WORLD | Hillary Clinton’s Machiavellian moment | D.C. Innes | March 16, 2015

So Machiavelli makes it in the today:

WORLD | Hillary Clinton’s Machiavellian moment | D.C. Innes | March 16, 2015

Listen to This....

Creativity: School....Self....Nurturing....

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351552772/how-do-schools-kill-creativity

We See, We Fill in the Blanks, We....

This is what happens, we think we know a persons ability....because of judgement.    

New Ways to Sell You Using the ABC's....?

1. PULL UP A CHAIR.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has accomplished a great deal in his 48 years. He’s reshaped the retail business. He’s become one of the 30 wealthiest people on the planet. And, with far less fanfare, he’s come up with one of the best attunement practices I’ve encountered.

Amazon, like most organizations, has lots of meetings. But at the important ones, alongside the chairs in which his executives, marketing mavens, and software jockeys take their places, Bezos includes one more chair that remains empty. It’s there to remind those assembled who’s really the most important person in the room: the customer.

The empty chair has become legendary in Amazon’s Seattle headquarters. Seeing it encourages meeting attendees to take the perspective of that invisible but essential person. What’s going through her mind? What are her desires and concerns? What would she think of the ideas we’re putting forward?

Try this in your own world. If you’re crafting a presentation, the empty chair can represent the audience and its interests. If you’re gathering material for a sales call, it can help generate possible objections and questions the other party might raise. If you’re preparing a lesson plan, an empty chair can remind you to see things from your students’ perspective.

Attuning yourself to others – exiting your own perspective and entering theirs – is essential to moving others. One smart, easy, and effective way to get inside people’s heads is to climb into their chairs.

***

2. SEND YOURSELF A REJECTION LETTER. (BUOYANCY)

Even in an age of text messages and twitpics, rejection still often arrives in the form of a sheet of letterhead folded into a paper envelope. Nobody likes receiving rejection letters. But one way to reduce their sting, and perhaps even avoid one altogether, is to pre-empt the rejector by writing the letter yourself.

Say you’re interviewing for a new job or trying to raise money from an investor. Take an hour and write yourself a letter from the person you’re trying to move explaining why his answer is “Thanks, but no thanks.” List the reasons he’s turning you down. And, of course, include the irritating phrases — “After careful consideration . . .,” “We regret to inform you . . . ,” “We had many qualified applicants . . .,” and so on — that are standard for this genre.

When you read your letter, you’ll probably laugh. Once the rejection is in writing, its consequences can seem far less dire. More important, by articulating the reasons for turning you down, the letter might reveal soft spots in what you’re presenting, which you can then work to strengthen.

And if you’re too lazy to write the letter yourself, visit the Rejection Generator Project. Just choose your favored style of repudiation, type in your email, and in minutes you’ll receive a dream-destroyer in your inbox. We regret to inform you that the site is designed for writers trying to sell manuscripts to publishers — but its results can apply to anyone, even you. We wish you well in your future endeavors.

NOTE: This form is intended to allow you to send emails to yourself. Please don’t abuse it, or else we will have to take it down… and tell your parents, which will leave them greatly disappointed in you. We do NOT save the email addresses entered on The Rejection Generator page unless you opt to receive our weekly digest. We never share emails with any other group.

3. FIND THE ONE PERCENT. (CLARITY)

A long time ago, when I was in law school, I took a course called International Business Transactions taught by a professor named Harold Hongju Koh. I don’t remember much about the particulars of what we learned in class that semester – a few things about letters of credit, I think, and some stuff about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But I’ve never forgotten something else Professor Koh told our class one spring afternoon.

He said that when trying to understand the law – or, for that matter, just about anything – the key was to focus on what he called the “one percent.” Don’t get lost in the crabgrass of details, he urged us. Instead, think about the essence of what you’re exploring – the one percent that gives life to the other ninety-nine. Understanding that one percent, and being able to explain it to others, is the hallmark of strong minds and good attorneys.

Starting on an Idea

Create, publish, and track your progress by starting your blog the day you pitch your idea.  How do you pitch? Here are ideas for elevator pitch:

 Let's see what we can accomplish....first Daniel Pink has something to say about the 21st century pitch.  "Who is Daniel Pink?" you ask...well, just watch.  Watch these as a break down,

Question

The Pitch--make them remember.

The Email

Comment on these, are they helping?  To accomplish this you should use some of a few of these techniques to pitch your project.  Use the one word, use empathy, use a rhyme...make us remember you, make your project part of us--our life.  You will have ONE MINUTE, make it work...


Next, see what this man has to say about creativity for you as a student.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?