Peter Fisk

The passion to be better

Eliud Kipchoge rises just before 5am each morning in the small village of Kaptagat in western Kenya. He rolls out of bed, wipes the sleep from his eyes and gets ready to run. By the time the sun rises over the ochre-red, dusty roads of the Rift Valley, he is well into his stride. Joined by dozens of other equally ambitious young runners, he pounds past farmers heading for their fields, children waiting for their school buses.  This is just his first 20km, his first run of the day. Every day.

On returning to his training camp, it might be Kipchoge’s turn to make breakfast. Most likely it will be a simple bowl of ugali, a Kenyan staple made each day in a big pan from maize flour and water. Plus whatever fruits are in season. Afterwards, he will probably take a nap, before getting up to hand-wash his running kit, ready for the afternoon session. On other days, it might be his turn to head to the local farm for provisions, or to clean the communal toilets.

It is a frugal existence, particularly for a self-made millionaire.

Yet for Kipchoge, the Olympic champion and world record holder, it is the only way of life that he has known. His wife and young children live in a much more spacious house in the town of Eldoret 40km away, but during his most important training periods, he prefers the simplicity of his spartan camp.

For 15 years, Kipchoge has been chasing a dream. I remember first seeing him run as a teenager, his beaming eyes fixed on the path ahead, always with a smile on his face. He showed early promise, beating Kenenisa Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj to become the 1983 5000m world champion whilst only 18 years old. Over the next decade he won many medals, but probably couldn’t call himself the best. As he reached his 30th birthday, he decided to move up to the marathon. To astonishing effect.

In the marathon, he became virtually unbeatable.

In 2017, his sponsors Nike created a project seeking to see if it would be possible to break 2 hours for the marathon. At the heart of their project was the new Olympic Champion, Kipchoge. They searched for the world for the perfect location, choosing Monza’s Formula 1 track in Italy, the perfect conditions, the perfect pace set automatically by a Tesla car, and the perfect shoe. In the cool dark morning he set off, slip-streaming in behind a squadron of world-class pacemakers.

As his colleagues succumbed to the brutal and relentless pace, one man continued alone against the clock, although missing the historic barrier by 25 seconds. Kipchoge was unphased, delighted but determined to do better. He went back to Kenya and set about improving himself.

He is perhaps one of the most thoughtful, intelligent athletes you will ever meet. Constantly seeking to challenge himself as a way to progress. Always curious and listening, wanting to read more and learn from others. He is even a fan of motivational business books. not least Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Why does he think he has become the best? Because of his mental toughness. “Many of my peers train just as hard as I do. But success is more about having the right attitude”.

A year later, he returned to the start line, this time in the unpredictable conditions of Berlin’s annual city marathon. He broke the world record by almost 2 minutes. As I watched him stride underneath the Brandenburg Gate, with only 200m to go he raised to a sprint. The smile on his face was still there, the eyes bulging with the sight of the finish line, yet no sign of stress or fatigue. He crossed the line euphoric. Within minutes he was telling the TV crews that he would be back again, to do even better.

XO. Be extraordinary.

The power of technology

Whilst we marvel at the extreme feats of human performance, be it in running a marathon in under two hours, we also know that technology has the potential to outperform humanity in many ways. The ability to process huge amounts of data at incredible speeds, to learn through repetitive process, and to harness the strength and agility of robotics, challenges many of the ways in which humans used to excel.

Eliud Kipchoge loves to play chess.

The game of chess has long served as a benchmark for artificial intelligence researchers. John McCarthy, who coined the term “artificial intelligence” in the early 1950s, once referred to chess as “the Drosophilia of AI” and comparing it to the use the fruit fly in the pursuit of understanding genetics.

In 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer embarked upon a series of chess games against Garry Kasparov, the world champion. Deep Blue eventually beat Kasparov, marking the first time a machine had defeated a world champion. Within a few years computing technology was consistently beating chess grandmasters.

”It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go – maybe even longer.” Taking up the challenge, computer scientists turned their attention to this ancient Chinese strategy game, which is both deceptively simple to play, yet extraordinarily complex to master.

The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923. Few businesses have been as consistently innovative over such a long period of time. Based in Burbank, California, Disney is the largest media conglomerate in the world by revenue, and its profits last year set a new company record. Disney has about 166,000 employees, or “cast members,” to use the term the company prefers.

Selemon Barega is an 18 year old Ethiopian runner, set on becoming the next Olympic champion.

On the dirt roads that sprawl outwards from Addis Ababa there are thousands of young men and women who share his dream. In East Africa long-distance running is in the air, aided by the physiological benefits of high altitude and the psychological factor that it is what almost everybody does.

Running in Ethiopia is about personal achievement, national pride, but it is also one of the best routes to a better life. The riches of sponsorships and prize money can transform lives. The winnings from one major race could buy a farm and dramatically change the lifestyle of an entire family.

Yet competition is fierce. From the thousands of peers who share the dream locally, and many others across the borders in Kenya, Uganda and beyond.

For Selemon Barega, it is time to step up.

He has been one of those naturally talented wonder kids for a number of years now, racing to times that mark him out as a rising superstar. Yet he was still in the shadow of global leaders. Now his heroes Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele, two of the world’s greatest ever runners, have hung up their spikes, as have global champions like Mo Farah.

Now there is a void, waiting to be filled. Waiting for somebody to rise up to be the next star.

Here, in an extract from an article in IAAF’s Spikes Magazine, he describes how it feels to be ready to achieve much more.

“All my life, I’ve been running. Where I come from, a rural farm in southern Ethiopia, that’s just the way of life.

Need to get water for your family? You run. Buy some things at the local market? Run. Get to school, no matter how far away it is? Grab your books and run.

I come from a family of eight and we all ran throughout our childhood, even if I was the first to be a competitor. My school was about 50-60 minutes from my home, depending on how fast I moved. Twice a day I’d walk or run that, ever since the age of seven, but back then it was never about training.

Growing up, I didn’t want to be an athlete, but a football player. Even today, I’m obsessed with that sport. In my training group outside Addis Ababa we’re split down the middle between Manchester United and Arsenal. Me? I support Manchester United, which isn’t much fun at the moment.

As it turned out, I never had the talent to make it in football, but a few years after taking up athletics I had a new dream. I started running competitively in 2013, and can remember finishing second in my first race. My big breakthrough wasn’t until 2016, though.

I won the world U20 5000m title that summer in Poland, which changed everything. After that I signed with Nike and started training with really good athletes: Muktar Edris and Yomif Kejelcha. I knew at that point: if I can run well, I would have a good life.

People often ask about the success of Ethiopians and Kenyans, but it’s simple: we work very hard. I run about 120-130km a week in training, and have recently started gym work to build more strength.

As a kid, my gym programme was simple: carry things around on our farm, where we grew all kinds of cereals. Before me there were never any athletes in my family, but one of my younger brothers is now following my lead, and hopefully he’ll be just as fast.

Looking back, 2018 was a great year, but not perfect. I ran well at the start, finishing second at the World Indoor Championships over 3000m, but things fell apart at the World U20 Championships in Finland.

The weather was too hot the day of the 5000m final and I never felt right during the race. Even with that, I was disappointed not to get any medal – finishing fourth.

But championships are very different to races on the circuit, especially when you run for a country like Ethiopia. Ever since the days of Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele, they expect gold medals, so when you pull on that vest you know everything else will be a failure.

You feel the responsibility to your country, your people, and that’s hard when the races without pacemakers are so unpredictable.

When I’m racing on the Diamond League circuit, I feel free. Yomif and I had a great race over 5000m in Lausanne in July but we clashed on the final bend, which messed things up for both of us.

But we got over all that very quickly. We’re still friends.

My best race of 2018 was definitely in Brussels, but again, it still wasn’t perfect. I won the 5000m in 12:43.02, but when I look back on the race I know I could have run faster. I lost at least one or two seconds waiting for athletes behind instead of pushing the pace with a few laps to run, and I should have run closer to 12:40.

But that can wait for 2019, when, if I get a good race with the right weather, I want to break the world record.

Growing up, Kenenisa Bekele was a hero, along with Haile Gebrselassie. When I became an athlete I was always looking at their achievements and they were my role models.

Now I want to run faster than them. The 10,000m world record, at 26:17.53, is out of my reach at this point, but I think I can get close to the 5000m record, which is 12:37.35.

After the track season I rested for one month, then did some training on my own before re-joining my group. I’m coached by Hussein Shibo and Tolera Dinka and I usually train in Sululta, alongside the world 5000m champion Muktar Edris.

The last few months haven’t been smooth – I had an injury soon after starting back with the group because the training intensity was much higher this year, but I’m over that now, feeling good and ready for 2019.

When I look ahead, I get excited about all the things I want to achieve. My plan is to run on the track until the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, then move to the roads.

And once my racing career is over, I want to work in commerce – to do something with my money that will make things better for my country.

Now that I’ve had some success, I’ve been able to help my family out a bit at home. I still go back to visit them on the farm but these days I’m lucky – I get to oversee everything and don’t have to carry stuff around or run to fetch water.

All my energies are going into becoming as fast as I possibly can on the track.

The fastest ever? I hope so.”

Companies like Apple, IKEA, and Google work hard to develop the culture, processes, and habits that drive their success. When taken together, these all add up to a capability we call creative competitiveness. It’s what IDEO has spent 25 years observing, practicing, and perfecting with companies like Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Ford.

IDEO Creative Difference harnesses this expertise by assessing and guiding organizations in developing their own creative competitiveness. The data-driven insights from Creative Difference orient leaders towards action and uncover strengths and improvement areas across all levels of their organization.

Starting with a 15-20 minute assessment shared across any number of teams or business units, Creative Difference looks at the culture, behaviors, processes, and knowledge sharing across the organization. The resulting insights are compiled into a simple and intuitive online dashboard, which allows leaders to see how their organization compares with other innovative organizations, choose which proven actions they will take to improve their organization, and track how their actions have impacted their organization over time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF3WtD70IAI

IDEO was founded in 1991 by David Kelley, and supported by his brother Tom. I first came across IDEO in 1995 when talking with Tim Brown who had just opened their London office, who raved about a different way to solve problems in a truly consumer-centric, creative-obsessive, yet commercially-minded way.

Having just stepped out of managing brands in the airline industry and into the world of consulting, I loved the ability to conjure creativity through active participation of teams … to go beyond process and technology to real think differently, and to inspire a creative confidence in colleagues.

In 1999, the ABC show Nightline famously featured IDEO in a segment called The Deep Dive: One Company’s Secret Weapon for Innovation. ABC challenged IDEO to redesign the shopping cart in five days to demonstrate IDEO’s process for innovation.

The end result was a shopping cart with a nestable steel frame which holds removable plastic baskets to help deter theft and increase shopper flexibility. A dual child seat with a swing-up tray was also included in the design, as well as a cupholder, a scanner to skip the checkout line and steerable back wheels for maneuverability. The video has been repeated millions of times in business schools and corporations around the world. And in many ways, was the early process which then became codified as design thinking.

Working with Tom a few years later, in Istanbul of all places, I was intrigued by how other companies could embrace the Deep Dive process, and it become an accepted way to research and develop new ideas.

He described how his brother David was working at codifying the approach into a more structured approach which could be replicated and taught. He created the D School in Palo Alto, and the concept of Design Thinking was born.

Today, IDEO continues to challenge and stretch the minds of executives, the boundaries of business, and inspire new products and services, both commercially, and in ways that make the world better too.

So back to IDEO’s Creative Difference.

I asked David to describe the 6 qualities of a creative business:

He says empowerment is the most powerful lever. Empowerment is about creating a clear path forward for people and trusting them to do the right thing. It’s about giving them the right tool kits, helping them understand how to tackle creative challenges, and letting them use their own judgment to solve problems as a team. When people understand that there is a clear way for ideas to move forward and that they have access to the methods and tools to get them to go forward, they’re much more likely to actually put energy and time into these efforts to innovate.

However it starts with purpose. Basically, does your organization have a clear reason to exist beyond making money? It’s saying, “Of all the things we can do in the world, why would we do this one versus another?” That’s a huge advantage in terms of sending people on a common mission. It really fires people up and helps them bring their best selves to work.

The next is looking out. What we see is that people love to sit around a table and debate. And we see the effort of navigating internal processes and politics eats up a ton of people’s energy and time. What we see in big organizations, as they mature, is that they forget to glance outside and see what their customers really value. Organizations that do this well have sensors out in the world to bring those stories into the organization so that people inside can really understand their customers and their market.

Interestingly, in companies that are are looking out well, there’s no shortage of ideas. The challenge usually becomes, how do you prioritize? Many organizations do technical prototyping or piloting, but a lot of them are missing out on experimentation, a faster way to explore ideas. Experimentation is having a good and fair framework to test ideas in lightweight ways. Through experimentation, you can determine how to move forward and invest in ideas appropriately and fairly in ways people can really understand.

Collaboration is about getting multidisciplinary teams together to work on challenges in agile ways. We see that teams that work in parallel are much more effective than those that work in series. So, instead of just saying one function has a go, then handing it off to the next function — in which case anyone might suddenly raise a red flag — you get people ideating and working together. It has a massive impact on team effectiveness.

Finally, it’s about refinement, which is investing in craft and creative problem solving through technical execution. We find that organizations often have this artificial division in their heads between the upfront creative process and the execution process. In reality, that’s a blurred line. Just because you have a great idea that’s validated doesn’t actually mean it’s going to be an elegant solution that fulfills the initial purpose. You need to give the people in charge of execution the time to problem solve against technical challenges that emerge so they can solve those problems effectively.

Explore more insights from GeniusWorks:

• Inside Daimler’s Lab1886 … the Stuttgart innovation hub focused on creating the future of mobility
• Inside Disney’s new iD8 Innovation Studios … where the magic of Mickey Mouse lives on with Buzz and Brainstorms
• Inside Medtronic’s Applied Innovation Lab … a focus on improving patient experiences, services and outcomes
• Inside IKEA’s Future Home innovation incubator … from even better Swedish meatballs to flexible rooms
• Inside Nike’s Research Labs … harnessing the spirit of Bill Bowerman to innovate the future of sports performance
• Inside Shell’s TechWorks innovation lab … where there is freedom to fail and to succeed
• Inside HENRi … Nestle’s global hunt for big ideas, named after the pharmacist founder who invented a baby formula.
• Creating a “Growth Factory” … How P&G tripled its innovation success rate, and how you could too.
• The Corporate Innovation Ecosystem … understanding the components, processes, activities and tensions which make innovation thrive in large companies

Singaporean entrepreneur Min-Liang Tan founded one of the world’s largest gaming businesses, Razer in 2005. He was a childhood gamer who made his hobby his business, and was supposed to be a lawyer. Coming from a traditional Asian family, his parents mapped out their expectations for him.

“Like any other gamer child, I was difficult. I was always on the computer. I would always be … playing computer games at any chance I got. My parents would be yelling at me: ‘Stop playing… so much.’ But I’m glad some things don’t change. I’m still playing computer games all the time,” he said.

Tan and his brother Min-Han Tan would duke it out, playing 1980s games such as “Prince of Persia” and “Castle Wolfenstein,” both developed for the Apple II series. They’d also use glasses of iced water to cool down their PCs to avoid their parents’ disapproval.

The entrepreneur’s money-making talents showed up early. “Even in high school, during Valentine’s Day, the school brought in a flower vendor. I think the night before, he brought in a ton of roses, and sold those during Valentine’s Day, then he bought the vendor’s flowers at a cheaper price, and sold everything back to the school all over again,” brother Min-Han Tan said.

“My mum would say, ‘You know, I think you guys can either be a doctor or a lawyer.’ And, I’ve got my sister who’s a doctor, my other sister’s a lawyer, my brother’s a really well-respected clinician oncologist. He’s super smart. And I did my law degree. So two doctors, two lawyers, go figure, right?”

Tan’s parents were so keen for him to stick with his law degree that he didn’t tell them when he’d switched to making gaming a career. “You know, I’m just going to start Razer first and we’ll figure it out as it comes along. By the time they realized it, it was a little too late … I think they were still very supportive nonetheless. But I kind of realized that they might not be too happy when I changed my career,” Tan said.

But the family is close. When Tan goes to Singapore on business, he still stays with his folks. “Some of my American colleagues give me grief, I think, for staying still at home. But I think it’s great, you know. I get to do exactly what I do, play computer games all day long.”

Still being a gamer is what appeals to fans, says Edwin Chan, Tan’s childhood friend and Razer’s chief financial officer. “He hosts his own social network pages. He does his own personal outreach in events and trade shows.

He recently featured in a CNBC documentary:

Now Tan’s worth more than a billion dollars, according to Forbes, but not for practicing law. His gaming hardware company Razer was launched in 2005 on a single product, a computer mouse specifically for gamers. Last year, the San Francisco and Singapore-headquartered company made $517.9 million in revenue and it has a market value of 17.2 billion Hong Kong dollars ($2.2 billion).

And if you think gaming is just for geeks, consider that it’s now an industry that beats the global movie business — worth $88.4 billion in 2017 — for size. “Gaming is now the biggest vertical within media. It’s a $130 billion industry alone, growing double digits every single year for a 10-year basis,” Mirabaud Securities analyst Neil Campling told CNBC.

Much of the industry is driven by gaming apps such as Pokemon Go, Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds (games account for about half of the top 10 most popular apps on the Apple store), but it’s the hardware that US-based Razer creates, “peripherals” such as computer mice and keyboards that it’s famous for.

Their precise function and distinctive black and rainbow lights design got Razer noticed among the gaming community and has helped it to become a leader in the esports industry, where people gather in arenas to watch gamers competing.

Razer’s focus also got the attention of investors, including Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing and Credence Partners co-founder Koh Boon Hwee, who backed the company in 2008. “Initially, I wasn’t particularly enthralled by the fact this was a hardware business making gaming (mice),” but a move into becoming an online platform for gamers was more attractive.

Razer’s 2017 initial public offering raised $528 million, and ahead of it, Tan said he’d spend the money on more products.

“We would love to have that war chest to allow us to invest in R&D (research and development). We are known to have disrupted many industries: we’re the first in the gaming peripherals side of things; we were first when we invented the first true gaming laptop; we’ve gone on to provide one of the largest software platforms for gamers,” Tan said.

Razer is not yet profitable, making a loss of $165.8 million in 2017, against $59.6 million on the previous year, but Robert Cavin, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan, points out that the company has large marketing expenses, and is still prioritizing growth like other companies such as Netflix and Tesla. “Amazon changed the expectation for corporate profits as long as you have a good story and path to profitability. That profitability time frame is more flexible than it used to be. Razer is growing and has a good story,” he says.

The Hero’s Journey is a classic storytelling structure which can be found in many legends, movies and even business narratives. The phrase was created by academic Joseph Campbell in 1949, and refers to a wide-ranging category of tales in which a character ventures out to get what they need, faces conflict, and ultimately triumphs over adversity.

3 stages of the hero’s journey:

• Act 1: The Departure: the Hero leaves the Ordinary World.
• Act 2: The Initiation: the Hero ventures into unknown with many trials and challenges.
• Act 3: The Return: the Hero returns in triumph.

In 2007, screenwriter Christopher Vogler refined Campbell’s original structure in his book, The Writer’s Journey. In it, Vogler expanded upon Campbell’s three phases, defining 12 stages that make it up.

The Hero’s Journey can be decoded in everything from The Lion King and horror novels to Star Wars and Arrival. But keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to follow it beat by beat. You can instead think of it as a map: you can stray from the set path whenever you like. But when you’re struggling to figure out what should happen next, it can act as a narrative arc guide to suggest what the next milestone should be.

 

To show you how it can be used outside of your average sword-and-sorcery books, we’ve adopted the 1976 film Rocky as an example in each step.

1. Ordinary World

In which we meet our Hero.

The journey has yet to start. Before our Hero discovers a strange new world, we must first understand the status quo: their ordinary, mundane reality.

It’s up to this opening leg to set the stage, introducing the Hero to readers. Importantly, it lets readers identify with the Hero as a “normal” person in a “normal” setting, before the journey begins.

Example of the Ordinary World:
In the opening of Rocky, Rocky Balboa is introduced as a mediocre boxer and loan collector — just doing his best to live day-to-day in a poor part of Philadelphia.

2. Call to Adventure

In which an adventure starts.

The call to adventure is all about booting the Hero out of their comfort zone. In this stage, they are generally confronted with a problem or challenge they can’t ignore. This catalyst can take many forms, as Campbell points out in Hero with a Thousand Faces. The Hero can, for instance:

• Decide to go forth of their own volition, i.e. Theseus upon arriving in Athens,
• Be sent abroad by a benign or malignant agent, i.e. Odysseus setting off on his ship in The Odyssey,
• Stumble upon the adventure as a result of a mere blunder, i.e. Dorothy when she’s swept up in a tornado in The Wizard of Oz,
• Be casually strolling when some passing phenomenon catches the wandering eye and lures one away from the frequented paths of man, i.e. Elliot in E.T. upon discovering a lost alien in the tool shed.

The stakes of the adventure and the Hero’s goals become clear. The only question: will he rise to the challenge?

Example of the Call to Adventure:
Apollo Creed, the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, decides to make a big fight interesting by giving a no-name a chance to challenge him. Intrigued by the nickname, “The Italian Stallion,” he rings Rocky up.

3. Refusal of the Call

In which the Hero digs in their feet.

Great, so the Hero’s received their summons. Now they’re all set to be whisked off to defeat evil, right?

Not so fast. The Hero might first refuse the call to action. It’s risky and there are perils — like spiders, trolls, or perhaps a creepy uncle waiting back at Pride Rock. It’s enough to give anyone pause.

In Star Wars, for instance, Luke Skywalker initially refuses to join Obi-Wan on his mission to rescue the princess. It’s only when he discovers that his aunt and uncle have been killed by stormtroopers that he changes his mind.

Example of the Refusal of the Call:
Rocky says, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to Creed’s invitation. He’s reluctant, given that he has no trainer and is incredibly out of shape.

4. Meeting the Mentor

In which the Hero acquires a personal trainer.

The Hero’s decided to go on the adventure — but they’re not ready to spread their wings yet. They’re much too inexperienced at this point and we don’t want them to do a fabulous belly-flop off the cliff.

Enter the mentor: someone who helps the Hero, so that they doesn’t make a total fool of themselves (or get themselves killed). The mentor provides practical training, profound wisdom, a kick up the posterior, or something abstract like grit and self-confidence.

Wise old wizards seem to like being mentors. But mentors take many forms, from witches to hermits and suburban karate instructors. They might literally give weapons to prepare for the trials ahead, like Q in the James Bond series. Or perhaps the mentor is an object, such as a map. In all cases, they prepare the Hero for the next step.

Example of Meeting the Mentor:
In steps former boxer Mickey “Mighty Mick” Goldmill, who sees potential in Rocky and starts training him physically and mentally for the fight.

5. Crossing the First Threshold

In which the Hero enters the other world in earnest.

Now the Hero is ready — and committed — to the journey. This marks the end of the Departure stage and is when the adventure really kicks into the next gear. As Vogler writes: “This is the moment that the balloon goes up, the ship sails, the romance begins, the wagon gets rolling.”

From this point on, there’s no turning back.

Like our Hero, you should think of this stage as a checkpoint for your story. Pause and re-assess your bearings before you continue into unfamiliar territory. Have you:

• Launched the central conflict? If not, here’s a post on types of conflictto help you out.
• Established the theme of your book? If not, check out this post that’s all about creating theme and motifs.
• Made headway into your character development? If not, this character profile template and these character development exercises may be useful.

Example of Crossing the First Threshold:
Rocky fully accepts the gauntlet to square up when he crosses the threshold into his love interest Adrian’s house and asks her out on a date.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

In which the Hero faces new challenges and gets a squad.

When we step into the Special World, we notice a definite shift. The Hero might be discombobulated by this unfamiliar reality and its new rules. This is generally one of the longest stages in the story, as our protagonist gets to grips with this new world.

This makes a prime hunting ground for the series of tests to pass! Luckily, there are many ways for the Hero to get into trouble:

• In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Spencer, Bethany, “Fridge,” and Martha get off to a bad start when they bump into a herd of bloodthirsty hippos.
• In his first few months at Hogwarts, Harry Potter manages to fight a troll, almost fall from a broomstick and die, and get horribly lost in the Forbidden Forest.
• Marlin and Dory encounter three “reformed” sharks, get shocked by jellyfish, and are swallowed by a blue whale en route to finding Nemo.

This stage often expands the cast of characters. Once the protagonist is in the Special World, he will meet allies and enemies — or foes that turn out to be friends, and vice versa. He will learn a new set of rules from them. Saloons and seedy bars are popular places for these transactions, as Vogler points out (so long as the Hero survives them).

Example of Tests, Allies, Enemies:
Rocky continues to try and win over Adrian while making a dubious friend in Paulie.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

In which the Hero gets closer to his goal.

This isn’t a physical cave. Instead, the “inmost cave” refers to the most dangerous spot in the other realm — whether that’s the villain’s chambers, the lair of the fearsome dragon, or the Death Star. Almost always, it is where the ultimate goal of the quest is located.

Note that the protagonist hasn’t entered the Inmost Cave just yet. This stage is all about the approach to it. It covers all the prepwork that’s needed in order to defeat the villain.

Example of the Approach to the Inmost Cave:
The Inmost Cave in Rocky is Rocky’s own mind. He fears that he’ll never amount to anything — something that he reveals when he butts heads with his trainer, Mickey, in his apartment.

8. Ordeal

In which the Hero faces his biggest test of all thus far.

Of all the tests the Hero has faced, none have made them hit rock bottom — until now. Vogler describes this phase as a “black moment.” Campbell refers to it as the “belly of the whale.” Both indicate some grim news for the Hero.

The protagonist must now confront their greatest fear. If they survive it, they will emerge transformed. This is a critical moment in the story, as Vogler explains that it will “inform every decision that the Hero makes from this point forward.”

The Ordeal is sometimes not the climax of the story. There’s more to come. But you can think of it as the main event of the second act — the one in which the Hero actually earns the title of “Hero.”

Example of the Ordeal:
The start of the training montage marks the beginning of Rocky’s Ordeal. He pushes through it until he glimpses hope ahead while running up the museum steps.

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword)

In which the Hero sees light at the end of the tunnel.

Our Hero’s been through a lot. However, the fruits of their labor are now at hand — if they can just reach out and grab them! The “reward” is the object or knowledge the Hero has fought throughout the entire journey to hold.

Once the protagonist has it in their possession, it generally has greater ramifications for the story. Vogler offers a few examples of it in action:

• Luke rescues Princess Leia and captures the plans of the Death Star — keys to defeating Darth Vader.
• Dorothy escapes from the Wicked Witch’s castle with the broomstick and the ruby slippers — keys to getting back home.

Example of the Reward (Seizing the Sword):
Rocky’s reward is the return of his faith in himself. He regains the self-esteem to realize that he has the stuff to take on Apollo Creed — win or lose.

10. The Road Back

In which the light at the end of the tunnel might be a little further than the Hero thought.

The story’s not over just yet, as this phase marks the beginning of Act Three. Now that he’s seized the reward, the Hero tries to return to the Ordinary World, but more dangers (inconveniently) arise on the road back from the Inmost Cave.

More precisely, the Hero must deal with the consequences and aftermath of the previous act: the dragon, enraged by the Hero who’s just stolen a treasure from under his nose, starts the hunt. Or perhaps the opposing army gathers to pursue the Hero across a crowded battlefield. All further obstacles for the Hero, who must face them down before they can return home.

Example of the Road Back:
On New Year’s Day, the fight between Rocky and Creed is held. Rocky realizes the challenge that lies before him in the first few rounds, in which both men are more or less equally matched.

11. Resurrection

In which the last test is met.

Here is the true climax of the story. Everything that happened prior to this stage culminates in a crowning test for the Hero, as the Dark Side gets one last chance to triumph over the Hero.

Vogler refers to this as a “final exam” for the Hero — they must be “tested once more to see if they have really learned the lessons of the Ordeal.” It’s in this Final Battle that the protagonist goes through one more “resurrection.” As a result, this is where you’ll get most of your miraculous near-death escapes, à la James Bond’s dashing deliverances. If the Hero survives, they can start looking forward to a sweet ending.

Example of the Resurrection:
Rocky’s knocked down more than a few times as the fight continues. The entire fight winds up lasting 15 rounds and takes both men to the brink of exhaustion.

12. Return with the Elixir

In which our Hero has a triumphant homecoming.

Finally, the Hero gets to return home. However, they go back a different person than when they started out: they’ve grown and matured as a result of the journey they’ve taken.

But we’ve got to see them bring home the bacon, right? That’s why the protagonist must return with the “Elixir,” or the prize won during the journey, whether that’s an object or knowledge and insight gained.

Of course, it’s possible for a story to end on an Elixir-less note — but then the Hero would be doomed to repeat the entire adventure.

Example of the Return with the Elixir:
Rocky doesn’t win the fight — but he doesn’t care. He’s won back his confidence and beaten his mental demons. And he’s got Adrian, who tell him that she loves him.

6 iconic movies that follow the hero’s journey

The Most Contagious Report 2018 is a great way to summarise the zeitgeist.

The annual snapshot of the world’s consumer markets is both insightful and provocative, exploring the creative and cultural trends that are driving brands and innovation around the world right now …

Here are some of the big themes:

Machine Vision … from detecting corruption to diagnosing cancer, there are a multitude of uses for this AI technology

Guanxi loosely translates as personal connections, relationships or social networks. It implies trust and mutual obligations between parties, and it operates on personal, familial, social, business and political levels. Having good, bad or no guanxi impacts one’s influence and ability to get things done.

For example: If our guanxi is good, it implies we get along and are likely or expected to help each other out, perhaps because of shared ties, history or having done favors in the past. If a distributor or consultant does not have any guanxi – or has bad guanxi, with a customer’s purchasing director or a government approval authority, this implies it may be harder to get access to decision makers, obtain important insights, make a sale, or gain approval.

For the past twenty years, academics have spent considerable time trying to discern the impact of guanxi on business results. Last year a new research study covering 700 Chinese entrepreneurs evaluating their social networks (guanxi) and its impact on their business success. The paper stopped short of stating that guanxi causes business success in China, and it raised more questions than answers about the role that networks play in China business. Their findings in simple terms showed that higher trust and being strategically connected (having guanxi, or broker networks) was correlated to business success with those Chinese entrepreneurs.

They concluded that networks are associated with business success in the West and China. Trust correlates in the West are also correlated in China.

Look at the US and Western Europe. Most estimates suggest 80 percent of jobs are found through personal networks. Companies often poach their competitors’ sales reps because of their relationships with key customers. Consultants with ties to regulatory agencies can often better navigate or even shape government policy. Washington is pretty much a revolving door of politicians turned lobbyists.

Guanxi exists everywhere, including the West. Chinese, and even Western expatriates who have spent their careers in China, often miss this fundamental point , simply because they haven’t spent much time doing business outside of China.

1. Guanxi is an ingredient to business success, but varies by sector and even geography

Thoughtful investors in China get scared if guanxi is a company’s sole competitive advantage, or even business model. The importance of guanxi is relative and depends heavily on industry, geography or the nature of the business.

Heavily regulated industries or those that are strategic to China’s national interest, like banking, health care or security, are more subject to non-market forces. Good guanxi with authorities or state-owned companies may be critical to successfully doing business. It’s not that different than a Chinese pharmaceutical firm in the US, which needs to recognize the importance of shaping policy given that its US competitors may have deep relationships with the Food and Drug Administration.

Likewise, China is diverse. Some regions, like Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen may share more in common with international business practices. Inland regions in the West, provinces with state-sector involvement like the Northeast, or even regions like Jiangsu or Fujian that were once dominated by small, family-run businesses, may be subject to more traditional business practices, where guanxi stills plays a role.

2. Consider guanxi on three levels: personal, corporate and governmental

On a personal level: the key is to deepen trust and create mutual benefit. People are still people: we like and help those similar to us, who boost our ego or make us look good, who are helpful and provide benefits, or who make us feel we are part of a larger meaningful cause. Rather than focus on differences, build on similarities, paying attention to small but subtle cultural differences. China is changing rapidly,  and attitudes differ widely by age, with younger Chinese less bound by traditional obligations.

On a business level: as one executive said, “I’ve never met a distributor who says they don’t have good guanxi in China.” Look deeper. Understand the sector and geography to gauge how important guanxi may be with suppliers, key partners and customers. Having a business meal or drink, long viewed as mandatory to China business, may not even be necessary. Technological turbulence and competition intensity may even lessen the impact of guanxi.

On a sector or governmental level: foreign firms may never be able to generate the same level of trust and ties with authorities that local firms can. That sometimes may be an advantage, as it does not bind western companies and executives to the same norms of behavior. In building relationships with authorities, work across institutions rather than with one individual. Have a strong non-market strategy in China and someone dedicated on the team to spearheading it. As one study cited: “While business ties remain a valuable strategic tool in China, the importance of government ties is time-variant and has been declining with the development of the institutional environment in China.”

3. Understand and manage the downsides of guanxi

The downside of guanxi is that it is often associated with corruption and can lead to dangerous reciprocal obligations and collective blindness. The upside of Xi Jinping’s rule has been a heavy focus on rooting out corruption, which has had a sanitizing effect on government officials and company executives, many of whom currently operate with almost as much caution and compliance as western executives, who are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the UK Bribery Act.

Guanxi can be built, but it must be managed carefully. An overreliance on guanxi is a convenient excuse for not doing the hard work to convince customers, employees and partners of the business benefits of cooperating.

Guanxi is not magic dust

Consider guanxi as providing a leg up – the insight that it can provide, or the good will it can generate to help seal a deal – but not the only leg to stand on. Business in the East, as in the West, is about people and relationships, but an over-reliance on relationships can kill, as it did with Bill.

More research will shed light on guanxi. This is a tough challenge given China’s size, complexity and the speed of change. At the same time, the West needs to realize that crony capitalism, creeping into the US, might signal that guanxi and relationships are a bigger driver of business success in the West than people want to believe.

After a rollercoaster year of political, environmental and economic change, business and consumers are taking a deep breath.

Brands are assuming a more meaningful role in consumers’ lives … becoming civic leaders, advocates, even therapists, driving dialogue change and stepping in to solve world problems.

Consumer appetite for wellbeing, stress management and health is prompting a continued evolution of new products and services to help soothe unstable, constantly connected lifestyles.

Against this backdrop of empowerment and wellness, technology’s reach is being re-examined, making way for an increased focus on ethics and privacy.

Here some more foresights for the year ahead:

• JWT’s Future 100 trends for 2019 … outdoor immersion (back to nature) to grotesque beauty (bold and daring), woke luxury and empowering adolescence: Download here
• Fjord’s consumer trends for 2019 … silence is gold, data minimalism, space odyssey and synthetic realities, and the inclusivity paradox: Download here
• Mintel’s consumer trends for 2019 … total wellbeing to rethinking plastic, social isolation and redefining adulthood, and much more: Download here
• Trendwatching’s consumer trends for 2019 … legislative brands to lab rats, superhuman resources and fantasy IRL where real and dream world’s collide: Download here
• Dimension Data’s tech trends for 2019 ... easy accessibility for all to blockchain identities, data with privacy and the real internet of everything: Download here
• Disruption’s tech trends for 2018 … digital twins and ubiquitous AI, quantum/edge and spatial computing, but with purpose too: Download here

And more in the form of videos …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkyql8ZyPL4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wjSrXV1ibc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU9qcTVJr2I