Sarah Robinson, the famed Escaping Mediocrity blogger, interviewed me, asked my side, as a business coach and mentor, about Building an Awesome Company Culture.
No need to really say more – it’s worth the 1 hour listen –
It should really be called Dagney & Hank…
For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.
If you doubt the power of Twitter, here is one example of how it has helped me this year.
I wanted people to know about & share my TEDx Video with all their friends. Here is the link.
So I decided to send that link to everyone I’m connected to on Twitter. I also sent the link to some of the Top business people on Twitter like @tferriss I also tried sending it to Oprah – she hasn’t sent it out yet – she will 😉
Two weeks ago I noticed a tweet from Ashton Kutcher asking for recommendations of Videos to add to his A+ Top 10 Videos of the Week to Watch. I sent him my TEDx talk. And yes. He added it to his list.
You’re right. Twitter is a waste of time. For MOST people and companies. It’s a waste of time because they haven’t figured out how to use it.
However, when you spend two years building relationships with & helping people on Twitter. Others on Twitter begin to help you.
Thanks Ashton @aplusk on Twitter. 23,000 people have now watched this video in its first 2 weeks live. I want people to see Entrepreneurs differently. And help kids aspire to be entrepreneurs. Your video mention helped.
I’m not sure why it’s so common, but entrepreneurs tend to overwhelm themselves with guilt for not working around the clock. Often our non-business owner friends wonder why we work so hard, or why we can’t ever ‘disconnect.’
Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.
And stop feeling guilty about unplugging and taking time off at the random times you need it too. Think of it like plugging in your iPhone. You don’t feel guilty about that.
On April 8th – I woke up at 4am for what was set to be a busy week but one that felt doable. I had no idea how hard the travel would be.
I was set to speak in:
You can’t make this shit up…
Flight to Edmonton went fine. My talk in Edmonton went great. My flight to Calgary from Edmonton went fine. And the lounge in Calgary was empty and I waited 2 hours for my Calgary to Frankfurt flight which was to leave at 4pm.
I boarded the plane at 3:30. At 3:35 it started snowing. At 7:30pm we were still on the tarmac and they canceled our flight as the crew would now have been on too long. Re-scheduled for 1am. So the next five hours were mixed with me spending time on cell phones to Air Canada trying to re-book my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Bahrain – after 28 min on hold I hung up by accident, then calling a 2nd time I had to phone while sitting on the floor to keep my phone plugged in as the battery was down to 3% – amazingly they said they’d make it happen. OK. Now for food. Everything was closed. The Calgary airport was under lockdown due to a 2 hour power outage from the storm. And the lounge was also closed. At midnight I found a little shop that had left their fridge unlocked. So like Jean Valjean from Les Miserable I took a bottle of water and a handful of crackers from the bar area – and I left a $5 bill in the fridge so as to not get called a thief 😉 We boarded our plane at 1am – and that flight was delayed until 4:20am due to the ice buildup on the plane. The crew gave it a 4:30am cut off and said if it was’t ready they’d be cancelling this one too – we finally left Calgary 12.5 hours after our scheduled start – luckily I was in Business Class – unluckily I’d already missed my new re-booked connections in Frankfurt so I was showing up there with no booked flight to Bahrain.
On the whole flight I knew I needed to have a few people ready to help me on arrival in Europe, so while all the other passengers complained and ranted, I became the best friends of three flight attendants. I told them how much I needed a connecting flight to appear – and they got on Telex to the airport while we were in flight and made it happen for me. I was met at the gate by the Concierge for Air Canada Super Elite passengers (I’m only Elite which is still pretty high up) – Air Canada had purchased a Business Class ticket for me on Emerites Airlines – no questions asked – and they wisked me past hundreds of lined up people at Security where I just made my flight to Dubai.
On landing in Dubai I raced to get the connecting Bahrain flight – and dripping with sweat I boarded as the gates closed. I was wearing a Blazer at every interaction with airline people to try to look professional – even though I’d been traveling for 28 hours at this point – and awake for about 40.
My flight to Bahrain went perfectly until just as we were getting ready to land a DHL plane crash landed on the only runway – causing our flight to be diverted to Dumman, Saudi Arabia for 3 hours. In all I made it to Bahrain in time to do my talk – however I arrived 16 hours later than planned.
And amazingly my trip home was almost as crazy.
Upon arriving in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on the 15th, five minutes before my talk started I was told that a Volcano in Iceland was shutting down Heathrow where my flights were connecting to. I had a two flights connecting in Heathrow that would have had me in Vancouver 16 hours later. So the saga continues… I’m back on the phone with Air Canada from a wireless hotel lobby phone – which dies just as they are ticketing my new connecting flights via Frankfurt. So I borrow phone number two, and call back. They’ve booked me on Luftansa an Air Canada partner via Frankfurt and my trip will now be 24 hours later yet still 16 hours travel – feels OK – so I fly off to Riyadh to wait in a pre-war decorated, airport hotel, with 2 hour wireless cards that fail every 7-8 minutes.
I wake in the middle of the night thinking about the Volcanic Ash cloud and wondering if Frankfurt would be impacted – so at 4am I’m back online and sure enough German airports are beginning to close. I toss and turn all night and at 10am am frantically trying to get ahold of Air Canada or Luftansa with no luck due to time zones, and the fact that Friday in Saudi is a day when virtually no offices are open. So at 11:00am I decide to pack up from the hotel, head to the airport and take matters into my own hands. I’m determined to find a way home – and in my mind I already know that I won’t be flying via Europe – it’ll be via Cairo or Asia…
After getting lost in the Bowels of Riyadh airport at ‘airline offices’ which turn out to be where the baggage is controlled from it dawns on me – maybe there is a travel agent here. And sure enough – 20 minutes walk through 3 terminals I find one. Bear in mind I’m the only person not wearing the traditional Saudi Dress – and when everyone is walking towards the mosque to pray at noon I’m walking against the flow…
I did it though – I found a place – while booking my ticket the man looked up and said “what is your religion” I replied “catholic” – and he smiled and whispered – oh – do you like Johnny Walker Black Label – umm ya – connnection made – they ‘can’t drink’ in Saudi but most do privately 😉 I paid $3,700 for a one-way, Business class ticket home to Vancouver. Total flight time 26 hours, total time including connections would be 33.5 hours – Riyadh-Bahrain-Manila-Vancouver – but I’d get home.
And get home I did. 30 hours later than planned – but days ahead if I’d gone to Europe… 11 flights in 8 days.
And yesterday – to my surprise & joy – Air Canada blew me away and credited my $4,200 for the tickets I didn’t use coming home 😉 So I actually covered my hotel costs, wireless cards, and some of the crazy data roaming I’m sure to get creamed with…
Lessons:
We’ve all heard some motivational speaker use this one: “God gave you two ears and one mouth; use them in that ratio.”
Too many leaders race to get their two cents in, trying desperately to be heard, without hearing what others are saying first.
I used to think this saying was only applicable to CEOs but it should be applied to everyone at your company.
Are you arguing a point because you want to be right or is it because you’re passionately trying to explain yourself?
Here’s a hint: if you’re communicating with others only to tell them how you want things done, then you’re not communicating effectively.
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” wrote Steven Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
This Baja Peninsula photo is of Yanik Silver and members of Maverick Business Adventures – an organization I’m close with that takes driven entrepreneurs on trips so they can play really, really hard.
Recently, a would-be entrepreneur told me he was working constantly and struggled to read books for fun. I threw down the gauntlet and told him he’d never be a successful entrepreneur until he figured out how to get a life. I told him to read the book Endurance
I’m not an expert in work/life balance, but I’ve crashed twice, and hard. Harder than I’d wish anyone else to so I try to help as best I can.
We have all heard the saying ‘work hard play hard’, but rarely do most entrepreneurs live it. Nowadays, people do a lot of hard work, but when it comes time to fulfill the other end of the obligation, we give up, bringing our laptops, cell phones, and other ‘work’ items into our ‘play time.’ And from what I recall as a kid, playing hard didn’t include toting along our homework or smart phone. We just played–played until we dropped from laughing so hard. Played until we dropped from exhaustion and slept like babies. It’s time to return to that kind of play, not just for your individual sanity, but for the sake of those you care for.
“Mens sana in corpore sano” is Latin for “a healthy mind in a healthy body”
For more information on this topic, check out: The Emotional Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurs.
We all know that meetings suck, right?
You hear it all the time. It’s the one thing that almost everyone in business can agree on.
Except it’s not actually true…
Meetings don’t suck.
We just suck at running meetings.
When done right, meetings not only work, they make people and companies better.
In Meetings Suck, world renowned business expert and growth guru Cameron Herold teaches you how to use focused, time effective meetings to help you and your company soar.
This book shows you immediately actionable, step-by-step systems that ensure that you and everyone in your organization improves your meetings, right away.
In the process, you’ll turn meetings that suck into meetings that work.
In life, we always hear about people who’ve made huge decisions from their gut – without data.Today, I want you to make a decision, not only from your gut, but also from some data. A decision that is only $12 per employee but will be priceless for your business.
Right now, your gut is telling you something is wrong with your company’s meetings. You KNOW everyone complains about meetings.
People HATE going to them, they HATE running them, and they really have NO idea which meetings are truly necessary but they hold meetings simply because they think that is what they SHOULD do.
Even some of the smartest CEOs in the world complain about meetings – Elon Musk publicly told employees at Tesla & SpaceX to walk out of meetings if they weren’t being run properly.
I sent Elon a message saying that wasn’t going to fix anything – the key is to fix the root of the problem – NOT continue to ignore why meetings suck.
A Meeting is – Any phone call, video call or occasion where 2 or more people meet to discuss or work-through office topics.
Most employees on average spend 1-2 hours per day in meetings.
And likely, none of those employees – front-line staff or leaders – have had any training on how to attend meetings or participate in them, LET ALONE How to RUN THEM.
Consider this…
If the Average employee spends just 1 Hour per day in meetings – that’s 1/8th of their time.
If the Average employee earns $50,000 per year.
And they’re spending 1/8th of their time in meetings, that means you’re paying $6,250 dollars per year for just ONE employee to attend meetings.
The reality is, employees spend 1/8th of their time – and 1/8th of your company’s payroll – doing something they have literally NO idea how to do.
The Reality is…
95% of employees are booking & leading meetings – and they have NEVER been trained on how to run them.
95% of employees have had NO training on how to show up and participate in the meetings they attend daily.
And 95% of employees and companies have no idea what meetings are even necessary to hold.
Meetings CAN be hugely effective – IF you know how to run them
Meetings don’t SUCK, we just SUCK at running meetings.
Investing $15 per employee – to help ensure the $50,000 a year you spend on them is an obvious and easy choice.
This could be the most impactful $15 you’ll ever spend and will save the company’s money, time and resources instantly.
Buying a copy of Meetings Suck for 100% of your employees and having them read it this month will have a huge impact on your company’s success.
Public relations has always been an essential part of doing business which is probably why you’re shelling out big money to an outside PR firm. But the truth is that you don’t need them. You already have all the necessary tools in-house to do as good a job as the so-called experts.
Cameron Herold and Adrian Salamunovic have taught thousands of company execs how to exploit free media coverage and ditch these expensive, often ineffective outsiders.
Cameron & Adrian have also built in-house PR teams, spent decades learning how to generate Free PR and how to leverage public relations to complement their sales and marketing strategy.
In Free PR, you’ll learn how the media world operates while you gain invaluable insider knowledge and actionable advice on how to:
Landing public relations coverage for yourself and your company is a powerful tool to help elevate your personal brand. PR is easier to generate than marketing, PR is easier to leverage than marketing and PR is more cost effective than marketing. In other words, Public Relations is more critical than ever in growing your brand and your business.
You’ve got more passion, commitment, a larger stake, and a deeper understanding of your business than any outside PR firm could ever have. So stop wasting money and take the reins yourself. Learn the secrets to landing TONS of Free PR for your company.
What they’re saying:
“I think PR is the core for promoting any business. Public relations acquires customers! That’s what’s cool about this book.”
– Kevin O’Leary, Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank
“The ultimate guidebook for those looking to get press, grow their brand, and get in front of the masses. Free PR is the roadmap you’ve been looking for.”
– Peter Shankman, Founder, Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
“Adrian and Cameron will show you the secrets of getting massive exposure for your business. This book is packed with actionable insights from two guys that actually know how to to do it.”
– Dan Martell, Serial Entrepreneur & Investor (Intercom.io, Unbounce)
“I told Cameron to write the book on generating free PR. I’m excited to see that he’s finally sharing his secrets with the world. This is a must read for any entrepreneurial company and marketing team.”
– Verne Harnish, Founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)
Many corporations have slick, flashy mission statements that ultimately do little to motivate employees and less to impress customers, investors, and partners.
But there is a way to share your excitement for the future of your company in a clear, compelling, and powerful way and entrepreneur and business growth expert Cameron Herold can show you how.
Vivid Vision is a revolutionary tool that will help owners, CEOs, and senior managers create inspirational, detailed, and actionable three-year mission statements for their companies. In this easy-to-follow guide, Herold walks organization leaders through the simple steps to creating their own Vivid Vision, from brainstorming to sharing the ideas to using the document to drive progress in the years to come.
By focusing on mapping out how you see your company looking and feeling in every category of business, without getting bogged down by data and numbers or how it will happen, Vivid Vision creates a holistic road map to success that will get all of your teammates passionate about the big picture.
Your company is your dream, one that you want to share with your staff, clients, and stakeholders. Vivid Vision is the tool you need to make that dream a reality.
A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.
Hal Elrod’sThe Miracle Morning has helped redefine the mornings and the lives of millions of readers since 2012. Since then, careers have been launched, goals have been met, and dreams have been realized, all through the power of the Miracle Morning’s six Life S.A.V.E.R.S.
Now The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs brings you these principles in a whole new light—alongside the Entrepreneurial Elevation Principles and the Entrepreneur’s Elevation Skills. These are essential skills that you need to create a successful business and personal life. Cameron Herold— Bestselling Author and a widely-respected expert on entrepreneurial mindset—brings his wisdom and insight to you using Hal Elrod’s powerful Miracle Morning framework.
The principles and skills you’ll find in this book will help you to channel your passion and achieve balance in a remarkable new way. – Learn why mornings matter more than you think – Learn how to master your own self-leadership and accelerate your personal development – Learn how to manage your energy—physical, mental, and emotional – Learn how to implement Hal Elrod’s invaluable Life S.A.V.E.R.S. in your daily routine – And much more… You’re already an entrepreneur. Now discover how to take your success to the next level by first taking yourself to the next level. The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs is your roadmap to masterfully building an empire with a powerful vision, utilizing your areas of personal genius, with the right team at your side.
A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.
