Flossing & Success Habits

I want to let you in on a secret. I find it really hard to floss. I have an aversion to it. My gums bleed, it hurts and it feels altogether weird. 

In short, I hate it. Some people hate flying, hospitals and clowns. I dislike flossing.

Or at least I did back then.

In the past, I had to endure being reminded by my dentist each visit how important it is and all the really good reasons why I should do it. 

And up until recently, I ignored it. 

Frustrated by my inability to overcome my aversion to flossing, I decided to book an appointment with a dental hygienist.

At my initial visit with the dental hygienist, I recall it being very uncomfortable, painful, invasive and took a long time. The dental hygienist was very patient and politely suggested I make a habit of flossing.

She even gave me some floss to take home.

Determined to break this aversion to flossing, I booked in to see her again in six months as I was walking out of her clinic.

My goal was simply to floss more often. To start.

But how?

The tactic I adopted was to put the floss in my bathroom cabinet in front of my contact lens case. Each night, I would then have to reach past the floss to pick up my contact lens case and place my contact lenses in before going to bed.

This I thought would act as a daily trigger to prompt me to think about flossing and hopefully execute.

So what happened next?

At first nothing. The tactic failed miserably. The awkward thought of flossing was still greater than the desire to adopt the new habit.

But the daily trigger of reaching past the floss to pick up my contact lens case continued.

And then one day I picked up the floss and flossed. Two days later I flossed again.

I’d broken the deadlock.

Of course I’d be tired and miss nights. And like any new habit I’d fall back. But the positioning tactic reminded me each day by bringing the habit back to the forefront of my mind.

Slowly but surely I would floss. Several nights each week.

And what’s happened since?

I went back for my six-monthly visit to see the dental hygienist and was surprised at how easy, painless and quick my next visit was. She was very complimentary on the state of my teeth and gums. The Dentist also came in for a quick check of my teeth, smiled and gave me the all clear. 

This of course validated my adoption of the habit of flossing.

So what can we learn about success habits from flossing?

Quite a lot I think.

I had a deep-seated aversion to flossing so I introduced a strategy around how I would adopt it. I changed things up by booking an appointment with the dental hygienist. I accepted the floss that she gave me with a promise to her that I would try and floss more often. 

I adopted a key tactic that would act as a trigger each day by positioning the floss in the bathroom cabinet. A daily physical reminder to floss. 

I was open to adopting a new habit and forgave myself when I failed knowing that I would be brought back by the trigger on a daily basis. 

The other key tactic used was to book my next visit with the dental hygienist literally upon walking out of my appointment. I didn’t leave the re-scheduling of the next appointment to chance. This placed an onus on me that I would be going back and there would be inbuilt accountability when she checked on my progress. 

Combining the micro strategy of introducing a sequence of small incremental changes on a daily basis with the macro six-monthly strategy of the dental hygienist visit was critical.

And while I don’t floss 365 days a year, I floss more days than I miss. 

I still aim to make this a daily habit and I am optimistic in achieving this goal. I have a strategy and I have implemented it. 

I’d love to hear what challenge you’ve had in adopting a new success habit on my blog or on social media. 

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Thirteen Traits of the world's best creators

I must admit to being fascinated by the traits and rituals of the world’s best creators. To be the best in the world, you have to be different.

I study these daily traits and rituals. Many provide insight to genius. Others are completely useless, indulgent and can be discarded.

But to do great things creatively takes talent, flair and often a ‘devil may care’ attitude.

I’ll leave you to make your own choices of which of these daily traits and rituals exhibited by the world’s best creators are useful to you.

        1.    Knowledge of one’s biorhythms

Know when your body and mind works best. Are you a night or day person? Or both. Do your most important work when you are at your best throughout the day. Jackson Pollock liked drinking so he rose at 1pm for breakfast before commencing his painting in the afternoon.

        2.    Meditation

One of the big discoveries is that so many highly successful people meditate. There has to be something in this. David Lynch has done transcendental meditation daily for 33 years.

        3.    Sleep
The vast majority use daytime naps as a powerful tool to sharpen creativity. 

        4.    Walking

Going for walks to aid the creative process is a well-known ritual. Steve Jobs was known for holding ‘walking meetings’ with key people. Charles Dickens went for three-hour walks while crafting plot and character.

         5.    Indulgence of eccentricities

Confident creatives indulge their eccentricities. Truman Capote only wrote in bed. Steve Jobs had a helper hide a cheeseburger in a tree outside at 3pm each day regardless of whether he was there.  Freud had his beard trimmed every morning at his home by a barber.

        6.    Daily Goal

Many successful creatives have a daily goal that they set and drive themselves to meet daily. Steven King writes at least 2,000 words every day including holidays and his birthday.

        7.    Social Interaction

Social interaction is key to daily rituals in many cases. Andy Warhol famously spoke to his longtime friend and writing collaborator for one to two hours every day. He would painstakingly outline the prior 24 hours of his life and share gossip and pop culture. The friend would take notes and return it typed up to Andy as a diary journal.

        8.    Strict Routine

A strict routine is common but appears a particularly strong trait of composers. Strauss, Gershwin and Schubert all worked grueling schedules. Life was shorter then, and with so much to do, creating great work required a strict routine. 

        9.    Completion

Completion is the final step in a creative work. This is key. Charles Dickens was known to have a business-like regularity to his creative process.

        10.    Changing Themes throughout day

It is a common thread that many of the most successful creators adopted a routine of ‘changing themes throughout the day’. Without the convention of a 9-5 imposed world, they were free to run their own schedule. I am amazed at how these daily schedules packed in so much work, but still included a wide variety of other activities. Charles Darwin’s typical day included research, writing, walking, napping, reading, letter-writing and backgammon consistently for forty years with few exceptions.

        11.    Planned Distractions

Aware of the challenges surrounding the creative process, great creators scheduled what I’d describe as ‘planned distractions’. These planned distractions would be visits to the village, social interaction, walks, appointments and personal affairs scheduled to break up the rigor of the work. Woody Allen scheduled extra showers throughout his days while writing to assist with the creative process.

        12.    Vices

And oh do creative people have vices. Alcohol, cigars, drugs and sex are spread liberally through their memoirs. Do vices help or hinder?

        13.    Selfishness

To be truly great as a creator requires selfishness and indulgence. Producing great work requires disciplines beyond the normal man or woman. The time and commitment required to be great involves sacrifice. Many of the great creators had long suffering family and friends who had to tolerate their eccentric personalities, selfishness and indulgences.  

If you are interested in learning more about the habits of not only creatives, but a wider range of successful people, I recommend Tim Ferriss’ Podcast The Tim Ferriss Show and the book Daily Rituals – How Artists Work by Mason Currey.

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

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How does the world see you

Back in my days as a young professional one of the firm’s partners caught me off guard when he gave me some advice.

I remember him saying this to me.

 “Don’t tell HR this. But the conventional wisdom about focusing on your weaknesses is BS. By now, your weaknesses are never going to be your strengths. My advice to you is to direct almost all your energy towards your strengths. Because it is your strengths that people are going to pay you for and your weaknesses, even with improvement, will never be better than others that possess those same weaknesses as strengths.”

I was 27 and little did I know I’d be in business myself in just a few short years.

This advice was counterintuitive at first. All my professional life up until then I had bought into the mindset of improving on my weaknesses. This is noble, and to a certain age, the right approach. However, probably in your mid to late twenties and after, it’s time to take on board this sage advice passed on to me.

I’ve recently read Sally Hogshead’s best-seller How the world sees you – Discover your highest value through the science of fascination. It has a compelling message and I urge you to read it. 

Here is an intro.

How is your personality most likely to impress and influence the person sitting on the other side of the table? Once you know what makes you valuable to others, you’re more authentic and confident, and more likely to make a brilliant impression. 

You’ll be able to confidently and authentically communicate, based on your natural personality advantages. To become more successful, you don’t have to change who you are. You have to become more of who you are. HOW THE WORLD SEES YOU reveals who you are at your best, so you can create better relationships, grow your business, and become intensely valuable to those who matter most.

The book is based on research conducted by Kelton Research on Fortune 100 Companies. The research focused on over 1,000 Americans based on understanding the relationship between fascination and decision making regarding brand choice, careers, relationships and personal branding. 

The book identifies 7 advantages of fascination:

•    Innovation
•    Passion
•    Power
•    Prestige
•    Trust
•    Mystique
•    Alert

While all of us have elements of each of these seven primary archetypes, we have a dominant archetype. We also have a secondary archetype within the seven advantages. The combination of our primary and secondary archetypes determines one of 49 personality archetypes (7 primary advantages x 7 secondary advantages).

Knowing your personality archetype helps you to focus on what makes you most fascinating to the world. This helps you to spend time on your advantages. Knowing this advantage provides an edge and can make you more successful.

There is a Fascination Advantage Assessment for free included with the book (you can purchase online but it costs more than the book) which provides an assessment of your personality archetype.

I took the test…… Spoiler alert!

My primary advantage is INNOVATION and my secondary advantage is PRESTIGE.
INNOVATION + PRESTIGE = THE TRENDSETTER 

Here’s what the book says about The Trendsetter as a personality archetype:

Trendsetters prefer breakthrough to incremental innovation. Their ability to reformulate products, processes and business models is a distinct advantage. They impress with their intellect and inventiveness.

You’ll like to turn to Trendsetters in uncertain times. They are able to see opportunities where others see only threats. They’re able to turn a company’s weakness into a strength by adapting your product offering to changing conditions.

Trendsetters’ implement change with determination. They have an ability to see things in a different light. They change your perception of what business you’re in.

Understanding your personality archetype is powerful as you begin to strategize ways of utilizing your fascination advantage. The book also explains how to work with other personality archetypes. 

And finally I discovered who my kryptonite archetype is – MYSTIQUE – the personality archetype that I find most challenging to deal with.

This stuff is great to know. 

So I recommend you buy the book How the world sees you by Sally Hogshead. The book includes a free personality profile. You can learn more at www.howtofascinate.com 

I’d love to hear your personality archetype so please post it on my blog or social media.

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

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Cheers, Darren K Bourke

How knowing the Birthday Paradox influences business risk

You’re at a party when a stranger approaches you and challenges you to solve a problem. 

How many people have to be at a party before there is a greater than 50% chance a pair of them share the same birthday?

What’s your guess?

80?

150?

This question is referred to as the ‘birthday problem’ or ‘birthday paradox’.

As humans we tend to dramatically overstate or understate the probable chances of an event occurring. 

This inability to accurately estimate the probability of an event occurring also extends predictably to business owners.

The answer to the Birthday Paradox is 23!

Yes that’s right. Just 23 people in the same room. I won’t go through the math but you can check wiki to see the numbers. There are 253 possible pairings of birthdays from the 23 people. 

Interestingly, a 99.9% chance of a shared birthday is reached at just 70 people.

The Birthday Paradox is not a paradox in the sense of leading to a logical contradiction, but it is referred to as a paradox because the mathematical truth contradicts your intuition. An intuitive guess by most people of the probability of how many birthday pairings are shared between 23 people would be much less than 50%.

So what can the Birthday Paradox teach us about business risk?

Next time you are assessing a start-up opportunity, a new division or a new product/service line – conduct the following analysis.

1.    Estimate the percentage chance of the opportunity succeeding. For example, an App might be a 5% chance, a new division might be 20% and a new product/service might be 50%.

2.    Estimate the amount of sales revenue you might generate if it were a success – not blue sky or bust – best guess on balance. This might be say $100,000.

3.    Multiply the estimated percentage chance of the opportunity succeeding by the estimated sales revenue generated. For example, 20% chance of new division succeeding X $100,000 sales revenue = $20,000

What to do with this calculation of $20,000?

Using this example, I suggest that you consider not spending more than $20,000 (make sure you include time and money) on your R&D, due-diligence or cost of production in relation to this business opportunity.

This is a baseline calculation of your risk threshold, expressed in dollars, for that project.

The idea is to try and overcome the notion of blindly spending time and money on an opportunity without assessing risk. In applying a guiding formula you at least objectively assess business risk without regard to the commercial question being ‘what is the comparative likelihood of future sales revenue exceeding time and money spent on the opportunity’.

I accept this calculation is far from perfect (being based on estimates) but it at least forces you to consider the components and the risk/return play on any opportunity beforehand.

The Birthday Paradox reminds us of our failings in stopping to assess risk objectively in comparing costs and returns before we naturally launch ourselves into action as entrepreneurs.

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!

Cheers, Darren K Bourke

Adopt a handful of simple forever disciplines to Leverage sustainable success

In this final *-Part of this Four-Part Series on Sustainable Success, I introduce the Fourth Moon of Leverage. 

In The Fourth Moon, I talk about the Fourth Moon of Jupiter, Callisto, having an ancient crust and a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Scientists believe the atmosphere on Callisto is constantly replenished by the slow sublimation of carbon dioxide ice.

The ancient crust of Callisto represents establishment and maturity. 

Callisto’s replenishment of its atmosphere might be compared to the successful business owner. With a proven and established model for success, the Fourth Moon business owner can replenish their reserves should they need to. They are confident that they have the self-sufficiency to sustain and achieve success and have freedom in their life choices. 

So embrace the Fourth Moon metaphor and adopt a handful of simple forever disciplines that can leverage sustainable success.

But be patient in your expectation around change and business improvement. It took you years, if not decades, to adopt the habits and views you hold today. There is some serious re-engineering of your hard drive (your head that is) to change this significantly. There will be obstacles and setbacks. Not everything will work out, I assure you.

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”
Galileo Galilee

If you are lucky enough to reach the Fourth Moon, don’t become complacent. Continue to focus on the development and improvement of your Strategy, Implementation of this Strategy and Maintenance of this Strategy. If it needs tweaking or changing up, proactively re-orbit the first three moons before returning to the Fourth Moon. This discipline will create the ultimate Leverage you seek by allowing you to return to your activities of choice on the Fourth Moon, confident in the knowledge that you are in total control and that you have created a model for sustainable success. 

If you haven’t signed up for your free Giveaways that include videos on Leverage, sign up in the top right hand corner here www.darrenkbourke.com and you can log in (orange Login button) to access them under “My Content”.

That concludes this initial Four-Part Series on Sustainable Success. I hope I’ve managed to introduce The Fourth Moon metaphor to you clearly. If you haven’t already purchased The Fourth Moon yet, you can buy the book here http://www.darrenkbourke.com/shop 

I hope you now have a basic understanding of The Fourth Moon metaphor and are aware of First Moon thinking on Strategy, Second Moon thinking on Implementation, Third Moon thinking on Maintenance and importantly Fourth moon thinking on Leverage.

Future blogs and social media posts will widen into a broader range of content aimed to challenge your thinking, play a bigger game and propel you towards sustainable success in your business and personal life.

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I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.

Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!

Cheers, Darren K Bourke