2010 will be my 19th year in business. I know it will be my best year yet because like every other year I have plans to execute that will change what's normal.

What are your plans?

If you feel, think, and do like you did in 2009 the most likely scenario is that 2010 will be a shocker (that's Aussie for bad).

To help you avoid this scenario I have prepared an exercise for you in the ebook Expect More From 2010.

My thanks to Gihan Perera of First Step for making this ebook happen for the 4th consecutive year. There are many great ideas from 43 different authors you might consider in this ebook, all designed to help you make 2010 your best year ever.

Please download the ebook here. My exercise is on page 8.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Partnering passionate people to change what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit.

Labels: Ian, Innovation, making a difference, self-leadership

I came across the following at Persistence Unlimited.com

"80 percent of success is just showing up" —Woody Allen

"I often think about that quotation. It may sound easy to shrug off, but not if you look a little deeper. It doesn't just mean show up for job interviews or to work for an 80% increase in success. Showing up also means ... starting.

"For instance, did you show up at the gym today? Just showing up means you're 80% of the way to a good workout. The hard part of fighting yourself to get dressed in workout gear, dealing with traffic and the worry about pain you might experience is over. Now all that is left is to just do the workout. Pretty simple, huh? Even a child could do it.

"Same thing with opportunity. It's easier to make significant progress on a project if you simply show up to do it. Candidly, one of my hardest tasks of the day is 'showing up' for development Visual Studio. It seems simple enough ... just double click on an icon. But if I think too much about the seemingly 10,000 things I have to do once I launch it, I am much more likely to 'accidentally' launch my web browser or fiddle with e-mail.

"But once I'm in there, the work is typically easy and fun. Some days I can knock out more tasks than I planned. And I feel like a success at the end of the day.

"You can be or do whatever you want just by showing up. If you want to be an author, show up to write your manuscript every day, show up to writing classes, show up to phone calls to editors. Doesn't it make sense that someone who arrives at the door of opportunity has more success than someone just sitting at home?

"So increase your chances by 80%. Show Up!"

I have reflected on this a lot in the past few weeks where I have really been focusing on how I show up and my mantra has been to show up joyful. This has made an incredible difference to my life and work. I agree showing up is a key to being successful. I am firm however that the attitude we bring to our showing up is the real key.

How are you showing up?

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Partnering passionate people to change what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit.

Labels: Ian, making a difference, self-leadership

Heavy storm clouds stay hanging over business, religion, politics, sport and the media. Almost daily many so called icons are continuing to have their character questioned. These clouds always produce rain and wash away the stars like twigs in a river.

Like never before the world needs ordinary people of character to stand up and be counted because many of the people leading us don’t understand leadership, have sacrificed their characters in their quest for power, and in some cases their behaviour threatens our very lives.

Recently the father of a good friend passed on. He was a man of character and an inspiration to my friend. His passing caused me to reflect on my own father who passed 10 years ago.

Life my friends Father, my Dad never had his name up in lights too often but left a legacy to be proud of in his world nonetheless. I miss him. Dad was a man of character. We never always saw eye to eye. It was the words of the Mike and the Mechanics song ‘In the Living Years’ that urged me to settle my differences with Dad not long before he died.

“It’s too late when you die” the song says “to admit you don’t see eye to eye” Towards the end Dad came to hear me speak and said before I spoke “I probably won’t agree with everything the speaker says this morning but I am proud he is my son”

People of character lay it on the line like that.

People of character are unafraid to speak their minds.

People of character always tell the truth as they see it

People of character are trustworthy

People of character have integrity

People of character enjoy being popular but don’t seek popularity

People of character seek win / win but do not compromise their principles

People of character do what they believe is best for the common good regardless of the resistance they encounter

People of character praise in public and criticize in private

People of character put others first

People of character are givers not takers

People of character focus on building people’s self esteem and never engage in put downs or the blame and shame game

People of character are those we really look up to and admire

People of character are those we follow when it matters most.

Be a person of character. You are needed like never before.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Partnering passionate people to change what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit.

Labels: Ian, making a difference, role model

US President Barack Obama's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is an award for the future yet to be created.

Obama himself says he's "surprised, humbled" and doesn't yet deserve it -- but he's accepted the Prize as a call to action, "to confront the common challenges of the 21st century".

Please send President Obama an encouragement message through the Avaaz organisation here.

“Avaaz” means “Voice” in many Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European languages.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Writer and International Business Speaker on how doing good is great for business

Labels: Ian, leadership, making a difference, self-leadership

I have recently upgraded my mentoring services and thought you would be interested.

We live in an age, largely due to the internet, where information is abundant and mostly cheap or free, yet time consuming and often energy sapping to access.

Insight on the other hand is scarce, mostly expensive, yet still time consuming and energy sapping to discover.

Are you an Insightpreneur™?

Insightpreneurs™ are experts at turning information into insight into inspiration into ideas into innovation, fast. Differencemakers are people who innovate for the good of people and our planet.

Real innovation means the implementation of ideas that change what is normal whether that be attitudes, emotions, thoughts, feelings, or actions; indeed true innovation usually requires changing all of these!

Changing what is normal is what sets the most successful individuals and organisations apart from the rest; think Roger Federer, Barak Obama, Annika Sörenstam, Mother Theresa, Tiger Woods; Apple, Cirque Du Soleil, Grameen Bank, Starbucks, Virgin; whether you admire these people and organisations or not.

We are in a new era that is characterised by cooperation that leads to collaboration that makes a difference. Competition has largely gone from everywhere except sport, politics, fundamentalist religion, some sectors of education, and in businesses that are just for profit.

The really exciting thing is that anybody can be an insightpreneur and a differencemaker.

Insight and ideas are part of a new currency. Innovation linked to doing good for people and our planet is where the fortunes of the future will be made. Innovation is also how the ever widening gap between the financial rich and the financial poor gets closed. The most successful organisations were once those who made something. Today the most successful organisations are those who provide insight and ideas and they can be an organisation of just one person!

What business are you in?

If you make stuff someone will soon make it cheaper and faster. Sure people will always make stuff. Is this your future however? Or will you become and insightpreneur and a differencemaker?

“As a mentor to me and my family members who lead and manage our businesses Ian Berry made a significant difference to our personal and business success, and was a catalyst for our 570% growth over 4 years.”
Peter Taylor, Chairman, Townsend Building Services
+61 419 438 021

What’s in it for you?

My Insightpreneur™ 1:1 Mentoring Programs cut to the chase and save you time, energy, and money by helping you discover your unique fast track to personal and organisational innovation.

I offer no turnkey or cookie cutter programs, rather a genuinely customised program just for you.

Depending on your unique situation and needs, expectations, and desires, I offer 3, 6, 9, or 12 month programs that comprise:

1) scheduled sessions for one hour on skype or telephone that are recorded with your permission and sent to you for ongoing use

2) as well as 1/2 day or 1 day sessions in person

3) plus unlimited telephone and email access to me during the course of your program and for six months following

4) plus 24/7 access to my life-long learning vault that contains numerous resources for you to tap into whenever you wish to.

Full details including try before you buy option are here.
or contact me on +61 8 7122 4663

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Writer and International Business Speaker on how doing good is great for business

Labels: Ian, Innovation, making a difference, mentoring

Innovation is the successful implementation of a idea. Why innovate? My simple answer is, to change what’s normal.

Right now in our world it is normal that:

*people die from preventable disease, under-nutrition and over-nutrition, every day
*not everyone has clean water
*at least 600 million people haven’t yet learned to read and write
*governments are slow to act and we all suffer as a result
*fundamentalism, both religious and otherwise, persists as a basic abuse of human rights
*climate change is killing our planet and us, and yet we still mainly sit our hands and allow our politicians to engage in petty, point scoring debates
*more than 2 billion people are expected to live on less than a dollar a day
*starving people don’t receive the food they so desperately need because of terrorism
*biodiversity loss is so great many of the world’s inhabitants are disappearing overnight
*economic instability and the lack of corporate accountability mean many people are suffering through no fault of their own
*electronic waste is a massive problem most people turn a blind eye to
*the social divide is getting bigger
*redefining growth has long been our agenda and yet we persist with old, worn out, and broken ways to develop
*peace is still a pipe-dream for half the world’s people
*democracy as we know it fails most people and yet we persist with the model
*opportunity for every person, a basic human right, is not possible for most the world’s people

The above are our world’s big challenges in my view. I find each of them unacceptable.

On perhaps a more personal level it is normal that:

*Most organisations provide mediocre service
*Lying, cheating, and bribery are accepted ways of doing business
*The majority of organisations have less than 50% of their employees fully engaged in their work
*Many so called great companies aren’t
*Fake leaders rule
*Most abuse comes from people in our families
*Most of what we really feel remains unsaid because we are afraid of what other people might think if we actually expressed how we feel

I could go on and on. Yet I won’t because I would get depressed. You might be already.

Who we are and what we do makes a difference, whoever we are and whatever we do.

I plead with you today to become more of who you are capable of becoming, and to do more to solve our problems and challenges, to change what is normal, because to do so is real innovation.

My 3 steps for innovation are detailed here.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Writer and International Business Speaker on how doing good is great for business

Please take up the Make a Difference Challenge before 090909

Labels: CSR, Ian, leadership, making a difference, vision