30sec Tip: The Secret to Success

The secret to success is… Is not secret. It’s called work your ass off and find a way to add more value to people lives than anyone else does!

We’re all in a hurry, it seems. The pace of life has increased and rushing through our days—through our lives—has now become the norm. We want everything now; happiness now, success now, health now, love now. Not surprisingly, this is the way we approach our goals and life changes as well. Patience is hard to come by: we expect results now, and if we haven’t reached our goal yet, it must be because we’re not working hard enough or fast enough or we’re lazy and undisciplined.

The Number One Secret to Life Success: Baby Steps

Brian is a Lifehacker who covers all sorts of tips for life. He is also fascinated with new technology. Contact him at brian@lifehack.org

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A Secret to Dad Greatness

I have six kids, ages ranging at the moment from 7 to 20. And while I’m not perfect as a father, I have learned a thing or two from my 20 years of service.

I’ve learned to pay attention, to give them space, to accept them for who they are, to be a guide and not a director, to help them through teachable moments, to love reading a book with them, to walk and talk when we have problems, to give hugs when they are in pain and hugs when they experience a triumph, to set limits and then remove the limits when they’re excited about something.

It’s a lot to learn, a lot to tackle at once.

And so I’ve boiled all of this down to one daily practice.

One thing to help you be a great dad.

Appreciate your child’s love for you.

Do this every day, whenever you see your child, and even when they’re not around. This love for you is a gift, and it manifests itself in so many ways: in the way they want your attention, your affection, your approval, your pride in what they do. In wanting to spend time with you. In watching you to see how to live life. In learning from you whenever you talk to them.

This daily practice, of appreciating their love for you, will make your life better. It will help you be the role model they need, because someone who appreciates the love of others is a beacon of gratitude and humility and mindfulness.

And when you appreciate their love for you, you realize that you have a boundless source of happiness in every moment. And you are a boundless source of happiness for them.

No matter what happens, from tantrums to heartbreaks to injuries to rejections, this love is there for you.

I am incredibly grateful for the love of my kids (some of whom aren’t even kids anymore).

They look up to me, and I in turn learn from them. They are funny, and excited, and curious, and affectionate, and fun. I’m lucky to have them in my life, and I wouldn’t be the man I am today without them.

Thank you, my loves.

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The Best Kept Secret That's Right Under Your Nose

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The Number One Secret to Life Success: Baby Steps

We’re all in a hurry, it seems. The pace of life has increased and rushing through our days—through our lives—has now become the norm. We want everything now; happiness now, success now, health now, love now. Not surprisingly, this is the way we approach our goals and life changes as well. Patience is hard to come by: we expect results now, and if we haven’t reached our goal yet, it must be because we’re not working hard enough or fast enough or we’re lazy and undisciplined.

Hard work and discipline are certainly valuable traits when trying to make changes in our lives or attain important goals, however, even diligence and persistence are often not enough to get the results we’re looking for. The lack of an effective strategy is often our greatest obstacle. In our impatience for results, we try to change too much at once, and expect too much of ourselves, and this impatience usually leads to frustration and failure. This is why most people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions.

Sometimes we don’t even take the first step because our dreams, goals, and desires seem so overwhelming, so intimidating, and so unachievable that we give up before we even start. Maybe we just need to try a different strategy. I’m reminded of the popular saying, “Life is a marathon, not a sprint.” That same philosophy can be applied when we’re attempting to make changes in our lives: it’s true of career advancement or building a business, educational goals, weight loss or fitness, organization, habits, and certainly when trying to build or change relationships.

This may be the simplest, yet the most effective strategy we can use, as consistency, and learning to build on small victories are the keys to success.The happiest and most successful people will tell you that they have achieved their level of life and work success by taking small steps, and making one positive choice after another.

Look for the mini victories

What is a mini victory? A mini victory is a realistic, quickly-achievable, smaller portion of a larger objective. This bite-size goal will vary depending upon our specific intention, time frame, and motivation.The reason this strategy works is because we are able to see tangible progress, rather quickly, so we feel a sense of accomplishment and are encouraged to move on to our next mini goal, using the small successes as stepping-stones to larger change.

Consider health goals. When we are attempting to lose weight, be more fit, or achieve better health, it’s much more effective to set intermediate targets than to fixate on what might be a massive change.

Set a mini-goal of losing 5 pounds each month, rather than a goal of 60 pounds in a year.Swap out one unhealthy snack for piece of fruit, or eat one vegetarian meal a week, and replace one soda or cappuccino with a glass of water. When we try to eliminate all sugar, or soda, or junk food from our diets, we usually fall off the bandwagon within the first week or two. That’s not a very good success rate.Train to run a 5K, then a 10K, then a half marathon rather than training for full marathon all at once. This advice holds true even when tackling the full marathon as well: many successful long-distance runners say that they don’t run 26 miles, they run 1 mile 26 times.

Most of us want career success, but it usually comes one rung up the ladder at a time.

Take one course at a time.Achieve one certification.Improve one skill.Make a few new contacts at each event, conference, or gathering and slowly build your list of business contacts.

It’s better to cultivate good relationships with a small network of contacts, and then gradually expand that network.

We all want to be more organized, but when we attempt to organize or de-clutter our entire home or office all at once, we usually get overwhelmed and don’t finish the project. Instead, when we try to organize one area at a time, change one messy habit, or develop one productive routine, we have better success. Tackle one project, and then add in another change when the first one is well established.

Make a master list of everything you need to do.Eliminate one or two piles.Clear off your desk or the kitchen counter.Sort through old mail.Clear out your email inbox.Start cleaning off your desk at the end of the day.Study or read for one hour a day.Gather the empty cups, bags, and papers each time you get out of the car.

This strategy is useful in almost every area of life, and when trying to achieve nearly any goal. Just work towards one mini-victory at time and make sure you celebrate each achievement in some small way—a little success goes a long way in propelling us to the finish line.

Goal: It’s never too old for me to take baby steps. Tweet and show your determination.

SEE ALSO: 8 Steps To Continuous Self-Motivation

Featured photo credit: Running baby girl via Shutterstock Royale Scuderi is a life fulfillment specialist, success consultant, and writer who specializes in cultivating human potential. She excels at helping others achieve growth, lasting change, professional success, life satisfaction, and clarity of purpose. Her passion is asking questions that matter and finding solutions that work. As owner of Productive Life Concepts, she uses her expertise to help individuals and businesses maximize their potential. Find out more at Productive Life Concepts.

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The Secret Weapon: A No BS Approach to Productivity

I’ve always known the folks behind Brain Toniq were into getting things done, but I had no idea that they were going to build a secret weapon to create a “no BS” approach to do so. But they have, and it’s a pretty compelling system.

Here’s what The Secret Weapon is, as described by its creators:

The Secret Weapon is a free organizational methodology for both professional and personal aspects of life that re-organizes emails, ideas, and every to-do big and small into one system that stays synchronized across a person’s computers as well as their smart phones.

The power behind The Secret Weapon comes from the way it takes the best aspects of David Allen’s popular GTD methodology and bringing them together with what is perhaps the most popular productivity application in the world, Evernote.

It’s really quite brilliant because Evernote is one of the best tools for capturing ideas, notes and the like because of its ubiquity. It is available on virtually every platofrm, and syncs across all of them. That means you can be literally anywhere and Evernote can capture everything you throw at it, locking it down for you to access when you want – whether that is now, soon, or later on.

The Secret Weapon is a system that allows you to better sort out your tasks wherever you want within Evernote (largely based on notebook orientation and tags) and lets you focus your attention on the long-term aspects of your work and life in a much more visible way. And since all aspects of The Secret Weapon are free, the barrier to entry is much lower than other systems that profess to accomplish the same mandate.

Video walkthroughs are available on The Secret Weapon website that outline the approach and the front-end work you’ll need to do within Evernote to make The Secret Weapon take shape. And once you’ve fully implemented it, all of the ideas and tasks in your life await you in a better (and safer) organized manner — and are put into the proper contexts as well. You control The Secret Weapon, which allows you choose when and where you will focus on your ideas and tasks. With The Secret Weapon, the idea is that you’ll achieve that ever-elusive Inbox Zero as a result – and you’ll wind up reaching your long-term ambitions at a far more or efficient and effective way.

Well, I’m going to put that theory to the test.

I’ll be putting The Secret Weapon approach through the paces over the next 30 days, so watch for a follow-up on this in our “30 Days With” series at Lifehack sometime next month. Hopefully after reading that, you’ll know if this is a weapon worth having in your arsenal.

Photo credit: The Secret Weapon

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.

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“The Start-up’s Secret Weapon: Contests” or “How to Turn $100K into $12,000,000″

Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify. How did they turn a $100,000 prize into $12,000,000 in transactions?

In the world of magazine articles, one of my all-time favorite headlines is “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Meta” from the MIT Technology Review, a feature about billionaire programmer, Charles Simonyi. Charles designed Microsoft Office and is outstanding at looking at programming as different layers of abstraction.

How can we raise our perspective from 5,000 feet to 30,000 feet to learn a few things? This post will do that with competitions.

Today, Shopify, a start-up I have advised since 2009, announced the winners of their Build-a-Business Competition, featuring a grand prize of $100,000 cash. Winners were determined by combining their two highest-revenue months in an 8-month competition window.

I want this post to show two things, and the second is where meta comes in:

1) How the competition winners won and key lessons learned in taking their products from ideas to profitability. This includes manufacturing, marketing, PR, and just about everything in between. I’ve looked at these types of lessons before.

2) How Shopify has used these competitions to build their own business several-fold and cross the chasm from early-adopter to mainstream. This is something I’ve never written about…

To avoid any linguistic nitpicking, I’m using the definition of “meta-” from Wikipedia:

Meta- (from Greek: ???? = “after”, “beyond”, “adjacent”, “self”), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.

Let’s address creating competitions first and winning them second.

This post might have a few typos in it, as I’m at the hospital with family. If you like, please point them out in the comments and I’ll do my best to fix them.

Let’s look at the stats first, and then lessons learned.

THE FIRST COMPETITION

Tobi, Shopify’s CEO, and I hatched plans for the first Build-a-Business competition over the phone in 2009. It was announced in December 2009 on my blog, and–as you can see from the afterword and scrambling in the initial post, which I suggest you read–it wasn’t perfect.

The imperfection didn’t matter, as nothing is perfect the first time, especially if you’re ambitious. The protocol is: ready, fire, aim. But when the competition wrapped up, despite the bumps, Shopify had made leaps across the board:

- From a revenue standpoint (for Shopify), they’d killed it, right alongside their competitors. Here are some stats:

Revenue PER HOUR for the duration of the contest (180 days): $696.38
Total number of people competing: 1,819
Total number of orders placed: 66,503

- From a media standpoint, they’d jumped from niche to mainstream, including The New York Times.

- Larger, more recognizable brands, like GE and Angry Birds, suddenly chose Shopify as their e-commerce platform, even though these companies could afford custom solutions.

- Shortly after the competition closed, Shopify was able to secure $22 million in Series A and B funding from world-class firms like Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Felicis Ventures (Hi, Aydin!), and Georgian Partners. These funds were then used to accelerate expansion, as Shopify was already profitable. Funding isn’t just for floating the boat, keep in mind; it can be used to add rocket fuel to a successful launch.

- This leads us to 2012. In February, Shopify was named one of Fast Company Magazine’s top 10 most innovative retail companies in the world.

THE SECOND COMPETITION AND LESSONS LEARNED

Flash forward to the new competition, which was made international (3 of the 8 winners were Australian), and you can see both huge growth and a fascinating trend:

- 3,060 competitors (versus 1,819 in 2010)
- More than $12,000,000 worth of products sold (almost 4x the $3,543,191 in 2010)
- Closely related to the preceding point: Average sales per store were up 56% compared to 2010. Why? Shopify dramatically improved their educational and support efforts this time around.

The trend? Three of the winners–Coffee Joulies, Neu Year, and Opena Case–used Kickstarter to raised funds for manufacturing, and all of them exceeded their fundraising goals, some by miles. Joulies, for instance, aimed for $9,500 and raised more than $300,000! Kickstarter and similar tools were the focus of my recent post, “Beyond X PRIZE: The 10 Best Crowdsourcing Tools and Technologies.” It’s fun to see these services and technologies converging to create companies.

More on that later, but let’s look at some of what Shopify learned through this all. For instance: what type of lawyers do you need, if any? What are the pitfalls? I asked them to find out.

- What were your primary lessons learned in the first competition?

“We learned in the first contest that just announcing a contest and giving out prizes wasn’t good enough. This year, we used social media to help promote our new shops and to bring truly educational content to them. It paid dividends. Mentorship was a major focus of this contest (Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, and Gary Vaynerchuk).”

- What type of lawyers or other help did you need, and how did you find them?

“The laws concerning contests are different in every country, even in different states. Contest rules are a legal contract between the contest sponsor and anyone who enters the contest, so they should be taken seriously. The potential downsides of mistakes include lawsuits and more.

We found our first lawyer by looking for thought leaders. We read articles written on contest law and contacted the authors who were lawyers. Since were on a budget, we looked for sole practitioners instead of big firms.

For a simple contest, you can go through a ‘Contest Fulfillment company’ that can use their lawyers to draft the rules, oversee the process, and “audit” everything to ensure the winners are not committing fraud or breaking the rules. If you’re sending materials to contestants (e.g. we sent books to everyone), such a company will also do the mailing, etc.”

- Above the prize amounts, what costs should start-ups expect to incur? What unexpected expenses did you guys experience?

“Legal expenses, especially when doing multiple countries, adds up really quickly. If you have all your details figured out before going to your lawyer to draft the rules, you save a lot of time, which equals money. Even a minor change costs a lot when it’s done by a $500/hour lawyer.

We offered a lot of travel prizes during this contest, so you have to estimate those costs carefully. This isn’t easy because you don’t know where your winners will be from and how much hotels and flights will cost. We also gave away thousands of books to people who entered the contest.

It turned out that these were much more expensive to ship than we had originally thought, especially to Australia. Next time, we would probably focus more on e-books and digital goods.”

[Notes from Tim: This is why specifying if you'll accept contestants from outside of your own country is critical. Constantly ask yourself: "What could go wrong here? If I wanted to game this, how would I?" and run through a hypothetical sign-up in your mind. Where will users be confused, or ask "Now what?" For example, if you have a submission deadline, have you listed the time zone? What do you do if someone has a tech problem (server issue, WordPress issue, whatever) with submission outside of their control? Try and cover as many of the what-ifs as possible in your rules so people don't get upset.]

“When it comes to prizes, money isn’t always the biggest motivator. Anyone can write a check. Look for prizes where perceived value is greater than actual cost. In our contest, we are gave away a dinner with Tim Ferriss, lunch with Seth Godin and a meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk. These are literally priceless things that people can’t get on their own.”

- Any other tips for people wanting to hold their own competitions? Warnings or otherwise?

“Know what your objective is. For us, it wasn’t primarily about getting media attention, for instance. That was a fantastic side-effect, for sure, but our main goal was to attract customers who wouldn’t have come to us otherwise.

Consistent support and info sharing is also critical. Just bribing people to do big things often isn’t enough. Building a community where people could share best practices is what made 2011 so much bigger than 2010.

If you’re offering a large prize, definitely consult a lawyer specializing in that area, and most big firms will have a few.”

Let’s look at this year’s winners, what they did right, and what they did wrong.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Dave Petrillo and Dave Jackson, owners of joulies.com

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

Coffee Joulies was just one of an unending stream of ideas we would
toss back and forth over gchat while avoiding doing actual work at our
jobs. What was different this time is that we put our foot down and
said enough was enough. A Joulie is made of two parts: the shell and
the filling. It was the simplest idea we had ever come up with. We
decided it was time to step up and actually make this idea a reality.

There was no way we were going to create an entire business without
figuring out whether people would want the product first. We focused
on rapid prototyping for proof of concept and then manufacturing
alpha-stage Joulies ourselves to see if people would actually buy
them. The goal was to get Joulies into the hands of customers as fast
as possible and let them tell us whether or not they liked the
product, ignoring all the other flapping heads who love to shoot down
ideas to make themselves feel better.

We put up a website and offered Joulies for presale, and pretty much
nothing happened. How do you attract customers to buy a product that
has never existed before? We needed a way to tell the world about our
idea. Kickstarter was our soapbox. We launched Coffee Joulies on
Kickstarter during April of 2011 and ended up getting funded 3,230
percent over our goal from 4,818 backers in 57 countries. It was clear
that we had a hit product on our hands. After fulfilling our
Kickstarter orders we turned to Shopify to build Coffee Joulies into a
business.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

The first tipping point for Coffee Joulies occurred on day two of our
Kickstarter campaign. We had emailed Uncrate, Gizmag, and Gizmodo with
a press release and high resolution images hoping one would pick up
our story. All three posted about us. Next on our list was TechCrunch,
but before we could email them we found out they’d already picked up
our story. We were viral.

The second tipping point came after Dave and I read “The Lean Startup”
by Eric Ries. We were on the verge of jumping into a number of large
batch processes, like an expensive website deployment and a $60,000
progressive die purchase. In the context of “minimum viable product”
(MVP) it became painfully obvious that these big, enticing projects
were not the way to go. Ever since then our focus has been on reducing
cycle time and closing the feedback loop. It has fundamentally changed
how we do business.

The third tipping point came as we wrapped up Kickstarter fulfillment
in November. With MVP on our minds we used a bone version of the
simplest Shopify template that was available to create our website. We
learned a lot as we released the Gift Pack at $100 and then the Set of
5 at $50, and we had it timed so well that we sold out of everything
at 9am on the last day that orders could be placed and still be
delivered in time for the holidays. What more could we want?

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

We underestimated the amount of time it would take to fulfill our
Kickstarter orders by about a factor of five. We spent a huge amount
of time in central New York solving manufacturing problems at the
factory. During that time we definitely could have spent more time
honing our marketing message and performing A/B testing while the only
thing we were selling was an opt-in to our email list.

We were extremely careful with our money from Kickstarter because we
knew it had to last until all of the orders were fulfilled. That said,
we were tempted on a number of occasions by big-ticket items like
expensive manufacturing equipment, apartments in San Francisco, and
marketing firms. Looking back now we dodged quite a few bullets. The
money we made selling on Shopify came in so fast that we really didn’t have time to blow it. The majority was reinvested to build up
inventory once we learned we had won the Build-a-Business competition.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

Key manufacturing lessons: The simplest idea you have will still be
extremely difficult to manufacture, test, and deliver to the customer
in a timely manner. It will also cost more than you think.

Key marketing lesson: At some point the free PR will dry up. Then what?

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

It’s hard to imagine doing this any differently than we did. We
approached all of our hurdles as learning opportunities and took them
one step at a time so we could find the easiest/fastest way to succeed
and then move on. The only big decision that could have really
changed things is if we had taken on an investor towards the end of
our Kickstarter campaign. There were plenty of times when we wished we
had extra capital, experience and manpower, but who knows where we
would be now if we had, for better or worse. The grass is always
greener.

What’s next?

Moving beyond the internet. Coffee Joulies look great online, but
really are amazing when you hold them in your hand. Also, plenty of
other drinks could use temperature stabilization…

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Jesse Phillips, designer and owner of neuyear.net

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

I’m a web designer, caught-up in the web-startup gold-rush. So, naturally, I have several web startup ideas. But, since this is my first startup attempt, I wanted to try something easy – something easy to make, inexpensive to test and simple for customers to accept or reject. So I went with the calendar: very easy and cheap to make prototypes, test them, easy to execute, setup Shopify, etc.

Also, with the recent buzz around productivity and productivity products, I thought a new productivity product would have a better shot. And seeing the success of Moleskine and Behance (essentially cooler tools for productivity) – I thought a cooler calendar would have some legs. Finally, since there’s not much competition in the calendar market, and I wanted one myself, I saw an opportunity in the market, and took it.

I have 49 other ideas that I rejected for my first venture because, although they are more sexy and potentially have broader appeal, they would require a lot of effort and cash to startup, and they are in crowded markets. The calendar seemed like the easiest, most simple opportunity for me grasp.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

Since I have no money and I was wasn’t sure if this would work, I decided to do a test (like you suggested) on Kickstarter. We created a campaign to raise $5,000 – just enough to do our first print-run of 1,000 calendars and ship 200 of them to our backers. We were so excited and thought we had the perfect price point to raise at least $10,000. We BARELY made our goal of $5K. This was super discouraging. My mom gave a HUGE donation early on, without which we would not have made it, and that would have been it.

Fortunately, we made it. That was a small tipping point. The big tipping point was when we got on Fab.com. Before Fab, we had been selling for about a month online. In that time we had only sold about 100. It was slow.

When I sent a calendar to Fab it took them a little while to get back to me, but they liked it and wanted to do a run. I had no idea what to expect. I thought – “Ok, maybe we’ll sell 100, or 200 at the MOST.” 3 hours after we started the sale, we had nearly sold-out 400 calendars! They called me excited and asked for 400 more! This was one of the best feelings of my life – this established company was excited about the performance of my product on their network! Wow. It was then that I realized our product was viable (niche, yes, but viable).

Let me also say that it seems impossible that the calendar has sold as well as it has (not that it’s been overly amazing). I honestly believe that Jesus, who is in charge everything, has allowed it to work-out, and I’m thankful for that!

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

We are new to this, so we made several mistakes:

1. I just entered into an agreement with Groupon. The margins are very tight. From the way we were talking I was virtually promised to sell 10,000. I got caught up in the frenzy of it and made a deal with little to no margin on 5,000 and slightly better on 10,000. I’m looking at our sale right now and we’ve sold 1,700 :( Looks like we’re going to lose money, potentially thousands of dollars, if we don’t sell a lot in the next 24 hours.

2. We didn’t test our product with consumers enough, or at all. If we had, we would have learned what we learned shortly after launching: people want more than 1 box for the weekend. See, our calendar was aimed at businesses (I guess?) that would focus on the work week, so we put Saturday and Sunday in one box. I thought we were so innovative. Well, I’ve gotten over 100 emails of people wanting the weekend to be split out. And they want dry erase. We didn’t think of either of those. And we’ve probably lost at least 500 sales because of it. We should have really tested this with consumers before hand.

3. Didn’t research how to get into retail outlets. I’m only now learning how that is done and it seems we’re too late to get into retail outlets for 2013 (not 100% on this, but it seems like it).

4. Didn’t do enough research on printers, shipping, etc. We could be getting better pricing on stuff, I’m only now finding this out.

5. Didn’t market the product well – don’t really know how to do that. Paid for too much advertising that never turned-in to sales. And didn’t beat the pavement enough to get free PR on blogs.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?
Study the crap out of your manufacturing process, so you can find the cheapest way to do it and make sure the quality is good. Get samples. Understand what you’re doing. Plan better, so you can make good estimates and make more at one time. Do one run of 3,000 instead of 3 runs of 1,000 (duh!).

Marketing is tough! Be careful how you spend money. The best marketing is free word of mouth, and for us, relevant blogs. Like Gary Vaynerchuck has said, you have to crush it, find EVERY relevant blog, comment on it, read the posts, find the players on Facebook, email them, go, go, go, email, email, email, comment, comment, comment. Make friends. This is tough work. But it pays off big.

Turns out, one of our best sources of click throughs to our site has been Pinterest.com. Use google analytics, analyze that junk, figure-out where sales are coming from, who your target market is, and reach those folks. This is hard to do, and I suck at it, but our sales have been better when we do this.

Do a contest. One our most successful campaigns was a contest where you were entered to win a $20 amazon gift card, if you tweeted about the contest. We saw a large jump in sales around this time. It helped a tiny, nobody company like us get the jump in exposure we needed.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I would do more research on our product – making sure we had tested all the features with real people (the problem with this is we had lots of skeptics early on, so you can’t always listen to your critics – it’s a balance I guess). I would pound the pavement a lot harder before the Kickstarter campaign to try and drum-up support ahead of time – asking people to blog at specific times during our campaign.

I would have (and I should be) continually contacting influencers (bloggers, tweeters, media outlets) and sharing our product with them – to try and gain free “word of mouth” advertising – which seems to be our most cost effective mode of advertising (but I’m no expert).

What’s next?

We will be making a school year version soon. And we’re making a larger version for teams. Perhaps even making specific versions for Moms, Teachers, Churches, etc. I’ve got tons of other ideas (my enemy, I know). I’m inspired by Studio Neat’s products, and I have an idea for a simple tech accessory that everyone will want next year.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Chris Peters and Rob Ward of openacase.com

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

Because of our backgrounds in design and tool making we knew we had the skills to design a product but we didn’t have the capital so we turned to crowd funding to help raise the funds need to produce it. Many late nights trawling successful kickstarter projects led us to the following:

- Impulsive price point of around $50, people have less objections to buying products around this price point, but it also meant that our particular product could be manufactured to a very high quality due to the low manufacturing costs.

- Had to be a suitable size for postage – after all we were going to be shipping these things world wide so we don’t want something the size and weight of a house brick!

- Wanted to piggyback off the back of another popular trend/product.

- Needed to fill a niche that had little competition.

- Had to have a unique feature that would make our product stand out from the crowd.

- Have a decent margin to allow for marketing, advertising, affiliates, wholesale, and promotion etc.

We rejected a few other ideas mainly because they were too complex, too expensive to manufacture and did not have the broad appeal of the Opena Case.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

There we’re quite a few but three in particular stand out. The first was when we showed the final prototypes to people for feedback. When we asked for them to hand it back they asked if we wanted to sell the prototypes. When we explained that we couldn’t sell the prototypes they became very disappointed and were reluctant to hand them back, so right then we knew we had a product people wanted. The second was when we put the idea on Kickstarter and realized that lots of people loved the idea and we’re willing to put money towards it to make it happen. Nothing better than having your idea validated by people voting with their wallets. The third was when Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it to his 7 million followers!

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

Our biggest mistake was not having enough faith in our ideas from the beginning. We should have launched our own product years before we actually did it, although it would have been much harder without awesome businesses like Shopify and Kickstarter!!

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

Get your product right before you ship! Our original design has some flaws that we overlooked during prototyping. This costs us time and money as we had to modify the production tooling and change the design before we could start mass production and fulfilling orders.

Things always take longer than you have been quoted…always!!

Don’t underestimate the importance of packaging! Our original packaging was designed to keep shipping costs low, however, retails stores thought it looked cheap. This effected the initial uptake into retail stores but once we updated the packaging to suit the retail environment the stores and distributors started placing orders.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Jump in earlier, the only thing from stopping you from doing it is YOU. Get feedback from as many people as possible and let them figure out what you have overlooked. Don’t be afraid to take pre-orders but make sure you have your product ready to ship when the Ashton Kutcher starts tweeting about it!

What’s next?

We’ve formed a company (annexproducts.com) to allow us to continue to produce awesome innovative products. We’ve signed up a global distribution partner and we’re just about to hit the go button on production of our second product the Quad Lock Mounting System which is a revolutionary case based mounting system designed for the iPhone 4/4S. Once again we validated the idea on Kickstarter and using social media and we’re now taking pre-orders at www.quadlockcase.com which will be shipping in March.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Sophie Kovic, huge Tim Ferriss fan and owner of flockstocks.com

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but reject, and why?

I read the 4-Hour Workweek and carefully followed the steps. In the book it mentions using the Adwords Keywords Tool to find opportunities in your area of knowledge. I already had some understanding in the beauty section and so whilst searching in that general area I uncovered the rising trend of Feather Hair Extensions. The competition on that keyword was low and the global monthly searches were pretty high. I decided to test the idea. I set up a testing website using Weebly and made 11 “sales” in four hours! It proved it was a winner before I had invested any money, which was essential to me as I only had about $3,000 in my account at the time.

Some other ideas I looked into were pancake pans, bongs and tobacco pipes, nylon stockings and generators. I rejected each one after Adwords testing with test websites. None of them sold the way I’d liked and none of them were really areas I knew anything about. Although I still think the generators have potential I don’t like the idea of posting and storing heavy, bulky items.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

My business was successful very quickly. It was due to the fact that I had no competitors on Adwords and as a result I got a big chunk of the marketshare just by being there and in stock. Competitors were finding it hard to find supply and all I had to do was be visible and I made sales. So the tipping point would only be marked at the point I came into supply and posted my Adwords ad.

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

The mistakes I have made I am still making! I try to employ the 80/20 principle but have been slow to apply it to my customer base. I have managed to secure some good distributors now but regret I didn’t start sooner. I’ve probably wasted a lot of money on using Adwords incorrectly too. But I’ve kept it pretty lean in most aspects, especially in terms of time. We spent 3 of the past 9 months in business on a mini retirement in Thailand. The book really taught me to trust people to do their jobs correctly. It was a great freedom. I probably could have stayed home to run the business and make it bigger and better over that period, but I was after the freedom at the time as we’d had a difficult couple of years.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

Good blogging drove me lots of traffic for free. Certain celebrities were wearing feathers in their hair, so I blogged about them and it drove traffic to my site for months. Celebrity endorsements for products like mine are an amazing way to create interest. Somehow I got on a mailing list for a PR company that organizes celebrity events and it really opened my eyes to how it works and how little it can cost. I nearly put my feathers in the gift bags at the Golden Globes this year.

In regards to manufacturing, we didn’t really have much to do, more like plucking and packaging. This was about finding people I trusted and creating clear objectives, roles and standards. I found someone I trusted who understood what I wanted, then delegated, so all I did was the orders and the ordering.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I would secure distributors earlier on.

What’s next?

We are working to launch our new range of human hair extensions. We have created a grading system that makes it easy for the consumer to identify what standard of hair they are buying. The brand is called Lockstocks and will specialize in selling high quality human hair extensions to salons.

We also have a passion project in the pipeline, where we hope to help people recover from depression without medication. It is based on my partner Tim Butterfield’s research. We have written an eBook and are currently learning how to promote it.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Tina Roth Eisenberg, aka Swiss Miss, owner of tattly.com

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

I had the idea for Tattly one day in June of 2011 when I applied yet another hideous, badly designed, cheap temporary tattoo on my daughters arm. I simply told myself: “I can continue complaining about this or I can do something about it!” And I did. I took matters in my own hands, reached out to some of my wonderful designer friends to see if they’d be interested in designing tattoos. I had no idea but I opened floodgates. They all said yes and within hours I had first mockups in my inbox. I designed the site, built it and we launched mid July. The internets went crazy and on the second day we even got a call from a very prestigious store in London that asked us for a Wholesale catalog. Little did they know we *just* launched our site. It’s been quite a ride ever since.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

Interestingly enough the tipping point was right during the first few days. It was obvious right off the bat, that the world was, in some sense, waiting for designy temporary tattoos. The excitement for Tattly seems unstoppable.

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

We haven’t had time to experiment much up until now, so no big mistakes come to mind. I am sure we will have plenty ahead of us as we grow the business. I feel like the hardest part is right ahead of us. We are only 7 months old and we now have to really figure out how to scale.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

Find a manufacturer you love and that is pleasant to work with.

Make sure you have enough resources to offer immediate and personable customer support.

People *love* receiving packages that have a personal touch. We put real (and cool) stamps on our mailings and people go nuts over it, which often ends up in a tweet of the stamps.

Put some love into the design of the invoice, these things don’t go unnoticed.

Be prepared to be ripped off; protect your intellectual property from the start.

It’s never too late to reinvent an existing product.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I would (mentally) prepare myself for success. I started this project more or less as a joke with a side project mentality. While there is nothing wrong with that, I wish I would have built the website so it would scale better so I didn’t have to completely redesign and rebuild the site from the ground up 4 months later. Lesson learned.

What’s next?

Growing Tattly and getting it into lots of designy stores, all around the globe.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Eleanor Downes of simplyhops.co.uk

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

Simply Hops parent company has been supplying major brewers in the UK with Hops for many years. We were aware of the growing supply of craft beers. That is beers brewed on a small scale, generally by small organisations. We analysed the market data available from the Society of Independent Brewers (UK). From this we made estimates of the likely demand for Hops. It was apparent that each customer (potentially over 800 in the UK alone) would take relatively small volumes of hops, and we judged that these would not be as price sensitive as major brewers. We investigated the offer from our competition, and although many customers seemed satisfied, they were looking for alternatives. Our competitors were attempting to service the market in the conventional way, i.e. sales people, phones and bespoke arrangements for delivery. We reasoned that a properly run e-business, could offer improved service (next day delivery) and significantly lower transaction costs. There is keen interest in exotic hop varieties which impart unique flavours to beer. We judged that our links through parent companies and associates would give us a competitive edge in sourcing these varieties. We considered entering this market in a conventional way, but rejected it in view of high costs and lack of novelty compared to the competition.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

We launched the company with a conventional marketing event and advertising and started to get some initial orders. As part of this process we spent time with potential customers and it soon became apparent that most are avid networkers and users of Facebook and Twitter. We decided to explore the use of these media but to respect their social status and avoid a “hard sell”. We just advise of significant events. A definite a-ha moment was seeing how quickly our customers responded and how quickly our number of followers grew. In one case, we announced on Twitter that a particular American variety of hop was now available. Within 2 minutes, we had our first order! The other key learning point was to understand how our customers plan. Sometimes the brewery owner is also the accountant, and head brewer and sales person. They are just busy. If they decide that next week they would like to brew a particular recipe and they can then go online and order what they need then convenience is a big benefit for them. We had judged that having more specialised varieties would be attractive to our customers. We were able to introduce these fully in January 2012 and this led directly to more than doubling our monthly turnover.

Following our launch event, we reviewed how we should get more information to our customers. We concluded that meeting with brewers during normal working hours would not work. Who would brew the beer if the head brewer was in a meeting! So instead we organised an evening session with light refreshments. We are also seeing the benefits of an e-model. Some of our customers make good use of the fact that they can order time of day.

We also learned that providing an efficient phone service was really important. It’s surprising just how many people say that they can collect the goods to avoid carriage charges when they are located hundreds of miles away. A pro-active call from our customer sales manager has led to some very positive feedback. Also in the event of a glitch (usually with the freight side) we are usually able to fix problems very quickly.

Through Shopify, we were also able to see where are main referrals were coming from. We learned that inserting a click through banner on a home brewing forum really accelerated the process.

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

Early on in the life of the business we received enquiries from customers who did not feel that they should pay by credit card. We accommodated this initially, but this led to some complications with stock management and has now been discontinued.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

It has taken us some iterations to get our pricing policy sorted. The initial set-up part of the configuration would have resulted in Simply Hops running a manufacturing operation. We quickly realised that this made the model overly complicated and stuck to our original intent to trade finished packed goods only.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

We would spend more time up front defining our sales order/fulfillment process and clearly articulating who is responsible for what. This would save a lot of wasted effort and confusion. We would also think more deeply about building our social media presence, and presence in industry forums and relevant areas.

What’s next?

A few ideas that we want to keep from the competition! We have been successful in sourcing a number of really interesting new and old varieties of Hops. Some will be known to some brewers and some are completely new and “straight out of the breeding programmes”. We plan to introduce improved packaging to make using our hops much easier and improve availability in smaller pack sizes.

Who are you and what is your Shopify store?

Matt Rendall of clearpathrobotics.com

How did you decide on your product? What ideas did you consider but
reject, and why?

Clearpath Robotics started in a university robotics lab. Having experienced huge frustrations ourselves, we knew that researchers and students needed a better way to learn and build robots… So we spun out a company and we set out to solve this problem. There were a few other ideas on the table, but research and education seemed like the perfect starting point for us – it just fit.

We knew that our market needed a powerful low-cost robot. Our first attempts resulted in a great robots that customers loved, but at $5000, they were too expensive for most schools. We refined our designs and got our price down to $3500. Better, but not still not good enough and it was really hard for us to get the price down further.

To keep our costs low, we experimented heavily with open source. In 2010, we began working closely with a really innovative open source robotics company in Menlo Park, Willow Garage. It was started in 2006 by Scott Hassan one of Google’s first engineers. They have developed the world’s best operating system for robots and it is open source (Think of it as the Linux of the robotics world). We partnered with them to launch Turtlebot in the summer of 2011. The Turtlebot is the world’s most affordable professional robotics development tool.

What were some of the main tipping points (if any) or a-ha moments?
How did the tipping points happen?

The biggest tipping point for Turtlebot was making the decision to sell it online. This allowed us to really cut down our customer acquisition cost and we pass these savings on directly to our customers.

What were your biggest mistakes, or biggest wastes of time/money?

We make lots of mistakes. It is very important to us that we make mistakes. It keeps us innovative, it keeps us competitive. One of our most important mantras is “Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Fail Often”. One of our investors taught us this early on and we live by it. The single biggest “lesson learned” so far is the importance of “slow to hire, quick to fire”.

Key manufacturing and marketing lessons learned?

Instead of spending a ton on traditional marketing, we invest those dollars into proactive customer service and back into development of rock-solid products. It’s all about turning customers into evangelists by delivering a remarkable customer experience. Tons of companies have figured this model out (i.e. Zappos), but it’s pretty rare in our industry. It’s working – our best marketing by far is word-of-mouth.

Manufacturing is so important for us. We spend a lot of time iterating our designs and working with our suppliers to optimize manufacturing process, product reliability and inventory management. I think it is important to have as small a list of trusted and proven suppliers as possible. The bigger the list becomes the more potential sources of error.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I don’t think we’ve done anything regrettable. Sure, we’ve made mistakes – everyone does. We learn from them and become better because of them. Our business is stronger today because of them. It all goes back to our “Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Fail Often” mantra.

What’s next?

We see the Turtlebot as the very first “personal computers” of the robotics industry. The Turtlebot is the Apple II of the personal robotics industry. We want to make Turtlebot accessible and attractive to a much larger audience. Much like the first PCs, the Turtlebot is only really usable by programmers, hackers and the tech-savvy hobbyist communities. The next big thing for Turtlebot is figure out how to make it easier to use for non-programmers and also to make it even more affordable. Another big tipping point will be the creation of a “killer app” – an application to make Turtlebot highly valuable to the masses. In the mid-1980s, Lotus 123 was the “killer app” that contributed significantly to the success of the PC in the business world. Turtlebot needs its Lotus 123 equivalent. The open source community is working on ths as we speak and we’re working on a few “killer apps” of our own. We’re laying the foundation. Now it’s only a matter of time until something big happens.

For more info about the contest and winners, visit the Shopify Blog

Posted on February 29th, 2012

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The Most Overlooked Secret to Dealing with Life’s Problems

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The Secret to Getting People to Do What You Want

Wouldn’t you like to have mind control over people? Wouldn’t it be great to have them do what you want?

The idea of getting of a potential dating partner to take notice of you, getting your children to behave, having your boss promote you, getting people to help you succeed in whatever you want that all sounds great doesn’t it.

Well, let me tell you that it is possible to have people do what you want.

I am not talking about any sort of mind control. Back in my Special Forces days, we studied psychological operations. In the military, psych ops (as it is called) is used to influence a target audience’s emotions, motives and reasoning. Now this can do down any number of rabbit trails. What we found worked the best was not any sort or manipulation or trickery. It was basic human psychology.

Today I am going to tell you about what can help you in your life, make you more productive, help the people around you and get the results you are looking for. Are you ready to learn the secret of how to control people’s minds?

Wow, doesn’t seem like much of a secret does it?

The question back to you is, why don’t you practice it? The important thing to remember about the secret is that when you don’t follow it, people will resist you, act against you, do the things you don’t want them to do. A lot of times we get it backwards. If my boss would give me a raise, I will work harder. If my spouse shows me more love, I will show them more love. You have to give them what they want first, then they will follow through with what you want.

Let’s make this even more simple. Instead of what they want, turn that into what they need. People say they want to be rich, they need to feel fulfilled. People say they want sympathy, they need empathy. People say they want power, they need respect. If you supply what someone truly needs, they will do anything you want.

People would rather talk than listen. You can use that to your advantage and let other people talk and tell you what they want and need. People just like to talk. Freud pointed out that just the act of talking can provide healing. People tend t naturally do this in a supportive environment. By listening intently to what someone is saying you can hear what they want and need and supply it.

The key then is to identify what motivates someone and fill the desire. We did the same thing when I was in the Green Berets. One of the Special Forces’ missions is to train indigenous forces. A twelve man A-team would be inserted into country to work with 300 – 400 guerrilla soldiers. Twelve men cannot force 300 – 400 to do anything, especially if they have to live with them. We had to get them to do what we wanted them to by motivating them with their own needs. Only by understanding them, talking to them, and observing them could we know what was “their itch.”

Now here is the key. Once we had what motivated them, we didn’t use it as a bribe. We incorporated it into what we wanted. So by fulfilling their need, they fulfilled ours. They needed a well, we needed the roads improved to move supplies. Well to build a well you need to bring in supplies. We had them improve the roads in order to build the well. You can do the same. You want a discount on a price. The vendor wants to move a floor model. Find out their needs and fill it with one that benefits you.

It is not hard getting someone to do what we want. It is not about manipulation or some sort of military thought control. It is simply listening and observing to find out what they need and filling that need.

(Photo credit: Image of a Hypnotist via Shutterstock)

For 20 years, Michael Martel was a Green Beret in the US Army. He now works with people to put Special Forces like effectiveness into their lives and businesses.  Go to Achieve The Green Beret Way and learn about his book Get ER Done: The Green Beret Guide to Productivity and other tools for achieving outstanding results.

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The Secret Rule of Changing Anything

I’ve learned a lot about changing habits over the years, and have taught thousands of people how to do it.

The hardest habits to change, by far, are the ones people can’t seem to control. They want to change, but can’t seem to find the “willpower” (a term I don’t believe in).

For me, some of the things that seemed out of my control: smoking, eating junk food, overeating during social occasions, procrastination, anger, patience, negative thoughts.

I learned one little secret that allowed me to change it all:

When you are aware, you can change it.

OK, don’t roll your eyes and stop reading yet. That secret might seem obvious to some, or too simplistic. So let’s go a bit deeper.

When we have urges to eat something we know is bad for us, we often give in. But is it that simple? The truth is that our mind is actually rationalizing why we should just eat that cake, why it’s too hard to not eat it, why it isn’t that bad to eat it. It asks why we’re putting ourselves through pain, why can’t we let ourselves just live, and don’t we deserve that treat?

All of this happens without our noticing, usually. It’s quiet, in the background of our consciousness, but it’s there. And it’s incredibly powerful. It’s even more powerful when we’re not aware it’s happening.

It beats us all the time — not just with eating, but with anything we try to do and end up quitting, caving in, doing it despite our best efforts.

How can we defeat this powerful force — our own mind?

Awareness is the key. It’s the start.

1. Start by becoming aware. Become an observer. Start listening to your self talk, observe what your mind does. Pay attention. It’s happening all the time. Meditation helps with this. I also learned through running — by not taking along an iPod, I run in silence, and have nothing to do but watch nature and listen to my mind.

2. Don’t act. Your mind will urge you to eat that cake (“Just a bite!”) or smoke that cigarette or stop running or procrastinate. Listen to what your mind is saying, but don’t act on those instructions. Just sit still (mentally) and watch and listen.

3. Let it pass. The urge to smoke, eat, procrastinate, or quit running … it will pass. It’s temporary. Usually it only lasts a minute or two. Breathe, and let it pass.

4. Beat the rationalizations. You can actively argue with your mind. When it says, “One little bite won’t hurt!”, you should point to your gut and say, “Yeah, that’s what you said all those other times, and now I’m fat!” When it says, “Why are you putting yourself through this pain?”, you should say, “It’s painful to be unhealthy, and it’s only painful to avoid the cake if you look at it as a sacrifice — instead, it can be a joy to embrace healthy and delicious foods, and fitness!”

There are lots of times when “willpower” fails us. These are the times we need to become aware of our minds.

When we are aware, we can change it. This is a small secret, but it’s life changing. It changed my life, because I can now change anything. I watch, and I wait, and I beat it. You can too.

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The Secret to Helping Your Child Excel in School and in Life

Photo credit: melanerpist (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Is your child struggling in school? Does your child stall when it comes time to do homework? Does your child’s teacher often comment that your child is capable, but is just not working to his or her potential? Or does your child do alright in school, but seems a bit bored or lacks enthusiasm for learning?

Well, there is a secret that you need to know in order for you to change this.

We are all born with certain propensities. We enjoy doing some things more than others and we see the world and experience it from a certain perspective. Parents can often say, “Oh, Johnny could stay outdoors playing in the dirt all day long,” or “Susie is such a people person”. At a very early age children show what they enjoy doing and what they are naturally interested in. Paying attention to this can be very beneficial to parents and in turn, to their children.

Dr. Howard Gardner, Professor of Education at Harvard University, developed a theory called Multiple Intelligences. The theory suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, which is based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited.

Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. Here’s a brief summary of these eight intelligences:

Linguistic Intelligence (Word Smart): This type of intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (Number/Reasoning Smart): This type consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. In Gardner’s words, it entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.Musical Intelligence (Music Smart): This type involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms.Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (Body Smart): This type entails the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements.Spatial Intelligence (Picture Smart): This type involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.Interpersonal Intelligence (People Smart): This type is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.Intrapersonal Intelligence (Self Smart): This type entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one’s feelings, fears and motivations.Naturalist Intelligence (Nature Smart): This type enables human beings to recognize, categorize and draw upon certain features of the environment. A number of schools in North America have looked to structure curricula according to these intelligences, and to design classrooms and even whole schools to reflect the understandings that Howard Gardner developed. It takes a commitment though from school boards, administrators and teachers to put something like this into practice.

Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We hold the highly articulate or logical people of our culture in great esteem. However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live.

Unfortunately, many children who have these gifts don’t receive much reinforcement for them in school. Many of these kids, in fact, end up being labeled “learning disabled,” “ADD,” or simply underachievers, when their unique ways of thinking and learning aren’t addressed by a heavily linguistic or logical-mathematical classroom.

So, if your child’s school does not teach based on these principles, how can you as the parent use them to help your child be successful in school and in life? Let’s first take a look at how Howard Gardner’s theory would work in a classroom. Then, we’ll look at how you can use these techniques at home.

Let’s say that a teacher needs to teach a lesson about The Law of Supply and Demand. They might do any or all of the following:

Read to their students about it (linguistic)Study mathematical formulas that express it (logical-mathematical)Examine a graphic chart that illustrates the principle (spatial)Observe the law in the natural world (naturalist)Observe the law in the human world of commerce (interpersonal)Examine the law in terms of one’s own body, such as when you supply your body with lots of food, the hunger demand goes down; when there’s very little supply, your stomach’s demand for food goes way up and you get hungry (bodily-kinesthetic and interpersonal)Write a song (or find an existing song) that demonstrates the law like Bob Dylan’s “Too Much of Nothing? or John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change”.

It isn’t necessary for teachers to teach something in all eight ways. But it is necessary for them to see what the possibilities are, and then decide which particular pathways align best with the topic.

In addition, a teacher should also provide students with an opportunity to discover which intelligence best describes themselves. After students are aware of this they can take charge of their learning. When they study for tests they can relate all the ideas to topics that mean something to them. When they work on a project they can present it in a way that most makes sense to them.

If your child’s school doesn’t work this way then you can still teach this to your child and they can still use the strategy to study and complete projects and assignments. Here’s how:

Have your child take this test, which determines their intelligence. Then, describe all eight intelligences to them in language appropriate to their age so that they will have a clearer understanding of each one.Once your child is clear about how they learn and how this is innately what they enjoy, then the next step is to show them how they can use this with their school work.When an assignment or project comes home tell them to put the topic of whatever the project is in the center of a blank sheet of paper, and draw eight straight lines or “spokes” radiating out from this topic. Label each line with a different intelligence. Then start brainstorming ideas for learning or showing that topic and write down ideas next to each intelligence. They might just want to do the assignment in a way that aligns with their intelligence, but it’s important for them to know that everyone has a little of each intelligence — so they can mix and match too.

With anything new, this process will need guidance and practice. However, you will be amazed at how quickly they catch on and how engrossed in their homework they will be simply by taking this approach.

Our world has become smaller due to globalization and it’s also becoming a world where different “traits” or intelligences are needed. Let’s help our children understand and feel good about themselves. With these two things in place they will feel confident to use what they’ve got to help make their difference in this world.

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The secret life of the inner voice

Don’t miss the latest RadioLab short, a programme about a guy whose world has been unevenly slowed down.

Psychological fascinating but also a beautiful piece of storytelling.

When Andy first met Kohn, he saw a college freshman in a wheelchair who moved slow and talked slow. But it only took one conversation for Andy to realize that Kohn was also witty and observant. They clicked so effortlessly over lunch one day that Andy went ahead and asked an audacious question: why was Kohn so slow? Kohn told him that when he was 8-years-old, he was hit by a car. He was in a coma for five months, and when he finally woke up, he everything about him was slowed down … except for his mind.

Do not miss.

Link to RadioLab short ‘Slow’.

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Enter the Kettlebell! Strength Secret of the Soviet Supermen

Enter the Kettlebell! Strength secret of the Soviet Supermen with Pavel

Price: $29.95

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The Secret to Raising Happy Kids

If you were to make a list of all the things you’d love to provide for your children, what would your list look like? Many people spend every waking hour stressing and worrying about how they can provide this and that for their children, but I want to propose that the BEST gift you can give your child is the ability to be happy and enjoy life.

Most of you reading this are probably thinking, “Yes, absolutely. That would be my greatest wish for my child – for them to be happy and to enjoy life fully everyday.” What goes wrong then between what we genuinely want to give our children and the actual reality of what they get from us?

Statistics show that more and more adults and young adults are popping some type of drug in order to make it through the day. Approximately 100 million prescriptions for Valium and Librium are filled annually in the United States alone!

The plain fact is that most of us do not know how to help our children learn how to enjoy life because we have not learned that simple secret ourselves! We can’t teach what we don’t know.

Here enlies the problem; in order to provide our children with our greatest wish we must be able to model what we are attempting to teach.

It is essential to show our children a portrait of a person who appreciates the small things, the magnificence of nature and the beauty of being quiet with ourselves. It is also essential to show our children a portrait of a happy, loving, communicative relationship, not only with our child’s mother or father, but with ourselves.

Pretend you had a video camera following you around all day. What would that video look like? Would it show you:

* rushing around from one activity to another?
* barking commands?
* constantly talking or having noise around like the radio or TV?
* speaking quickly, in a hurried, worried, stressed or anxious tone?
* constantly providing or being the entertainment for your child?

OR

* living life slowly?
* Laughing and smiling a lot?
* Enjoying moments of silence, not feeling the need to say anything or ask any questions?
* Enjoying alone time while your child enjoys their own?
* Doing an activity with your child that you BOTH enjoy?

Maybe you feel quite good about how your daily life is being lived but recognize that the words or phrases you use could be more positive. For example, you may use the word “Naughty” or phrases like, “Oh, come on!” when something isn’t working as you’d like it to, or “Things never seem to go right!”. These phrases can definitely be picked up on by our children and eventually, become their beliefs to live by.

If we TRULY want to raise happy kids who enjoy life to the fullest, then the first place to start in teaching this is with ourselves.

Right now, take stock of life and think about the speed at which you live, the tone that exists in your home and the messages that are being shared. Once you have a clear view, pat yourself on the back for all the amazing, loving things you do and then make it a priority to work on the things you feel need changing – it will make all the difference to not only your life but your child’s life as well.

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The Secret Art of Self-Development

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9 Secret Ways to Persuade and Influence People

Persuasiveness is one of the most important skills anyone can learn because it is useful in countless situations. At work, at home, and in your social life, the ability to be persuasive and influence others can be instrumental for achieving goals and being happy.

Learning about the tricks of persuasion can also give you insight into when they're being used on you. The biggest benefit of this is that money will stay in your pockets as you realize just how sales people and advertisers sell you products that you don't necessarily need.

Here are 9 of the best tricks to be persuasive and influence others:

Framing
Framing is a technique often used in politics. A popular example of framing is inheritance taxes. Politicians who are opposed to inheritance taxes will call them death taxes. By using the word death instead of inheritance, all kinds of negative connotations come to mind.

Framing is quite subtle, but by using emotionally charged words, like death, you can easily persuade people to your point of view.

Mirroring
Mirroring someone is when you mimic their movements. The movement can be virtually anything, but some obvious ones are hand gestures, leaning forward or away, or various head and arm movements. We all do this unconsciously, and if you pay attention you'll probably notice yourself doing it, I know I have.

How to mirror someone is self explanatory, but a few key things to remember are to be subtle about it and leave a delay between the other person's movement and your mirroring, 2-4 seconds works best.

Scarcity
This is one that advertisers use a lot. Opportunities, whatever they are, seem a lot more appealing when there is a limited availability.

This can be useful to the average person in the right situation, but even more importantly, this is a method of persuasion to be aware of. Stop and consider how much you're being influenced by the fact that a product is scarce. If the product is scarce, there must be a ton of demand for it right?

Reciprocation
It's the old saying, "Do unto others...". When someone does something for us, we feel compelled to return the favor. So, if you want someone to do something nice for you, why not do something nice for them first. In a business setting, maybe you pass them a lead. If at home, maybe it's you letting the neighbor borrow the lawn mower. It doesn't matter where or when you do it, the key is to compliment the relationship.

Timing
People are more likely to be agreeable and submissive when they're mentally fatigued. Before you ask someone for something they might not be quick to agree to, try waiting until a more opportune time when they've just done something mentally taxing. This could be at the end of the work day when you catch a co-worker on their way out the door. Whatever you ask, a likely response is, "I'll take care of it tomorrow."

Congruence
We all try, subconsciously, to be consistent with previous actions. One great example is a technique used by salespeople. A salesperson will shake your hand as he is negotiating with you. In most peoples minds, a handshake equates to a closed deal, and so by doing this before the deal is reached, the salesperson is much more likely to negotiate you in to a closed deal.

A good way to use this yourself is to get people acting before they make up their minds. If, for example, you were out and about with a friend and you wanted to go see a movie but the friend was undecided, you could start walking in the direction of the theater while they make up their mind.

Fluid Speech
When we talk, we often use little interjections and hesitant phrases such as "ummm" or "I mean" and of course there is the ubiquitous "like". These little conversation quirks have the unintended effect of making us seem less confident and sure of ourselves, and thus less persuasive.

If you're confident in your speech, others will be more easily persuaded by what you have to say.

Herd Behavior
We are all natural born followers. It's sad but true. We constantly look to those around us to determine our actions; we have the need for acceptance.

A simple, effective way to use this to your advantage is to be a leader, let the herd follow you.

Friends and Authorities
We are far more likely to follow or be persuaded by someone we like or by someone who is in an authority position. Not only is this a good one to be aware of to combat persuasive techniques being used on you, it's also a good one to use on others because you would be surprised how easy it is to get people to like you and establish authority within groups.

Give some of these ideas a shot and let us know if you are suddenly selling more, having more favors done for you, or becoming a master of delegation and persuasion at work!

Written on 8/28/2008 by Stuart M. Stuart blogs at Improved Lives and is a recent university graduate and a writer who has always had a passion for learning about how psychology can be beneficial in day to day life. Republished 5/23/2011

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The Strangest Secret

In this unique video presentation of The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale - known as the Dean of Personal Development - teaches you why these six simple words have changed the lives of millions.



The Strangest Secret is amazing message that was first played for a group of salespeople at Earl's insurance agency in 1956. They were electrified by what they heard, and word of the message quickly spread. It went on to become the first non-musical recording to earn a Gold Record for sales, and remains one of the most powerful and influential recordings ever made.



This DVD features original footage from a classic film shot in 1970, and provides a rare glimpse of the legendary Earl Nightingale presenting the highlights and philosophy of The Strangest Secret. If you heed what he shares with you in this timeless message, your life will never be the same again.

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The Secret of Living a Perfect Life

Five key principles can transform and reshape your life. The "secret" is a simple but profound truth.

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NOVA: Secret of the Wild Child

Studio: Wgbh Wholesale Release Date: 01/09/2007 Run time: 60 minutes

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The Secret Art of Self-Development

Stop being a seeker - Start being a finder!

Self-development is an amazing quest. It's the desire to find your own freedom and happiness. It's about letting go of limitations, and learning how to live successfully.

This audio CD is a series of 16 simple "pep talks" for that self-development journey.

No hype, no rituals, no follow-on courses. Just a series of conversations to help you finally discover your own true freedom.

Forget The Secret, set aside religious texts and ignore the so-called gurus.

This audio CD will guide you straight to the only true authority on your own self-development.

You.

This product is manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Price: $13.95

Click here to buy from Amazon

The Secret of Living a Perfect Life

Five key principles can transform and reshape your life. The "secret" is a simple but profound truth.

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon