Strategies for Anticipation, Acceleration and Reinvention
Ion is a strategic advisor to entrepreneurs and executives. He helps them anticipate the future, accelerate their company or career, and reinvent themselves when necessary.
Anticipation
I’m not a historian or a futurist but I stand on their shoulders. Historians study the past to understand the present. Futurists study the present to predict the far future. As a Strategic Advisor, I study the past and present in order to anticipate the near future and recommend strategies to thrive today.
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Reinvention
Disruption is unwilling change on someone else’s terms. Reinvention is intentional evolution on your own terms. I help individuals and organizations reinvent themselves in response to changing personal, social, economic or technological circumstances.
Acceleration
I train executives and entrepreneurs in how to accelerate their companies or careers by curating and creating game-changing ideas, insights and best practices. I try to upgrade people’s entire operating systems by helping them develop better health, fitness, decision making, habits, routines and processes.
Ion Valis
Is President of Portfolio IV Media and Consulting, a strategic advisory firm with clients worldwide. He has a unique combination of entrepreneurial and executive experience in the public, private and plural sectors. Ion has worked as a Press Secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, helped launch and run a ground-breaking international mobile media initiative at a Fortune Global 50 company in London, served as a senior executive in a fast-growing technology start-up in Montreal, run an international foundation dedicated to public leadership and since 2008 has run his own consulting practice.
The Book
Drawing on his two decades of experience managing people, projects, brands and budgets, as well as 6 years researching leading-edge thinking on peak performance from around the world, Ion has created an innovative personal leadership program and strategic framework that is described in his first book, “The Magnificent Mistake: How You Can Earn More from Failure Than You Learn from Success.”
Recent Posts
Take stock of 2020 before turning your mind to 2021
I know that everyone is in a hurry to turn the page on this incredibly challenging year, but doing so too quickly would be a mistake. Life seems to naturally slow down this time of year for those of us who are fortunate enough to enjoy a holiday. This season is quite...
Overcoming the Power of Bad
The cascading crises of 2020 have demonstrated the enormous weight of bad news. Here are some strategies to help you cope in case the worst is yet to come. Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash It’s fair to say that 2020 has been a constant stream of dismal news. To...
2020 is a Perfect Storm. Don’t be the Andrea Gail. Have a game plan for when the game changes.
The successive health, economic, and social crises of this year underscore the need to be prepared for uncertainty. Follow this Five-Step Playbook to be Future PROOF. Photo by Justin Kauffman on Unsplash 22 years ago, I was staying at a friend’s house in San Diego and...
COVID-19 is a hard reset for society. Let’s embrace this fresh start.
Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez on Unsplash So many aspects of lives operated on autopilot until recently. Not anymore. The second and third-order effects of C-19 are — for good and for ill — breaking centuries-old habits. The Coronavirus just pressed...
Don’t pine for a POST-C-19 world. We’re never going back to “normal”. So now what?
Photo by Alok Sharma on Unsplash We live in the world C-19 has permanently changed. We need to pivot now from a crisis mindset to a coexistence one. Next, we’ll need to figure out how to capitalize on it. In early March (after SXSW was canceled, before the NBA shut...
2020 will be another “Year Without Summer”
Everyone is comparing COVID-19 to 1918 and the Spanish Flu. But I think that the better historical analogy is a century earlier, in 1816. Photo by Jared Murray on Unsplash I went to see a theatrical rendition of “Frankenstein” with a friend last night - in part to...
The Perils of Being Stuck in a Pleasant Present: 7 Strategies for overcoming Status Quo Bias
“If you are considering a change, you are past the point where you should have made it.” Tyler Cowen, Economist When was the last time you did something for the first time? When was the last time you took a risk, or even diverged from your usual routine? Don’t feel...
Have you ever done a Personal Brand Audit of yourself? You should.
Photo by Patrik Michalicka on Unsplash To quote the great urban philosopher Ice-T, “don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” Some people might not like to think that we are “products” that have “brands”, but wishing it away does not make it so. If I say the names “Justin...
Plans are useless but planning is priceless
What maps, plans and Mike Tyson have in common Photo by Damir Spanic on Unsplash Maps — whether mental ones or cartographic ones — give the illusion of accuracy. But, as the saying goes, the map is not the territory. Only by recognizing the limitations of these...
Want to be more consistently great? Be like the All-Blacks and have a “Haka”
Here’s a trick borrowed from pro athletes that you can incorporate to become more consistently excellent: have a ritual. You probably don’t watch much rugby, but if you’ve ever seen the New Zealand All-Blacks you no doubt were stunned by their pre-game...
A Reinvention Portfolio is the Key to Planning for a 22nd Century Life
I’m sometimes called upon to give my take on so-called Mega Trends and ‘the Future’, and tonight I’ll be a giving a different version of that talk. Rather than forecasting the future, however, I’m going to discuss the long one you have in front of you. I’m going to...
Stillness is the 21st Century Super Power
Do you reflexively reach for your phone when you’re stuck in an annoyingly long line at Starbucks? I do. How about when waiting to get on your flight and you’ve been relegated to boarding category 4? Guilty there, too. Don’t worry: this isn’t going to be another...
Football QBs epitomize modern leadership today. They are one part Achilles, one part Algorithm
Tom Brady is the model of what a modern leader should be. Believe me, as a Dallas Cowboy fan(atic), it pains me to write that. However, I’ve come to realize that quarterbacks like Brady, Patrick Mahomes, and Dak Prescott combine timeless virtues of...
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TWEETS by @IonValis
2020 got you down? You're in good company. But did you know just how much more powerful bad news is than good? Read on to understand why and consider these strategies to help you cope in case the worst is yet to come. Overcoming the Power of Bad https://link.medium.com/rmtksSgUcbb
We need to rethink what we value - and sleep that provides us with the rest that we need to be our best should be at the very top of the list. Sleep is a weapon ...
The Army Rolls Out a New Weapon: Strategic Napping https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/us/army-naps.html?smid=tw-share
I just published "Football QBs epitomize modern leadership today. They are one part Achilles, one part Algorithm" https://link.medium.com/76rdU5XKeab
Have you invested in your ‘Revitalization Assets’ today? https://link.medium.com/JMyEgq0cj8 #Reinvention #Revitalization
Check out my latest article: 2020 is a Perfect Storm. Don’t be the Andrea Gail. Have a game plan for when the game changes. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-perfect-storm-dont-andrea-gail-have-game-plan-when-valaskakis via @LinkedIn #Forecasting #COVID19
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