Insights Into Innovation for Conscious Entrepreneurs
increasing the influence, profit and power of conscious entrepreneurs by assisting them in executing innovative strategies and telling their original stories
For the last two years, I've been working my heart out for a small group of clients with original ideas. Here is what I've learned about the huge challenges Conscious Entrepreneurs are facing and what we can do about it.
This story begins at the end.
It begins just a few days ago, on a day that came after a three week string of intensive cooperation between my business partner Gigi Bisong and Lead Execution Strategist Geoffrey Gill. On this particular day, I was feeling the pressure to produce results. It was my job to pull three weeks (and two years) of work together into a concise, organized and useable execution plan. So far, I'd been stuck at the top of a word document that read merely: "Mission Statement."
I'm not sure how long I stared at that those words "mission statement" before I started to write. I'm not sure how much I wrote, or how many times I hit the DEL key. What I do know was that at some point, there it was.
There...it...was.
As
I read, and then re-read, the statement I’ve just written describing what we do at Graveyard Innovation, I feel a mix of emotions; a sort of combination of pride, overwhelm, wonder and steely determination.
What we do: We create, develop and execute innovative ideas, winning strategies and original stories that help our clients solve their most challenging problems; sell more of their game-changing products/services
and satisfy their customers in incredible ways.
After two years, dozens of clients, brilliant person after brilliant person who always appeared seemingly just as I was about to give up, too many failures, regrets and mistakes to count, and just as many impossibly wonderful moments full of improbable victories and beautiful successes I had somehow found myself at a place I never expected: a place of clarity and confidence. A place of deep conviction and renewed sense of urgency on behalf of conscious entrepreneurs.
This note was waiting for me when I woke up in Springfield, MO at Sam's house: an incredible young man whose AirBNB I stayed at. If you are ever passing through Springfield and want to meet Sam there's no better place to stay; and this was a gift that touched my heart in an incredible and moving way.
New Insights Into the Category of "Conscious Entrepreneurs"
I thought I knew "Conscious Entrepreneurs" inside and out--having actually written the book on "Conscious Entrepreneurs", and coached and worked with hundreds of them at every stage of their business. It turns out, I was only at the very beginning of my knowledge. I want to share some of the original insights my team and I have generated over the last couple of years that we believe gives us an edge in working with this group.
First, the term "Conscious Entrepreneurs" is not specific enough; it's more helpful to think of these entrepreneurs in 3 core sub-groups:
- the "struggling and doubting",
- the "successful and unfulfilled;" and a group I call
- the "noticing and nervous."
For example, if you're struggling or on the edge of giving up, it's less important that you identify the "one problem" because most likely there are many problems, and more important that you keep a lot of options on the table, try out a lot of different business experiments and create enough space for true creativity to emerge. The most important metric at this stage is not money (most likely). Instead, you're probably measuring something more qualitative like "interest" or "positive evidences" and "validations" that an idea, product, business model, cost structure or revenue scheme is viable.
If you're lacking meaning in your business and you already have a marketing and customer presence pinpointing very specific and targeted places to innovate matters a great deal because you have less time in which to experiment and because the risk of spooking your customers is much higher.
The entrepreneurs from the final group earned its name because it represents those business owners who are realizing, with varying degrees of panic or denial, certain tactics that used to move mountains to grow their revenue are no longer working as well. One response is to keep doing something that isn't working; or worse, double down on broken tactics by doing "more" of the very thing that isn't working. Either by racing to the top and doing more extreme versions of the tactic as in the case of social media headline writing or racing to the bottom by flooding a particular channel as in the case of email marketing.
The other response, and the response we most prefer, is to become a visionary leader in your field by adopting early the right innovations, at the right times, and framed with the right story.
If you see yourself or your business (or new idea) in one of these categories and would like to have me and our Graveyard strategists provide insight into which approach to innovation might benefit you by taking some time to specifically examine your business--you can request that we do so here.
Second, truly conscious entrepreneurs aren't just people who bring a sense of purpose and meaning into their business (this is fantastic--it's just not a conscious entrepreneur anymore than someone who dances to music at work once in a while is Ginger Rogers); "Conscious Entrepreneurs" are deeply creative and they crave creativity, as well as uniqueness and freshness--in some (or many) aspects of their business and/or entrepreneurial journey. It's not enough to give a few dollars to charity or talk in pretty spiritual language. Conscious Entrepreneurs push the boundaries of what is possible by daring to reach further and demanding higher ideals even where the obstacles to achieving those ideals are considerable. They do things differently.
At their best, conscious entrepreneurs change the game. They rewire the broken circuitries of business by creating new business models, telling compelling stories authentically in a way that resonates on a level deeper than analytical understanding and show people what it means to be brave. One of my first mentors in business, who has since passed away, was a woman who embodied these traits. Her name was Aerielle Louise; she was a radio show producer who didn't take any nonsense; and when I wrote her asking if I could appear on the Lou Gentile Show I'll never forget her reply:
"Call me and give me a reading, Little One."
Aerielle
I did. She booked me on that show and about a dozen others in the next few weeks. She taught me how to write great media pitches and how to get myself booked over and over again. A tactic I use to this day on behalf of myself and our clients. Aerielle's background was as an organic chemist at a time when very few women (read: no women) got degrees in chemistry--and I think it is in part because of that experience that she was able to impart one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned from anyone, ever.
What was that lesson? And how does it inform our next bit of original thinking?
If you're a serious person who is serious about your work and what you're doing dare to take yourself seriously--today.
Third, conscious entrepreneurs take themselves and their work seriously. Serious does not mean blindly ideological or in denial of reality-serious means prepared, adaptable and most importantly effective. Here's the trick: you've got to keep taking yourself seriously even when others look through you or past you, even when they ignore you or make fun of you or shun you or kick you off their networks or tell you to give up or to give in or call you names or to do it their way or...well you get the point.
By the way, each of those things in the prior sentence has happened to me--each more than once. It was not my stamina or my intellect, my courage or my support system that enabled me to take the next step and keep going--it was my seriousness. Seriousness takes up space and serious people expand when others expect them to shrink. It's hard to be small when you're serious and that's part of the reason it can be so threatening.
When we don't take ourselves seriously we become vulnerable to lazy thinking and victim dangerous answers about what actions to take in our businesses. It's not long before we lose sight of our mission and it becomes difficult to hear our own intuitive voice--the one that was so clear in the beginning.
When we take ourselves seriously we demonstrate strength through strategic vision and purposeful execution and authenticity through our leadership and storytelling. The more effective, informed and flexible we are, or put another way the more seriously we take ourselves, the more strategic our actions will be and the greater resonance our stories will have.
To be successful conscious entrepreneurs must take themselves seriously, have a strategy that's specific and customized and become great storytellers.
