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One of the exercises we learned at YPO forum training was the monthly MEPS reflection. MEPS — Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual — are four areas of life that are essential to well being. Here’s how the exercise works:

• Mental – How am I feeling, 1-10 (10 is best), mentally? How would I describe my mental state?
• Emotional – How am I doing emotionally, 1-10? How would I describe my emotional state?
• Physical – How am I doing physically, 1-10? How would I describe my physical state?
• Spiritual – How am I doing spiritually, 1-10? How would I describe my spirituality?

Go through the MEPS reflection with a close friend or small group on a monthly basis and use it as a way to continuously reflect on life and work to focus more attention on areas that need help.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the monthly MEPS reflection?

For our video of the week, watch the Science of Persuasion where the famous Dr. Robert Cialdini (author of Influence) explains his learnings. Enjoy!

From YouTube: This animated video describes the six universal Principles of Persuasion that have been scientifically proven to make you most effective as reported in Dr. Cialdini’s groundbreaking book, Influence.

This video is narrated by Dr. Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin, CMCT (co-author of YES & The Small Big). About Robert Cialdini: Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him a worldwide reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. Dr. Cialdini’s books, including Influence: Science & Practice and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, are the result of decades of peer-reviewed published research on why people comply with requests. Influence has sold over 3 million copies, is a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in 30 languages.

Last week I heard about the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance in the context of raising kids. After hearing the person describe the idea, I immediately thought that it’s also applicable to entrepreneurs. In fact, every successful entrepreneur I know has grit.

From the Englewood Review of Books:

Divided into three parts, the book takes an in depth look at grit and why it is essential to success (Part I, a significantly beefed up version of Duckworth’s TED talk), looks at the virtues that converge to foster grit — interest, practice, purpose, hope — (Part II) and concludes with an exploration of how teachers, parents and other can nurture grit “from the outside in” (Part III).

Here’s the author’s TED Talk on Grit:

Finally, here’s the generic definition of grit from Wikipedia:

Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective.

Terms like passion and perseverance have always been in my vocabulary when describing entrepreneurs. Now, I’m adding the word grit as well.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the idea that entrepreneurs have grit?

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Saras Sarasvathy of UVA talk about her research on Effecutations. Generally, the idea is that people traditionally think of entrepreneurship as writing a business plan, building a financial model, raising money against that plan, and then executing the plan. Now, we know that’s not the case and books like the The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Lean Startup advocate for a customer discovery process where feedback from potential customers drives the process from day one, and everything is an iterative process, not a big structured plan.

In a similar manner, Professor Sarasvathy lays out a process as follows:

• Who we are
  What we know
  Whom we know
  (Bird in hand – what can we use right now that we already have)
• What can we do?
  (Affordable loss – set an amount we’re willing to risk)
• Interact with other people
  (Talk to anyone that will listen about the idea)
• Effectual stakeholder commitments
  (Get a commitment from someone before doing anything e.g. get someone who will pay X if you provide a solution for Y)
• Repeat the process

The next time an entrepreneur says they’ve built a big business plan and need money to execute against it, share the effecutations process and explain that the most successful entrepreneurs start with a general direction and iterate based on feedback from potential stakeholders.

What else? What are some more thoughts on entrepreneurship as using your available resources and iterating on feedback?

Recently I had the chance to hear Verne Harnish give a talk and one of his messages was that businesses need to focus on making things easier. Too often, companies start doing something one way and just keep adding complexity to it. One exercise is to sit down with the executive team and ask the following questions:

• How can we make it easier to buy from us?
• How can we make it easier to use our product?
• How can we make it easier to give us feedback?
• How can we make it easier to get support from us?
• How can we make it easier for our team members to do their job?

A simple starting point with these questions is the “five whys” — ask the question “why” five times, just like a three-year old does and see what you uncover. There’s always room for improvement and asking the question “how can we make this easier” is a good start.

What else? What are some other areas that companies need to make easier?