Posts Tagged ‘early stage’

Royal Dublin Society Lecture by Dr. Deepak Chopra and relevance to Entrepreneurship by Dr John McKeon

Dr John McKeon and Dr. Deepak Chopra

Dr John McKeon and Dr. Deepak Chopra

Last night I was at a fascinating talk at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) by Dr. Deepak Chopra, physician, entrepreneur and author of 55 books who was invited back to Dublin by Jane Stephenson from www.Seminars.ie

The evening lecture in the wonderful RDS Concert Hall included topics based on some of his new books including Super Brain .

I have been very interested in Deepak’s work after reading his business book The Soul of Leadership, which is derived from his executive training program at the Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University. In the book, he describes “pure leadership” which is based on a need coming from followers and then from a leader standing up to address that need.

The Soul of Leadership is a clear and enlightening guide offering insight and practical steps to become an inspired leader and fulfil your vision and is a great read for all start-up entrepreneurs.

As Entrepenuer’s, whether it’s our employees or our clients we have the opportunity to serve, Deepak’s method of leadership focuses less on strategizing or putting on a role and more on finding the truest way we can serve others by being authentic and congruent.

On the evening, Deepak made clear his conviction that it is within the potential of every human being to live an enriching, self-aware, magnificent life which are all relevant themes to the mindset of entrepreneurship and value creation .

He finished the evening by defining that happiness is achieved through three things:

  1. Creating a solution for a problem which allows us to express our creativity
  2. A level of material success that makes you economically empowered beyond money
  3. Making other people happy and fulfilling our desire for appreciation and attention.

In reviewing the above it would be difficult to come up with a better definition of entrepreneurship!

I had a wonderful opportunity to speak with Deepak before the event and discuss a number of topics including habit patterns for success, entrepreneurship and even golf! All his teaching are extremely relevant to early stage business and the start up phase and I look forward to meeting Deepak again next year on his return.

Why key business figures say about Depak

“Deepak Chopra opens the door for today’s leaders to access the secrets of success we all need without giving up who we are.” – Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com

“Deepak Chopra really gets it – true leadership begins at the spiritual level. It’s not about popularity, power or piling up profits; it’s about getting your ego out of the way so that you can serve the greater good. At a time when the world desperately needs love-based leaders, this throughout guide is a godsend.” – Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager.

About Depak

Deepak Chopra’s popularity as an international presenter and keynote speaker is exemplified in an impressive list of honorariums. He participates annually as a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine event sponsored by Harvard Medical School, Department of Continuing Education and the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since 1997.

Dr Chopra is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, an Adjunct Professor at Kellogg School of Management, Senior Scientist with The Gallup Organization and founder of The Chopra Foundation.

Further reading

Interview with Gay Byrne on Meaning of Life, October 2010  http://www.rte.ie/tv/meaningoflife/player.html

Useful Link

Visit: www.deepakchopra.com

Posted in Seminars

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Another great workshop today with Tony Buzan that will benefit start-up entrepreneurs

John McKeon with Tony Buzan

John McKeon with Tony Buzan

Today I attended a great workshop with one of the great thinkers of our age Tony Buzan.

His basic principle of mind mapping has enormous cross over to ‘the art of sales’ as well as ‘the science of start-up’.

An outstanding speaker, Tony Buzan, is the creator of Mind Maps, the originator of the concept of Mental Literacy and author of numerous bestselling books on the brain and thinking.
He is the author of over 200 bestselling books on the brain and learning. His classic Use Both Sides of Your Brain, has sold more than two million copies world wide

Tony is a great guy and was great fun to meet and share some entrepreneurship ideas with him after the work shop.

Here are what some pretty important members of the business community are saying about Tony.

Buzan shows corporate executives how to hotwire their creative energies.”
Forbes Magazine

Tony Buzan has done it again… make your mind work better.”
Ken Blanchard, author of the multimillion bestselling book The One Minute Manager

Here are some great tips from Tony on how Mind Mapping can save you time?

One of the simplest and most effective ways to use Mind Mapping and boost your productivity is to begin each week by spending half an hour creating a Mind Map version of a to do list. This will give you a snapshot overview of your tasks that you can prioritise according to deadlines and importance. Having it laid out visually can also help you split your workload into realistic chunks of time.

1. Begin by creating a central idea with the date at the centre.

2. Add on main branches for key tasks or projects that you need to accomplish or work on that week.

3. From these main branches, draw child branches with names, events, sub-tasks, deadlines or other keywords that make up the specific actions needed to complete the bigger task.

4. Look for links between different tasks. Does one task directly impact another? Draw relationship arrows to demonstrate this.

Weekly Task Map

As you build your Mind Map you can get a clear picture of your workload and view each task objectively. You can determine what’s important and what’s not, see how certain projects will relate and impact on other tasks, and block your time to achieve optimum productivity.

The Mind Map format means you can see the whole picture in one glance, which can be invaluable when time is short. Whilst your colleagues are tearing their hair out, lost in the scribbles of their messy To Do List, you can maintain a serene air of calm and control as you know exactly what needs doing and where you are with it.

Now here’s the kicker… If you need to be completely ruthless with your time, follow on with optional steps number 5 and 6…

5. What is the main goal of your job right now? Is it to generate revenue, satisfy customers or ensure product quality? Figure out one key goal and replace the date in the centre of your map with it.

Generate Revenue

6. Review the tasks on your map. How many directly correspond to the goal in the centre?

Any tasks that will not help you achieve that goal, delete them.

It sounds brutal, and it is, but it is also a very good cleansing exercise to help you re-focus and give you more time to spend where it matters. So much time is wasted by just assuming that something has to be done; that it’s important because it is part of the routine.

Get ruthless and take courage from the knowledge that if anyone demands to know why you have decided not to do a certain report, or attend a particular meeting, you can say that you are focusing your time on something far more beneficial for the company.

Have a go at using Mind Mapping instead of your usual To Do List and try making time bend to your will for a change

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Leadership for Entrepreneurs Seminar with Robin Sharma

John McKeon & Robin Sharma - Entrepeurship Seminar

John McKeon & Robin Sharma – Entrepeurship Seminar

Today I was at a really interesting event organised by the Irish Centre for Business Excellence  at the Convention Centre, Dublin.

The event was billed as; Come and be inspired by the internationally renowned leadership expert, Robin Sharma. During this seminar the bestselling author of THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI, THE GREATNESS GUIDE and THE LEADER WHO HAD NO TITLE will give you profound insights. You will quickly come to see why when Fortune 500 organizations need a speaker with a proven track record of delivering leadership presentations that inspire, engage and deliver real business results, they go to Robin Sharma.

He is indeed a really inspiring speaker and his interactive seminar was packed with relevant points for start-up and early stage entrepreneurs. I had a lovely chat with the great man after the event and interview him on his success rituals and habit patterns. He came across as extremely sincere and was very approachable.

Here’s a synopsis of his ‘explosive productivity tips’ so you get big things done and make your life matter!

Robin Sharma’s 21 tips to get you to your best productivity:

#1. Check email in the afternoon so you protect the peak energy hours of your mornings for your best work.

#2. Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.

#3. Remember that big, brave goals release energy. So set them clearly and then revisit them every morning for 5 minutes.

#4. Mess creates stress (I learned this from tennis icon Andre Agassi who said he wouldn’t let anyone touch his tennis bag because if it got disorganized, he’d get distracted). So clean out the clutter in your office to get more done.

#5. Sell your TV. You’re just watching other people get successful versus doing the things that will get you to your dreams.

#6. Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).

#7. Run routines. When I studied the creative lives of massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham and Thomas Edison, I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up, when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would relax). Peak productivity’s not about luck. It’s about devotion.

#8. Get up at 5 am. Win the battle of the bed. Put mind over mattress. This habit alone will strengthen your willpower so it serves you more dutifully in the key areas of your life.

#9. Don’t do so many meetings. (I’ve trained the employees of our FORTUNE 500 clients on exactly how to do this – including having the few meetings they now do standing up – and it’s created breakthrough results for them).

#10. Don’t say yes to every request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us saying yes to everything – which is the end of your elite productivity.

#11. Outsource everything you can’t be BIW (Best in the World) at. Focus only on activities within what I call “Your Picasso Zone”.

#12. Stop multi-tasking. New research confirms that all the distractions invading our lives are rewiring the way our brains work (and drop our IQ by 5 points!). Be one of the rare-air few who develops the mental and physical discipline to have a mono-maniacal focus on one thing for many hours. (It’s all about practice).

#13. Get fit like Madonna. Getting to your absolute best physical condition will create explosive energy, renew your focus and multiply your creativity.

#14. Workout 2X a day. This is just one of the little-known productivity tactics that I’ll walk you through in my new online training program YOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNLEASHED (details at the end of this post) but here’s the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then another workout around 6 or 7pm to set you up for wow in the evening.

#15. Drink more water. When you’re dehydrated, you’ll have far less energy. And get less done.

#16. Work in 90 minute blocks with 10 minute intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to do my best work).

#17. Write a Stop Doing List. Every productive person obsessively sets To Do Lists. But those who play at world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that what made Apple Apple was not so much what they chose to build but all the projects they chose to ignore.

#18. Use your commute time. If you’re commuting 30 minutes each way every day – get this: at the end of a year, you’ve spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use that time to listen to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is to triple your rate of learning.

#19. Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time the store is busiest? Why go to movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the gym when the gym’s completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you’ll save so many of them.

#20. Get things right the first time. Most people are wildly distracted these days. And so they make mistakes. To unleash your productivity, become one of the special performers who have the mindset of doing what it takes to get it flawless first. This saves you days of having to fix problems.

#21. Get lost. Don’t be so available to everyone. I often spend hours at a time in the cafeteria of a university close to our headquarters. I turn off my devices and think, create, plan and write. Zero interruptions. Pure focus. Massive results.

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