Brand Minds 2022 Takeaways

"Greatness is within you."

Here are my notes and most important takeaways from Brand Minds 2022 event, the global thinkers business summit:

Part One

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Daniel Pink: "THE NEW RULES OF SELLING & INFLUENCE"

2 Big Ideas

• Most of us don't have selling in our job description, yet (take it or not) we are selling all the time
• Selling has changed more in the past 15 yrs than in the previous 1500 yrs: "We no longer live in a world where the seller has all the information". Today we have lots of info & lots of choices.

3 Key Qualities necessary to be effective in this world

• A-B-C (always be closing) way of thinking is aggressive, predatory, and less effective in today's world

The New ABCs:

a) Attunement (acordare) - perspective-taking

b) Buoyancy (bun? dispozi?ie) - how to stay afloat on the ocean of rejection

c) Clarity (claritate) - most important is not accessing information, but curating information. Same with Problem finding rather than problem-solving. You are most valuable when your customer is wrong about his problem. Help him identify it!

4 Takeaways

1) Strong extrovert sales style is a myth. The "ambivert" personality type is the most effective in sales & persuasion.

2) Questions are engaging and stronger than affirmations. You might say to yourself "You can do this! if so.. how?" I have to answer my question, it reminds me of my intrinsic motivation.

3) Long list of positives VS. Long list of positives + few negatives. When faced with negatives, comes the question "Negative compared to what?" Humans make decisions in relative terms.

- don't lead with the bad stuff & don't conceal the small honest blemishes

4) If you want someone to do something, make it easy - really easy for them to do it. Spend less time changing people's minds and more on making it easy for them. BE MORE HUMAN!

Gabor Mate: "STRESS RELATED TO WORK"

Stress on the job ages the immune system. When we talk about work-life balance, work and life are not synonymous.

Study shows the more educated people are, the more difficult for them to find balance.

Stress is not necessarily created by the external environment, but rather by the relationship you have with the environment. The work that you do should make no difference to who you are!

Humans/kids need unconditional acceptance. "If you feel you're not wanted, you have the need to prove your value" - it's addictive, it's never enough.

Give yourself unconditional acceptance!

It's not enough to love our kids, we have to be present with them; if my mind is on the job, I'm absent from them.

Doing from calling vs. driven to:

Being called - I can answer if I chose (freedom)

Being driven - for some people comes from outside. Drives are external & internal (originates from childhood trauma). You are driven to prove that wrong, to fill that emptiness.

Emotional and psychological factors are just as important as physical ones.

Stress in your life (from childhood trauma) leads to internal diseases.

Stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) help you in the short run - they are part of life.

But chronic stress ages you. Multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and psoriasis lead to autoimmune diseases. (The immune system attacks the body). The immune system is a boundary system.

We can become addicted to our own stress hormones, which then damage our health.

Stress experience has 3 parts: 1) External event (trigger), 2) Processing apparatus (Mindset, Beliefs) and 3) Physiological stress response.

Medication for internal diseases contains cortisol (stress hormone). We're getting stress hormones for everything.

Keep questioning yourself: "Am I being called or am I being driven?".

Needs:

• children don't need to work for parents' acceptance (unconditional loving acceptance)
• trying to be what you're not (disconnection from ourselves & our feelings)

Know who you are & be who you are!

Angela Ouguntala - "HOW TO RETHINK YOUR COMPANY FOR THE FUTURE?"

1) Time is money - is the root cause of many unsustainable behaviors.

Flexibility over money - we see people trying to take their time back.

2) Positive frictions - if you have it, it's one of the most useful skills.

3) Progress - question the images you have in your mind about success and progress.

4) Cognitive flexibility

• think about what will it be like to live 140 yrs?

5) Take "what ifs" seriously

• asking deeper questions about the concept of work
• what is it about the desire to live in a frictionless world? and have total control?
• answer: a sterile world ... what we are missing here?

6) A cashless future

Dan Ariley - "HOW TO CHANGE BEHAVIOUR"

For behavior change we need:

1) Friction

• when things become free (easy), we overconsume
• reducing friction can help - people don't look at eye level: "How many of you have rotten fruits/vegetables in your refrigerator?"
• Sometimes friction is our friend, "Easy IN, hard OUT" - for people who want to save money.

2) Try and add motivation (fuel)

• people are more motivated by competition rather than losing money
• our willingness to pay is not about the value we're getting, but more about the fairness of the exchange
• there are many cases in which people don't understand the process (see the effort it takes) for a service/product to be created.
• The restaurant industry understood that and they show the effort: open kitchen, serving people...etc

Jordan Peterson - 12 RULES FOR WORKPLACE

1) Develop your own vision

• to help people develop goals for their life not for their work
• vision - why the hell should you do anything?

2) Make your dedication sustainable

• Think about yourself across time: how hard can I work if I do this for 30-40 yrs? if it's too hard, you lose motivation
• how hard can you work and continue to work in the same manner that you can sustain? (watch for it in your employees)
• ask yourself "What do you need?" as if you were taking care of someone else.

3) Foster the development of your staff.

• a great staff around you allows you to rely on them in times of crisis
• one of the great pleasures in life is to take people and help them develop under your tutelage - the essence of enlightened parenthood - extend it to your people

4) Render yourself obsolete.

• surround yourself with extremely competent people & become an expert delegator to people who can do the job better than you
• if you have to micromanage the organization is set up an improperly (it's a narcissistic ability)
• light touch - check in with your employees and give competent people autonomy, foster their growth instinct (a better motivator than money)
• look for the psychological factors of motivation
• you have to overcome your fear as you climb higher the leader of responsibility: give yourself a break, allow yourself the foolishness of a beginner.

5) Pursue the spirit of voluntary genuine play

• optimal social interaction is defined by the spirit of play - anthesis with the spirit of power
• organizations degenerate with the pursuit of power (use of compulsion)
• power plays are an indication of suboptimal structures
• every player has his interest aligned with the goal of the game
• games - microcosmos of social structures
• a game all want to play, a bit of humor, some reciprocity, invite everyone = leadership

6) Understand and value (general) diversity.

• great people often are right when you are wrong, you want to surround yourself with
• creative types people (liberal) work better with managerial types
• creative types do badly at entry-level positions,
• agreeable people are more interested in people vs. things-oriented people are more interested in things :) - you want them both!

7) Listen & reflect back.

• you should assume it will be hard to listen to a person who has a different opinion than yourself
• reflect back, even if you don't agree - they always have something to teach you, which is extremely annoying ??
• people are validated by the attention (fundamental currency of life)
• if you do this, it's a deadly skill, it will change your life
• get over the proclivity of being afraid of hearing what the other person says

8) Bring your boss a solution

• it's what really you are hired for
• accept the responsibility

9) Become an expert on using targeted reward

• when someone does something and you would like it to do again, notice that first - give them the benefit of their actions
• make it specific, how it made you feel - people will like you so much, you won't be able to stand it (not an instrument of manipulation)
• you want to be honest about it, when people are on the right track

10) Spend most of your time with your best people.

• Pareto distribution: out of 10000 employees, 100 do most of the work
• for the rest, help them develop a vision
• if the top 100 people leave your company, you are done

11) Set high attainable standards.

• do this with yourself, how hard? how much? - enough to require some effort
• the zone of proximal development
• set high standards linked to attainable goals / to indicate when they attain it

12) Welcome responsability

• willingness to do anything more
• it's not sustainable to be a hedonist, you get miserable instantly
• for most people, responsibility gives the meaning that sustains their life
• foster responsibility ~ opportunity/adventure, you're gonna be a lot tougher
• if you're offered responsibility? "Bring it on man!"

Part Two

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Mark Manson - "HOW TO IMPROVE PERSONAL LEADERSHIP"

The 3 Challenges of Personal Leadership:

1. Short-Term: You Make What You Measure
2. Medium-Term: You Become What You Pursue
3. Long-Term: What Matters is What's Left When You're Dead

Start with the end in mind and work backward!

Ask yourself these questions to better understand your values: What would be an immortality project for you? What is more important than your life?

5 Biggest Regrets of the Dying:

1. I wish I had the courage to pursue my dreams.
2. I wish I had expressed my true feelings.
3. I wish I had worked less.
4. I wish I had spent more time with the people I cared about.
5. I wish I allowed myself to be happy.

We define ourselves by what we pursue.

Goals Are Dangerous Things:

1) We tend to only think about the benefits and not the costs

2) We underestimate how the change in one area of life will influence other areas of your life.

The medium-term Challenge > you become what you pursue.

• be careful about what goals you set for yourself & your business. The story about the pets.com website, which became famous, but did not make any profit as a business.
• never surrender? - think again about when and if it's the right time to stop doing something that's not working.
• "if you don't define success well, you're fucked!"
• For example for the goal of losing weight rehashing (redefining) - change your metric of success, instead of losing kg on the metric, become a person who eats healthy, does exercises regularly...etc.

There are no good or bad people, only good and bad incentives (that are pushing us)

Passion is developed and evolved through action.

The Medium-Term Challenge > Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things ~ Peter Drucker.

Whitney Johnson - "LEADERSHIP: THE BEST TACTICS OF BUILDING AN EXTRAORDINARY TEAM"

To transform your organization, you need to transform yourself.

When you understand what GROW looks like, you start changing. (slow-fast-slow). Slow is what growth looks like.

Identity shifts - when you are no longer what you were, but still not there yet.

The best team is made in a project: Launch point (20%) - Sweet Spot (60%) - Mastery (20%)

At the Launch Point:

• you & people around you need support
• value inexperience
• value people's fresh perspectives

At the Sweet Spot:

• you need to focus here, you want to be focused on them.
• Focus on what's working so you can make more of it.

At the Mastery Spot:

• learning is the oxygen of human growth
• question yourself to start the conversation about growth: "What are you finding useful? What are you curious about?"

You have to find your S curve! If you chose to grow, grow your people > company!

3 Things to remember:

1. Slow - fast - slow
2. Dopamine (surprises) when you set and reach small goals.
3. Say what you will do to someone and by when.

Gary Vee - "THE ULTIMATE STRATEGIES TO BUILD OUTSTANDING BUSINESSES"

I'm day trading attention and culture to build businesses.

2021 - 2022 started the WEB 3.0.

Technology doesn't care about your opinion.

When the economic stress happens, the company will go to more trained people. Why do people get away from the trenches?

Social media platforms are very specific. They are responsible for communication.

Linkedin & TicTok have the most organic reach. Open a Tic Tok account! Produce content every day. For Linkedin 3-4 pieces of content every day!

Educate yourself about what Blockchain is. It will change the way every single being interacts.

Every single child today is trained to understand NFTs. Do your homework: spend 30 hours on Youtube, asking the questions "What is blockchain / nft?"

Next big thing - the Consumer Blockchain.

In the last 2 yrs, we have become masters at blaming others. Accountability will get momentum!

3 Takeaways:

??The only common denominator of the success of a small startup or a Fortune100 company is their focus on attention.

????What is happening with Blockchain today is what happened to social media over the past 15 years.

????We are going to the era of utility with a hint of collectibility.