Subscribe on iTunes or Other

Today we’re talking with one of the pioneers of Gamification, Yu-Kai Chou, author of the book Actionable Gamification and creator of the Octalysis Framework which encompasses 8 core drives of motivation that govern human behavior. He’s a speaker on gamification and behavioral design at places like TED, South by Southwest, Google, Stanford and consulted with governments like UK, Singapore and South Korea. His work has affected over 1 Billion users experiences across the world.

Henry spends some time with Yu-Kai discussing his unique research into what motivates us and how that can be used to achieve the remarkable in this world. Yu-Kai gives us an overview of his gamification methodology alongside poignant examples while helping us see how our goals as citizens of the Kingdom and entrepreneurs can be reached by understanding the right ways to motivate ourselves and the ones we lead. He steps us through both White Hat (intrinsic) and Black Hat (extrinsic) motivators and reveals optimal scenarios to increase motivation, effectiveness and longevity of teams. Gamification isn’t just for the gamer but has implications for anyone who seeks to be part of something greater or just wants to live a more joy-filled life.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode on gamification. We’d love to hear of some of the ways you are using gamification in your business model. Feel free to share with us in the comment section below.

Useful Links:

Octalysis Prime

Actionable Gamification

We also have a very brief survey we’d love for you to take that will help us shape the direction and future of the FDE podcast. As always, we love taking your questions and hearing your comments. Feel free to submit your thoughts in general here.

This content was originally published here by the Theology of Work Project.

“Why do we work? If you don’t know why, it doesn’t matter what you do.” In his timeless keynote address at the Believers in Business (BiB) MBA Conference at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in 2016, Andy Mills (Executive Chairman and Co-CEO of Archegos Capital Management LP & Co-Chairman of Grace & Mercy Foundation) discusses three themes of why we work:

1. God wants us to live as whole-life disciples.

2. God has a vision and purpose for work.

3. God wants to work with us to build intimacy between him and us.

Listen to the session below!

Special thanks to the Believers in Business MBA Conference. The BiB MBA Conference, in its eleventh year, is the largest student-run national conference that equips and encourages Christian MBA students and graduates to live out their lives and careers for the glory of God. 

[Cover photo credit to Theologyofwork.org]

We continue to count down the Top 100 Books for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs with…

Leadership as Art

by Max Depree

Leadership Is an Art has long been a must-read not only within the business community but also in professions ranging from academia to medical practices, to the political arena. First published in 1989, the book has sold more than 800,000 copies in hardcover and paperback. This revised edition brings Max De Pree’s timeless words and practical philosophy to a new generation of readers.

De Pree looks at leadership as a kind of stewardship, stressing the importance of building relationships, initiating ideas, and creating a lasting value system within an organization. Rather than focusing on the “hows” of corporate life, he explains the “whys.” He shows that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality and the last is to say thank you. Along the way, the artful leader must:

• Stimulate effectiveness by enabling others to reach both their personal potential and their institutional potential

• Take a role in developing, expressing, and defending civility and values

• Nurture new leaders and ensure the continuation of the corporate culture

Leadership Is an Art offers a proven design for achieving success by developing the generous spirit within all of us. Now more than ever, it provides the insights and guidelines leaders in every field need.

Click on the book cover to check out the Reviews and Purchase at Amazon

— by Adam Metcalf

When I think back to when we first started ZeeMee, I am greeted with vivid images of ever-present anxious toil. Will we raise enough capital? Will we find product market fit? Can we grow the user base? Can we get colleges to pay us? Will my investors lose their money? Will the board fire me? These questions plagued me over the last 5 years and to be honest, I still think about them quite a bit today. However, my approach to dealing with these problems has thankfully evolved.

In the past, my answer to these questions was simply to grind. Wake up in the middle of the night and check emails. Stay late at work because more hours would surely compute into more success. Check Slack constantly on the weekend, while I was supposedly playing with my kids on the playground. Jump back on the computer once the kids were in bed and not spend intentional time in conversation with my wife.

We live in a culture that glorifies “the grind.” Just check out your LinkedIn feed and see how many people are liking content that is all about “you just gotta keep grinding and you can beat everyone and be the most awesome human being to ever live!” Such a solid message.

What I think is incredibly insightful is that the wisest and wealthiest man to ever live completely disagreed with “the grind.” Solomon referred to “the grind” as mere anxious toil. In Psalm 127, Solomon states:

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,

   those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

   the watchman stays awake in vain.

2 It is in vain that you rise up early

   and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

   for he gives to his beloved sleep.

All of those years, I was putting email, Slack, hours in the office before my family and even before the Lord. The Lord wasn’t building the house, I was. I wasn’t saving ZeeMee by working harder, I was eating the bread of anxious toil and ignoring the blessing that was already mine. And I definitely wasn’t saving my hair!

The second stanza of Psalm 127 is seemingly unrelated to “anxious toil.” Solomon goes on to say:

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

   the fruit of the womb a reward.

4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

   are the children of one’s youth.

It is fascinating that Solomon jumps from the vanity of “the grind” to the blessing of family. Clearly there must be some connection here in Solomon’s mind.

Instead of trying to affect my future reality by pouring more deeply into my work, Solomon is saying that I don’t have to toil endlessly to build a successful company to enjoy the fruits of my labor. The blessing is already right in front of me and I can enjoy it now! That blessing looks like my beautiful wife and my three precious kids. It looks like the amazing relationships that God has blessed us with. It looks like total pursuit of my relationship with Christ.

So goodbye to email checks at 3am. So long to checking Slack on the playground. And farewell to late night work on the computer, while I ignore my wife. Hello to deep intentional time with my family. Hi to real Sabbath rest. And hola to more intimate time with the Lord and more trust in his provision to provide.

If we want to be known as people that work hard, let us be known first and foremost as people that tirelessly and joyfully press into our relationship with Jesus and recognize that the house you are trying to build is being built in vain, unless he is the one laying the bricks.

——

[Special thanks to Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash for the cover photo]

— by Mike Sharrow

I was given my first significant corporate opportunity to build out a new department and set of enterprises programs to support a multi-billion-dollar initiative. This was my break! The stakes were high, timeline fixed by a federal mandate and it was exhilarating. Unfortunately, they put Shelby on the project with me and I didn’t think she was nearly as “driven” as I was. She walked by my desk looking tired, so I asked her if she was okay. “Yeah, I am just adjusting to less sleep in this intense run.” I condescendingly rebuked her, “Shelby, that’s dumb. This is a high-stakes project. You have to be at your best. I’m making sure that all I do is work, sleep, workout and maintain fitness of mind and body. What in the world is keeping you from getting enough sleep?” She smiled and said, “Well, knowing how much this matters for everyone I’ve been getting up 2 hours early every day to pray that God would give me the wisdom to serve well…how are you keeping your prayer life up in this sprint?” (Gulp) I felt 3 feet tall and she was suddenly towering over me! I, the “spiritual giant” I thought I was compared to Miss Not Driven Enough had brilliantly hit “pause” on my prayer and Bible reading “logically” to focus on “essentials” during this launch.

Years later I was meeting with a mentor seeking counsel on a storm I was navigating professionally. After telling him that I really saw a light at the end of the tunnel and if I could just get “there,” I’d take a break, breath and reset the dials in life. He smiled and asked if he could pray for me. His prayer went, “Father, would you teach Mike how to rest in you at a high rate of speed? It is unlikely his life will slow down or the ideal circumstance ever be achieved where it is convenient to rest…and abiding in you is not conditional upon a lack of demands in life. So, show him what You desire for him, how to rest at a high rate of speed.” I have written that prayer in my journal probably 50X since then!

As leaders building cool stuff, and all the more so when we’re building stuff “for the Kingdom” (because you know God really, really needs that payday we’re promising him a piece of!), we too often practice Calendar Atheism and become religious zealots for Performance Idolatry. Oh, it’s always “temporary” and “just a season.” Right?

I was wrestling with this in an accountability group and found myself in a hotel room asking God why I was feeling so stressed out? Isn’t His way supposed to be “light and easy?” After a time of prayer I drew out this T Chart of Cosmic Insubordination. I realized, I am actually at war with God in my life all too regularly! What’s your T Chart look like? As a husband I was haunted by 1 Peter 3:7 … was it true God would literally ignore my prayers if I’m letting my obsession fuel neglect in my marriage?

Greg McKeown wrote a wonderfully, irritatingly convicting book, “Essentialism.” Here’s a book summary by my friends at Readitfor.me. The essential (ha) idea is this diagram:

Greg argues that our energy and effectiveness follows the laws of hydraulics. The more outputs the lower the pressure and the less distance the mass will travel. Unless we put hard stops, denying many GOOD things so we can be faithful in the GREAT things we’re called to do, we will be mediocre or fail.

Behind all of this is a ton of theology, actually. At some point we acknowledge God’s sovereignty in matters of eternity and “spiritual stuff,” but in the nuts and bolts of life we live as though WE are the masters of our fate. Be honest.

I was sitting in a C12 peer advisory group in Austin with 12 other CEOs I meet with monthly and we were wrestling with this very issue. My chair looked at me and said, “Mike, in Genesis we see that God, the most productive person in the universe, each day found it possible to get some work done, wrap up with a huge To Do list incomplete, called it a day and called that day “good.” He wasn’t done, there was so much to do, and it was ‘good’ to stop. If God could stop…why can’t you?”

Here’s a brief on the Biblical idea of DILIGENCE I’d like to share with you. Check out the touching story of how a CEO in Ohio transparently shared he had to radically reform his approach to his schedule and it became a bigger faith journey than he had imagined.

This is a touchy subject, I know. I’m throwing no stones, because I’ve been the chief of sinners in this all too often. I’ve learned God delights in our constraints, however – we’re even deficient by design! There are often critical gaps (mind the gap!) that God is passionate to father us through if we’ll stop. We made a self-assessment tool that digitally populates some new year goals that could be a place of assessing reality.

I will pray for YOU what that mentor prayed for me…

Father, would you help US learn how to rest at a high rate of speed? Show us how to embrace diligence as You define it, to discern between a need and a calling, to trust You to be who You say You are and be the kind of faith-driven entrepreneurs who glorify You in HOW we do the precious WHATs that we are often so possessed by. Jesus, you are our life…apart from You we can do nothing ultimately. You said things will seem impossible in our flesh but that with God all things are possible. We trust you. We pray for wisdom, courage and the faith to follow Your Way in the name of Jesus and to the glory of the Father, Amen!

——

[Special thanks to Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash for cover photo]

Andy Crouch from Praxis was a guest on this week’s podcast. Andy shared about the powerful book they released called “A Rule of Life”. At Faith Driven Entrepreneur, we’re so passionate about it. We believe it’s one of those essential pieces of reading for entrepreneurs and others called to leadership. Listen to the Podcast or check out their one page summary.

Here’s how they tee it up on the Praxis site … 

— by Praxis

OUR MOST SIGNIFICANT IDENTITY IS NOT AS ENTREPRENEURS OR LEADERS

We are citizens in God’s kingdom and members of God’s household, and we are members of earthly families and households, part of neighborhoods, communities, and nations. The way of faithfulness for us is not fundamentally different than it is for any person: seeking to love God and our neighbor with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, by repenting and believing the good news.

At the same time, the gifts and traits that draw us toward entrepreneurship, and the social context that surrounds us as entrepreneurs, pose particular temptations. They also offer us unusual and visible opportunities to live joyfully distinct lives of faith, hope, and love.

The use of a rule of life — a set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives — goes at least back to the Old Testament figure Daniel. As an exile, Daniel was in an unfamiliar cultural context that provided no support for the practice of his faith — and as a leadership trainee in the court of Babylon, he was exposed to powerful pressures for assimilation to Babylon’s dominant ethos. He and his companions committed themselves to a vegetarian diet instead of “the king’s rations” (Dan. 1) and developed the practice of praising and praying to God three times a day in front of an open window (Dan. 6:10).

Similarly, at many times in history, notably in the monastic movements, Christians with particular vocations have adopted a particular rule. At its best, a rule of life is an expression of community, undertaken in the belief that we need help from one another to live the lives God meant for us. It also expresses humility, recognizing that we are prone to specific pitfalls that require us to take extra care with our practices.

From the “outside,” a rule of life can look limiting. But it is more like musical, athletic, or military training: a set of disciplines that, carried out as “a long obedience in the same direction,” give us creative capacities and a creative community that we would not have on our own.

This rule of life is not meant to replace the ordinary practices of faithfulness to which all members of the church are called. But it is meant to guard us and our households from the greatest dangers of our particular calling, and to maximize our opportunity for redemptive influence.

Help us, God, to live in the abundance for which you made us, and to bring that abundance to every part of your world.”

Read more about the Rule of Life here…

——

[Photo credit to Praxis Labs]