Project: Behind Every Story Is A Risk. Tell Us Whose You Want To Hear.

http://www.thegreencouchproject.com/contact.php

January 28^th, 2014 The Green Couch Project™  began the initiative to see what it was like to walk an hour or two into another risk-taker’s shoes. And so we invited several, five entrepreneurs to be specific, to individually sit on The Couch. It changed our lives. It changed theirs.

Since then a total of twenty-six risk-takers and counting have sat on The Couch, shared their risk-taking gutsy and taken the Pinky Promise challenge. Nothing is ever rehearsed or auto-tuned. When it comes to the questions, everything is left to the unknown but everything is from the heart.

The Green Couch is where they get to fall back in love with who they are, what they do and why it matters - because it does. The Green Couch Project™ is where they have a chance to inspire others to speak, follow and inspire others to fulfill their dreams.

To do what they get to do every day – live their love.

We’ve caught it on paper, video and pictures. We have shared it on our website, in newsletters, in podcasts, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… because their risk-taking is what inspires us, their story is our gift to you.

And now it’s time we hear back from you.

This fall, The Green Couch Project is doing something different. We want you to submit an inspirational entrepreneurial story of someone who motivates change in your life. Whether you know them directly or indirectly or they never heard of your name, give us a glimpse of their courage so they can spill their gutsy on The Green Couch on October 27th, 2016.

Whether they’re on their own, or manage a team of 100, we’re looking for people with outstanding company culture, integrity, community impact and irresistible risk-taking gutsy.

We’re looking for someone who inspires people to speak, follow and fulfill their dreams. It doesn’t matter if they’re ages 8-108, are a college dropout, new to the game or have years of experience; this is your chance to nominate someone you’d like to see on The Couch who lives their love and has a voice that needs to be heard.

-The Green Couch

Project: How To Monday

There are books and blogs on how to minimize, simplify and love your life. To find your passion and ardently pursue it with little to no reservations. There are tips, tricks and tutorials for nearly every aspect of your existent and that of your family, friends, foes, coworkers, neighbors and the next generation that has yet to be born.

However, the one thing we have yet to resolve (and perhaps admit) is our fear of Mondays. Our absolute resentment of those 24 very distinct hours. There are simple diagrams that break down how to get up early and subsequently how to plan for a good day. But that isn’t something we anticipate doing on a Sunday evening. Monday evening? Sure. Tell us how sleeping in a dark, 65 degree Fahrenheit room under a warm blanket thinking of a delicious, nutritious breakfast will be the culmination to the most successful Tuesday in human existence. Expound on how visualizing prosperity and personal achievement via a quote will cancel out our disdain for waking up on this mistake of a day (and having to walk across the room to hit the alarm clock – another trick of the trade).

Now the point of this landing page on the web isn’t to further condemn Mondays and raise our fists in solidarity. There is enough of us already who inherently feel this way to continue with this diatribe.

The point is to create another self-sufficient how-to blog, this focusing on How To Monday. No matter when you read this, we’re just a few days – hours – away from another one. 

Moreover, unless you’re being crowned, honored, nominated or the Publishing Clearing House has a life-size check waiting at your door, Monday isn’t Funday.

So just how do we Monday?

If Monday were Tuesday, would it bother us that much? Do we need to revive our imagination and pretend that Monday is a threadbare rug we are walking on our way to the rest of the week? Therefore, why let it bother us? It’s a quick stepping stone. One and done?

Unfortunately, we can only pretend for so long before we have to live it. So, let’s get down to digestible applications to combat the science that has determined people really don’t hate Mondays so much as hating to get up on Monday because it signifies going back to work.

1) Finish your work on Friday. If the trepidation of Mondays truly revolves around getting back in the routine of your occupation, arriving at a clean slate of tasks is a lot less taxing than knowing the first thing that will greet you when you get to work is overdue actions or an insurmountable list.

2) Make your goals more achievable. If your goals are on Friday or depend on Payday, that may be part of the root problem. Have something to work toward other than just clocking out. Part of our problem as individuals and society is that we wish time away to arrive at some ambiguous celebration. Meanwhile the time that passed was a blur that could have been a clearly defined path. Just because Monday isn’t the weekend doesn’t mean you cannot have fun afterward. You just have to redefine it. There’s summer vacation fun and then there’s school night fun. But there’s always time for fun. 

3) Just sleep. Doesn’t matter what temperature or exposure of light. On your back, starfish. Beauty rest or catnap when you get home. If you earned it (that’s between you and your boss) then catch a few winks because while nearly no one likes Mondays, absolutely no one likes a curmudgeon. (Oh – did you think this exercise was for your benefit?)

4) Don’t diet on Monday. That should be pretty self-explanatory and coincides with number three in the curmudgeon category. (Note: From here on out, Monday is your cheat day. Not Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Monday is.)

5) Like your job. You may not be in a financial position to find your passion and ardently pursue it, but I’m sure you can find a way to like the job title you currently have ownership of. And find at least one positive thing about it. The vending machine? The cubicles that give you a sense of privacy that you don’t have at home? Not even in the bathrooms!

6) Groom yourself. Seriously, even if you have a hangover, biked to work or you lost the battle against the kid whom habitually pulls your hair, try to look presentable. That way every time you go to send out a depressing selfie or Snapchat story to those who are sharing in your Monday misery, you are not further dismayed by your apathetic attempts for Monday’s roll call.

There may never be a cure for Mondays. And as an adult, you will always have to participate in them. There’s no playacting, no elementary approach to making a game out of it. To pretend if you don’t show up to work on time your house turns into lava. But there are ways your Monday can feel more like Tuesday and if you’re lucky and super ambitious a Friday.

The key may be found in some of these stereotypical tips and tricks but ultimately lies within your tenacity “To Monday.”

Good lucking getting there!

-The Green Couch

Project: Thinking Inside The Box

Every once in a while complacency sets in the marrow of a company’s bone structure. Things become stagnant, infecting everyone’s ability, forethought and desire to progress. While the same stellar work may still exist and be executed, the evolution of the company does not exist. If you are not moving, you are not growing and by default you are receding. It is happening to you right now. You have to make the conscious decision whether or not you will move forward or make no effort.

This was the case in an unknown company during an unspecific time (circa 1970s-80s). Content managers took the decade by subtle storm and told companies to think differently. To think outside the box. It started simply with a pencil and nine dots. This puzzle required you to link dots with four straights lines – or fewer – without lifting your pen or tracing the same line more than once. While it contained basic lateral thinking, the deeper significance of the exercise encouraged participants to speculate what else they could accomplish mentally despite pre-established restrictions. What other areas at work could they reintroduce creative thinking just by thinking outside the often self-imposed box of limitation?

Once teams start to implement this mindset, to look at situations from merely the instruction manual’s what is to what could be, the joie de vivre of a company is reinstated, and the growth is capitalized. Perhaps not always in numbers but in spirit, which is always the forerunner to any financial prosperity.

Since the ‘70s, many companies and innovators have introduced ways to think differently; to think outside of the box. Through technology and processes, leaders and work cultures are constantly shifting their methods of operation for the better. By 2005, content managers stepped in yet again after realizing all this collaborative creative thinking outside the box was beginning to get lost in translation.

The larger your team and the bigger your idea, the easier it can be to lose its security both in integrity and in safety. Sometimes all it takes is one precious thought or picture that you want to seemingly immortalize in the technological era. So a couple of guys wondered, what if you as an individual or industry could think outside the box but keep everything boxed up?  

What started as a college program soon turned into a critical cloud storage accessible to team members all over the world. Pictures, documents, comments, notes. All secure, all boxed up while still coming from leading visionaries in the creative industry.

This pragmatic approach to content sharing in the cloud is more than just security. Interactive, international; when it seems our idea or proposal is too new, it’s an opportunity to share ideas across the platform with a sense of anonymity.

The more you utilize it, however, – both cloud sharing and creativity – the less your desire to hide your contributions will exist. Go big with creativity and box it up!

Free up your desktop, your mind, your team and evolve your company by allowing technology to take care of your creativity.

Ready to think inside the box with box.com? 

-The Green Couch

Project: Second Chance at First Impression

Networking starts the moment you have a message. An idea, a dream, something that you want to share with others. Networking progresses when you realize there are others that have a message that aligns with yours toward a clearer today and a better future.

And it all starts with the Business Card The business card began long before you, your parents or grandparents were born. And no matter how many birthdays anyone in your family has achieved, I can confidently state this because business cards were conceived in the 17th century (among the aristocracy) and by the 19th century anyone and everyone considered them a staple. Many houses even had card trays in which you’d leave yours. Now, in the 21st century, we have wallets, hands and pockets for that very reason. The business card is our second chance at a first impression. As a leave behind, they’re a legitimizer containing your contact information: who you are, what you do and where.

When it comes to business cards, however, ensuring you have that second chance at a first impression, that your connection won’t use your business card as waste can basketball practice or kindling for a cool April evening,  you have to take into consideration several things:

Brand them. If you want them to be memorable, make it unforgettable. Not something you can buy offline or some copy+paste clip art. If you have a personal and professional brand, it needs to be evident everywhere.

Trade them. Don’t be shy about asking for their card. And while theirs may be forgettable, your purpose in building that relationship isn’t. 

Utilize them. Callback. We’ve said it before, but you’re courting them, so if they gave you their number, they gave you permission – whether they know it or not – to call them back. And just like the delicate game between first love “will (s)he, or won’t (s)he” call be back, just pick up the phone and put everyone of their misery. And three days later try again. Technology has given us multiple resources for making a connection. Don’t sell yourself or sell them something. Plant a seed for a relationship.

Stock them. Keep them on hand, in pocket, wallet, glove compartment, wherever you need so you can always practice safe second-chance, first impression networking. If all else fails, keep a pen on hand and napkin your number.

Here’s to connecting!

-The Green Couch