It’s one thing to give tours of your office.

But the big question, the ultimate compliment in disguise is, have other companies taken an interest in what you believe in?
A riverboat casino in East St. Louis, who believes that health trumps all, provides the convenience of an onsite medical clinic. Free consultations, free medications, free disease management support groups, for every employee, and their families, forever.
And ten years into their innovative program, Dr. Ken Rybicki, who serves as the primary care doctor, says that other companies are starting to take an interest. They’re starting to model their own healthcare programs after the Queen’s.
Not just to emulate the casino’s brand, but to echo the casino’s belief.
Instead of the casino selling the world on the quality of their springs; they simply give others the chance to jump on the trampoline with them.
How many people are interested in what you believe in?

If you want to become famous professional wrestler, it’s not about lifting more weights so you can beat the other guy.

It’s about getting Vince McMahon to like you.
Instead of hanging your fortunes solely on chance, you make friends before you make requests. That way, when the time comes to make your move, you’re not speaking from a deficit position.
You’re talking to people with a voice that’s anticipated, personal and relevant.
You’re not making a sale, you’re working to earn the privilege of a follow up conversation and the opportunity to reconnect over time.
Ding ding!

If we plan to earn people’s attention, we have to reward them for giving it to us.

After all, attention is the great commodity. It’s an asset to be protected, not a resource to be depleted. And it’s what every brand, every company, every organization, every website and every entrepreneur is killing themselves to obtain.
And because of that, because the chronic bombardment and high expectation for visual and visceral stimulation, customers are demanding that we justify their attention dollars every step of the way. That we repay them for participating in our brand.
But not in the typical way. This goes far beyond coupons, freebies and promos.
How are we helping people experience a joy that they don’t have in any other areas of their lives? How are we offering one time, limited edition, never before, never again moment that actually captures their imagination? How can we provide true exclusivity that they can get nowhere else? How are we, in a very small way, nudging the world in a positive direction?
Those are the real rewards.
That’s what brings people back.

It’s the battle for enoughness.

Once you’ve gotten the beast out of your system, filled all your ego holes and flushed all the selfishness away.
Once you’ve earned enough attention, approval, applause, respect, validation, celebrity and popularity to make you feel worthy.
Once you’ve achieved and produced and executed enough to prove to the world that you can do it on your own terms.
Once you’ve kicked your addiction to yourself and your body tells you that the buzz won’t have the same effect anymore.
You can finally say, from a place of pure peace, honesty, gratitude and liberation, that you’ve done enough to be okay with yourself.
And from that place, the possibilities are goddamn beautiful.

Riddle me this.

What do doctor’s appointments, getting haircuts, working out, tech support, taking pets to the vet, visiting the hospital, filling out forms, buying a car, sitting in waiting rooms and going to confessional all have in common?

They’re experiences most people have always hated.

And in every business, there’s a parallel experience. Some transaction, some activity, some part of the process that customers usually view as a hassle.

This is the golden opportunity.
Paddi Lund, a renowned dentist from down under, completely redefined the patient experience. In his office, there’s no reception desk, cappuccino machines, fresh baked buns for clients, thirty varieties of tea in fine china, and an overall vibe of happiness unmatched by any dentist on the planet. His team members never leave and his customers are clamoring to buy his services.

He turned a painful process into a pleasurable practice. He gave people an excuse to spend more time doing something mundane. And he proved that the dental experience doesn’t have to be torture after all.
I wonder what activity, that people have previously avoided as a badge of honor, you could make them obsessed with?

When you sell a commodity, you differentiate through the uncommon.

Language, purpose, emotion, education, interaction, technology, leadership, narrative, culture, platform, design, connection, interactivity, community, service, soul, support, responsiveness, honesty and humanity.
These are the features that distinguish your organization, these are the real reasons customers do business with you. Since there is never a shortage of competence, what’s scarce, and therefore valuable and remarkable, is this running imperative that drives your behavior, this nobility behind your work and the posture with which you approach your interactions.
Next time you’re thinking about beating the competition on price, try raising the value of your uncommon service.
Add something that cannot be bought or measured with money.
Otherwise you’ll just be another grain of sand lying on the beach.

The web isn’t just a connection machine, it’s a cutting machine.

We’ve traded analog dollars for digital pennies, and the smart people and organizations who are taking advantage of this trend are seeing massive dividends.
We’ve lowered the cost of gratitude, which means saying thank you to people has never been easier. How are you using social media as a hearing aid to become a hero on a moment’s notice?
We’ve lowered the cost of sharing, which means making our ideas spreadable through people has never been easier. How does your content give people bragging rights and increased status when they share it?
We’ve lowered the cost of generosity, which means giving ourselves away to people has never been easier. How are you delivering a daily gift to the world that builds up a huge surplus of goodwill?
We’ve lowered the cost of communicating, which means taking a risk and extending ourselves to people has never been easier. How can you quickly identify unsatisfied customers and reach out to help them?
We’ve lowered the cost of collaborating, which means taking a risk and extending ourselves to people has never been easier. How could you bring your humanity to the moment and find a new voice together?
We’ve lowered the cost of production, which means if you own a laptop, you own the factory. How will your organization come to power through its creations of code, not its construction of steel?
We’ve lowered the cost of engagement, which means the emotional labor of doing something difficult with people has never been easier. How can you appease problems and do marketing at the same time?
We’ve lowered the cost of distributing, which means making our work available to people has never been easier. How could you implement a pricing strategy that would make the competition want to come to your office and choke you?
He who cuts the most, wins.

We don’t even have to leave the house anymore.

Next time we want to watch movies, play video games, check out a book, do some shopping, attend a seminar, conduct a meeting, take a class, get a job, find a date, do some research, cast our vote, get in shape, eat a snack, start a business, prospect for clients, send a package, join a club or tune into the game, we just fire up our laptop, whip out the smart phone, slap down a tablet, and make it happen.
Unbelievable.
And yet, despite the unparalleled possibility that technology can provide, I’m still kind of wondering when our hunger for life beyond the screen will swallow our addiction to convenience.
I’ve said it a million times, the purpose of online is to get offline.
If we never endeavor to communicate beyond digital, if we never connect to each other by more than just pixels, we fail to experience the truest, highest form of human interaction.
Get out of the house.

Society flourishes when people think entrepreneurially.

When a natural disaster devastates millions of people’s livelihoods, the stories that touch my heart the most are the ones involving courageous people who don’t need permission to take action, the ones who don’t wait around for the green light from above to help those in need.

According to a recent article, The Red Hook Initiative was joined by about fifteen people from the Occupy movement who have set up infrastructure and logistics for running hot meal operations serving, hundreds of people every day, bringing in medics, gathering information and broadcasting calls for volunteers and supplies.
Real entrepreneurship isn’t about running a business, it’s about running the risk. In the words of Douglas Rushkoff, the biggest threat to the powers that be is anyone who occupies anything.
That’s the exciting part about thinking like an entrepreneur.
You are the powers that be.
It is that initiative, that instigation capital, that human will, and that desire to move forward, that make the world better.

Social capital is built through the hundreds of little actions we take every day.

Every encounter builds trust just a little bit more, contributes to our reserve of personal bonds, enables fellowship, enhances reciprocity, stimulates community, nurtures our connectedness and increases our supply of social opportunities.
Of course, that’s face to face.
What happens when digital enters the equation?
A few years back, the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication conducted a study that examined if Facebook was related to attitudes and behaviors that enhance social capital. And although their research showed that online social networks were not the most effective solution for social disengagement, they still found small positive relationships between intensity of social media use and life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation.
Considering social capital affects everything from productivity to depression to suicide to juvenile delinquency to test scores to government response time to divorce rate, I’d say we’re off to a pretty good start.
It might be digital, but it’s better than nothing.