Thrilling Heroics » habits

How to Make a Difference in the World with Conscious Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Brian Johnson

Cody McKibben — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:33:58 +0000

I recently spoke to Brian Johnson all about his thoughts on conscious entrepreneurship, optimal living, his lifestyle business, and how people can change the world. Brian is the creator of Philosopher’s Notes (which are short Cliff’s Notes-style summaries of all the lessons from teachers like Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and the Buddha, all the way up through modern positive psychology books), chief evangelist at en*theos, and author of A Philosopher’s Notes.

He considers himself a modern Philosopher, or Lover of Wisdom. Brian is absolutely dedicated to inspiring the world with wisdom, and empowering people to live their greatest lives, and what drew me to him is his painstaking commitment to his mission. He’s perhaps the most productive and prolific guy I’m aware of—my polar opposite lately! Questions that drive him are:

What Makes Great People Great? How Can People Create Extraordinary Lives that Make a Difference in the World?

Brian dropped out of law school, and instead, eventually settled into the tech startup world as a founder/CEO, raising several million dollars for his businesses. But it was his decision to travel through Israel, Turkey, Greece, and more, and study philosophy, that paved the way for the path he would take. In 2004 he created the social networking site Zaadz, integrating his interests in philosophy and entrepreneurship, and creating a place for people interested in topics such as conscious living, yoga, meditation, and making a difference.

Working with investors like Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Brian grew passionate about the idea of conscious business—that it’s about more than just the “bottom line”—and became convinced that you can get paid to do what you love to do.

He set about on his journey to earn his own “PhD in Optimal Living”, as he describes it, studying and condensing 100 classics, a project that evolved into Philosopher’s Notes. And now Brian and his wife Alexandra run a handful of small businesses under the banner of en*theos, a community who’s name stands for “radiant enthusiasm“, including Philosopher’s Notes, Rock Your Goddess Life, Optimal Living 101, Blissitations, and more.

Brian is a stellar example of someone who’s transitioned from startup business, raising millions and working with investors and large teams of employees at the height of the dot-com boom, to a highly successful lifestyle business that allows he and his wife to do meaningful work they truly enjoy, to make a huge difference in people’s lives, and to have a very enjoyable lifestyle, living in places like Bali, Indonesia for a year, and now in Los Angeles.

There are few conversations that will open your eyes a bit and permanently alter your outlook on life, but this was one of them for me. This interview was recorded in its entirety for our students at Digital Nomad Academy, so if you’re one of our members, make sure you log in here to listen in on the full 50-minute, in-depth interview with all the gory details!

Listen in to this abbreviated recording below to learn about:

What it means to follow your bliss.
How you must have a willingness to fail if you want to succeed.
Why a Lifestyle Business is not about getting big quickly, it’s about sustainability and simplicity.
The Multiple Stakeholder Model, and the importance of creating value and making contributions to your community.
Why entrepreneurship is the major engine to change the world.
What is Conscious Capitalism and the Multiple Bottom Line?

Download the MP3 here to listen on your own computer (right click and “Save As”)

Also listen in to learn the universal truths that Brian discovered across all of his studies of psychology, philosophy and optimal living. While most people focus on external motivators like fame, wealth, and beauty, learn how focusing on these principles is what will actually lead you to happiness and flourishing:

Optimism
Purpose
Self-Awareness
Goals
Action
Energy
Wisdom
Courage
Love
En*theos

Brian discusses what the ancient Greeks called arete—excellence, virtue, or striving to be your best self—and how when you overcome what he calls integrity gap and realize your full potential, there is no room for anxiety, stress, or depression in your life.

If you want to learn more, visit en*theos, and explore the 100 mini-chapters in Brian’s book A Philosopher’s Notes. Digital Nomad Academy students also get exclusive access to the full interview which includes:

Brian’s Six Fundamentals of Creativity
Productivity Tips: Three In-Depth Keys to How Brian Produces So Much Great Content
A discussion about the Intersection between What You Love to Do, What You Are Really Good At, and What People Are Willing to Pay For.
An answer to the question: How Do We Create Something that Truly Benefits Society?
And much more!

If you want to get full access to this interview and many more like it…

…make sure you sign up for our notification list at Digital Nomad Academy to be the first to learn when we open up our doors again soon for more students!

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Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How to Make a Difference in the World with Conscious Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Brian Johnson

Announcing an Awesome New Community Search Tool for the Blogosphere!

Cody McKibben — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:51:36 +0000

Ever since I discovered Google Custom Search, I’ve been using it to pinpoint the exact kind of awesome articles, tips and tricks I’m looking for much quicker, and to increase my efficiency and decrease the time it takes me to find answers or write up blog posts.

Personally, I’m a big fan of productivity lists, how-to’s, and life hacks, so my custom search engine includes a lot of big name sites like Lifehacker, Zen Habits, Tim Ferriss’ 4HWW blog, and many more. Anytime I’m curious how to do something, like how to install a certain software application, how to improve my resume, or how to get the most out of a particular social networking site for instance, my custom-build search engine returns incredible results! And if you like to hyperlink to other resources and articles as additional support when you write new blog posts, this will serve as a fantastic tool for you just like it has for me.

I highly recommend Google’s Custom Search, and since I’ve already done the work and compiled a master list of over 50 of the web’s most credible and authoritative blogs, I’d also like to introduce my own Thrilling Blog Search engine as an open community tool for the Brazen Careerist network and the blogosphere at large. Try it out. Seriously! It provides some really cool results for all sorts of subjects from personal development to social media to finance. Link to the search engine page here and try a search for “resume,” “savings account,” or “LinkedIn” for example:

If you’d like to utilize this tool for your own blogging workflow, feel free to bookmark my directory/links page, or you can easily add it to your iGoogle homepage or your own website. Be aware that this search engine already crawls several of the most trusted blogs on the internet, but I will be adding to the sites in the future. If you’d like to contribute to the project or suggest a site for addition, you can get in touch with me but be aware there will be a strict review process. In other words, if you email me with a suggestion, you better be ready to pitch your site and why the community will benefit from it!

Here are the top-notch blogs/bloggers that are already a part of this fun customized blog community search tool:

Personal Growth/Productivity

Career/Personal Branding

Lifestyle Design/Travel

Generation-Y Issues

Personal Finance

Freelancing/Entrepreneurship

Social Media/Technology

Blogging/WordPress

Remember, this is a community project, so please feel free to get involved!

» Add a search widget to your Google homepage.

» Add the custom Thrilling Blog Search to your own site.

» Get in touch if you’ve got a suggested site that will benefit other bloggers and readers.

» Blog about this or tell your friends about the Thrilling Blog Search engine!

These are just the first round of additions to the Thrilling Blog Search community search tool. As I come across more great sites, I’ll be updating the list and the search engine tool. You can view several of my favorite blogs and suggested resources, as well as my custom Thrilling Blog Search tool on my Links Page here.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Announcing an Awesome New Community Search Tool for the Blogosphere!

How To Use Your Peers For Fun And Profit!

Cody McKibben — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:12:35 +0000

You’re a high achiever! You’re motivated to succeed in your education and your career. But do you know the price of success? Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s most famous architect, captured it well when he said, “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.” But how do you stay dedicated, hard-working, and devoted to achieving those tough goals in your personal life or maybe in the world at large? I mean we all have big dreams: Some of us want to be teachers, and pass along valuable lessons to the next generation; some of us want to succeed in politics or as journalists; some of us want to start our own companies, or change the world for the better. But how do we stay motivated to constantly dedicate ourselves to achieving our goals?

Everyone has had difficulty with goal-setting – it’s a rough part of life. A lot of people try to do too many things at once, or they simply have a huge, ambitious goal that is too much for one person to accomplish alone – and eventually you experience burnout. As creatures of habit, it is frequently difficult for us to make the necessary changes on our own, and we give up on our biggest dreams and desires and slink back into regular behavior. It’s easier. But deep down inside you know you can do better. You undermine your self-worth when you constantly give up on what you want to achieve most.

But don’t beat yourself up! As Leo Babauta of Zen Habits recently said, when it comes to forming new habits, “It’s not a lack of discipline, it’s a lack of motivation. The most powerful motivators are logging your habit and public pressure.” Now as a budding entrepreneur, trying desperately to start my own web design and consulting company, I know how hard it can be to stay motivated! School and traditional workplaces train us SO well to depend on our superiors to tell us what to do, how to prioritize, and when to get it done. But when you go to work for yourself, or you go off into the world to accomplish some personal goal of your own, no one is telling you what to do, and often times no one is setting hard deadlines for you! It’s a new skill you have to learn to do these things yourself.

So today I’m writing to advocate that if you want to achieve those big dreams (and we ALL have them…maybe you want to go meet Al Gore and help stop global warming…or be the next CEO at Apple…or start your own business…or write a book!…or simply lose 20 pounds) – I encourage you to set up a strong accountability structure for yourself. I created a group with my peers about 10 months ago that we call Career MasterMinds, to provide a place to talk about our career and personal development goals. Every week, about six to eight of us meet at a local coffee shop and share about our weekly goals and accomplishments. This support structure is based on proven techniques that many highly successful individuals have used to achieve great things, and it provides a perfect opportunity each week to log your progress and participate in a friendly yet professional environment for public accountability.

Now many businesspeople, world leaders, and other successful individuals have set up similar accountability groups for themselves. In the book Think And Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill discussed MasterMind groups, where individuals coordinate their knowledge and effort for the attainment of a common purpose, and how these groups could multiply an individual’s brain power and continually motivate positive emotions. Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab and others used the principles of the MasterMind group to become hugely successful businessmen and philanthropists. Benjamin Franklin had a similar group centuries earlier that he called a Junto. Tom Peters, one of the most respected experts on business management practices, best-selling author of In Search of Excellence and Re-Imagine!, also proposes similar support groups for wage slaves tired of “Dilbert nation,” calling them a great “place to discuss your fears…your hopes…and your plans with work and non-work colleagues.”

Besides the proven success of such systems, peer accountability groups are an intuitive win because they also give you an important chance to review your progress each week and brainstorm your next actions. You can meet with your colleagues as frequently as you choose, but for me, meeting once per week has proven to be the most effective accountability tool in meeting my day-to-day goals. I recommend that you keep a binder just for your goals, and in preparing to meet with your peer group you set aside a predefined time to reflect on your achievements each week and then spend some critical thinking time about what your most important tasks (MITs) should be for the next week. Which 3 or 5 things that you can accomplish in the next seven days are most instrumental in getting closer to the lifestyle and achievements you desire? Write them down, and be sure they are specific and measurable. You can reference this list throughout the week to provide guidance each day. As you track your progress, checking off those three most-important tasks each day, it will give you the motivation to keep pressing for your desired outcome.

The second major benefit of a peer group besides having a written record of your progress is having the support and accountability of others. Answering to someone else is absolutely key in achieving those difficult goals. Knowing that someone else will hold you accountable gives you the added fuel not to let them down. And they’ll also share in celebrating your achievements each week! The most rewarding trend we have found with our group is that each week we continue to learn new things about each other – common interests we share, projects and tasks we can help each other achieve together, or maybe someone has a contact they can connect you with to help attain your goals quicker. Our members have connected each other with key contacts on several occasions…I connected one of my peers with the VP of Engineering at a company he wanted to interview with (it just happened to be where my step-mother worked!)…one student was plugged in to the Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency to share his brilliant foreclosure research…and so on. Not only will your peers give you support and accountability, but they will also help you out a TON by sharing their knowledge, networks, and resources with you.

Nobody can achieve great things alone, but together we can help each other find great opportunity. When you network closely with your peers, and get to know the things that they are interested in and passionate about, you learn what sort of people and opportunities you can connect them with. And if you do this in a spirit of collaboration and teamwork, they will do the same thing for you. As Zig Ziglar said, “You can get everything in life you want, if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.” You know deep down inside, we all wanted to be great, noteworthy people when we were kids – cowboys and astronauts! Well don’t give up the dream. Many respected and celebrated individuals throughout history have relied on their peers for motivation to become the great, noteworthy people they were! A formal group will give you a structure to track your written goals and progress, and it will provide a synergistic group dynamic where you can share your successes and challenges with others. So talk with your friends each week about your goals, start your own MasterMind group, or use a similar club as your accountability group! Just remember that to achieve great things, many heads are better than one.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How To Use Your Peers For Fun And Profit!