' S

E Y E

From Cathal O'Briain works as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist. powerfulmindhypnosis.com

Imagination ToReality

The word imagination comes from the Latin word imaginare which means to form an image, or to represent. It is one of the most important, creative aspects of the human mind.

W

hen you use your imagination in self-hypnosis, you are giving the subconscious a canvas on which to paint your desired self-image. The deeper mind perceives you the way you perceive yourself. If you paint a poor self-image, it can only create a behavioural program to suit that very image. So it is important that you must always visualise yourself looking and acting your natural best.

As I mentioned earlier, the subconscious believes anything it is told. The same goes for anything it sees. So whenever you present it with a picture of a confident and selfassured person, it then goes about creating a behavioural program to suit that very image.

Everything is experienced in the imagination as if it were real, even though imagination is an unreal state of mind. Imagination borders alongside conscious reality and is the most easily accessed point from consciousness. This is why there is a fine line between what you perceive as real, and what in fact is the product of your imagination.

In the imagination you build up images to be carried out in reality. The more you dwell upon these images, the

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greater their chance becomes of being realised.

Everything you desire must be imagined first. The more you exercise your imagination actively, the quicker you get results. A boxer on entering the ring before a big fight cannot afford to neglect his imagination. Nor does he imagine the possibility of being knocked out, because if he did, he would almost certainly hit the canvas. What he imagines is winning each consecutive round perfectly (process imagery), and then holding the trophy at the end of the fight (result imagery).

If your dreams do not manifest themselves into reality it is because you have chosen to keep them locked inside your imagination in the form of fantasy. The way to make your imagination work for you is to acknowledge and appreciate its power. By realising that your imagination has the capacity to turn you into whatever you wish to be, you have taken an important step on the road to self-realisation.

Fearful images get replaced by desired images and this is what actively projects you forward.

You must not fear the power and ability you have. Rather you must control and direct it. This is done by making clear, continuous (repeating) images that you wish to make real. If your desire is to have a successful interview, you must see the interview room clearly in your mind; imagine its shape and size; notice the smell of the furniture; feel the grip of your friendly handshake; visualise the chair you will sit in; hear yourself talking with confidence and then make this picture bright and colourful in your mind’s eye. When you have done this, play the image over again as vividly as you can, involving as many of your five senses as possible. The more senses you involve, the better the quality of the image. www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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The better the quality of the image, the quicker it becomes realised.

Einstein once said, “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” It is what allows you to see and shape any scenario that you wish to make real.

If you don’t like your reality, you must change your mental images. By changing your mental images, you change your reality. Here are the main reasons why imagination is so important: • Imagination creates the potential for success by showing the mind your truest intentions.

• Imagination helps you view many possibilities without relying on one logical answer.

• Imagination has the power to create any sensation felt or about to be felt.

• Creative or active visualisation is the ability to productively use your imagination.

• It is how you turn images into reality.

• The more emotion you attach to an image, the quicker it manifests into reality.

• Images with emotion have potent energy, especially when you involve your senses.

• Imagination attracts that which you desire.

• The opportunities present themselves.

• Imagination has unlimited power, providing of course you don’t limit your imagination.

• If you keep imagining the same thing, and keep thinking the same thoughts, other people unconsciously act upon your thoughts.

• Thoughts and powerful imaginings have the ability to travel from one mind to another.

• This bolsters your position for attracting success, for others are now also working on your behalf.

From the moment you wake up it is important to render images of a happy, confident and relaxed person. The reason some people look so unhappy is not always down to the circumstances they are in. Sometimes it’s simply because of the negative way they use their imagination to perceive themselves.

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may see rain and automatically begin visualising themselves looking sad and depressed, basing their mood on past experiences of how they felt on rainy days. Because they associate bad weather with images of feeling low, their subconscious is automatically given a picture of how they think they should act and feel. And so, they become the product of their own imagery.

Environmental changes should not determine your mood, but unfortunately for some, they do. It’s easy to blame the weather for feeling low, but you only have yourself to blame when you allow your imagination to get the better of you.

If a negative image pops into your head, a good way to decrease its power is to take the colour and vividness out of it. This is done by changing the image from colour to black and white and then shrinking it down in size until it is very small in your mind’s eye. Now it can be thrown into an imaginary skip and burned if that is your wish. This negative image should then be replaced by a big, clear, positive and colourful one. It’s a simple but very effective way to rid your imagination of negative images.

The imagination is like a bridge between conscious and subconscious thought. If you use it wisely, these two areas of the mind can develop a better relationship of trust. The conscious is less critical when it experiences repetitious ideas through image. If the subconscious is passing up images of a positive, consistent nature, it leaves less room for mental conflicts to emerge between the two areas of thinking. So it’s important that you imagine the same positive images in the waking state, as you do in self-hypnosis. You must keep your imagination free of negative images that only contradict your deepest desires. In times of stress you must breathe with positive suggestion while using your imagination actively and wisely.

Solution focused therapy When conflict has its origin in the subconscious, the solution can be most likely found there too. Solution-focused therapy includes a number of techniques and interventions, all of which are implemented in order to bring about a complete lasting solution. It encourages you to put into effect what is already working and the aim is to utilise solutions that bring about positive life changes

rather than dwelling on problems the mind has already exhausted. The solution must be desired and imagined first.

By working out a personalised plan of therapy to be practiced on a daily basis, a foundation can be laid for a new behavioural program to develop through imagination.

Solution-focused therapy makes full use of the existing skills and resources already within you. However, a shift in thinking is required, especially for the person who is problem-focused by nature. You must ask the question, “What changes do I want and how soon do I want them?”

If your wish is to have greater selfconfidence, your subconscious must become aware of this intention and the time frame in which you will achieve it.

The mind adapts quickly providing there is willingness to change and this process is sped up where there is a belief in your own skills and self-hypnotic capabilities.

Throughout the day special attention must always be given to the breath, suggestion and imagination.

The notion of one step forward and two steps back is a misconception of how reality actually unfolds. If you encounter a setback on the road to good health, consider it a call to action and revert back to self-hypnosis and solution-focused self-therapy. Setbacks are to be viewed as learning experiences from which you gain better insight into yourself. When the subconscious has learnt that it can recover from a setback, you are then in a much better position to face whatever life may throw you, knowing that you will always recover.

A relaxed mind is better able to find solutions. When the mind learns to be still, creativity and positive emotional response to imagination is heightened.

Now your focus is on desired objects, and that is what attracts them to you. But in order to be in tune with your emotions and capabilities, you must remind yourself daily not to become complacent about doing such basic things as maintaining a good self-image.

Solution-focused therapy combines all the elements of natural self-healing. You have simply taken responsibility for your thoughts by making a conscious decision to change old negative beliefs into new positive ones, through imagination. TB Volume 3.3

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September 3rd, 1986

As I stood on the skid, I looked down through the mist to the treetops below. I was more nervous than I had ever been.

My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. The helicopter lurched as the pilot fought to hold it in a stable position so we could exit. As the wind buffeted it I could feel the helicopter moving sideways. The tremendous downdraft from the spinning blades above the machine made standing on the skid even more precarious.

It was only about two hours since I received the call from the Sergeant to get ready for the task. A light aircraft had disappeared the day before during a rainstorm. It had taken off from Cairns airport (in North Eastern Australia), planning to make a short journey over the range to the west of the city for a sightseeing trip to the Atherton Tablelands. Sadly it never reached its destination. At 2:52 pm on Wednesday the 3 September 1986, the wreckage of the plane had been spotted on Mount Williams from a search helicopter.

“We’re going to see if we can find any survivors. We’ll drop in by helicopter and be out by nightfall.” The Sergeant’s plan was that he, a police photographer, the government medical officer and I would be inserted into the site. We were

to check for and treat any survivors, confirm the passing of those who didn’t survive and take initial investigation photographs of the crash scene.

With such a short trip planned, I dressed in army greens and an oilskin jacket and packed one litre of water, a muesli bar and camera into a small ‘bum bag’. I had been a member of the team for about a year and had always looked forward to call-outs, even if they were only short ones. They took us away from the normal routine and added considerable variety to what I did as a special operations operative. I particularly enjoyed working with helicopters and my excitement about doing this job would have been clearly evident.

The call-out is just a distant memory.

I was now standing on the skid where I could feel the downdraft blowing my hair and tugging at my clothes. I looked at the winch operator and nodded. In response he activated the winch and I felt myself lowering. Using both hands on the skid I held myself away from the helicopter as my feet fell away to dangle freely below me. As I dropped away from the aircraft and into the canopy, it seemed to me that this was possibly the longest winch I had ever experienced. I was to find out later that the red painted part of the cable was

visible to the operator, indicating that it was in the last 15m of its 75m length.

In these conditions, the helicopter was operating at its limits.

As I dropped into the dense undergrowth, I sensed that no person had ever set foot in this area and I was making history. I felt like Columbus must have felt as he stood on unknown lands.

The jungle was extremely dense, a condition magnified by the mist and shadow of the low-lying cloud cover.

With feet firmly on the soggy ground, I was able to remove the padded loop from underneath my arms. I watched as it returned to the top of the canopy some 50m above me. Looking around I could make out what appeared to be a part of the light aircraft about 30m to my left.

The bright white with red and blue stripes contrasted against the dark green of the wet undergrowth. Plenty of time to make a closer examination, my immediate task was to support my colleagues as they were winched into the site.

One by one they followed the same route that I had earlier. First the Sergeant, then the photographer, and then the doctor were winched through the canopy from the hovering helicopter. Once the last person had detached from the winch cable, the helicopter flew off to the east.

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The loud wump wump wump of the aircraft was quickly replaced by the soft sound of the wind gusting and blowing through the tree canopy above us.

Without the aircraft it seemed eerily silent.

The doctor was a man on a mission.

He wanted to spend as little time as possible on the mountain and wasted no time in confirming that there were no survivors. What surprised me about the site was how the mangled aircraft and its victims were all located in a relatively small area. All eight of the victims and most of the aircraft were located in an area with a radius of about 15 or 20m. Two of the victims were still seated close by the fuselage, while the other six had obviously been thrown from their seats and away from the main part of the plane.

Some 20 minutes after leaving us, the helicopter returned. The weather had closed in even more and it was now raining. Looking up through the mist and the tree canopy, I could only just make out the grey shape of the Iroquois Helicopter as the pilot worked hard at holding it in a hover. The cable dropped and, reversing the order in which we descended into this sad and miserable place, the doctor was winched out first. As he passed the top of the canopy I could see him rotating as the downdraft increased its effect on his ride upwards. The effect of the rotor wash is circular and its effect on anything at

the end of the winch cable gets stronger the closer it gets to the aircraft. To compensate a rope is usually tied to one end of any stretcher being hoisted and held by a person on the ground while it is winched upwards. The effect is minimal for a person hanging from the winch harness without any equipment, so no stabilisng rope is necessary.

While the doctor had checked the passengers of the aircraft, the photographer had taken a range of photographs to help the investigators.

His task was now to return to his lab and develop them for examination at the first opportunity. With far more enthusiasm than he held for the insertion, he waited for his turn to be extracted. He had packed his photographic equipment safely into an aluminium case and was now ready to depart with the only thing he had brought with him.

My anticipation of the harness once again appearing through the canopy was short lived. With bewilderment I watched the helicopter slowly move away from the hover point and then finally disappear from view. The sound receded into the distance as I looked towards the Sergeant for an answer to my obvious question.

He spent the next few minutes talking into and listening to a hand held radio. “Looks like the weather is too bad for them, they can’t hold it there

so they’ll come back in the morning to get us.” As the Sergeant explained the situation my bewilderment turned into disbelief. We didn’t bring anything with us. I had only the clothes I wore, a little water, some food and a camera. The Sergeant had even less. Having brought only his photographic equipment, the photographer was obviously experiencing the same thinking pattern as I; at first disbelief that the helicopter had flown off and then realisation that we were here for the night.

This became one of the most interesting nights of my life. The site was on sloping land on the side of a mountain. Dense undergrowth and rotting foliage prevented us moving very far from the crashed aircraft so we cleared a small area to the east of the wreckage.

Fortunately we were able to find a single plastic tarpaulin and three blankets in the wreckage so we placed the tarp on the cleared soil as a ground sheet. This was to be our home for the next 14 hours. Each of us had a blanket that we used as a barrier to stop the continuous rain falling directly onto us. The unfortunate thing for us was the lay of the land. The continuous rain was flowing across the top of the already soaked soil. The slope prevented us sitting down for very long before we slid downhill with the mud and slush. We had to stand most of the time. Standing in the

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pouring rain with sodden blankets draped over our heads, we looked like a trio of grim reapers.

I thought it could get no worse, but I was wrong. The leeches in that place were unbelievable. When we were first dropped in I did not see a single leech.

However, I did notice that all of the victims had ‘goosebumps’ on their skin, and the men appeared to have facial hair growth, but no sign of leeches. The little buggers came out at night in the hundreds just for us. They wanted blood from living bodies. Throughout the course of that night I removed countless leeches from my legs and neck and even face, as did my companions. To help pass the time I started tying them in knots to see how long they took to get out. Amazingly they can undo themselves no matter how hard the knot is tied. It always intrigues me how we discover interesting little facts like this when we are forced to keep our minds occupied.

Shift happens

As you can probably imagine, we had a lot of time to think during that night.

Standing in the jungle for 14 hours in the dark and rain gives you a lot of thinking time with very few distractions.

I don’t know what prompted me, but during the night I started thinking about the passengers who had not survived the crash. Suddenly it hit me, here I was, wet, cold, hungry, tired and feeling sorry for myself. Just metres away were eight dead people, not cold, not hungry, not tired; just dead. Who was in the worst situation here, the dead passengers or me? That is when I realised that I had a choice. I could

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continue feeling sorry for myself, thinking about how my situation was unfair and could not get any worse, or I could recognise that I was alive and would be picked up in the morning to return home.

I could choose to acknowledge that this situation would give me the experience to ensure that in the future I was better prepared and also able to better prepare others. I would also have an interesting story to tell people.

Immediately I started to focus on the positives of the situation and as a result felt different. I started to make a mental list of what I could do to ensure that the next time I do one of these jobs I would be prepared in the best way possible.

In fact, I wanted to be better prepared than any other person so I went to work thinking about some of the things I could do, carry and even learn.

Self-mastery comes first

The most important skill you will ever develop as a leader is the ability to elicit empowering emotional states in other people and then link those states to the behaviours you wish them to engage in.

You do that; you will become a force to be reckoned with.

After ten years of special operations and working with some of the highest performing people [in their field] in the world, I am convinced of one thing… you will never reach your potential in this regard unless you first have mastery over your own thinking and emotional states; no way. Why? Because self-mastery precedes mastery of others; the ability to consciously direct your own focus and alter and shift your own emotional states

is the foundation for consciously and consistently achieve the same with others.

How do you achieve that?

1. Recognise that you only have two choices in life: what actions you engage in and how you feel about things at any moment in time. When you let circumstances dictate how you feel and respond, you relinquish your power to choose.

2. Acknowledge that how you feel about anything is based entirely on what you focus on—when you shift your focus, you shift your emotional state.

3. Become increasingly more self aware of the conversations in your head and the focus of your mind.

4. Ask better questions of yourself. The questions you ask yourself guide your internal conversation and mental focus.

5. Always ask for feedback.

6. Never stop learning—the only thing that will prevent you from learning is the illusion of knowledge.

Here’s to your truly remarkable life. TB George Lee Sye is founder and head of training and innovation for Soarent Vision. He is a highly regarded educator and author, with a formidable reputation for guiding organisations through their performance enhancement journey. Visit his website at: www.soarent.com.au Title photo courtesy juliotx_ft.

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BUSINESS:

T O U C H

P O I N T

The Future of Branding In a World Tom Petryshen is the chief executive officer and founder of Amplify. amplify.com.au

Connected

There is no doubt that the strength of a brand can help facilitate a sale or be the difference between attracting the ‘web click’ and missing it altogether. Tom Petryshen discusses how can you make the most of your brand in the connected world.

A

s a student of marketing growing up in Canada, I like many others before me, was introduced to Understanding Media, the Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan. In it, Marshall famously claims that ‘the medium is the message.’ In other words, McLuhan argued that the way the medium conveys the information, rather than the content itself is of critical importance to how the message is received.

What does this mean and what does it have to do with branding? For starters, branding is no longer about an ad or jingle (I have never actually believed this to be true). Anyone who tells you otherwise is still living in the age of Mad Men. Rather, it's about how the audience interacts with your brand through the medium.

With so many different mediums to play with, including television, radio, the internet, the industry you work in and others, today's consumer can have multiple touch points with a single business in a month, week or even a day.

In a service business like Amplify, our work is our best form of branding. While we speak in public, conduct tradeshows and of course advertise on Google, it is the interaction with the client and the work we deliver that has the biggest impact on our brand. From where we place the important keywords in our text ads on Google, to how we say hello on the first call, to the way the customer views our first presentation, to how well we deliver our service, these interactions affect the customer’s perception of our brand.

Every touch point we have either builds on the experience or detracts from it. For a business like ours, the experience is everything. If we mess up, we can kiss future work goodbye.

Prior to the Internet, building and controlling your brand may have seemed relatively easy.

Your choice of media was much smaller than it is today and the only touch point you might have

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had would have been your shop or call centre.

Today, we're faced with more options and opportunities than we can keep up with. Each one of them different from the other and in some cases, like social media, requires a different strategy to build and manage. McLuhan's message has never been more true than it is today.

So how can you leverage both new and old media? For starters, you need to think about the different ways your customers may interact with you in a given day. How does your website show on a smart phone? Is it usable or barely seen because it's designed in Flash? The mobile era is upon us and consumers will continue to use it to interact with their favourite brands (with or without them) as usability improves.

What experience will the customer have if they send you an email message? Will you get back to them the same day, tomorrow, a week later or not at all? Forgetting to follow up can lead to lost business.

How often do you email your customers?

Weekly, monthly, quarterly or hardly ever?

Reminding your customers that you still exist via email can be the easiest and cheapest form of brand building you do.

Do you follow mentions of your brand in social media such as Twitter, Facebook or Youtube? What are your customers saying about you and what can you do to stay on top of it all? The days of keeping the genie in the bottle are long gone so you need to be able to stay tuned and ready to react if necessary.

In today's connected world every interaction is an opportunity to strengthen your brand and increase the chances to have your customers share their experience with friends. It's important to understand the different options available to your business. In addition, it's vital to learn or use experts where possible to ensure you don't put the wrong foot forward. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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BUSINESS:

David Solomon works extensively with creative female entrepreneurs, enabling them to get their business performing the way it should be. soluplus.com.au

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B R A N D

Authenticity andService

Simply by announcing that she was releasing a new single in just over three months time, Kylie Minogue caused a meltdown on her website. That is considered branding.

K

ylie had used the Twitterverse to give her fans a sneak preview of her new single, which sparked a fan frenzy. The rush of interest was much bigger than anticipated.

So I started to wonder, how is it that someone who was so pilloried in her early career, and who has suffered such major career and health setbacks, has survived, prospered and indeed become a global brand?

The old model of business is work hard and get people to buy your stuff.

The new model is authenticity and service, which leads to wealth.

When you learn to create a business in the new model, people thank you for being successful, for who you are and for what you’ve created.

OK. So it is a given that: a) Kylie’s music is popular (maybe pop, but it also has dance roots); b) Her packaging is excellent (look at some of the great videos and you’ll see what I mean); c) She provides high levels of service to her fans (e.g. spectacular live stage shows).

Let’s look at her mode of communication for a moment…

When Kylie was first diagnosed with breast cancer and had to cancel her world tour to look after her health, her team made an immediate announcement. In it was an apology to the fans she would disappoint and a solution (‘hang onto the tickets—I’ll be back’).

Unlike Toyota, who was extremely reticent in announcing what was to become a far-reaching product recall—and took months to even apologise to their customers for a very serious safety issue—Kylie took a leaf from Johnson & Johnson’s book and went on the front foot.

Just in case you don’t remember it or didn’t catch it at the time (1982), Tylenol made a hero of Johnson & Johnson after seven people tragically died in the Chicago area after taking

cyanide-laced capsules of Extra-Strength Tylenol, the painkiller that was the drug maker's best-selling product.

What set apart J&J's handling of the crisis was that it placed consumers first by immediately recalling 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules from store shelves and offering replacement product in the safer tablet form free of charge. Before 1982, nobody ever recalled anything.

It was predicted that the Tylenol brand, which accounted for 17% of the company's net income in 1981, would never recover from the sabotage.

Only two months later, Tylenol was headed back to the market, this time in tamper-proof packaging and bolstered by an extensive media campaign. A year later, its share of the market, which had plunged to 7% from 37% following the poisoning, had climbed back to 30%.

Both Kylie and J&J responded with authenticity and great concern for their customers. They also offered an immediate solution to the problem, demonstrating highly effective customer service. And as a result, their respective customer showed loyalty and yes, thanked them for the way they do business.

For someone who had her first hit more than 20 years ago, Kylie’s longevity and remarkable earnings power is impressive.

She has moved from being the ‘singing budgie’ to a global megastar. Although she has been regularly dismissed by some critics, especially during the early years of her career, she has achieved worldwide record sales of more than 68 million, and has received significant music awards including multiple ARIAs, Brit Awards and a Grammy. She has mounted several highly successful concert tours and received a Mo Award for "Australian Entertainer of the Year". She was awarded an OBE "for services to music", and an Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She is authenticity and service. TB Volume 3.3

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BUSINESS:

O N L I N E

What Makes the

Lee De Coster is the co-founder of Affiliates Australia. affiliatesaustralia.com.au

Perfect Business?

People often chase the dream of working from home. Only to find out that more often that not, it can take them away from it. Yet a new model, the online model has a lot to offer writes Lee De Coster.

I

was recently asked by a friend to join a network marketing company. He thought that because I know a lot of people I would make a great recruit to be in his downline team. The money on the table looked great, the people looked great, the products looked great.

So why wasn’t I convinced?

Well, I had already been active in an excellent network marketing company, one that was involved in telecommunications and I had been pretty successful. I had obtained a wealth of personal growth, skills, and experience that will be incredibly valuable for years to come.

I also knew exactly what it took to become successful in network marketing and the kind of income I could expect to make. The reality, however, was that I wasn’t prepared to commit to the weekly meetings, training, after hours work, and most of all building a big team.

Also, I like to be in direct control of what I can earn residually and not depend on the productivity of my team.

Finding the right business for you I have worked in both traditional businesses (in my old career as a chiropractor), and been involved in work from home businesses such as MLMs. Each offers its own benefits, but I started thinking about what qualities the perfect business would have. Here are a few points I came up with when discussing it with a friend.

• No overheads. Many businesses work the first four days a week just to pay the overheads.

• No premises. A business without a location frees you to be anywhere at any time.

• No staff. Imagine no teams to manage!

• No inventory. Having to juggle endless inflow and outflow of products is tedious isn’t it?

• No meetings. Imagine not having to attend

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regular meetings to build your business. Just you and your work ethic.

• Universally needed. Every business needs it, and you have it…perfect!

• Serviced based. Providing services is often easier than providing products.

• Fully automated. A business you can turn your back on and let automated processes take over is the dream all business people have.

Many of us are in business for one reason: money.

More accurately, money in and of itself is not the main motivator, more so all the problems that money solves and all the freedoms that money can bring. Many of us wonder what it would be like to never worry about money ever again.

About one in 50 of us know what that feels like.

The new ‘work from home’ model In terms of the points made above, what would be the perfect business? For me it is having income depend just on myself and my own enterprise, working at my own pace during business hours, and having my nights and weekends free. For me there are no weekly meetings and everything is automated. My residual income doesn’t depend on friends buying products from me, but on the business saving money because of me. That’s a pretty good business and it is an online business model.

The internet is still in its infancy and the online world already creates billions of dollars in revenue that currently stays with big business. The most successful online companies in the future will reach the top because they will share their revenues with all those who want to take part.

Smart companies will adopt a model that creates a groundswell of support: one in which everyday people can share the wealth created.

They will create not only a brand, but a movement. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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BUSINESS:

C O A C H I N G

Affordable

Tom Olyslagers, director of Key Business Coach, understands the desire that many have to take an opportunity and create a business from it. keybusinesscoach.com

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Business Mentors There are many things that a business owner can do when they feel their company is not performing at its peak ability.

A

n assessment of current sales and service staff to clarify their weaknesses and strengths is often the first step taken to review business performance. Then an assessment of the company’s advertising scheme may be reviewed to look for weaknesses in the marketing plan of the company.

An owner may also look at the products or services they offer to make sure they are providing the most up to date goods or services available to their clients. This personal assessment of all these areas can prove to be difficult to assess and expensive to replace.

In order to check all these areas and more, you may turn to the professional services of a business coach.

The introduction of a third party perspective on the issues affecting the company provides the small business owner ideas of where improvement must be made. For a business owner who takes the leap to accept the assistance of a business coach, the opportunities for them are many and the advantages that are derived from those opportunities are great.

Finding a form of profit that exceeds your monthly expenses represents the ultimate goal of any company. A business coach understands the desire to achieve higher profits through maximising a company’s sales and will give you useful information on how to repair that aspect. After a careful assessment of all of your business aspects a business coach could offer you a number of solutions that can provide both short and long term success in advancing your business.

If there is a weakness in the employees you have, then a business coach could offer the latest training lessons to advance the sales skills

of your employees. If poor business results are caused by a poor marketing plan then a small business coach can either offer you new marketing ideas that can help your business.

When a business owner decides to research the possibility of utilising a business coach they are often put off by the fees that are associated with the coaching service. Due to this, many business owners are taking advantage of a new online source, KeyBusinessCoach, to get the same answers and help they would get from a personal coach, on a range of different topics but for a fraction of the price.

By going online people are able to find the answers they are really looking for without having to make appointments with an actual business coach. This may be the first step you can take toward increasing your business profit. TB

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BUSINESS:

T R A N S I T I O N

Successfully

Self - employed

Angie O'Shannessy is a national master coach at The Small Business Gurus, and specialises in marketing and business growth. thesmallbusinessgurus.com

When asking the question "What motivated you to take the plunge and devote yourself to your own business full-time?" the most common answer is "Losing my full-time/part-time job" and second is “If my boss can make that much money so can I!” So, how do you go about doing it?

H

aving been there and done that, I can appreciate what a difficult transition being your own boss can be. Working for someone else is completely different than working for yourself. Numerous problems present themselves that were once the domain of others: debt collecting, BAS (tax), bills and wages, budgeting and even superannuation. It can become very stressful.

Eventually I learned that if I was going to be successfully self-employed, I was going to have to think and act differently, in fact the exact opposite to most other business owners. I had to develop what is called an ‘entrepreneurial mindset’.

Being in business is not for everyone. Being self-employed is very different than being an employee. And some people find it impossible to adjust to the differences. Let's see if you have the necessary entrepreneurial mindset to become self-employed. These are the six traits that I think encapsulate the ways you have to think and behave if you want to make a successful transition from being employed in some one else's business to starting a business of your own.

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nowhere to pass the buck. As an employee, you may be used to passing problems up along the food chain or not be very involved in decision-making. As a self-employed business owner, you're the one who will have to deal with whatever the crisis is and solve the problems. You're the one who will have to make all of the decisions.

2) You have to be self-motivated When you're an employee, other people tell you what to do, either directly or indirectly.

You get used to having your actions directed by others. But you have to direct your own actions as a small business owner. You can't just sit there and hope that maybe some clients stroll in or that someone will drop by out of the blue with inventory for your retail store. No one's going to drop work on your desk or point out what needs to be done. For many people who try to become self-employed and start businesses after having a long-term full time job, this is the hardest adjustment to make. You need to be able to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

1) You have to be flexible

3) You have to be able to recognise opportunities

If you start a business, you no longer have a job with clearly defined duties and responsibilities.

You'll suddenly have multiple jobs, which will be often interrupted by unforeseen circumstances.

Many employees are used to having days filled with predictable activities; many self-employed people often find themselves doing the jobs that they just hate doing.

And once you start a business, there's

Most employees do what they're assigned to do. There's someone else whose job is to look out for opportunities; either a boss in a small business, or perhaps a sales department or a managerial team in a large corporation. If you start a business, you need to be the one constantly watching for opportunities—and be able to recognise them. It might be a small opportunity, such as the chance to pick up a www.thinkbigmagazine.com

5/18/10 1:00 AM

new client, (or a large one) or it may be getting your product on the shelves in a large retail chain. As a small business owner, you have to keep scanning the horizon and positioning yourself to benefit from the opportunities you find. As an employee, you may be used to operating in a ‘head-down’ position; if you're going to start a business and become successfully self-employed, you need to start operating in a different mindset.

4) Plan ahead Your last job may have involved no planning at all. Or perhaps your job involved planning at a localised level, such as a particular project. As a business owner, you need to develop expertise in both short-term and long-range planning; it's about to become a big part of your life.

When you start a business, one of your first tasks will be to work through a business plan. As your business becomes operational, you'll find that this plan (however detailed) needs to be revised and that other plans need to be created, as you work towards the long-range goals that you've set for your business.

From following someone else's plan as an employee, you have to learn how to create the plans yourself—and adapt the plan as circumstances change.

the holidays that many employees enjoy, both the annual x number of weeks and the statutory holidays, at least until your business is established to the point that you can manage your own time.

6) You have to be able to deal with uncertainty As a self-employed entrepreneur, there's no guarantee that the products or services you offer will be in demand six months from now. There's no guarantee that your customers will pay their bills on time or even pay them at all. There's no guarantee that your current big client, who seems to be perfectly happy with your work, won't drop you next week.

There's actually no guarantee that you will make any income this month or the month after. For many ex-employees who are used to having a pay cheque arrive regularly the uncertainty of being selfemployed is very difficult to deal with.

The point of this article is not to scare you off, but to make you aware of how you have to readjust you’re thinking to make the transition from employee to self-employed business owner.

Hopefully as you read through this list of traits you need to become successfully

self-employed, you were saying to yourself, "I can do this." Every one of the traits I've listed here is an attitude or behaviour that can be learned and when it comes to being self-employed, awareness is half the battle.

Successful people have the right attitude, but how do you gain this?

What I have done in the past with my clients is find someone who has what they want. We then examine their behaviour; what they do on a daily basis to achieve their goals. If you do find someone, ask them for advice as most successful people love sharing information about what makes them stand out from the crowd.

The final step is to mirror what they do. If they are driven become driven, if they don’t watch television, give up television. I know this is a bit harsh, but if you want the success that’s what you have to do.

I almost forgot one of the most important things… love what you do so much that you would do it for free.

Successful people all love what they do; it has nothing to do with money, the money comes when what you do is excellent.

Have fun and enjoy the journey. TB

5) You need to be constant and consistent We've all seen employees who are just going through the motions, or who were just ‘putting in the time’ until retirement. You don't need to be a coworker to know who these people are.

As a customer or client you can tell, too.

Bluntly, starting a business takes energy and you need to be able to give it 100%.

You can't afford to coast along, or go through the motions. Your customers and/or clients need to know that you are devoting 100% of your talent or skills or attention to them—and will go elsewhere if they don't feel this is the case.

Worse, you need to deliver this constant and consistent effort without the employee safety net. Many employees are used to being able to ‘call in sick’ and have someone else cover their job. As a self-employed business owner, you'll have to go in and give it your best effort no matter how you feel, or close up shop if you don't have employees who can fill in. You can also say goodbye to www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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BUSINESS:

Damian Kay is founder Telcoinabox, Australia's leading telecommunications wholesale provider. telcoinabox.com

C R I T I C A L

M A S S

Organic Growth or Acquisition: Which Way to Go to Grow?

To grow or not to grow by acquisition or organically has its 'pros' and 'cons'. In this first part of a two part series on growth I will explore growth by acquisition.

S

ize matters

Growth by acquisition is a surefire way to build 'size' quickly. In the telecommunications reseller industry, size definitely matters.

Telecommunications resellers buy from tier 1 carriers such as Telstra or Optus and on-sell the airtime to end users. Their volume effectively determines the purchase price. The greater the volume is (number of minutes), the lower the buy price and in turn, the greater the competitiveness, the higher the margins. For this reason acquisitions are common in the telecommunications industry. The motivation to acquire is fairly obvious, and when done well, you can achieve your goals.

The financial factor Acquisition does not come without financial challenges. Buying another business can be a stressful process. The owner of the acquired business wants the highest possible price, as they only have one shot at getting the best possible price. You, on the other hand, the acquirer, want to pay the least amount you possibly can. The price you pay determines the return on your investment (ROI). This scenario immediately creates a conflict. The negative consequence of the process, which is more than often drawn out, takes the owner's eye off his or her current business.

In an acquisition 1 + 1 must equal 3.

And, there has to be greater financial or strategic benefits than just two times the month's net cashflow. This is an important factor to remember. If you are using debt to acquire the business, the chances are you are reliant on getting the cost savings that come from the merged business to service the debt comfortably.

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Part One

The cultural factor In an acquisition, one should never underestimate cultural issues. Every business has its own 'culture' and sometimes the significance of it can supersede what's on the balance sheet. Merging two businesses with polar opposite cultures can be hugely problematic. In the late 1990s, Mars Confectionary bought Kenman Candy in a strategic move to add jellies to their portfolio as they were weak in this area (they have Starburst). Apart from buying Kenman for cash (no bank debt in this example) they ran the business separately as a 'going concern' for over two years before bringing it into the fold. Why? They wanted to understand the business and understand the culture to ensure a successful integration.

Success rates of M&As Interestingly, global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Co. made an extensive study of mergers between 1972 and 1983. They restricted their research to 200 of the largest companies in the US at the time. They found that (as measured by an increase in value to shareholders) only 23% were successful. The highest successes were mainly acquisitions which were small and in related fields, yet only 33% of these were deemed successful. The lowest number of successful outcomes was not surprisingly larger acquisitions in unrelated fields, around 8%. No matter what these statistics say, an acquisition strategy doesn't fare well.

Always think long and hard before you jump to acquisition mode. To shareholders your company may appear to be in a healthy financial position. However, if you acquire a business ensure first and foremost that you can afford the purchase with as little debt a possible so it does not kill your existing business. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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BUSINESS:

S T R AT E G I E S

Start to Grow

Your Business

Andrew Vincent was the creator and producer of the Channel 9 television series 'Your Business Success.' yourbusinesssuccess.com.au

Business owners have many ideas to grow their business but at the same time they are totally confused about where to start.

W

here do business owners start when they want to grow their business? The first step is to try to get some focus. Here are four key strategies to grow your revenue and profit.

1. Find more customers Start by conducting an audit on all the activities that you have tried over the last one to two years. Work out what is and isn’t working.

Review all your marketing performance indicators e.g. number of leads, cost per lead, cost per sale, average sales price, number of sales per customer etc.

Focus on the activities that work: dump the failures and start making changes to those that have potential to get them performing better.

One client saved $2,000 per month by stopping an advertisement that just wasn’t working. As they say, what you can measure you can manage.

An easy win—chase up existing leads.

I recently challenged the business owner of a fencing company who was complaining that he didn’t have enough work to ring up the last 15 people he had done quotes for. He picked up seven jobs. Why? Simple, he was the only one that called. He now has too much work.

2. Sell more to existing customers This is the easiest way to grow your business and it is ignored by people. You have done the hard work and won them as a first time client.

Now it is time to focus on building a long-term relationship and sell more to them, more often.

An easy way to start is by asking how you can help them. Phone them up. Make a time to visit their business. Talk to them the next time they visit your business. Email a simple survey using an online product like Surveymonkey.com.

Ask and you shall receive.

An engineering company couldn’t get out of the ‘feast or famine’ cycle. They visited their top 10 customers and asked them some very basic questions.

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What do you like about the work that we do for you? Is there anything we can alter, change or improve? What are your plans for the coming year? How can we help?

The result was a new service called a Monthly Preventative Maintenance Audit. They charge for the audit, maintenance is planned throughout the year, work is now more consistent and the clients have less emergency breakdowns.

3. Increase your price This is a tough one and no one likes it. But imagine if you could increase your price by just 2% across the board. On a $500,000 turnover it means $10,000 straight to the bottom line.

An accounting firm ranked all their clients on a range of criteria including profitability.

They sold off the bottom 20%. They then bit the bullet and increased their fees by 10% for the remaining 80% of clients. The had worked out scripts on what to say, collected testimonials from happy clients to back up their quality of service and even offered a money back guarantee. In the end they only lost three clients and added $100,000 to their bottom line.

4. Increase your margins This is all about making your business more efficient and effective. Review all your costs and see which ones you can reduce. A simple idea is to ring up each of your main suppliers and ask for a better deal.

Meet with your team and find out if things can be done faster, with less people, less materials or cheaper materials. Can you recycle, reduce stock levels or reduce your range of products?

Review your team’s performance. Often additional training or mentoring from more experienced team members can reduce mistakes, save time and reduce waste.

Get focused, pick one strategy and start increasing your profits today. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

5/18/10 1:00 AM

Fortune favours the brave Brian Sher, author of the 60 Minute Millionaire, has launched an online learning institution designed to mirror the success of those who have some powerful lessons to teach.

 By Jonathan Jackson

H

Harvard University is the best known and most respected higher learning institution in the world. It is the home to alumni including current USA President Barack Obama, John Adams and John Kennedy. Other notables include current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon; philosopher Henry David Thoreau and authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and William S. Burroughs. Harvard Business School has been equally endowed with talent, however the costs to attend an institution such as Harvard are astronomical and can often be exclusionary.

The cost of education across the world is rising. It is becoming more difficult to dedicate the time and money to study, so what are those who want to further educate themselves in business to do.

Several online courses exist, but they fail to function as higher learning institutions and according to Brian Sher don’t teach you the necessary success skills.

“Traditional schooling systems teach us everything except how to be successful in business. Even the most expensive universities and advanced education institutions teaching business mastery totally miss the essences of what creates success.

“It’s no wonder only a small percentage of people ever go on to ‘make it big’ in business. They defy the odds and are left to figure it out all on their own. With this comes trial and error, with lots of wasted time and money, with little guidance or leadership on how to find their way.”

To fill the gap, Brian has founded his

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own institution, an online business school that will, hand-in-hand take a select few students and teach them the step-by-step processes to be successful.

To ensure the success of students, Brian has recruited entrepreneur and advertising legend, Siimon Reynolds.

Siimon is the head of the business faculty and guides students through the in depth process of how he built a $500 million business.

“What’s interesting about Siimon is he never spent one day at University or school learning theory,” Brian says. “His enormous success is solely due to his little known habit or secret he reveals to very few people and that is…he spends 60 minutes per day learning something new about success.”

Siimon has become fondly and respectfully known among his closest friends as the 60 minute millionaire.

“When I heard this I asked Siimon if he thought it was possible for anyone to become successful if they were to dedicate themselves to 60 minutes a day studying success like he does. He said, 'just about anyone, with no prior education on the subject could become successful and become a millionaire if they practiced just 60 minutes of education, not per day but as little as 60 minutes per week, over the course of just a few years’.”

There are two conditions to make Siimon’s method work: 1. Students are committed to 60 minutes a week without fail.

2. Students practice what they learn that day or the next day.

The online business school where Siimon is now teaching is known as the Fortune Institute. It is dedicated to teaching real world success, allowing students to learn everything Siimon knows about success, week by week and to practice this in their business and life the next day.

The course consists of 48, 60-minute lessons held once a week and Siimon has waived his lecturer fee to make the course affordable. However, only students with the right attitude will be accepted.

The Fortune Institute offers aspiring Australians the opportunity to learn from a man who is regarded as one of the best businessmen in the country and according to Brian “we want as many people that qualify for this program to begin the amazing journey, and then continue learning simply as a result of the satisfaction gained. It’s the surest way we’ve ever come across help as many as people possible succeed.”

Finally Australia has a learning institute that not only rivals the best but delivers real world, practical applications. TB

Brian Sher is a best-selling business author and author of The Anti-Ageing Diet.

For more information you can find his new venture at www.thefortuneinstitute.com

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For most businesspeople a one time, lifelong decision about a start-up enterprise is all they ne

‘work-for-themselves' desires. For serial entrepreneurs, the landscape is different. Jonathan Ja

Australia’s top entrepreneurs to discover what it is that makes them jump from company to co

B

oredom, money, the thrill of the challenge seem all to be legitimate reasons to start a new business.

Sometimes the lure of working for oneself outweighs the desire or need for a weekly pay cheque, other times a constant string of new ideas is enough motivation to keep jumping ship, but if there is one thing that sets serial entrepreneurs apart it is that they are serial risk takers, continuously coming up with new ideas and starting new businesses. This differs from the typical entrepreneur who starts a business and continues in the day to day functioning of that business.

A study conducted by Clemson University professor Wayne Stewart in South Carolina, USA, concluded that the serial entrepreneur was a risk taker and more achievement oriented than their more novice counterparts.

“There is a psychological profile that drives serial entrepreneurs, predisposing them to multiple ventures,” Stewart says.

Other analysis of serial entrepreneurship concludes that this group accounts for nearly 30% of the transitions from paid employment into entrepreneurship. They are defined by aspirations and the ability to live by them. They have worked in the past as an entrepreneur and aspire to again become an entrepreneur.

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This definition reflects the careers of Graeme Goldman, Steve Sacks and Brendan McKeegan, members of the Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) and businessmen who have built myriad successful enterprises based on past failures, former employment, light-bulb moments and risk aversion.

Graeme runs Dunne and Goldman Financial Advisors and has a background in accounting and finance, but through jobs with The Swatch Group Australia, where he was managing director and his own start-up businesses he has defined his entrepreneurial style.

“In four years completing articles at an accounting firm in South Africa, I learnt a lot about rules, boundaries and professionalism,” Graeme says. “This affects the way you deal with clients no matter what you do.”

Graeme suggests the abovementioned traits are key tenets in founding and running successful businesses. Another tenet is a work hard mentality. In 1995, when he immigrated to Australia from South Africa for political reasons, this chartered accountant was prepared to drive a taxi to support his family.

There was no need to turn the meter on, however Graeme did launch into a career he knew very little about:

branding. He took a job with Stussy, learnt the industry then in 1999 joined the Swatch Group as brand manager. Two years later he was managing director.

A career path was set, a gold watch was waiting for him when he turned 65, but in spite of his love for watches and collection, it wasn’t enough.

“My early career in Australia was defined by having a young family, but when you come to a new country and start work, all you know is the people you work with. You’re not aware of the broader opportunities. So with Swatch, I wasn’t thinking too much about owning my own business. I worked my way to the top (at age 36 Graeme had delivered the biggest profit in the company’s history —Ed.) and I was looking out my window over to St.Kilda beach thinking ‘what am I going to do for the next 30 years’. I was in a dream job and it should have been enough.”

Graeme had taken the risk to join an organisation, knowing little about the industry, but that same risk aversion was beckoning him to do something more personal.

“I had an opportunity early in life that made me realise I could work this way and it was brought to bear by a part of me that allows me to do things without being www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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they need to satisfy their

athan Jackson spoke with three of

any to company. worried about the safety of the job.”

In 2003, Graeme made the decision to stop maintaining and opened a sales and marketing business with partners in South Africa. Three years later the business went into administration, so he started something similar with Australian partners and found that due to the success of the business—Product Management Group— he had worked himself out of a position.

Graeme is someone who is happy to back himself when he doesn’t know what he is doing and change when change is required.

“I would say these traits are in evidence in all serial entrepreneurs, especially with younger guys who don’t have the mortgage or family to worry about. There’s a need to create something for yourself.”

As Graeme points out entrepreneurialism TB never ends. Motivations may be different: for some money is the scorecard, for others it is about the ability to create something for that has value for all. Yet the difference between traditional and serial entrepreneurs is that the serial entrepreneur is not, according to Graeme, “the one shot wonder."

Certainly Steven Sacks knows the difference between running one start up and several. After setting up the applications business unit of US www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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Steve Sacks

Graeme Goldman

Brendan McKeegan

technology company Oracle in the Asia Pacific in the late 1980s and running it from Hong Kong, he started his own consulting practice in 1992 implementing Oracle products. He built the business based on customer relationships and in 1997 sold out to Deloitte Consulting, where he stayed on as a partner.

Yet like Graeme, the need to keep moving seemed inherent.

“Serial entrepreneurship is about trying to establish a space and finding a niche that presents an opportunity,” Steve says.

For Steve, it was also (at a certain point) about giving back. After time off he decided to do something completely new and launched the Australian division of women-only gym chain, Contours. He acquired the master franchise rights and rolled out 190 outlets throughout the country.

“When I first became involved with Oracle it was by chance, but when I took up the franchise business it was because I wanted to understand the business-toconsumer sector and to give something back. I wanted to support people.”

From a serial point of view, the motivation was to continue to do something new and challenging, as that evolved the personal aspects began to encompass the need to positively affect people. Steve’s business desires had transcended from loving the challenge to seeing the challenge as something that could have a broader impact.

In 2008 Steve sold his shareholding in Contours to relaunch himself into the technology space.

“I think enough had changed in that enterprise application space to make it

interesting again. My focus was software service, particularly around salesforce. com. I started a business focused on consulting for salesforce.com. These products can really make a difference to sales and service operations more rapidly and at a lower cost than any solution available 10 years ago."

It is the boredom factor that Steve cites as the motivating factor behind being a serial entrepreneur. Those who don’t fit into the corporate structure are usually the ones who become bored with tasks at hand. It was why Steve constantly strives to find something different, whether it is in the same industry space, or somewhere completely different.

Yet he says what works for him is undertaking incremental changes.

“When I start a business, I sketch out a plan, map out the key differentiators and try to listen to what customers are saying.”

Yet almost contrary to this he says, “I am also comfortable in the knowledge that I will never be concerned about not having a job. I know that I am willing to take chances and be successful in whatever I put my mind to.

“A psychoanalyst would say I am achievement rather than ambition driven.

I don’t care about having an empire below. I want to achieve things.”

For all three men we spoke with, the risk profile to back themselves and the ability to see opportunities are key elements in their serial success. Brendan McKeegan has taken risk and seen opportunity in each business he has been involved with and created.

When he began with Hitwise in the 1990s he saw the need to understand

technology for commercial opportunity, when he started 90 Days, he set it up to engage other people who develop emerging technology to build their business and enter the relevant market.

For Brendan, being a serial entrepreneur (a term he doesn’t like), is about gaining traction in a business that can reach across a multitude of segments.

Like his contemporaries he felt the corporate world didn’t offer enough reward for effort, nor did he have the personality to play corporate ladder politics. Entrepreneurialism is not about climbing it is about building.

“Good entrepreneurs need to satisfy an interest. It’s not about wanting to build a stockpile of cash, it is about risk, education based on practical experience, learning from mistakes and capitalising on them and having an innate sense to read a situation better than others. To do this you need a certain amount of self belief and the ability to see the bigger picture.”

Brendan says it the nature of the serial entrepreneur to be able to shift focus to areas they haven’t explored.

“I had a broad view growing up, taking on whatever was around me.

There was no steadfast attitude, just an open attitude to what came along and the opportunities presented.”

In essence the serial entrepreneur does not see the differences between industries; they see the challenges and opportunities and for the most part can interpret the markets the right way. The serial entrepreneur is a risk taker and will be until they day they die. As Graeme point out the abilities, dreams and desires never wane. TB

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“The PercePTion SoluTion”

VIRTUAL OFFICE “A virtual office is a combination of different support services, providing you with the exact services required no matter where your business is.”

• Virtual Office clientele have the flexibility to match expenses with revenue fluctuations immediately, as the costs are usually variable.

• Virtual Office users have the advantage of receptionists (management of telephone calls), mail management, diary and appointment management, email management, Marketing, book keeping and invoicing, professional meeting facilities and administration duties.

• A Virtual Office user can reduce their environmental impact, as well as the personal negatives of a daily commute.

• A Virtual Office blends home and work to gain efficiencies in both. Office expenses are low, while the user’s professionalism retains the IMAGE of a traditional, high cost office.

• A Virtual Office can allow for low-cost expansion with no long term commitments.

• A Virtual Office mostly eliminates the traditional burden of health care, payroll, insurance, and rent also traditional time off (sick days, holidays, personal leaves etc • Expand hiring choices and provide a more comfortable working environment, less stress and a more balanced lifestyle while increasing productivity with time and money saved.

The new generation of entrepreneurs is embracing the Virtual Office instead of the traditional and incorporating the flexibility into their culture – Working Virtually is the future.

“our ProFeSSionAl TeAM Will Be PArT oF Your TeAM.”

Call & speak to one of our advisers NOW: 02 9994 8000 or email offices@serviced.com.au to create the right package for your company & receive your gift of the first month’s free service by quoting ‘thinkBIG Magazine’ Level 14, Lumley House, 309 Kent St Sydney NSW www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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from little things

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Positive outcomes are the product of working with one’s strengths, but this simple tenet seems lost when it comes to dealing with the problems ingrained in indigenous communities. Mark Grose, founder of Skinnyfish Music (SFM), is someone who has seen indigenous problems first hand. As the CEO of the Galiwin’ku Community Incorporated, the largest community in East Arnhem in the Northern Territory, Mark’s attempts at empowerment and community development were constantly met with bureaucratic brick walls and red tape.

“I had reached the end of the line with being frustrated at not being able to make things happen,’ Mark says.

“At the time, it was meeting after meeting. It got to the point where Aboriginal communities and government departments came to the conclusion that a successful meeting was an outcome.”

Looking to find ways to bring positive experiences into the community beyond the bureaucracy, Mark investigated several initiatives that could deliver social relevance. It seemed music was the most powerful; music could tell stories, create awareness and through empowerment bring about financial reward.

Yet, without a background in soundscape Mark needed to partner with someone who could tell a good tune from bad, but was also in harmony with the social impact he was trying to create.

So he partnered with Michael Hohnen, a classical musician turned music producer with a likeminded community attitude.

SFM, a small indie label that just happens to be the largest publisher of indigenous music, became the pair’s

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Big Things

labour of love. Established in 1999, SFM has, for the past 11 years, successfully created ways to interact with and empower indigenous people.

“When I met Michael and we talked about the power of music, it struck me that here is a vehicle with an instant impact in all communities,” Mark says. “It is a vehicle where the immediate outcome is creating music to make money and to influence the way people do things.”

Music not only reflects changing times and fashion, but it has direct influence on cultures; speech, actions and behaviour can all be modified by a powerful lyric or beautiful melody.

This is no less true of the music coming from indigenous communities.

“The more I looked at music and the impact of music, the more I realised that in most indigenous communities where there is anti-social behaviour occurring, the minute you listen to an indigenous band everyone’s focus is on the band and its performance. This creates positive outcomes.”

Action from inaction

The lack of a real government stance to fix the problems inherent in indigenous communities was catalyst for the SFM business model. Mark says although government departments and community leaders were always looking for answers, no one was taking matters seriously enough to make any strong decisions.

There was also the broader problem of good intentions going nowhere. While Australians are now more sympathetic to the plight of indigenous communities and their attempts at help are admirable,

solutions can be short term at best.

Through SFM Mark is attempting to bring in long-term solutions that have positive social and financial benefits.

“Everyone is so focused on the problems and issues that, in some weird way, we have developed a system that understands failure and how to deal with failure, but has no history or culture of understanding success.

“In government and community, failure is much easier to talk about and deal with because the solutions usually include injecting more money into the problem, but no one enacts the solutions properly.

“As a result of that, when you talk about the broader issues being better known across society, the things that matter have been left behind. Music is not the answer, but it’s one thing that can have a positive impact and we need to be grabbing hold of those pieces like sport and music that hold a community’s attention.”

Mark believes that although the problems are made more public, the awareness of community life hasn’t changed; the broader Australian community is finding ways to deal with failure by looking at the big picture rather than the vastly segmented pockets of real indigenous life.

It is an imperative that communities are dealt with individually; that positive outcomes are created in one community and then modelled in others.

“Instead of spreading the impact across everyone and trying to throw solutions and money across the board badly, let’s set up a standard of success that we can learn and model from.” www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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gs Grow

Music is breathing life into indigenous communities by empowering them to adopt systems that understand success not failure.

Jonathan Jackson spoke with Skinnyfish Music co-founder Mark Grose to discuss the impact of positive social strategies in indigenous life.

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M SFM has done this via music, Kevin Sheedy has had the same impact in the AFL sporting arena and there are many other unsung heroes making inroads.

“SFM’s ability to create positive outcomes is better than most other people’s because we are working with motivated youth who know that what is produced belongs to them,” Mark says. “Inherent in that is a cultural and social message which has an impact. So dealing with strengths instead of weaknesses means we are creating a successful model.”

Strength empowers people to do and be their best. SFM’s goal is to work with the strengths of its artists and as a result have a whole of community impact.

“Take any kid and keep telling them what they need to learn and you fail to foster what they can already do,” Mark says. “That’s why football and music are so successful at the community level, because the community can identify with those skills. They are skills inherent in the community.”

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ark and Michael with Gurrumul and the Saltwater band.

Finding the inspiration

The key to creating positive impact is to find skills in the community that have the ability to override the negative aspects of daily life and create a bright spark.

Aboriginal music has previously had a small impact in doing this. From the mid’80s bands including the Warumpi Band and Yothu Yindi and artists such as Kev Carmody made mainstream Australia take notice of what is going on in indigenous life. Unfortunately the ’90s were lean in terms of impactful Aboriginal music.

Most recently, a new artist has been uncovered who has not only had local influence, but is making waves in the European and US music scenes as well.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is considered one of the best indigenous artists to sprout from the roots of Arnhem Land. He is a blind artist who can often be found at the movies or seen riding a pushbike along dusty roads while locals call out directions. According to Mark he is the most able disabled person on the

planet and his universal appeal is due in part to his ability to connect with listeners at an emotional level.

“Gurrumul has broken the rules,” Mark says. “He doesn’t speak English or speak with journalists, but one of the issues that has made him accessible is that he isn’t confronting. He does not speak about landrights; he gives a depiction of who he is and where he is from. He’s achieved more than other artists who speak about indigenous issues because he has opened up a market that would switch off if they were listening to a protest song.

“His music has a greater impact because the 150,000-plus people in Australia who have bought his album (making it a double platinum, ARIA award winner) are sympathetic to his life. He could bring attention to issues like housing if he wished to, but in some ways that’s partly the responsibility of SFM. Gurrumul won’t do it, so it’s up to us to say to the broader community www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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.

‘don’t forget where he comes from’.

Gurrumul is not privileged. His housing is atrocious. His life expectancy is low.

His ability to earn an income outside of music is nil. He is exactly the same as people living in these communities.

However, his music has opened a much bigger door than someone standing up and shouting protests.”

With Gurrumul, SFM is not chasing a market, they are reflecting his talent and community, this tack means success goes beyond the number of records the artist has sold. Gurrumul has opened doors for SFM to launch into the European market where it is estimated he has also sold over 150,000 units. This is beneficial for all indigenous artists under the SFM label.

A deal struck with French First Lady Carla Bruni’s record label, Dramatico Entertainment will see the release of other catalogue artists into the European market.

It also afforded Gurrumul the opportunity to record a version of Every Breath You Take with rock superstar Sting.

The Dramatico deal has caused SFM to rethink its strategies.

One of the issues in indigenous communities is the lack of activity for young people. On a Saturday morning in Galiwin’ku there is no one taking their kids to football games or basketball matches. According to Mark this is an issue that drives the suicide rate and substance abuse.

“With Gurrumul’s success we need to have a bigger impact back into the community,” Mark says. “It’s not all about us or him, we need to take the community with us. We’re looking at setting up a foundation through the connections we’ve made and tap into those connections to create the funds we need to engage young people within these communities.”

“We want to start a foundation that will provide funds for long term sustainable activity like football clinics and music workshops. We don’t want to create one off events, we want to have the community manage the programs themselves and hold, for example, a football clinic every Saturday morning. We want to know that there is enough money there to pay some local guys to run that clinic for the next three years. If we can do that you will see a pattern emerge where the community sees something positive happening and young people know there is something going on. www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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“We are on the threshold with this foundation to do some fantastic stuff. The key for us is to show people that what they are supporting has a long-term impact because the situation for those communities is dire. The older generation is passing away at a ridiculous rate, but because they are passing away earlier they are not getting a chance to transfer the knowledge to younger people who need guidance.”

The Shires of these communities do have their own programs, but by all accounts they are hit and miss because community workers only provide a set amount of hours. SFM is looking for something permanent to engage community people. They have officially sponsored the Galiwin’ku Football Association.

“This sponsorship is to help increase participation by young community members in positive activity, to help build positive self image, to generate community pride in their well run football competition and to encourage other businesses to recognise the power of football to contribute towards ‘closing the gap’.

Further to this, SFM sees a greater role for youth in helping to run the league and spreading this enthusiasm across all communities.

“We want to pay the young guys to run junior clinics for boys and girls. From our business point of view we want to ensure that we can create activity: start with a couple of communities and create a model where one or two days a week of sustainable activity over a long period of time will actually show people it can work.

It’s just a matter of getting everybody in the community to participate.”

Deep Impact

SFM has put its money where its mouth is. The company is not only instrumental in providing a music outlet for the

community, but also in producing antismoking ads where community people tell community stories.

“The ads had an instant impact in the community where its members had a say in the message and how that message should be presented. This is a community message, made by community people about the dangers of smoking in indigenous society.”

Through the use of music and video, SFM is keen to show that these mediums can have a serious social impact and they are looking to have that impact beyond the indigenous societies of Australia.

Timorese artist Ego Lemos is the latest to join the stable.

“When we discovered his community activism we thought there was an opportunity to help an articulate artist who knows what he wants. For us it presents the opportunity to expand our community ethos and support Ego’s community projects. It’s early days, but we have worked out a scheme where we support a couple of projects in East Timor paying royalties back to the community.”

Mark is clearly motivated by the impact music has. He says if an artist has nothing to offer socially, he will not sign them. It is an ethos he has followed since founding the business. Since that time, SFM has helped bands establish their own businesses and record labels so that everything goes back into the community. Some bands may not be successful outside of Arnhem Land, but their businesses are self-sufficient.

In the early days SFM wanted to have a greater impact than they were able.

Today they are champions of indigenous communities, using music as leverage to promote artists, but more importantly promote community initiatives that nurture existing skills and create a culture of success. TB

T

imorese artist Ego Lemos.

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W E A L T H :

I N S TA N T W E A LT H

To Keep It, You Have To Chris Howard is an international speaker and coach, a best-selling author, prominent speaker, and the owner of Christopher Howard Training. chrishoward.com

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Give it Away

Instant wealth doesn’t happen by itself; the paradox is that you have to earn it and make the most of it.

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long with appreciating the material rewards of your entrepreneurship, it’s a gift to realise that you can create any dream that you have ever had.

Yet in order to hold on to this gift, you must give it away. You must share it with other people. That charitable intention is at the foundation of many spiritual systems. This creates another paradox: giving is not just charity. It’s authentic self-interest. When you teach, mentor, or coach someone, you learn along with the beneficiary of your gift. When you give something away, you become a better person. Your wealth increases as the wealth of the world increases.

This is true even at the most basic physical level. Henry Ford understood that when he gave his entire workforce a raise so that they’d be able to buy Ford cars. Andrew Carnegie went even further. He built thousands of libraries across America in order to create resources for wealth building on behalf of as many people as possible. He said, “Whoever dies rich, dies disgraced.” That’s not the kind of statement we hear from many of today’s billionaires, but it’s definitely worth pondering.

You may choose to coach and mentor and teach people inside your own organisation. Or you may choose to teach the next generation of entrepreneurs to go out and change the world in positive ways. Or you may choose to solve social problems by sharing the financial profits of your work. Best of all, I believe, would be to choose all of the above.

The lives of so many people are deprived because they’ve bought into the social hypnosis of playing small. That is, they’re living with the illusion of a zero sum world in which what one person has must necessarily deprive someone else. It’s not true! Your key to maintaining wealth, to living a rich life and to maintaining your own entrepreneurial power is to share everything. Pay it forward. Pass it on. Help

foster the same concepts that worked for you in other people.

Spread the gift of Instant Wealth with everybody you know. Share it with your family, up line, down line, sales team, co-workers, loved ones, and extended family. Share it even (or especially) with the people you like the least, because when you are doing that, you are stepping up from an inspired place of transformation. Then you will have a global vision of transformation for the planet that goes way beyond just yourself. Share this information with the world. That’s your challenge.

When you meet that challenge, your own transformation is assured. When you’re looking to gain freedom from habits that have held you back, one of the most important steps is sharing your information and your experience of transformation with other people. In teaching and sharing your experience, you keep your own transformation alive. This same principle applies to the techniques of wealth creation. You must share them if you want to keep them. You must give away this information in order to sustain your own transformation.

The biggest task before you now, therefore, is to find people who need the unique gifts that you have to give. Then serve those people, and always live on your entrepreneurial edge. Remember, If a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. Do this, and you will unleash your potential to become the person you were really destined to be—and the impact you make in the world can create not just a ripple effect, but a tidal wave that will have a positive impact on generations and generations to come. TB This article is from Chris Howard’s new book: Instant Wealth—Wake Up Rich! For more information on Chris or to purchase his book, please visit his new blog: www.chrishowardlife.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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W E A L T H :

Justin Beeton is the founder of JB Global Investment Services. jbglobal.com.au

MARKETS

Value:

Searching For The US Property Market There is an old saying that ‘the best time to buy is when there is blood on the streets’. Therefore, the first step to investment success is to buy assets when prices are low.

T

he time to buy assets is when many others are being forced to sell because they can no longer afford to keep the asset. In such times, assets are often sold well below their true values. The GFC in 2008 and early 2009 was a perfect example of this. Savvy investors who picked up shares when there was ‘blood on the streets’, are enjoying healthy gains.

How do you find value? The problem right now is that the sharemarket has recovered and is probably trading at close to fair value, with the ASX200 trading between 4,500 and 5,000 points. I’m not suggesting the sharemarket will not increase in value, but the returns achieved in 2008 and 2009 are not expected

to be repeated in 2010. So to achieve these spectacular results of the past 12 months, we are going to need to look elsewhere.

Fortunately for investors post GFC, not all asset classes have experienced such a rapid rise in value like the Australian sharemarket. Yet, there still exists opportunities internationally where asset values are still very cheap, you’ll just need to look harder and act faster.

To put my views into perspective I need to outline any conflict of interest I may have. I'm a stockbroker and share investor. I have been investing in shares since I was 14 years old and have accumulated the majority of my wealth from this asset class. I am also the founder and managing director of one of Australia’s fastest growing stockbroking and financial services firms. As such, I’m sure that it would not surprise you that I'm usually a little biased when participating in any shares verses property debate.

For now though I’ll put aside any bias, suck up any of my limiting beliefs, and state the facts that exist right now: we are on the hunt for value. If the time to buy is when there is ‘blood on the streets’ then the best asset class for you to buy now, I believe, is property. Not domestic property, but United States real estate.

Here are a few key points as to why I have deviated away from the sharemarket and now believe US property is such a good long term investment: • On average, US property across the country

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is still 60% below the prices paid just two years ago.

• Property prices are still trading at 1980s levels.

• Interest rates when borrowing to invest in US property can be as low as 3.4%.

• Rental yields are extraordinarily high.

• The US economy is showing signs of recovery.

For the past few years, the US economy has been in a crisis primarily due to the write down of sub prime mortgages and the negative flow on effect into the real economy. As a consequence, the US real estate market has been decimated.

The good news is that over the past six months the US economy and property markets have stabilised. However, property prices are still very close to the bottom of the cycle reached in late 2009.

With President Obama making strong fiscal polices, and the Federal Reserve controlling monetary policy to stimulate the economy over the past 18 months, the US property market is expected to recover strongly over the next few years.

Even Warren Buffett, in his annual letter to shareholders, suggests that the housing problems are behind us and the US property market is due for a recovery.

However, before you get to excited, you will need to overcome the usual problems that exist when buying international property directly including borrowing limitations, visa requirements, foreign currency risks, high fees, issues with real estate agents, tenants and complicated US land tax regimes. On top of that, you will probably need to travel to the US in search of your special piece of bargain priced dirt.

There is an alternative You can gain exposure to US real estate without any of the issues described above by investing in the Dow Jones US Real Estate Index. The index gives you exposure to diversified property across America. The index is 60% below those levels reached back in 2007 at the height of the American property market. By using the index you can also access cheap funding from 3.4% pa and enjoy income potential of up to 8.1%.

Why invest in property the hard way and take on huge risks that you can avoid. Take the easy option. To gain access US property without the issues above I have established a structured investment which gives you all the benefits of investing in the US property market without the usual risks.

With property prices in the US plummeting to levels not seen since the early 1980s, the US property market represents an outstanding buying opportunity. With the recovery in the US economy in full swing, interest rates at record lows and the Aussie dollar so strong, US property has never looked so attractive to Australian investors. For me, even as a passionate sharemarket investor, it is hard to look past US property when searching for value. TB For more information on investing in US real estate please call JB Global on 1300 522 644 or email info@jbglobal.com.au to register your interest.

House image courtesy svilen001.

If you don’t enquire about DubLi

You’re Nuts!

www.GlobalShoppingRevolution.com

Independent Business Associate 7725687 | Ph: 0413 67 2626 | dave@globalshoppingrevolution.com

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after he took a summer’s walk in the Alps and his dogs became covered in burrs. Holidays inspire us to think big.

Perhaps it’s time you got some holiday inspiration. You never know where it might take you or how much it might make you!

“For many, the hardest thing about taking holidays is simply making them a priority. Before you know it life has slipped by,” said CEO Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific, Barry Robinson, “But then what will you look back on with fondness? The times you spent working or the times you spent on holiday?”

As a solution to the missed holiday epidemic, many people are now turning to a popular form of timeshare called Vacation Ownership, as offered by Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific.

In fact Vacation Ownership has become one of the fastest growing sectors of the hospitality industry.

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Thousands are choosing Vacation Ownership, as a means of affordably securing tomorrows holidays today.

“Wyndham Vacation Ownership has over 820,000 owner families worldwide 43,000 of those are from the Asia Pacific region, and the numbers are growing,” said Barry Robinson.

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Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific holds regular presentations throughout Australia to explain the benefits of Vacation Ownership and showcase the resorts, and destinations available. To book a Vacation Ownership presentation freecall: (AUS) 1800 807 097 (NZ) 0800 448 949 (quote IH19BG) or visit: www.wyndhamvrap.com/ thinkbig. TB www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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BIGGER,

BIGGEST

Building

A New Metropolis If you thought the Burj Dubai stood tall, wait until you see plans for Miapolis. The proposed world's tallest building at 975m (3,200ft) high is potentially an icon building re-defining Miami as a cosmopolitan city, a worldwide tourist destination and an international financial centre.

P

lans have been floated for a new superscraper in Miami that could steal the world’s tallest crown from Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Despite Miami’s financial woes, having a reported 100,000 plus properties in foreclosure according to the Miami Herald, architect Kobi Karp has submitted designs for the $22 billion self sufficient development—a 'city within a city' planned for Watson Island.

There are several hurdles to get over including reports that according to Ronnie Krongold, co-owner of Jungle Island, which Miapolis is set to replace, city officials don't even know about the project.

If the building is green-lighted, planners believe the economic impact will be significant: 46,000 construction and 35,000 permanent jobs will be created, $200 million annual revenues for the airlines is predicted, $20 million annual revenues for the Port of Miami and $2.5 billion injected annually into the local economy.

Miapolis intends to be designed as a

high performance green building through a LEED certified project.

The centre would be on the cutting edge of sustainable design and the largest LEED-certified structure at any rating level in the United States.

The building will feature energy conservation and renewable 60% wind energy; modular green roof; greenhouse gas management; water desalination; storm water management; wastewater and solid waste management; transportation alternative fuel, electric trolleys; carbon emissions offsets and ecosystem management.

Once officials know about the project, there are several other major disadvantages to work through including how to manage air traffic. This is one problem the builders will have to work to overcome. At its current height it blankets the Miami skyline. Guillermo Socarras who oversees the Miapolis development is currently in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration to work

through the problems. The construction would necessitate the creation of a no-fly zone over South Beach and the Port of Miami, reports Miami Herald.

Other problems include Hurricane management, (there is an evacuation process) and what construction of a green building will actually do to the existing environment.

Miapolis would be a mixed-use, 160-floor building with an amusement park, a trade centre, an observatory, rotating sky-lounge, a shopping mall, restaurants, condominiums, a hotel and a marina.

The project has been around for 10 years, and could just be a pipe dream, but it seems developers are pushing hard to have their dream realised. If Miapolis does come to fruition it could be one of the biggest examples of successful thinking (and dreaming) we’ll ever see.

I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll cross my fingers for them. TB

Miapolis Numbers: Land area: 28 acres  Height: 975 m  Storeys: 160 64

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The media has recently slammed Generation Y for their lack of work ethic. To find out what business leaders think, Jack Delosa catches up with Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice, to find out how she turned this generation into her greatest asset and what Gen Ys can do to get ahead.

A Much Needed Boost “Every

generation needs a new revolution.” ~Thomas Jefferson

The Issue Recent media attention has labelled Gen Y (people born in the 1980s and ’90s) lazy, unfocused and disloyal. Articles such as Why Bosses Hate Gen Y and Gen Y Too Lazy and Unfocused to Hire have scattered the media at an increasing rate. With some companies going as far as to say they’re no longer hiring people in their 20s, it seems as if corporate Australia and the media are throwing their arms in the air when it comes to the issue of Generation Y.

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J

anine Allis is one person who has managed to turn the troublesome Gen Y into a strong commercial asset.

Founder of Boost Juice and the winner of several awards including Telstra Business Woman of the Year (2004) and BRW Fastest Growing Franchise, Allis has been listed several times in the BRW Young Rich List as a result of her entrepreneurial aptitude. She has also just sold a stake in Boost Juice to a US company for a cool $60 million.

So how do ambitious Gen Ys get ahead in a market which has labelled them ‘unhireable’ and what can corporate Australia do to take advantage of this growing trend?

The stats so far A study from SmartCompany, Roy Morgan Research and Dun and Bradstreet indicates that 70% of employers are dissatisfied with the performance of their Gen Y employees. 48% of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) also expressed disappointment with the communication skills of their younger employees. To make matters worse, 90% said that Gen Ys are more demanding than our counterparts and that we’re 79% more likely to ask for a pay rise.

Although this data paints a bleak picture for Gen Ys in the workplace, Allis believes it represents opportunity for industrious Gen Ys who are willing to defy the trend. It also presents an opening in the market place for organisations like Boost Juice who understand Gen Y, to recruit and retain the top talent of the up and coming generation.

“Our lawyers are walking around in board shorts,” Allis tells me, instantly indicating that she has a different workplace culture to most. “We try to create a fun environment. I don’t believe you should be judged on whether you wear a suit or not. A casual environment doesn’t mean a casual workplace, it’s far from it; it’s high performance.”

The problem “Most of them are coming in too entitled,” Allis explains of Gen Ys. “If I was a young marketer and I wanted to get involved with a brand like Boost, I would come into the marketing director and say, ‘I’m in, whatever it takes, I’m in.

I’ll work for one month for nothing and prove to you that you can’t let me go’.” www.thinkbigmagazine.com www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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Some of her highest performing employees came in this way, starting at the store level and working their way up, gaining a practical education of how the business works.

“Instead most of them come in and say, ‘I want $105,000 but I don’t want to work after 5:00pm.’ I think the mistake is they lose perspective of the fact that it’s a business and we have profit and losses.”

With Boost Juice, Allis has managed to create a youthful brand that not only attracts Gen Ys as customers, but employs them as the bulk of their workforce. Allis explains that although there may be a higher portion of Gen Ys that come into the workplace feeling ‘entitled’, it’s about recruiting the right people that are suited to the culture of your business. “We’ve got the right Gen Ys in the business. By getting the right Gen Ys and giving them a direction and a goal, that’s the answer.”

The myth With such a high emphasis being placed on tertiary education and good grades, SMEs and corporations can fall into the trap of placing too much importance on the grades of a student rather than the character of the person.

“I wouldn’t dismiss you because you don’t have a degree. If you had an MBA, great that’s nice, but I wouldn’t hire you because of it. I go by the attitude, the drive, the passion, the ability to succeed.

That doesn’t come with a degree, that’s inbuilt,” Allis explains.

She also indicates that she is not worried in the slightest that some companies hire purely on a grades basis.

“There are some who are old school, who won’t hire people without a degree. But I love those people because what that means is that these people who didn’t do a degree, these great people who will help me make my business successful, are free.”

When asked if the fact she left school at 16 years of age has ever put her at a disadvantage, she replies, “Never. Never once.”

The education Gen Y has drawn criticism due to a lack of practical experience in the real world. It is a downside which the most ambitious of the Gen Ys are overcoming through self-learning.

Having left school at 16, the vast

majority of Allis’ education took place outside the classroom. “Talking about university courses, I see lessons in mistakes. I did a $300,000 course in site selection. I did a $800,000 course in getting the right person to do brand. I’ve done a lot of courses to get to where we are today.”

Allis goes on to explain that education can no longer be viewed as something that happens within the four walls of a high school or university. University is fantastic, sometimes even necessary if you’re looking to become an accountant or a lawyer. However, this can’t be where the education stops. The Gen Ys who realise that the majority of their education needs to happen outside of those four walls, will ultimately break-free of the pack. Education in the real-world comes from making mistakes and gaining experience.

The opportunity According to Allis, recent media attention puts ambitious Gen Ys at an advantage.

“There are some amazing Gen Ys that are passionate and driven. They’ll make a lot of money and be highly successful because there’s less competition.”

The biggest challenge for companies is to find good people that will genuinely help them drive the bottom-line of their business. “The greatest challenge for the milk bar down the road is the same greatest challenge they have at BHP, and that is people.”

The revolution will come when a select few Gen Ys put their hands up as the achievers of the bunch. Because of the negative media attention around the younger generation, the ones that do stand up as leaders in their field will be very visible. “For those great people who are willing to do anything to succeed, you will be able to write your own ticket.” TB

Jack Delosa has been named in the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30, in Australian Anthill Magazine’s 30Under30 Publication. Jack has recently founded The Entourage, a community of Young Entrepreneurs committed to learning from the experience of the previous generation of top entrepreneurs.

Email: jack.d@jackdelosa.com.au Volume Volume 3.3 3.3

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T H O U G H T

L E A D E R S H I P

• Edited by Daniel G Taylor

The Leader Who Had No Title • by Robin Sharma As I write this, news has broken that the tough economic times may not be behind us yet. It's times like these that call for great leadership. Good leadership is competent. Great leadership combines competence with character.

Leader is a parable—of the recent business parables, the best—that tells the story of a businessman doing it tough who meets a wise mentor who teaches him how to become a great leader.

Anyone can be a great leader and everyone should aspire to that goal. To be a great leader, we must lead ourselves.

Why should someone follow an unworthy example?

Once we master ourselves, we must learn to influence those closest to us. If it doesn't work at home, why inflict our ideas on people in public?

When our ideas are proven we can take them into our organizations. Enough great leaders can change the world.

The “leader without a title” refers to the point that you don't need a position to create positive change in the world.

Start with yourself and work outward and you will become a leader worth following.

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Volume 3.3

Persuasion & Influence

The Luck Factor

• by Bruce Hilliard

• by Max Gunther

Sooner or later, we must persuade people. Persuasion shows how to do that with a group through powerfully persuasive public speaking skills.

Persuasion & Influence brings together all the elements that go into a persuasive presentation. It's not just preparation, although that's essential. You also need to consider how the audience will receive the information, in terms of their understanding and their energy levels, and how to deliver your talk in a way that effectively varies these.

As a professional speaker myself, I'm always keen to receive speaking titles to review and without a doubt, this is the best book on putting together a talk in my collection. Other titles cover the basics, which this book does too, but they lack Persuasion's sense of structure, knowledge of the audience, and the use of models so you can see how each element fits into the whole.

Persuasion is a must-have-this-rightnow-to-become-dynamite for professional speakers. But if you're regularly persuading people and would like to be more effective, this book will help you get what you want.

“Luck” sounds esoteric, like the weather; something no one can control. Some people are lucky (obviously!), others not.

Luck has been out of print, and its return is welcome. Max Gunther, a journalist, became interested in luck and went about understanding it in typical journalist's fashion: he wrote a book (think Think & Grow Rich but on luck).

Gunther explores scientific and occult theories about luck. He presents the cases for and against each theory. Wisely, he draws no conclusions, merely setting the arguments down.

Letting people think what they like about why people are lucky allows Gunther to put forward his five traits that lucky people share. Each trait is something a reader can develop and, therefore, become luckier.

One of these traits is the spiderweb effect—that well-connected people are luckier. Last week I talked about this point on a panel at La Trobe University: all my jobs—except for one—have come from people I know. You could say I've been lucky in work.

If you want to get luckier—or you don't think you can—try out The Luck Factor.

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5/18/10 1:00 AM

A Compass to Fulfillment

Spontaneous Evolution

Slow

• by Kazuo Inamori

• by Bruce H Lipton & Steve Bhaerman

• by Allyson Goften

Before he was a Buddhist priest, Kazuo Inamori was a successful Japanese businessman. Compass, while not a memoir, draws on Inamori's business life to look at the philosophy that guided him through his career. He started as an engineer, and when he became a businessman, he chose to use the same changeless core of personal values to guide his approach to business.

That changeless core included always telling the truth, even if that truth was about his potential (which he defines as “future ability”) rather than what he knew he could deliver based on his past. For example, he'd promise he could meet the manufacturing output needed to win a large contract, and when he had it, he'd figure out how he would make it work.

Too often we define ourselves by what we've been able to do before, instead of having faith in our future ability, and being disciplined and organized to reach our potential. Compass is an inspirational guide to character-based success at work and home that shows readers how to increase their potential.

When the world ends, it's not going to be what you expected. Evolution looks at how humanity has addressed the big questions of life: why are we here? Now that we are here, what do we do?

Like a roller coaster, the answers to those questions have zipped from the spiritual—for example, when the church was the source of answers—to the material, as in the age just ending, where science has been God. The ideal place, an age we're now entering, is a balance of the two, acknowledging and aligning ourselves with the physical and the spiritual reality.

You only need to look at the trainings run in big business to see the spiritual is creeping into capitalism and blending with our ideas about science.

If you're the kind of hard-nosed, show-me-the-numbers, just-the-factsma'am type, then you're going to have to learn what a balance of the spiritual and the material looks like.

Because the end of the world means we must master a new way of thinking you'll want Spontaneous Evolution as your guide.

You know why you should eat homecooked meals, but who has the time or energy to prepare great meals? Especially if you're a hardworking entrepreneur or employee and would rather use your home time to love your family and friends.

Slow rescues you with its gastronomically-gorgeous recipes for the slow cooker (aka a crockpot). Throw your ingredients into the slow cooker before you head out, and when you come home, your meal's hot and ready to be enjoyed.

Gofton grew up in a household where her mother (overused) one of the early slow cookers. That era is evoked through recipes like 1970s apricot chicken, corned beef, and baked apples.

Apart from the apples, within a week of getting my copy, I'd made oat scones twice (Slow also has recipes that complement recipes you make in the slow cooker) and pumpkin soup.

This winter, if you were to swing past my place during the day, you'll see the slow cooker bubbling away, making me something heartwarmingly home-cooked while I go about my business.

Writer and speaker Daniel G Taylor increases your future ability with the best success ideas in his weekly newsletter. Subscribe: daniel@danielgtaylor.com.

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BRIGHT

SPARK

Welcome to Bright Spark, a new section in the magazine that looks at breaking technologies and the world of the future created by those who are thinking big.

Welcome to the

New Real World

O

ne of the most exciting new technologies to emerge recently is augmented reality which uses your iPhone to layer information about your immediate environment.

Imagine you are a tourist walking through the streets of London, Paris, New York or Melbourne and you were interested in information about a particular building or piece of architecture, with augmented reality that information is now available through the camera lens of your phone.

Now imagine that awkward situation where you bump into an old acquaintance whose name you can’t remember. Just ask to take a photo and up pops not only the name of the person, but height, weight, date of birth and how many Facebook friends you have in common.

If you’ve seen James Cameron’s classic science fiction flick, Terminator, augmented reality is a similar technology to the machine’s ability to size his prey up through the computer embedded in his eye socket.

Augmented reality works by layering information about a physical environment onto the camera’s screen; essentially layering computer graphics onto a real world image. Any phone that supports Google’s Android platform has use of this technology.

Developers are currently in a race with each other to find ways to enhance our

interaction with the real world. Next time you go to a restaurant, you may be able to read a review before you walk in, or you may want to find player statistics at your favourite sporing event.

The technology that has brought augmented reality to mobile phones is called Layer and uses the phone’s Global Positioning System (GPS) to work out where you are and what you are looking at.

The possibilities for this technology are endless and go further than mobile phone use. The Sixth Sense augmented reality system lets you project a phone pad onto your hand and phone a friend without removing the phone from your pocket.

SixthSense relies on some basic components that are found in many augmented reality systems. These components are strung together in a lanyard-like apparatus that the user wears around his neck. The user also wears four coloured caps on the fingers, and these caps are used to manipulate the images that the projector emits.

SixthSense is remarkable because it uses these simple, off-the-shelf components that cost around $350. It is also notable because the projector essentially turns any surface into an interactive screen. The device works by using the camera and mirror to examine the surrounding world, feeding that image to the phone (which processes

the image, gathers GPS coordinates and pulls data from the Internet), and then projecting information from the projector onto the surface in front of the user, whether it's a wrist, a wall, or even a person. Because the user is wearing the camera on his chest, SixthSense will augment whatever he looks at; for example, if he picks up a can of soup in a grocery store, SixthSense can find and project onto the soup information about its ingredients, price, nutritional value – even customer reviews.

Augmented reality still has some challenges to overcome. For example, GPS is only accurate to within 9m and doesn't work as well indoors, although improved image recognition technology may be able to help.

People may not want to rely on their mobile phones, which have small screens on which to superimpose information and there is such a thing as too much information. Privacy concerns also come into play. Image-recognition software coupled with AR will, quite soon, allow us to point our phones at people, even strangers, and instantly see information from their Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn or other online profiles.

The future of augmented reality is exciting. Like all new technologies if it is used properly and not abused, it can be a great asset to business and life. TB

Augmented reality is a new and exciting technology that will allow us to dial numbers at our fingertips and discover information about people, monuments and destinations that we may not have previously known.

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Inspiring Stories Welcome to inspiring stories. Each month we’ll take a look at people from around the globe whose acts of bravery, courage, skill, determination and even scientific breakthrough have changed and inspired the lives of others.

Stemming the Tide Scientists in the United Kingdom have succeeded in extracting vital stem cells from sections of vein removed for heart bypass surgery.

These cells can stimulate new blood vessels to grow and potentially help repair damaged heart muscle after a heart attack.

Researcher Paolo Madeddu, Professor of Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine and his team in the Bristol Heart Institute at the University of Bristol, isolated stem cells from leftover veins that patients had agreed to donate. Tests in mice showed the cells proved able to stimulate new blood vessels to grow into injured leg muscles.

The procedure involves taking a piece of vein from the person's leg and grafting it onto a diseased coronary artery to divert blood around a blockage or narrowing.

"This is the first time that anyone has been able to extract stem cells from sections of vein left over from heart bypass operations," Professor Madeddu said.

"These cells might make it possible for a person having a bypass to also receive a heart treatment using their body's own stem cells.

We can also multiply these cells in the lab to make millions more stem cells, which could potentially be stored in a bank and used to treat thousands of patients."

Ending Poverty A one-year old non-profit organisation known as Nuru is using education to help communities, help themselves.

Jake Harriman, a platoon commander in the Infantry and an elite unit of Marines called Force Recon, formed Nuru. Harriman served two tours of duty in Iraq.

Nuru is setting up seed projects focusing on five areas of development: Agriculture, Water & Sanitation, Healthcare, Community Economic Development and Education.

Douglas Scott is Nuru’s chief marketing officer. Douglas says the company goes into a community, sits down with the people of those communities and listens

to their problems He said Nuru wants to know what the people feel they need to help themselves, instead of making the assessments and moving ahead on their own.

“We want mutual respect and we want to work for the same common goals,” Scott says. “We equip people with the skills they need to lift themselves from extreme poverty.”

Nuru teaches the people about water borne diseases, how they spread and how to protect themselves from them.

They dig wells in the community, provide a clean water supply and train people in how to maintain wells and fix them if the mechanisms breakdown.

Scott is confident that when a pump breaks down through Nuru’s efforts the community has the skills to fix the problem. This is one of the platforms that Nuru is building its reputation on.

The pilot project has been set up in Kuria, Kenya, and is currently establishing a baseline for the community.

Nuru has met with local leadership and are now identifying individuals to become trainers of trainers. They have also conducted trainings on agriculture and sanitation, distributed seed and fertiliser to farmers and begun work to improve the small business, education and health care opportunities in the area. 

Editor’s note: If you know anyone who has provided inspiration or hope to others in life changing ways, we’d like to hear about them. Send a brief letter about the person you would like to nominate and why you think they deserve to be mentioned in Inspiring Stories to: jonathan.jackson@thinkbigmagazine.com.au www.thinkbigmagazine.com

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