Jeff Bezos is an investor, technology and online retail pioneer from the U.S, and the founder and CEO of global technology and retail giant Amazon.com. Bezos is considered by many to be one of the most influential and successful leaders today. Jeff Bezos is again the number 1 richest person in the world, followed by Bill Gates at number 2, according to The Forbes World’s Billionaires list. Bezos is also regarded as one of the leading thinkers in the world due to his vision and his ideas are not only different but also often at odds with many other entrepreneurs and leaders. “If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.” – Jeff Bezos “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passion; your passion chooses you.” – Jeff Bezos “Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.” – Jeff Bezos “The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’” – Jeff Bezos “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos “What’s dangerous is not to evolve.” – Jeff Bezos “If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.” – Jeff Bezos “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos “For people who are readers, reading is important to them.” – Jeff Bezos “When you receive criticism from well-meaning people, it pays to ask, 'Are they right?' And if they are, you need to adapt what they're doing. If they're not right - you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood.” – Jeff Bezos “Life's too short to hang out with people who aren't resourceful.” – Jeff Bezos “Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos “To get something new done you have to be stubborn and focused, to the point that others might find unreasonable.” – Jeff Bezos “The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they'd already solved. They're open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.” – Jeff Bezos “It's perfectly healthy--encouraged, even--to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.” – Jeff Bezos “If you can't tolerate critics, don't do anything new or interesting.” – Jeff Bezos “Where you are going to spend your time and your energy is one of the most important decisions you get to make in life.” – Jeff Bezos We hope you got some new wisdom out of this. Which one is your favorite?

The Possible Mindset - Your way to Success! - ”It’s impossible!” The doctors and physiotherapists said to me. - ”Everything is possible!” I replied. - ”We put a man on the moon 50 years ago, so please don’t tell me that I can’t keep working, or run or ski again!?” The fifth jump was perfect, until 15 meters above ground, where I came into thermals and my parachute collapsed. When I was 16 years I went skydiving, it was amazing! I could fly and I could see the earth underneath me. The fifth jump was perfect, until 15 meters above ground, where I came into thermals and my parachute collapsed. The last 15 meters went really fast and I hit the ground hard. That’s how I’ve got my first back injury. The doctors couldn’t help me, nor the physiotherapist in Järvsö, where I grew up. I had to stop my career as a cross country skier and it was really hard for a 16-year old elite athlete to realize that the dream of the Olympics all of a sudden went out of sight. If I would have listened to the doctors, I probably would have got disability support pension, but I refused that. I just wanted more out of life than to sit down and let my life just pass by. Thanks to my knowledge about mental training I managed to fight against the pain. Since then I’ve got three more back injuries and I have lived with chronic pain for 28 years to date. Thanks to my back injuries, I got interested in the human body and our brain so I studied to massage therapist and mental coach. I wanted to help other people to handle their pain and teach them how to use the brain to set and reach their goals. My injuries gave me my dream job! Anything is possible or nothing is impossible? Have you heard the expression ”Nothing is impossible”. It’s not a very good sentence. Why? Because ”nothing” and ”impossible” are both negative words. Your brain will recognize these words as negative and simply don’t get the wanted positive effect. If you say: ”Everything is possible” (positive words) your brain will act to it as a positive mindset. The brain acts differently to negative and positive words along with your actions. If you keep feeding your brain with negative statements about yourself, you will soon believe that those sentences are true, for example: - ”I’m not good enough!” - ”I can’t do this!” - ”I will never be able to reach my goals!” Have you ever tried to make those sentences positive? - ”I’m good enough!” - ”I can do this!” - ”I will reach my goals because I believe in myself!” Does it feel strange to think like this about yourself? In Sweden we have something called ”Jantelagen”. Jantelagen is a code of conduct known in Nordic countries that says you shouldn’t think that you’re better than anyone else. I see this all the time with coaching clients that I work with. They feel embarrassed and think they are egoistic if they say: -”I am good enough” or -”I am the best person at this!”. Don’t be ashamed for your skills! You have worked hard and a long time to get your skills, be proud of what you can! So when you set your goals, make sure you use positive words and pictures to visualize your goals. I guess you’ve heard about the half full/half empty glass. How do you see it? Studies show that people with a positive mindset live longer and are more likely to reach their goals. Companies who sets goals are 60% more likely to reach success then the companies who don't. It’s my possible mindset and the knowledge that it’s my choice. Your choice I often get the question: - ”How can you be so happy and positive? You live with chronic pain and have been through more tough stuff than most other people.” Well, it’s my possible mindset and the knowledge that it’s my choice. I have three choices: I could lay down, 6 feet underground. Then it’s over, the pain would stop, but also my life. So it’s not a very tempting choice... I’m far too curious about life to do that! I could lay down on the sofa and be bitter and think about how unfair life is. Would it help the pain go away? Nope! I need movement to prevent my pain from getting worse and it still wouldn’t change the fact that I’ve got four back injuries. I can do the best of the situation, focus on what I can do instead of focusing on what I can’t do. I have always chosen nr. 3! Of course, like everyone else, I have bad days and just lay down on the sofa and feel sorry for myself. But hey, it doesn’t help me feeling better. So I quit with that quite fast, because I realize it doesn’t improve my life at all. We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we handle it. You can feel sorry for yourself about a lot of things, but when you start to realize that it’s not going to help you achieve your goals and that it’s just making you sad, angry or bitter, then it’s about time to change to a possible mindset. It’s always your choice. Because in the end, it’s not me as a coach, it’s not your family, friends or colleagues who’s responsible of your choices. It’s only you who have that power! It’s always your choice. Take it seriously, don’t blame it on others when you don’t achieve what you want. You are the leader of yourself and when you can lead yourself, it will be easier for you to lead other people. Which choices do you do for yourself? How does your choices improve or impair your daily life? Possible leadership Are you a possible leader or are you an impossible leader? This sentence could mean a lot of things. Are you a possible leader could mean that you might be a leader, but maybe you’ve never tried it so far. If you already are a leader it could mean that you see the possibilities in your employees and in your business growth. What about if you are an impossible leader? An impossible leader doesn’t hesitate to reject employees who comes up with new ideas and they don’t see the opportunities even when they come up on a silver tray. They see problems and difficulties in everything, except maybe their own ideas. When you start to work with your own possible mindset, you’ll find out that you can be a possible leader. When you start to lead your employees with a possible mindset you’ll get happy and proud coworkers which leads to better productivity which leads to better economy and you can see how your business get more successful than ever! Are you ready to start your journey with a possible mindset and become a possible leader? Remember, anything is possible, you just might have to do it in another way to suit you! By: Cattis Olsson Cattis Olsson is a mental coach, massage therapist and health manager. She has worked within health for about 20 years and her focus has been helping elite athletes reach their goals by mental training. Today Cattis is helping entrepreneurs and companies work with human sustainability to prevent stress and setting sustainable goals for reaching success in a long term. She is also having lectures towards medical professions about chronic pain and how they can help their patients with a possible mindset despite chronic pain.

Q&A with Aicha Gaye, Self-Love & Mindset Coach Aicha is a Self-Love & Mindset Coach, Kundaliniyoga & Meditation Teacher but most importantly a Mama. She is a former theatre actress and is still passionate about theatre and has hosted workshops where she combined improvisation theatre with meditative excersises. She is dedicated to empower women to embrace themselves with self-love and acceptance - Guiding them to find and grow the confidence and the right mindset they need to create their dream life. Aicha runs her business and coaching program online from Stockholm, Sweden with clients around the world. We caught up with her for a Q&A about fixed and growth mindset and to learn the 7 different ways to change your thought patterns. What is a fixed mindset? A fixed mindset is when one assumes that abilities and understanding are relatively fixed. Those with a fixed mindset may not believe that intelligence can be improved, or the belief that you either “have it or you don’t” when it comes to abilities and talents. Here are 3 examples of a fixed mindset thinking: "I just can't do this" "I'm not good at this" "This is too hard" What is the definition of a growth mindset? A growth mindset is “the understanding that abilities and understanding can be developed” (Mindset Works, n.d.). Those with a growth mindset believe that they can get smarter, more intelligent, and more talented through putting in time and effort. Here are 3 examples of a growth mindset thinking: "I can always improve so i'll keep trying" "I choose to learn from my mistakes" "I'll use a different strategy" What is the main difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset? The main difference between the two mindsets is the belief in the permanence of intelligence and ability; one views it as very permanent, with little to no room for change in either direction, while the other views it as more changeable, with opportunities for improvement. This difference in mindset may lead to differences in behavior as well. If someone believes intelligence and abilities are immutable traits, they are not likely to put in much effort to change their inherent intelligence and abilities. On the other hand, those who believe they can change these traits may be much more willing to put in extra time and effort to achieve more ambitious goals. With a growth mindset, individuals may achieve more than others because they are worrying less about seeming smart or talented and putting more of their energy into learning (Dweck, 2016). Can you tell us about a time when you faced an important opportunity or challenge with a fixed mindset - What were your thoughts and worries? I have plenty of challenges but I will tell you about a time when I was lacking in self-love and worth. I was working in the fashion industry for many years and absolutely hated it. "My mind was negative and I didn't believe that I could do anything about my situation" I was longing for meaningful and creative work but I was stuck. So why did I feel stuck? Because my mind was negative and I didn't believe that I could do anything about my situation. This led to anxiety and burnout and it took me some real time and effort to regain my health. 7 ways to change your thought patterns Create a new belief - with this I mean: a belief in yourself, in your own skills and abilities, and in your capacity for positive change. View failure in a different light: see failure as an opportunity to learn from your experiences. In fact, you can remove the word failure and replace it with learning. Cultivate your self-awareness: work on becoming more aware of your talents, strengths, and weaknesses; gather feedback from those who know you best and put it together for a comprehensive view of yourself. Be curious and commit to lifelong learning: try to adopt the attitude of a child. When I look at my daughter and other children I can see how they look at the world with such awe and curiosity. Embrace challenges: know that if you wish to accomplish anything, you will face many challenges on your journey; prepare yourself for facing these challenges, and for failing sometimes. Do what you love and love what you do: it’s much easier to succeed when you are passionate about what you’re doing; whether you cultivate love for what you already do or focus on doing what you already love, developing passion is so important. Be persistent: it takes a lot of hard work to succeed, but it takes even more than working hard—you must be persistent, face obstacles and getting back up after each time you fall. How can you learn to hear your fixed mindset voice? Pay attention to the voice that pops up when you face new challenges. This is the voice of your fixed mindset, and it likely only has negative things to say about you and your abilities. Fixed mindset voice might say something like “You really think you can do it?” or “This is too difficult for you, just give up and do something else!”

By: Fia Hobbs How can we tackle the amount of stressed out people that keeps increasing and who are under pressure and in the risk of being burned out? It has been an escalation for many years and it does not seem to plan out in a foreseeable future. It is not an easy task and there are many parts of society that has to get involved to be able to establish viable work ethics and a good health care with emphasis on health, before burn out is a fact. During my 30 years of work as a therapist I have seen many diagnosis like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome to name a few and it is very hard for the person to first of all be taken serious and secondly get the right treatment. There will always be components of physical, mental and emotional issues and many times also existential together with underlying amount of stress that has not been dealt with. The stress out syndrome we are witnessing now cannot be blamed on work alone but on a series of complex events happening and has everything to do with the outer stress we experience, as well as how we cope with our inner stress. On top of that we also have chemical stress all around us that can be harder to avoid. I will talk about the differences later on. The people I mostly see are successful career women who are stressed out and caught in the sandwich generation, meaning they have teenagers at home, a work that is demanding and parents who are getting older and who needs extra care. Many women tries to balance this impossible equation and end up being the ones who fall ill. Of course this is a scenario that happens to both men and women, but women tend to take on more responsibilities when it comes to caring for the home and dealing with relations in the family. There is no easy solution but it all has to start with each and every one of us taking responsibility for our own health and making it a priority. Most people want a quick solution to their problems. I am sorry to be the one to say that there are never any sustainable habits that comes from quick fixes. Unless they are willing to look at their life from all angles and be willing to change things, I or anyone else cannot help them. Taking the step towards change is very uncomfortable for many and that is why we see people driving themselves to the ground before making changes. But there are ways to navigate through change and over the years I have identified a system consisting of five crucial steps where the first step is awareness. As most of our days are a series of actions being monitored by our subconscious mind up to 95% we tend to do what we always have done. This works in our favor most of the time as it saves energy for our brain or we would get overloaded. Unfortunately there are also habits and behaviors that we have picked up along the way that are less useful and sometimes even harmful and they also happen by routine. We need to address the subconscious mind where the real change is going to happen otherwise we will always fall back into old habits as soon as we put our conscious guard down. The subconscious will always win. There are many ways to reach awareness and I use a few different tools depending on the person. Mindfulness is one of them but the very first step consist of looking at areas of outer stress, things that happens outside of us that we cannot control, change or run away from. This being anything from nature catastrophe, war, getting a serious illness like cancer, divorce or death in the family. The list can be long. After that we start looking into how to deal with this, what tools do we have, what coping strategies have we used before etc. I usually take people through a series of steps identifying their own self-saboteurs that can contribute to the inner stress and cause a blockage. Most of the time we are not even aware of what they are, we just accept them as a part of our identity or behavior depending on what level we are looking at. Most things have been there since childhood and are so ingrained with how we think and act that it becomes a blind spot for us. By looking at our own self-saboteurs we can turn them into self-helpers and resolve blockages that we have been carrying around for years that has contributed to stress. After the awareness step we have to take action and change patterns to get rid of what does not serve us anymore and this usually comes with a lot of resistance. We need help here to sort things out and learn to let go. It is a process that is necessary to go through before we can go to the next step which is recharging. The recharge step is fun and can be done in many ways. For some people it is a daily walk, for others meditation, mindfulness, qigong or yoga practice as a way of finding a new life balance. It can also be singing in a choir, playing an instrument, gardening, painting and whatever gets you in a flow where you feel charged up afterwards. You have by now learnt to set up boundaries, saying no to things and people that takes your energy, and learnt to deal with stress in a whole different way. Last two steps are very important but many times overlooked. It is the implementation of new habits, making it a part of a new lifestyle and sticking with it until it becomes second nature. That is when you have a new habit that you don’t even have to think about, it has become the new you. The 5 Fundamental Steps 1. Awareness The first necessary step that lays the foundation of a deeper understanding on what is going on in your life on different levels that includes physical, mental, emotional and existential level. 2. Cleanse once we know the stressors in your life whether it is caused by outer, inner or chemical stress, we take the next step to look at what does not serve you and letting go of it. We tend to cling to familiar habits although we know they don’t help us in the long run. 3. Recharge this is an exploring step where it is important to match the activity with your personal preference. Getting recharged can be as easy as spending time in nature or taking up a class of qigong or yoga but it can be so much more and the coach will be there to help you. 4. Implement the last two steps are many times overlooked but they are also important. If you have spent the time going through the level of awareness, cleansing and recharging you also need a plan to implement into your everyday life without it being a burden. This is where we focus on informal training and making it a part of your life. 5. Sustainable New Habits having a plan to continue with your new habits is crucial and for that reason we put together a health plan that includes all parts of your life, even social life. This is your new roadmap to a more balanced life. Outer, Inner and Chemical stress Outer stress – Events, illnesses, trauma, divorce, death in the family etc. Things you have no way of controlling. Inner stress – How you react to the outer stress with coping strategies or lack of them. Chemical stress – Environmental toxicity. Fia Hobbs International Author, Speaker and Expert on Stress Management

By: Hanna Lundberg A lot of people would say that we need a new approach to leadership. We do not need a new style or type of leadership, we need a new form of leadership. This new form is about the mindset of the leader themselves. It is about their courage to emerge new levels of consciousness and make it to wisdom in their making of decisions. We already know that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will take parts of our jobs - but what not many people understand is that it can restore our humanity. In 2020, the most attractive work skills will already shift from technical skills to human skills like; emotional intelligence, creativity and cognitive flexibility. Why? Because, that is the only competitive advantage of humans against the robots. To require this we need our leaders to be connected to themselves, to their staff, and to the communities they interact with. The missing link It is not new to us that high IQ and EQ are valuable skills of successful leadership. But the recourse they have as a secret weapon is the domain of highly body intelligence (BQ) meaning intuition, improvement of performance, fundamental insights for both emotional intelligence and making of decisions. Historically, our emotional and body intelligence has been lost. As Albert Einstein said: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honor’s the servant and has forgotten the gift”. From my point of view, the root who causes why we are feeling so bad when we are still doing so well. “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honor’s the servant and has forgotten the gift”. A holistic network of knowledge Many times when we do not receive the results we where looking for we question if it was some information we missed along the way. Was there something we could have done differently? Along with most leaders who have experienced this they would have said YES, because they already know that they have ignored their gut feeling. Neuroscience shows us, something that has been known by both Einstein and metaphysics since a long time, that your brain does not have a monopoly on your intelligence. Rather, intelligence comes from several regions in your body. Your intelligences is a massive network of chemicals, hormones and neurons that constantly transmit information and provide feedback that reside in your mind (IQ), in your heart (EQ), and one of the most significant region; your stomach (BQ). All with the ability for complex learning processes and fully equipped to think on its own. By working together your intelligent network will gain the synergy and wisdom that arises from ‘holistic mindset leadership’ and that will help you to reach a point where you can make better decisions. Then you are able to face today’s complex issues and adaptation challenges as attracting and retaining talent, execution on strategy, delivering quality customer experience or other leadership issues. The solution In other words, this requires leadership with a new level of self-awareness and self-facilitation for integrating mind-based intellect with heart-based values ​​and gut-based instincts. By aligning your forgotten conscious and unconscious intuitive gifts, you are able to harness your innate wisdom of your mind, heart and gut intelligences for a powerful and generative decision. But to create possibilities into this new form of leadership you need to build a strong relationship to your own body. By training your body intelligence you will expend your intelligence to the millennial wisdom you carry in your cells. My personal experience is when you develop your BQ and use your intelligence according to the information receive from IQ, EQ and BQ - you will no longer make the wrong decision, you will be the new form of leader the world needs. Hanna Lundberg Mindset Architect, Researcher, Trainer & Speaker

Interview with Paulin Larsen Berglöf, CEO and founder, Whippy What does Whippy do? Whippy designs structured onboarding processes with customized content that is focused on both the employee and manager experience. The onboarding processes are created in external technical solutions and platforms. Does onboarding and introduction mean the same thing or are there differences? We used to talk about introduction but today, we use a new terminology with terms such as employer branding, retention and onboarding. The difference between introduction and onboarding is mainly that introduction was a more analog process. Analog in the sense that it included a lot of physical material such as employee handbooks. It also included physical introduction days which were aimed at getting the employee up to speed. There was a lot of one-way communication. The introduction was also often limited to a few days time. Onboarding, on the other hand, should be a more digital process and with two-way communication. The employees should be able to share their reflections, ideas and thoughts about the business as you can learn a lot from new employees. Onboarding should also be conducted over time, up to 12 months, as 12 months is the average time to get a new employee completely onboarded. Therefore, you need to plan ahead; for example what will happen during the seventh month and not only during the first week. Why was Whippy founded? Whippy was founded out of a frustration. We worked closely with companies but in other areas that were related to onboarding, such as recruitment and organisational development, and we stood on the sidelines when it came to the actual onboarding of new employees. We saw that companies put a lot of time and resources into recruitment but once the new recruits started, it did not turn out as expected. Expectations were not always held, employees sometimes left their jobs early and there was often a lack of culture integration. Conclusively, the recruitment became very expensive as people dropped out. We started Whippy as we know how critical the first months of employment are, both to the new recruit and to the manager. The founders of Whippy, Paulin Larsen Berglöf and Ida Garamvölgyi, both run additional businesses within recruitment and organisational development and saw a gap in the market when it comes to the onboarding processes within companies. Ida often saw that companies with a good vision but in the ending lack a plan, time and knowledge to manage new recruits in their new roles and Paulin met managers that understood the value of onboarding but lacked the time and the right tools to succeed. Why is onboarding important? Today, there are a lot of requirements on employers. As an employee, you want to fit with the culture and have a leader that you actually want to follow. You want to have fun along the way and almost experience your employment as a journey. We can also see that companies put a lot of effort into attracting new employees. Looking forward, we believe the focus will shift onto retaining them. When it comes to withdrawals, as many as 1 in 5 will quit their jobs within the first 45 days. Paulin predicts that in the future, companies must focus even more on retaining the employees you have attracted and recruited. There is often talk about managers’ lack of time. Why should managers focus on onboarding, too? The benefits are many but primarily to retain new employees. Of course, you want more employees to feel satisfied with their onboarding journey and to feel ready to fully take on their role. How employees experience their first time of employment and how they talk about it externally is an additional reason why, as it affects the employer brand. Studies (Gallup 2019, Creating an Exceptional Onboarding Journey for New Employees) indicate that the manager’s role is critical for how the new employee experiences the new workplace as an engaged manager indicates that you are important to the company. We have seen this in practice with our customers as well - what has been most appreciated in the onboarding is the manager’s active participation in the process. Paulin’s recommendations to managers who are onboarding new employees: People work for people Objectives and tasks are often prioritized over culture and values, which are often neglected. However, if you as a manager include how employees should experience and become a part of the company’s culture and values in your strategy, the incentives to stay increase. Also, think about how you want to be perceived as a manager as leadership plays an important role in why people stay within a company. Confirm expectations  Make sure that the employee’s expectations are aligned with reality and encourage the employee to ask questions and to reflect on their new experiences early on. One of the top 3 reasons for early quits is that the reality did not live up to expectations. Physical meetings Even though the onboarding process is mainly digital, physical meetings cannot be completely disregarded as they build a strong relationship between you as a manager and the new employee. However, you do not need to have several long meetings - rather, they should be well designed and with relevant content. Utilize past experiences  The window where a new employee can see the company with fresh eyes is short. Make sure to utilize this window by capturing the employee’s unique experiences and ideas. This can contribute with valuable insights and new perspectives.

By: Heroes of Brand and Business Innovation Gone are the days when companies could use a megaphone to broadcast a message with an attractive promise to build their brand and drive sales. Internet has given rise to an increased transparency and has transferred power into the hands of customers. Companies can no longer get away with poor experiences that are not aligned with the purpose of the brand. In this article, brand and customer experience experts, Åsa and Sofie, give their view on how this has changed the way companies need to interact with their customers to be relevant in the future. Customers today are competent and engaged. We comment and scrutinize brands in social media in touch points that the company does not control and might not even be aware of. We are no longer passive consumers, but active collaborators or opponents (!). We have power to affect the perception of a brand and thereby, the business of the company! There is a constantly on-going conversation online that affect the perception of the brand. We listen to each other and we know that we are important. We don’t make purchases without checking the testimonials from other customers. – We put more trust in the referrals from strangers than in commercials from brands. Experiences can spread like wildfire online. Good experiences drive sales and bad reviews cause enormous harm. As pointed out by Brian Solis, experiences that people share have become the most important touch points for branding and purchasing decision: The experience of your customers defines your reputation on the market. – They become the brand. “Experience is the new brand. Experiences are the new branding”* We expect companies to listen to us and value our opinions. To see us. To interact with us. And to provide great experiences. For companies and organisation, this is both the bad news and the good news. Companies today have less control of how they are perceived. At the same time, they have more opportunities than ever to engage with customers in meaningful and value-creating ways! People today are constantly bombarded with information, messages, communication, and interactions. This information overload makes it hard for us to make decisions. So a strong brand might never have been more important than today to help us to make decisions. But the way to build a brand has changed radically! There is a new and exciting world and sooo many new opportunities to take advantage of! Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your organisation to understand to what extent you have adapted to this exciting new world. All related to things that we believe have changed radically! What is your response when sales figures drop or churn increases? Do you make another campaign, or do you try to understand where the customer experience fails? Shift the focus of your efforts to the whole experience of your customer in the customer journey. Fix the basic problems and enable emotionally engaging experiences that customers chose to talk about and share with others. Do you talk to your customers our with them? Do you use traditional media to send one-way messages, or do you engage in conversation with your customers? Increase mindshare through relevant presence when and where it is relevant to your customers. Online as well as IRL! Do you make the same offer and communication to all you customers? Or do you adapt based on target groups, tribes or situation in the customers’ lives? In a world of endless possibilities and information overload, relevance is gold. If you try to be everything for everyone, you end up being nothing for noone. Do you optimise or innovate? What is the main focus of your organisation – to sell what you have already put on the market? Or to continuously develop and improve services, products and experiences to stay relevant for your customers? Involve your customers in the development projects to ensure that you solve the right problem in the right way. Co-creation is the new black. Stop trying to make people want things. Instead, focus on making things that people want. - John V Wiltshire Are your main concern how to deliver the next quarterly report? Or how to deliver on your organisations purpose of being? The myriad of touch points with your brand are impossible to control. Only with shared values and a passion for your customer experience will you be able to ensure that you enable the right experiences for your customers and your brand. How do you talk about your customers? As human beings, or as transactions or data points in an excel sheet? Your customers are your best marketing channel, your best collaborators in your development teams and your best sources of insights! Relate to them as equal parties of the relationship. Build trust through solving their problems, fulfilling their needs and engaging in meaningful conversation about things that matter for them. Experiences are the new branding and it is not the issue of the marketing and communication department! The focus of branding needs to be on the total customer experience that ranges across all the touchpoints where the customer interacts with the brand. This makes it everyone’s business and the ability to adapt will decide the future of your business. Judgement day is here and the customer is the judge. Heroes of Brand and Business Innovation aims to help companies grow in a better way. Our core business is business and brand development within digital change. Our focus is to help companies with HOW they can develop and grow better based on the company's specific conditions and current situation. Whether we make big or small efforts for a customer, we always work from a holistic perspective - all parts of a company must work together to create sustainable solutions. Our efforts alternate between ongoing advisory services, workshops or to execute change.

By: Anton M.G. Lindberg There is no doubt that the world is full of accessible information. We can search the web and find everything in between successful people such as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon to 236 million results of pie recipes on Google. Type in Personal Development and you will find another 2.7 billion results. Yet, with all this information available, independent studies show that depression among millennials is rising. Healthline.com published an article on March 2019 named “Why Millennial Depression is on the Rise”. In this article mental health therapist Jessica Singh explained that millennials can not help to compare themselves to the success of others, which can leave them feeling insecure and unaccomplished. As a millennial myself who overcame depression, I relate with the arguments stated. However, the Internet is not the root of evil. It offers endless opportunities for the curious mind. It is thanks to Social Media I was introduced to global thought leaders like Robin Sharma. Or Tony Robbins who is known as a motivational ‘guru’ and has coached celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela according to Business Insider. Yet there are people with no titles or reputation in our neighbourhoods who have taught me more about life than anyone else: kindergarten children. But what is it that the internet failed to teach me, that they did? Here are two (forgotten) key practices for life: Firstly, stop being sad and be happy, NOW. Have you ever seen a child that cried hysterically over something, to only within a few minutes later be able to laugh over a funny face? Children can shift their focus from negative to positive without overthinking. We still possess this skill. But only a few practices it enough. This goes beautifully in hand with Tony Robbins famous saying: “Where focus goes energy flows”. Secondly, clear communication. Are you uncomfortable around children? I used to be. Back in my teenage years I was asked to be a kindergarten assistant. They showed me so much affection in the first two days that I called in “sick” for the rest of the week. I did not know how to cope with a four-year-old adamant girl who had told all her friends about her teenage crush (I had no say in this)?! Believe me I was petrified, and reasoning was not an option. The key lesson to take-away, is that kids have no filter when they speak. Instead they express what they feel without the fear of being judged. Read those two last sentences again and embrace the beauty of it. To conclude, the next time you encounter a life problem. Spend time with a child. Give it a go, go offline and reconnect with their imagination and authenticity! You never know what lessons they will teach you. Believe it or not but spending time with children helps us to get out of our own heads and focus on what value we can bring to an innocent mind. Laughter could actually be the medicine that you are missing. Anton M.G. Lindberg empowers young adults by liberating their mind of distractions through thought-leadership. His passion resolves around the idea of progress. In the past, he has founded several small enterprises but has now decided to focus on public appearances.

By: Åsa Degermark Many companies create excellent visions and detailed plans for driving a digital transformation. Very few leaders create a plan for how to develop their leadership. The digital consequences such as speed, globalization and innovation put new requirements on the leadership to fully empower the drivers of digital success. Do you have what it takes? For leaders with more traditional leadership, it is important to understand and adapt to the new conditions that exist in a fast-paced digital environment. Fixed systems and frameworks need to become flexible playing plans and corporate silos needs to break down and become flexible project groups and networks. The leaders themselves need to let go of control and move towards a more orchestrating approach where daily tasks are more of facilitating opportunities, judge risks, solve problems and point in the right direction of in testing and trials. With less detailed plans, the company culture becomes the spine of the company. Values and behaviors not only need to be defined and implemented in the teams, but also be 100% embraced by the executives and the leaders of the company. In the culture you also need to find the risk-taking part, where employees deer to test and fail to reach success. A success factor for digital transformation is transparency and communication. It is important to make the progress and the learnings visible for all employees as well as for the external stakeholders. I also recommend all companies to implement an “constant improvement” mentality instead of a “change-project” mentality. This will benefit the company by more employee’s contribution to daily improvements.  The human aspects of digital transformation have yet not been fully implemented. Technology is there and no longer a limit. The only limit is the human ability to change, embrace new ways of working and re-skilling. An upgraded leadership with a large focus on the human abilities is a key to success. If a company tries to put new digital KPI’s managed by traditional leadership – you will fail.  No matter how the world develops, a good leadership is always the starting point. Make sure you are ready. Åsa Degermark is the author of the book “Digital Leadership – develop your ability to lead in a digital world”. She is a consultant working with digital transformation, leadership and communication.

By: Annika Sörensen Do you as a business leader often feel tired and worn out? You feel you have too much on your plate but you have no idea what to do about it because everything just happens so fast. There is no time for reflection. You don’t want to reveal your bad situation so you say you are stressed and have so much to do, in a tone and way to make it sound like you are a hero. As if the person with most on their to-do –list wins. But on the inside you feel sad and you know you are letting yourself down. If this is you – and I know this is a very common problem among busy business leaders – this article is for you. I bet all you want is to have control, be a good boss, do some good work and be profitable for yourself and the company. And that is possible, it is even easy if you know how. The solution is to get “back to basics”. Back to biology, back to what we are made for. Using biology to our advantage. May sound boring, it is definitely not flashy but very effective. Here is the main clue – this all starts with you, you as a person. This has very little to do with what is on your to-do-list. It has to do about how you act or react to your to-do-list and all other stressors coming your way. At the bottom line it is about your mindset. Finding a good way to deal with this has many positive effects. It can first of all improve your own work-life balance. And it can also help at the workplace by resolving conflicts, improve communication skills, deal with difficult relationships and improve productivity to name some of the benefits. And who doesn’t want all this? So, what to do? First of all – what is stress – really? It is an automatic biological reaction in your body and mind when you meet a challenge. And the challenge is everything from the alarm ringing to get you out of bed in the morning to an unexpected event in your work to serious matters like dealing with death – it all uses the same system. First thing to learn is to deal with that actual acute moment of stress. And you do that by staying calm, take deep breaths, take a step back, and try to distract yourself if possible. All for your brain to get a few seconds of rest, to think clear, prepare for the challenge and react in a more unrushed way. You can do this by taking that deep breath, by jumping up and down by your desk, or walk along the corridor or smile towards your colleagues, by doing a mini-meditation, using affirmations or just about doing whatever for a short moment while your brain is resting from the problem and you can take control of the reaction. For this time. Next step after getting control back of that stressful moment is to analyze what happened and find clarity if this was a one-time happening or if this keeps coming often. Also clarity on how serious it was, do I need to take measurements for it not to happen again, will this take long to pass through or is it just this temporary moment. From there you have the choice of how to handle and react. There is a saying “You are only one thought away from calm” and that is basically true. You decide what thoughts you have. You can actively change an existing thought. It takes willpower and the choice is yours. You can choose to react with anger or with calm. You can also apply choice to chronic stressors such as poor working environment or complicated work relations. You have a choice to change your work environment or maybe even leave it if you can't see an end to the misery. You also have a choice to move away from an unhealthy relationship or do other changes in your life that will benefit you. Do you see the pattern in this all? If you work with staying Calm in the moment, finding Clarity in your reactions and using your ability to choose how to react, you will over time have created new habits and this leads to real change in your life. At the same time these new responses get hard wired to your brain and you will end up being that calm cool leader you always dreamed about. This will not only benefit you but also your work staff. They will recognize you new way of dealing with the stressors at work and if you do this gently they will model you and the group will be empowered and more effective and have more fun and that most often ends up in better results in the business you are set to do. A win-win for everyone. To your success and keep smiling! Annika Sörensen, MD, Author, TEDx Speaker, Mentor, Seminars/Workshops, Strategic Sessions and more. Helping stressed out Business Leaders feel less stress, get more done and create bigger success! Dr Annika is specialized in family medicine and health promotion strategies. She has practiced in the Public Health System in Sweden for 30+ years, and she has seen stress and illness from all sides, both from her patients but also privately.  Today she has changed her daily mission from treating disease, to prevention and promoting health by working with stress management, health, wealth and a happy leadership and work life. Today she runs her own company, AskDrAnnika.com. Dr Annika has also published the top-rated stress management book, “Take Stress from Chaos to Calm” and its follow up companion “My De-Stress Diary.”

Heidi Kyle is a well-known hypnotherapist and counsellor in private practice in the incredible Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. Heidi started her career in the corporate world in London and since has used her experience to craft a unique style in the helping professions. With hypnosis and our shared consciousness being the next frontier of evolving humanity, Heidi has developed the "Centred Consciousness" approach to take back our power in our lives and to understand our own unique role in the human story. Heidi's mission is to bring about change in the human psyche to benefit all. Heidi is currently working on her first book "Journeys in Hypnosis". Heidi Kyle Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. I am a Counsellor and Hypnotherapist based in the majestic Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. I am originally from Australia, via England, and it’s amazing to be living, working and thriving in Africa! I am married to a South African, Mark, and have two beautiful children, William and Clementine. We live on a farm and have cows, chickens, four dogs and lots of space – it’s the most beautiful, peaceful place and the mountains emit an energy that’s hard to describe. I have built a name for myself, primarily through hypnosis, and my clients come from all over the world and often travel to see me. It’s a huge privilege to be able to help people in such a profound way. Can you tell me about the background and history of Heidi Kyle Practice? What inspired you to start this business? My inspiration started in the corporate world, in investment banking. I saw all these amazing bankers, earning crazy money, and yet they seemed so confused, angry and damaged and not very functional – yet they should have been on top of the world, right? That was an eye opening experience and I realised that happiness cannot come from money and possessions - but it is available to everyone, from the inside, not the outside. I have met happier and more stable people in the most poverty stricken parts of Africa than I met in Investment Banking in London. Wanting to help people, I started a degree in Counselling to career change but the biggest change came in 2012 when I attended a self-hypnosis weekend course with the South African Institute of Hypnotism. Suddenly I found myself having conversations that were so deep and important, the desire to learn to train in this modality grew in me as many of these hypnosis practitioners were speaking from their sub-conscious mind and experiencing life and other people in such a meaningful way as a result. Their ability to connect was incredible and I thought “I want to learn how to do that”. What services or therapies does Heidi Kyle Practice offer to clients? How do these services benefit individuals seeking help? I offer many hypnosis techniques such as Regression Therapy, Past Life and Spiritual hypnosis, Hypnobirthing, pain management, smoking cessation, weight loss, fears and phobias, depression and anxiety, stress, coaching, soul journeys. I am so fascinated by hypnosis and it’s benefits that I can’t stop learning! I would say that Regression Therapy has been the most beneficial to the most clients – I have literally seen people healing from the most profound childhood trauma as well as serious mental illness diagnosis. Training in Regression Therapy has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the most rewarding. You really have to know how to use the techniques and it’s a big responsibility. My job is to do my best to the best of my ability and the change and the feedback from my clients still amazes me. I am in awe of my clients and their bravery and guts to change their lives. How does Heidi Kyle Practice differentiate itself from other similar practices in the area? What unique aspects or approaches do you bring to your clients? I would say that Regression Therapy is the most unique part of my practice. It’s the part that is the most unusual as not many therapists will train for this and is why my clients are based all over the world. I am sitting in my beautiful mountain home talking to clients in Australia and Germany and sometimes I have to pinch myself that I get to do this! I always see each client as a true individual and celebrate them and really try to help them to gain inner resources. Many people are so tired and drained when they see me – they literally are at the end of their tether. Its such a great experience to help them to reconnect with their functional, higher self and see them walking out feeling hopeful. Could you share some success stories or testimonials from clients who have benefited from your services? How have you made a positive impact on their lives? I have so many testimonials. My favourite one came from a weight loss client “wow, therapy on steroids, thank you”. Many of my clients have long histories with therapy and they are really amazed at what can be achieved with correctly applied therapeutic hypnosis. Another favourite is my client who wrote : “I spent ten years trying to get my relationship with my mother into some kind of perspective so I wasn’t expecting much. However, I am healed and it took three sessions. Truly eye-opening stuff.” What are your qualifications and experience in the field? I am a member of the South African Association of Counsellors and the South African Institute of Hypnotism as well as the General Hypnosis Council in England. I have worked with hypnosis now for over ten years and counselling for fifteen years and the experience gained is so valuable but I never think I know it all. Learning something new every day is so important and to be open to continuing to learn. I hope I am still learning when I am 101! What is your overall mission and vision for Heidi Kyle Practice? How do you envision the practice evolving and growing in the future? My overall mission for my practice is so simple since the pandemic. The pandemic has had a huge impact on human society and it’s clarified so much for so many. For myself, my mission is help humanity to evolve their sub conscious mind one individual at a time. To bring the understanding our subconscious mind into our day to day lives and to help people to clear negative emotional programming. Our world is so damaged right now but it can change in an instant if humanity could wake up sufficiently to see this. To work together, to listen to each other, to have the maturity to know we can disagree but we can still keep talking! That’s my goal – and my dream. In the future I see my practice evolving to take on more and more group work – such as retreats and large group events all over the world. Reaching more people is more pressing than ever and every day is a challenge to reach out to as many people as possible. Currently, I am working on my first book “Journeys in Hypnosis” which will be published later this year and which I hope will help people understand more about this modality. Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today. The pivotal moment in my life happened when I was 30 years old. I grew up with an amazing, talented, funny, smart, artistic father – who also had a serious mental illness. I saw his terrible suffering on so many levels, and, as a result, the suffering of my mother and my brothers and sisters. I went through many years of pain and confusion and one day I realised that we have a choice. No matter how limited that choice can feel at times. We have a choice and a chance to change every day. That’s what my work with clients is all about: choice. You choose. Every day is a new beginning we just have to choose. I have an awesome plaque in my office: “Welcome to Today, Another Day, Another Chance, Feel Free to Change”. I love that. Follow me on Facebook, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Heidi!

WHAT do you want? WHY do you want it, and HOW are you going to get it? These three keys will help your millennial employees set goals in life and will at the same time make them more motivated at work. When your employees work without goals or a purpose, they won't have an internal motivation and most of them will expect to get motivated by someone or something else - something that will make them unreliable when it comes to consistent results in sales. There are 3 key elements of what you should focus on when setting up goals. 1. What do you want? First of all, WHAT do you want to achieve in the next 12 months? When setting goals our best advice is to set them up in different categories of your life. For example Health, Economy, Private life, Personal development. If you set goals in only one area of your life you might feel empty in other areas. For example, if you only put your focus on money and no focus on your health or relationships you might get rich, but how fun is it to be rich if it cost you your health and your relationships? Therefore, at least analyze all those areas in your life when deciding what goals to set. Maybe your relationships are great but you need to deal better with negative thoughts, then you should probably prioritize personal development for example. When you have identified WHAT you want you can start figuring out your WHY. 2. Why do you want it? Purpose is about finding your WHY, your reasons for doing things. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Most people don't know the answer to that question. Having a strong purpose for your goals will strongly increase the chances of you succeeding with them. For example "I want 10.000 dollars!" is not a strong goal. But giving the goal a purpose like "I want 10.000 dollars, so that I can buy my mom a new car" will increase the chances of you actually getting it because you give your subconscious mind a strong reason for the actions you're about to take. This will make it easier for you to actually taking action. Which leads to your HOW. 3. How are you going to get it? When you know your WHY you can start thinking about your HOW. How are you going to get the things you want? First of all, you need to clearly identify what actions you need to take to reach your goals. For example "to get my dream body I need to exercise 4 times a week and change my diet". That might seem simple but that's not enough. You should also think about what habits you need to change to make this happen. Reaching goals is not just about what things you are going to start doing, it's also about the things you need to STOP doing. This can be things like stop watching Netflix, stop playing video games, quit smoking, etc. You must be willing to give up things to gain things. Most people have a pretty tight schedule and most of the time, taking action towards your goals acquires some sacrifices from that schedule. You must be willing to give up things to gain things. Now it is time to track your process. The best way to track a process is to create a track-sheet where you can follow up on the action steps you're about to take. I recommend creating a 30-day track sheet with boxes for each day and each goal that you can tick off. I recommend placing the tracking sheet on your fridge and adding a vision board right next to it, so that you never loose track of what you want and why. When you have a clear vision of what you want, why you want it, and how to get it, it gets much easier for you to focus on your goals at work and it also helps you to stay motivated for a longer period of time. When your employees work without goals or a purpose, they will lack internal motivation and most of them will expect to get motivated by they were going to get it which made them much more motivated to stick to a long term goal, which automatically resulted in better focus at work. A goal without a plan is just a dream! When your employees work without goals or a purpose, they will lack internal motivation and most of them will expect getting motivated by someone or something else. This makes them unreliable when it comes to sales. The reason for that is because they wake up most days feeling unmotivated, not knowing why, which will make it harder for them to deliver. This is one of the main problems when you have people in your team without life goals. They are on a constant search for outside motivation which makes them dangerous to your sales results. Their motivation is dependent on the manager or competitions or daily motivation-videos and they always need a daily dose of motivation to be able to deliver. They are also more likely to quit as soon as something else that seems fun occurs in front of them; because when they don't know what they want in life, they will constantly, unconsciously search for it. This is one of the reasons you see 20-year-olds with resumes that states 10 prior job titles. When you don't have long-term goals, consistency is not a habit, and in sales teams, consistency is what we're striving for. When you don't have long-term goals, consistency is not a habit, and in sales teams, consistency is what we're striving for. However, when you have a long term goal, a purpose, and a plan, the motivation comes from their fire within, making these people more reliable in delivery and they will most likely stay longer. Therefore, if you're a sales manager, always put your focus on helping your staff to set up long term goals and give them tools to find their purpose by using these 3 goal-setting strategies. Good luck!