Paper Napkin Wisdom - Podcast And Blog For Entrepreneurs, Leaders And Difference-makers

The Johari window was created by two psychologists in the mid-1950s as a tool for personal, group, and relationship development. Peter Mellen uses the Johari window as the framework for discussing how individuals and groups act, and how communication and relationships can grow. There are four sections to the Johari window: Arena or Open: This is information we know about ourselves that’s also known to others. Façade or Hidden: This is information known to us that we do not share with others. Blind: This is information we don’t know about ourselves but others do. Unknown, or what Peter calls Generative Space: What neither we nor others know about ourselves. Peter says it is important to expand Arena in order to achieve successful relationships. The more we get to know about the other person, the stronger our relationship would become. These relationships could lead to successful results in groups. As Peter says, “As we grow Arena, we build trust stronger and more transparent relationships.” In the Façade are

This has nothing to do with an ACTUAL well. It has to do with the structure and support systems we need as leaders, as entrepreneurs. It’s such a roller-coaster of ups and downs out there that we need support to help keep us a little more level and a little more in the zone to be in flow … to capture the momentum around us. The challenge is that we tend not to do that when things are good – we’re so focused on the ride up that we forget about creating layers of support and structure for the way down. What does that look like? It looks like truly transparent relationships that are nurtured with peers, people who are doing what you want to be doing in life and business. This transparency needs to happen in a rhythm, one that gets quicker when you need it (like a heartbeat). But is also there when you don’t (also like a heartbeat). Focus on building meaningful relationships with people you aspire to be like, and show up with transparency – show up with challenges, opportunities, and problems that you haven’t fig

Small business marketing expert and entrepreneur Jim Palmer’s fifth book is entitled, “Stop waiting for it to get easier, create your dream business now!” The sentence explains itself. “There is no perfect time,” Jim says as he recounts his own experience: broke and heavily in debt, on unemployment for 15 months, suffering from a serious health issue. Jim started in a very low place, and he knows you should not wait for the time to be perfect to start your dream business. “It’s bigger than yourself,” Jim says about the importance of creating your business. If you have an idea and the resources, you should go for what you believe you can do. Now. He makes the analogy of sand in the hourglass. Time is running out, so stop waiting and act! Jim realizes that people are hungry for success, but you really can’t make your business successful immediately. It’s a time-consuming process, “like a pearl or stained glass, it doesn’t happen instantly,” he says. Everyone starts small and eventually they can reach their drea

It’s so important to build transparency in the life of the entrepreneur, leader, and difference maker. Too often we don’t hold space for our most important relationships, the ones with our spouses, life partner, and families. We need to save space for them, and us, to share our dreams, our challenges, our hopes. Structure time in the evening to debrief on the day, and more importantly to brief on the day before you start. This is not an opportunity to vent, this is an opportunity to share a vision for the day. At the end of the day, it gives you an opportunity to share what you’ve learned, what you won, and what you’re grateful for. Think of it as a night time huddle with your most important partner – the one you wake with and end with each night. Give each-other a safe and soft place to land after another busy day and support each other to remember and restate your family, personal, and even business dreams. There is nothing more intimate than those moments of peace before and after falling asleep. If you ha

Being second in command is tricky terrain to navigate; just ask Adventure Links COO Adam Trautenberg.  Co-host, Miranda Barrett joins Govindh Jayaraman to get the inside scoop on how this COO takes charge of a demanding job that’s constantly in flux. “The role is defined by the relationship with the CEO,” explains Adam. That relationship isn’t something that simply grew overnight. For him, “it was an organic experience…it built over time.” Trust is the most essential result of that developmental period. The two key components of their symbiosis involve him understanding his CEO’s vision, and, “her having the trust in me that I’ll get there.” With trust, comes candor: “Mistakes are open and discussed.”  For Adam and his CEO, it’s about finding solutions, not pointing fingers. “She’s not going to scream and yell, or fire me, or threaten to fire me…It’s a really honest and open communication line.” However, that doesn’t protect him from political pitfalls.  COOs often find themselves, for better or for worse, as

As leaders we discuss holding space for our team. We all recognize that we need to give them time and space to succeed, for their mindset.  How clear are you, as a leader, however, that you too need time and space? Former Paper Napkin Wisdom guest and Big Data Expert John Johnson says that we are bombarded by more than 30 tractor-trailer loads of information each day. With all that noise (and most of it bad news) we need to hold space for ourselves and for our loved ones. The people we share our homes with … Cell phones in our hands when we are talking to each other send the very clear message that the person in front of us is less important than whatever could be going on in the digital world around us. Protect the time and space for yourself and make your bedroom a no-cell phone zone. Yes, this might mean that you need to get a $7 alarm clock. So go get one. You can extend this policy to work. No cell phones in meetings – or in boardrooms. Or you can go even further and make your home a no-cell phone zone.

The title says it all: Think Big, Start Small. This is the philosophy behind many accomplishments and dreams that individuals and entrepreneurs bring to fruition. Every big endeavor requires a step-by-step process of achievement. Innovative ideas are the big picture, each step turns that idea into reality is the small. Thinking big keeps eyes focused on the prize. Small achievements along the way are their own mini-prizes. Andrew Davis shares his big dream story in today’s interview. From the time he was a child, Andrew wanted to work for the Jim Henson Company, with their famous characters, the Muppets. He began by doing magic tricks; he worked his way up to performing little puppet shows. Andrew dedicated three years to skills practice, and wrote thirty-six job query letters to the Jim Henson Company, letters he sent every month. He finally received notice. With no contacts and no formal idea how to achieve his dream, Andrew managed to land an interview. This is a real example of how to think big and start

Are you looking for uncommon results in your company? Or maybe just for yourself? There’s a structure to build the uncommon results you crave for yourself and your team and it starts with transparency. I’m not just talking about 2% or 5% growth from year to year. I’m talking about double digit year-over-year growth. Even triple digit growth! This comes from taking your SMART2 goals to another level by combining Process and Volunteered Accountability. What does that mean? It means having your Team opt into sharing progress on Priorities openly with others on a regular schedule. On top of that, they have to agree on how far someone can go with no progress and no problems. If there is no progress and no problems over a prolonged period of time, that should be a problem! Take your growth to the next level by implementing The Structure of Transparency and earn yourself some Uncommon Results!   I want to help you. Please go to www.PaperNapkinWisdom.com and sign up, we’ll send you the e-book that contains the secret

Being a good manager and effective leader is not just about making decisions on your own, but about understanding how much decision-making depends on the customer’s behavior. In this podcast, we talk with Chris McGoff, founder and chairman of The Clearing, who has been helping big brands and the federal government drive change and find success for 30 years. Chris provides a simple visualization of how managers divide their time: customers to the east, peers to the west, boss to the north, and staff and employees to the south. “Spending your time in each of the four places is not equal. Some places are much more important than the others,” Chris tells us. As a typical manager, we are taught to keep focus on all the aspects, which isn’t wrong, but some areas need more focus than others. What Chris focuses on is the importance of customers. When you spend time with your peers, boss and staff, without first and foremost spending time getting to understand your customers, you aren’t generating much power, Chris sa

Ever wonder how there are some small teams that just get it done time and time again? They are tight and nothing comes through the cracks in their communication, organization, service, or delivery? How do they do it? I call this the X Org Chart – or the Exponential Org Chart. It’s the way that teams (small and large) can create more dynamic and important communication, collaboration and accountability. It starts with the leader creating a strong sense of focus, aligning the team with it in a structure that promotes communication and collaboration, and finally momentum. You need to create action for The X Org Chart to come to life. Organizations that operate here, in this form, beat large competitors who are 10 or even 100 times their size because they have each-other’s backs. I want to help you. Please go to www.PaperNapkinWisdom.com and sign up, we’ll send you the e-book that contains the secret structure that will build more scalable, even exponential results than you had thought possible. You have so much

Tom Bilyeu, the co-founder of Quest Nutrition and life-long entrepreneur, chooses to focus on “everything being in my control.” While most people would agree in principle, they don’t often put it into true practice. Once you start working on the things that you believe in, it will not only be a motivating process, but will bring promising results. Much like the movie The Matrix, Tom’s philosophy is that “everything around us is a construct,” so by believing that everything is under our control, the choices we make towards the things we want to and can do become much more powerful and effective. Conversely, creating a web of lies in front of your eyes by not doing what you believe in leads to ineffective results. Tom also explains the usefulness of knowing when you are wrong and being open to other’s point of views. Even though it is good to have strong beliefs, sometimes what you are doing might not be as right as you think it is. Knowing that you might, at times, be wrong about certain things allows you to o

It’s vitally important for leaders to feel like that they can trust their teams. Trust them to complete their tasks, to be strong for the team, complete tasks well, execute on the priorities we have set individually and collectively. If we do this well, we are delegating tasks to them and they are getting them done. If that is going REALLY well – the team has a sense of ownership and they feel empowered. There’s another level to this though that is even more important, and that is Trust 2.0.  This sort of trust involves our team feeling like we won’t change how we feel about them, even if they get it wrong. In fact, we should wonder the opposite. We should be highly suspicious of the people on our teams that effortlessly get all their stuff done without any questions, or issues. In growing organizations we are always doing things for the first time – new things, that’s the hallmark of growth. So if we’re doing new things and not facing any, we’re either lying or hiding, or not trying hard enough. Leaders need

In this week’s Leading Behind the Scenes, Marlou Hermsen makes the case (without laughing) that those who wish for a better world should seek to, “CHANGE the world without being a smug twat.” If the statement makes you smile, and does not offend, it means you’re probably on the right track, because, as Marlou further explains, smugness, besides being a deterrent to team collaboration, is also a creative block. Collaboration is key to success, but when individuals are smug twats, they stifle new ideas and thwart joint ventures. According to Marlou, there are people who work for worthy causes to personally benefit — via the acquisition of money or notoriety. These types of gains can lead to smugness. Instead of seeking profit, she says, find a purpose. But, how can one not be smug when they have been successful? Easy. Reflect. Celebrate the small steps, but don’t lose sight of the big picture. Avoid superficiality. If one remembers that work is never done, the impetus to be smug will diminish. Despite wanting t

This is the time of year when so many of us start to take stock of the year that passed and the one that’s coming. It’s that time that we start to think about what could be for the year ahead. There have been studies done that show that most people only accomplish a small fraction of their goals from year to year. Yet there are others that do much much more. There’s a simple way that you can make more of your goals happen, and more of your team’s goals happen, that requires little effort from you other than setting up an uncommon structure for them that involves transparency and dialog around progress … the ULTIMATE leading indicator. Great teams do this way better than the rest … update your goals to SMART2 goals and make your results change like never before. If you want a structure to help you do this, I want to give it to you. Please go to www.PaperNapkinWisdom.com and sign up, we’ll send you the e-book that contains the secret structure that will build more scalable, even exponential results than you had

  If you’re a long term Paper Napkin Wisdom listener, you may remember Christina Harbridge’s last visit EPISODE 47, when we had a lively discussion about shifting focus towards things that are enjoyable. If you’re just tuning in, Christina has a very interesting background. She has co-authored software, built a company that hit national revenue success, practiced acrobatic swing dancing, been a NASA test subject, and collaborated to design several large-scale metal sculptures currently on display in San Francisco, Austin, and Toronto. Now, she is the CEO of Allegory, a company that provides group training, one-on-one coaching, behavior change, and company culture services. In today’s podcast, she breaks down why drilling down on context is crucial to good communication. Christina explains, “If I ask you for food and you hand me an apple, it’s because I wasn’t specific enough.” Taking it a step further, if she wanted a Granny Smith, she may find herself disappointed when you hand her a Golden Delicious for a

In a society where people expect things to materialize instantly, many would be entrepreneurs expect the same, as it relates to success. However, in today’s podcast, founder of RYSE Media, Jay Jackson discusses how his view of entrepreneurship has evolved over the years and provides tips for the next generation of entrepreneurs. “Some people dream of success, some people wake up and work hard at it every day,” he says. With the insurgence of social media and the desire for instant gratifications, Jay finds that many people aren’t willing to put in the work required to be successful. “When you see a successful person, aspiring entrepreneurs often don’t understand the steps it took to get them there,” Jay says. Growing up, he often idealized the wrong people and was headed down a different path until he found a mentor who changed his perspective. The process of fulfilling his dreams by founding his own magazine wasn’t easy, “Early on, I realized the importance of consistency. I try to pass that value along to m

Too often we get stuck. Caught. Stopped dead in our tracks. Usually we end up blaming ourselves for something we did or got wrong in the past. Or because we “wish” we were doing something else right now. Remember one thing: You are frekkin’ unstoppable … Remind yourself ever day, all the time. And take epic action … Move forward, you can do it. In fact, you’re the only one who can. Take Action is a short podcast, usually between 3 to 5 minutes long, and the focus is on the small, 1% improvements we can make in our businesses and lives. Small changes make a big difference! This podcast will help you make small changes that will change your world, so we can together save the world one entrepreneur and small business at a time! Based on The Book Paper Napkin Wisdom: Your 5 Step Plan to Life and Business Success … get yours now on Amazon or at Paper Napkin Wisdom.

As entrepreneurs, it’s often tough to take time to smell the flowers. Learning how to juggle endless to-do lists, a budding business and loved ones can be difficult for even the most seasoned entrepreneur. However, in this week’s podcast, Trackmaven’s CEO Allen Gannett explains why he is making it a point to take time to be appreciative. The 25 year old helms the fifty person B2B software company and managed to raise $26M. “I met investors who immediately fell in love with the business. There was a lot of momentum,” he recalls. Early on, he gravitated towards one of his investors and they began a mentor-mentee relationship. “As a young homosexual CEO, it was a confidence builder to find someone I connected with in a world where I wasn’t really fitting in,” Allen says. However, things took a turn when his mentor died unexpectedly. Stunned by the loss, he realized that he hadn’t been as appreciative of his mentor’s support. “It made me reflect on ways to appreciate those who have invested in me emotionally and

With recent public events on my mind, I’ve been paying a little more attention (and asking questions) of my female teammates, colleagues, and other entrepreneurs, leaders and difference makers and have been stunned to hear their stories of having to “work harder” to be heard than their male colleagues. I’m not saying this is everyone’s story – in fact I’ve been mostly oblivious to the issue in the bubble that is my entrepreneurial world. I say it’s time to draw a line in the sand and for men to ensure they #ManUp and no longer let their male counterparts, colleagues, and teammates to treat women in any lesser way than their male colleagues. I know that the events of the last week will lead to other women, in other walks of life, to come out and speak about what’s happened to them in the workplace. Let’s make sure they’re heard. And let’s end this … Take Action is a short podcast, usually between 3 to 5 minutes long, and the focus is on the small, 1% improvements we can make in our businesses and lives. Small

Abby Robinson is Atlas Corps’ Chief Development and Engagement Officer. Atlas Corps’ mission is to “address critical social issues by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and promoting innovation through an overseas fellowship of skilled nonprofit professionals.” She leads behind the scenes and works one step behind the entrepreneur, but is always in step.  Although “make it big” might be a phrase we normally think of as applying to the entrepreneur or top executives, when Abby says it she means, “Wherever, whenever, whoever you are, you can do your best and have an impact. I think that’s a good saying to drive one through life.” Making it big includes helping others grow as well, to be inspirational and help young people achieve. The key to being successful for Abby is by listening to the entrepreneur’s idea and creating her own system to get his visions and thoughts on paper efficiently. Seeing the bullet points and a timeline, she can create something achievable. Consistently, and that has buil