Category Archives: Success
Never take NO

Never take “no” from someone who does not also have the power to say “yes”. – Eleanor Roosevelt I’m inspired by this, and I often focus the topic of efficacy: ie, our understanding of our capacity to Get Stuff ….»
Visualisation

I’m increasingly attracted to using ‘focusing’ or visualisation activities, in both my own practice and my own business, and with my coaching clients. The foundation of this is the idea that, to the extent that we can visualise and ….»
Cutting diamonds

In The Diamond Cutter, Michael Roche proposes a simple and very powerful way of dealing with your shortcomings or challenges: find someone with a similar challenge and help them with it, that is, with no immediate thought for your ….»
Altruism in business

A kind of dog-eat-dog mindset seems to be at the heart of many business cultures, capitalism framed as ‘looking after number one’, and if that has to happen at the expense of another, then sorry, it’s just business. I ….»
What you measure is what you get

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. – Milton Friedman I ….»
Creative learning gets you high

When you are involved in a pleasurable social learning experience, your brain is stimulated by a series of natural chemicals – dopamine, adrenalin and endorphins – often associated with the high experienced using drugs such as cocaine. Human beings ….»
Persistence

A number of Edgeware presenters, and writers on entrepreneurship generally, emphasise the value of persistence, of constant striving and application to your business goals. But if you feel you’re not strongly inclined this way, how might you develop this core ….»
Optical illusions

What is this? We often use optical illusions in Edgeware presentations. They break the ice, and they are a good leader into our position that *the way we see the world is the way the world becomes*. There’s ….»
Johnny Bunko’s six lessons

Ever read a business book in manga comic format? That’s what Dan Pink and the illustrator Rob Ten Pas have achieved, and it’s a cracker. Edgeware has used the book as a discussion point for some time now, and feedback ….»
Cash flow

If I’m a business educator and I’m trying to convince you that an MBA is worth two years of your life and AUD60,000, it’s in my interest for you to understand business as complex, difficult and arcane, isn’t it? The ….»
Happiness comes from experiences, not things

From the blog Neuronarrative Not only are people happier experiencing than possessing, but they are also happier having the experience of thinking about possessing something than actually getting it. Understanding that bit of knowledge about ourselves goes a long ….»
How trees grow

It sounds counter-intuitive that, while a tree is rooted in the ground, it actually feeds on what it extracts from the air. I think this is a compelling metaphor for business (and life, if it comes to it): we ….»
Love signals real

In this Age of Metaphor, love will be the signal of real. One of the ways we will know when a thing has passed from “as-if” to “is” is when it earns unalloyed love from humans. Kevin Kelly, As ….»
What do accountants count?

We think we make rational economic decisions. We don’t. Our decisions are driven by intangible values of which we may not be aware, or about which we may not care. ‘Radical accountant’ Baruch Lev, along with others, is ….»
Failures are inveitable! Brave failures are necessary!

Some formulae … High Self-Efficacy: Failure = lack of effort Low Self-Efficacy: Failure = lack of ability A Brave Failure = learning + spur to greater effort or effect A Brave Failure builds resilience Effort & ….»
Networks, niches, hives, tribes

Maybe you’ve seen the formulaic scroller websites that harvest your email address in order to receive something ‘free’ and go on to sell you strategies for making a million on the internet. Pretty lowest common denominator stuff, and it works. ….»
Edgeware’s Build Your Business

Edgeware’s Build Your Business program is an alternative to business education for new entrepreneurs, and for entrepreneurs who want to re-imagine or grow their businesses. Each time it runs, it changes, because the needs of participants and the dynamics ….»
Education-zen

“The problem of the steady change of ideas (or the perpetual need to imagine new ideas) also demolishes the notion that the essence of education consists in mastering certain contents or materials. You are not little birdies sitting in the ….»
Not-Design

Sitting last week in a workshop on the theme of ‘design’ I found myself uncomfortable with the tone and tenor of the offering. I realized eventually that the source of this discomfort was the assumption on the part ….»
Podcast on Ethical Entrepreneurship

I’m pretty new to the world of podcasting, but I found this interview refreshing in that Cameron Reilly, the owner-operator of the G’Day World Podcasting Network, allowed time to really explore and flesh out ideas in a way that ….»
Speaking at the Hive
I was asked to give a short talk at a Brisbane networking function called The Hive on 30 June 09, on the topic of ‘entrepreneurship’. The talk was filmed, and video is now on Youtube, but to save the bother ….»
Business Ethics

Business ethics is an important field for Edgeware because it’s in the ‘change the world’ bit of our DNA. You don’t ‘adopt’ ethical practices; you can’t operate without ethics, even if you couldn’t name them and you don’t have a ….»
6 Word Memoirs

Smith Magazine invites us to summarise our lives in six words – ‘Six Word Memoirs’. I thought, ‘Easy! I have the Edgeware motto, near enough to six words: make money, have fun, change the world. I could lose the article ….»
Coach as Cartographer

Everyone is coaching or being coached; there are life coaches, career coaches, personal coaches, fitness coaches, executive coaches, coaches for getting out of bed in the morning and coaches for getting to sleep at night. Why do we need coaches ….»
360 Degrees

I’ve noticed that I’ll often use optical illusions or some kind of perceptual trick in my presentations, to indicate not only how easy it is to trick the eye or the brain, but that the way see the world is ….»