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First published 2011
Copyright © Chris Baréz-Brown, 2011
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN: 978-0-14-196768-4
Shine bright
Who’s Elvis around here?
Understand that you are amazing
Choose to stand out
Abundant thinking
Filters of fantasy
Stop the knee-jerks
Slow down
Perception flip
Be human and screw up
Go with the flow, unless …
Perspective practice 1: You aren’t you
Know what you stand for
The Sultan’s Elephant
The good fight
Down with desks
Notice when others are great
Make it personal
747 heaven
Know your North Star
Assume everyone is an angel
Rest
Give your meetings teeth
Agenda items
Perspective practice 2: Be true to yourself
Live it, don’t think it
Get stuck in
Buy less crap
Get fresh
Take a look at your habits inside and outside work
Beware anaesthetics
Pain and pleasure
Don’t have all the answers
Perspective practice 3: Question your assumptions
Surround yourself with interesting people
Using your position to control others
Three choices
If it ain’t fun, stop doing it
One Big Thing
Be a dick, not a cock
Commit
Travel
Hang out with resonators, not vampires
Do iconic
Chill and laugh
Make friends and dump some
You wear it well
Really feely
Feedback with funk
Stage One: Check-in
Stage Two: Data
Stage Three: Interpretation
Stage Four: Reaction
Stage Five: Land it
Daydream
Gang of three
Thoughts don’t change the world – ideas do
Idea Wizardry
What do they want from you?
Do favours
Make stuff simple
Speak in pictures
Have a thing
Leadership me, times three
Be in the picture
Do something physical
Everything is energy
Know what you need
Back to basics
Standards, my dear, standards
Be consistent, be inconsistent
You have a choice: you are free
Surround yourself with talent, and be merciless
It doesn’t end with the handshake
Never have to remember
Diary Neverland
Lie down when you can
The rabbit hole of e-mail
Have killer numbers
Be a brand
Do what you love and are great at
Be a grown-up, have a chat
Pressure valves
Admin alchemy
Stop talking – listen! (Silence is really golden)
Not just work
Getting unstuck
Feed the machine
Killing fear
Nice trumps nasty
Checking in
Stage fright delight
Dream your way to genius
Believe
Shiny acknowledgements
How does it feel?
Chris Baréz-Brown is on a mission: to bring creativity, energy and engagement to the business world.
After helping turn Carling Black Label into the first British billion-pound brand, he joined? What If!, the innovation and ideas agency. There he helped some of the world’s biggest businesses get better at innovating.
In 2009 he founded Upping Your Elvis, a business whose sole focus is to release the genius of organizations by helping their people shine more brightly. He works with the likes of Coca-Cola, Nike and Citibank to help their teams make an extraordinary impact.
His previous book, How To Have Kick-Ass Ideas, was described as a ‘champagne-in-the-veins tonic for jaundiced people’ by Eden Project founder Tim Smit.
www.uppingyourelvis.com
To my wife, Anna.
Nobody has ever inspired me to be more. You are a constant revelation, never settling for less than extraordinary. I am blessed to have met you, let alone married you. A more Elvis chick couldn’t exist. Bring on the next adventure!
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Work is a huge part of who we are.
Not only does it give us money to live, it shapes our most important life decisions: where we live, who our friends are, the time we spend with our families.
Work can define how we see ourselves, often wrongly. It consumes enormous amounts of our time, energy and focus.
The much-used motto of the working populace is: ‘I don’t live to work, I work to live’.
That doesn’t add up.
If you work full time you probably spend at least forty-five hours a week at work, more than ten hours preparing for and travelling to it, countless hours recovering from it … and weekends thinking about it.
Surely, in order to live life to the full, you must love your work too. You have to create some impact, be yourself and shine as brightly as you can. Otherwise it would be a huge waste of life. You’d just be taking up space.
Work is designed to trap us. It is complex and devious. It is hard to even notice the trap – which is why so many of us fall into its clutches.
There is always the next thing to strive for. Few ever see the bigger picture; most see only next week. When we are young, most of us take on mortgages that keep us focused on paying off a twenty-five-year debt;this is hardly conducive to taking creative risks and breaking the rules.
The grand plan keeps us busy and keeps our heads down, rarely giving us a glimpse of what could be.Of what we could be. Before long we are shaped by what is around us and not by possibility. Our fears make us play safe and play the game. So many people die without achieving their dreams, settling instead for just comfort and security.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Work can be the most rewarding aspect of our lives. It can make us grow, nourish us and even entertain us. It can connect us to worlds we can only dream of and reward us with an enviable lifestyle. It can be stimulating, exciting and fun.
Work can be the best game in town. The question to ask yourself is: ‘How can I be better at playing that game?
Bono, the lead singer of U2, is one of the world’s best known advocates of human rights. When he goes into any organization as part of his well-publicized mission to eradicate Third World debt, the first question he asks is: ‘Who’s Elvis around here?’
It’s a fabulous question.
The Elvis Bono is looking for is the person who stands out, breaks the rules, makes things happen, shines more brightly, and probably loves every minute of it.
I believe everyone can be a bit more Elvis. Everyone has the ability to stand out.
Imagine that every day you could jump out of bed, loving what you are about to do, excited by the game you are going to play, and knowing that you can only win. That’s a very powerful place to be, and provides more laughs per minute than most people experience in a week.
Shining brightly can manifest itself in all business activities. It could be the way you run meetings. It may be that when you interview someone, you try to ensure that the interviewee learns and grows through the process rather than just responds to your questions. It might be that every time you walk through reception, you spread a little happiness and humour.
The manner in which you shine is down to you. The only essentials are that shining should be fun, human and engaging, and that you put a little of your unique magic into the business.
Shine is for everyone who wants to shine brighter at work.
This book is an alarm call. It is shouting: ‘Wake up!’
You can work to live and be ordinary, or you can live through your work and be both extraordinary and fulfilled. The only limitation is you: your energy, your belief, your perspective.
By playing with Shine you will learn how to be a bit more Elvis and how to get a bellyful of the laughs that are on offer at work.
Bring it on …
You are incredible.
You can process information faster than any computer on the planet.
You can replicate cells and heal yourself.
You are so sensitive to information and the world around you that you can perceive molecules in the air and small changes in light and movement.
You have mastered language and can interact with others without even trying.
You have the ability to think freely and express who you really are.
You have no limitations but the ones you impose upon yourself.
You have all you need to shine bright.
Shining isn’t compulsory. If anything, the opposite is true.
Society certainly won’t encourage you to shine; it will do its best to make you fit in, small and unnoticed. Business needs its worker ants, those who turn up every day and toe the line, head down, never challenging the status quo. Most managers will admit that it’s harder to manage Elvises. The talented ones are too much for a mediocre manager to bear, as they constantly strive to improve standards.
So there is plenty of space for you to carry on in this world without causing ripples, without being noticed, and no one will object if you do.
But there is another option. You can be you. All of you.
You can be that extraordinary human being that you have always known lies deep within you.
You can decide that it’s time for the real you to cast off the shackles you have been using to define yourself, and shine in all that you do.
You can stand tall, take a huge bite out of this life and savour the taste.
The choice is yours.
Why aren’t you making it?
If you are scared, what are you scared of? What can really go wrong?
If you are lazy, take a good look at the person you’ll become if you don’t change.
If you don’t know how, read this book. And if you just don’t want to change, then why did you buy it?
Our minds are highly efficient killing machines. They are trained from an early age to destroy anything that doesn’t fit our model of the world.
Recent research suggests that as few as 28 per cent of the world’s potential breakthrough ideas (a cure for Alzheimer’s, the wheel, McDonald’s value meals)have been discovered so far. If true, this is almost certainly a result of our analytical and reductionist style of thinking.
Just consider that for a second.
What’s going through your mind? Are you questioning how things might have been different today if all those amazing ideas had been thought of, and asking whether we can do something about it?
Or are you asking who did this research? What is it based upon? What is the definition of a breakthrough idea?
If you’re in the first camp, I believe you have a chance to make more of a difference in this world and certainly in business. Far too many people live their lives in the second camp, because we have been trained to do so very effectively for so long.
This means analytical, logical minds dominate our working lives. If a colleague brings us a new perspective, insight or idea the trigger in our minds delivers ‘combat thinking’ before we can even be conscious of it. If this new view has weak defences, our minds will find a way in and destroy it.
Jo, a talented innovator I have worked with for years, was once media director of Saatchi Australia. She went on a negotiation training course with the rest of the board. It was run by a pair of British ex-army officers who had been trained in negotiation skills for hostage situations, so it promised to be a fun day.
In one exercise she was asked to pair up with the finance director (for maximum drama). They were placed at the front of the room with everyone watching. An orange was placed in front of them and they were both given a piece of paper with their instructions. They were told to read them and then negotiate possession of the orange.
Of course they did what everyone tends to do and tried charm, cunning, bribery, mild threats, feigned disinterest and humour in their attempts to make the other person concede the spoils. Then, as usual, when all else failed they stopped and read the instructions. The light bulb went on: Jo’s script said she needed the orange to make juice. Mike’s said he wanted it to make marmalade.
They could each have what they wanted from the same orange, and would have reached that conclusion more quickly if they hadn’t jumped to the immediate conclusion that the only way to achieve their objective was to beat their opponent.
Our logical, analytical brains naturally make us assume that what we have seen happen before will happen again, and lead us to play out our lives on autopilot. Abundant thinking breaks that cycle by helping us to consider futures that are not based on past experience.
In this case their combative thinking led to combative actions of the type that so often fracture our energy and that of our potential partnerships. By thinking abundantly, the exercise would have been nailed in seconds.
New perspectives are just stimulus.
We don’t have to be scared of them.
They can’t hurt us. We decide what to do with them. There is no need to react in a ‘kill or be killed’ fashion just because a new perspective has been shared with us.
Next time your mind goes Rambo, take notice. Step back and observe what causes the violent reaction and how quickly it goes from one kill to another. Then breathe, smile, sit straight and notice how the killer can become a puppy: playful and interested in all the things around you.
When you embrace abundant thinking you soon realize that people want to be near you.
You shine more brightly and sprinkle possibility in places where surprising results may appear.
Such a small mental change can transform an interaction, meeting or team into a force for good in the world.
We all have good days and bad days. Wouldn’t it be great if we got to choose which one rather than just playing the hand we are dealt by the gods?
Some days at work, you feel bulletproof. Nothing can stop you from having a fantastic day and even if it rains on the outside, you feel sunny on the inside. If your boss is in a bad mood, you find it funny. If Finance sends back your expenses with a query you think, ‘Good on you, guys; that diligence means this business is safe,’ and when your PC crashes for the fifteenth time you think, ‘I am sure those tech guys are doing their best and there is a great reason we can’t have Macs.’
On other days we are not so robust. The toner is gone on the printer again and you want to resign. (‘This place sucks, you are all losers, I am rotting away in this hell hole, pass the Scotch!’)
In both situations, you are the same person. You have the same skills and talents, and yet you’re experiencing two very different days or even two very different realities. That’s because your head is creating two very different states in you.
Your ‘state’ is simply my term for ‘how you are’ at any given point in time; it dictates how you perform and how much fun you have. State is constantly changing in subtle ways depending upon external stimulus and internal processing; mostly we are unconscious of its influence, but every now and again we can’t help but pay attention.
For example, you’ve had a great year and in your review your boss gives you a maximum bonus. In this case your head says, ‘Fantastic, I’m valued, recognized, my efforts were worthwhile, I belong here!’ That creates a state where for the rest of the day it’s likely you are going to have a great time, because the emotional resonance is so high.
If the boss had expressed a different view of you and your delivery, and said that you had performed poorly and that this year your bonus was keeping your job, your head might be saying, ‘I hate you and everyone else, you must think I am rubbish, I’ve obviously been a laughing stock all year.’
So what’s important about this process?
Firstly, we can’t control our triggers and nor should we. Life should be dynamic and surprising; if we waste our energy like Howard Hughes trying to protect ourselves from the outside world we have missed the point.
So there will be triggers in our lives that affect our state both negatively and positively, and hallelujah for that. Those rich emotions are called life.
The challenge, however, is that at times our state is so stuck that a quick-fix cup of tea, chat to a mate or walk round the block won’t get us into a place that is more useful and fun. The key to making that change is to understand our filters.
Our filters are interpretations of the world.
They happen so fast that we are largely unaware of them and yet they drive our behaviour and how much we enjoy our business life. They dictate how effective we are in business and how much we shine. In the two examples of how we could react to a trigger (an annual review), notice how different our filters are. Your review changes nothing that has happened during the past year, but what your boss says can create two radically different interpretations and therefore reactions.
The reason they are so different and wildly resonant is this: often, the filters in our heads have nothing to do with the reality of a situation. Therefore we can put the most fantastical and ridiculous interpretations on events, which then produce negative reactions. The stuff in our heads could be absolute rubbish, and yet we regard it as the gospel truth.
I have experienced this myself. I was once told by one of the ‘guv’nors’ of my last business that creativity was ‘low rent’.
This is what happened in my head instantly: ‘I believe creativity is important, he thinks it’s low rent, therefore I must be low rent, which means my work won’t be valued. I am therefore wasting my time and I should resign and do something else.’
I know that sounds laughable, but when I go back to that moment and ask why I felt so bad, that’s what I hear in my head.
Of course, it’s all rubbish. Deep down I know that creativity is vital, and that if we were all to embrace it, the world would be truly extraordinary. But at that moment I had a different perspective: a negative, out-of-control, spiralling-down perspective. The reason my reaction was so powerful was that the comment was about me and what I stood for, and it was delivered by my boss, someone I respected and who is a great friend.
His intention was not to upset me; in fact, quite the opposite. He had a point of view that he thought could be useful for me in my work. I then used it to upset myself and have a thoroughly miserable day. Well done, me!
Think how often this happens to you. How many times have you misinterpreted the actions or comments of colleagues and consequently reacted in the wrong way? This is the human condition. It is designed to protect us from risk. In the past it could have been life-saving. Unfortunately, in today’s business world it takes away our shine and leads to negative knee-jerk reactions in situations that could indeed be of positive benefit.
When you realize that you are having a negative reaction, stop, breathe, sit or stand straight and notice what is going on inside you.
Your state will have changed, but the question is, what’s going on in your head? Slow it down to grab hold of its tail; when you do so you will see the whole beast and all the filters that created it. You can only slow it down by stopping and breathing and becoming aware of what’s happening to you.
The more aware you become of these filters, the more choices you have about how you want to be. The more choices you have, the better you are … and the brighter you shine.
Business runs fast, and business wants more. We run fast, and we want more. The world is spinning so quickly that just to keep your feet connected to its surface is a huge achievement.
Yet fast and more are not great. We think they are because they make life exciting. When we are busy we feel as though we’re achieving something and we feel as though we are important. The truth is very different: if you are too busy and too hectic you lose your impact and your shine.
To truly shine, you need to tune yourself into you, the people around you and the context in which you work. To do that you need to slow down and take a deep breath. Literally. By breathing deeply you feed your brain more oxygen, which it needs to function well. It then begins to relax and connect to your subconscious.
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