“Leaders have to learn to live with instability.”
– Coach K.
Book Quote of the Week – 162
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Tag Archives: life
Success Is Hard – Learn How to Separate Yourself
Success is hard.
In business, in life, in whatever you do, achieving and sustaining success is difficult
When you reach the top there’s always someone or something trying to knock you down or overtake you.
I was visiting with a friend last night, engaged in his stories of his days playing basketball in college. He had a great NCAA Division One career that began at the Junior College level. His JuCo team was great. They made it all the way to the national championship tournament. He was an amazing point guard with a great shot. He achieved success and reached the top, breaking the record for most three point shots made in a game with 9! What an incredible personal achievement. I’m not sure how long the previous record stood, but now he was the one people would be gunning for. He had the record to beat. That incredible achievement, setting a new record was hard to achieve and was accomplished by all the dedication and hard work he put in for years up to that point. He sat at the top of that throne until the next game of the tournament, where someone else made 13 three point shots. When you get to the top, there will always be others trying to knock you down.
On the path to success you’re going to hit walls and face challenges. This is where many will fall off the path and the crowd gets thinner. As you get past each wall, the weak are eliminated and it’s the achievers who are still going. The more difficult it is, the less competition there will be. But those left to compete against will be the best. The weak have been left behind. The more walls of difficulty along the path, the less that will stick with you and the further you separate yourself from the competition.
Accept the fact and understand that the path to success will be hard. But as you get past those hard things it becomes easier. But know that when you feel the coast is clear, or that you are at the top, there’s more coming that you need to be ready for.
Success is going to require you to do hard things. Start today by doing the hard things first. Climb over that first wall today and keep going. The more you do this, the more you will separate yourself and achieving your success becomes easier.
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Whatever The Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve
It was thought that running a mile in under 4-minutes was physically impossible for any human being. Until, at Oxford University’s Iffley Road Stadium in 1954, Roger Bannister completed four laps in 3:59.4. The photo of an exhausted Bannister with his eyes closed and mouth opened appeared on the front page of newspapers around the world, a testament of what humankind could achieve.
As important as anything, Bannister broke a psychological barrier with this run. This once believed impossible record only lasted for 46 days before Australian runner John Landy shaved 1.5 seconds off of his time. By the end of 1957, 16 runners had logged sub-4-minute miles. Since that time more than 1,400 runners have broken the 4 minute mile and the current record stands at 3:43.13. An impossible task until Bannister changed that belief.
Similar to the impossible 4-minute mile, breaking the 2-hour marathon (26.2 miles) was another barrier that seemed would never happen. In fact, researchers in Australia crunched marathon world records over the past 60 years and concluded that there was a 10 percent likelihood that the two-hour mark would fall by 2032, and just a 5 percent chance it would happen by 2024.
Last week, on October 12, 2019 Eliud Kipchoge ran the fastest 26.2 miles ever and broke through the seemingly impossible barrier of two hours with a time of 1:59:40. That is an incredible sub-4:34 mile pace for the entire distance.
Just like when Bannister broke the 4-minute mile barrier in 1954, Kipchoge has inspired a new generation to push their limits with what is possible.
“It is a great feeling to make history in sport after Sir Roger Bannister in 1954. I am the happiest man in the world to be the first human to run under two hours, and I can tell people that no human is limited,” Kipchoge said. “I expect more people all over the world to run under two hours after today.”
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Napoleon Hill
Believe
To live the life you truly desire, the first step is to break through the psychological barriers that are holding you back. You have to believe that you can get there.
Kipchoge believed he could break the two-hour barrier. Before the event he said, “Many ideologies [have] been going that no human will break the two-hour mark but personally, I have dared to try. I am doing it to make history.” After the race he said, “there was no point that I doubted myself.”
Look around. Your biggest dreams, the life you really want is not the 4-minute mile or the 2-hour marathon. Most likely, there’s already someone that is living that life. You don’t need to wait for someone to break through that psychological barrier before you can achieve it. That barrier has already been broken.
Your first step to achieving your goals is believing you can do it.
Barriers
Where do you really want to be? What are your big goals? Identify the real and the imagined barriers that are holding you back. It’s time to break through those barriers and reach your true potential! Stop believing your own lies.
Not knowing how to do it. Not seeing the path. Thinking it’s impossible. These are all excuses that you’ve told yourself. Kipchoge figured out how to run a sub-2 hour marathon, you can figure out how to achieve the life you want.
Your Path
Once you really believe you can achieve your goals you need to give yourself a path to follow so you’ll be able to reach the goals you previously thought were impossible.
In May of 2017, Kipchoge came up just shy of the two-hour mark during Nike’s Breaking2 project, finishing with a time of 2:00:25. After missing the mark by less than half a minute, he created the path he needed to follow to accomplish the goal a little more than two years later. This included his training and preparation all the way through to the pace setters and water delivery during the run.
Planning is key to your success. Figure out how you’re going to reach your ultimate goals and follow that plan. But be flexible so you can adjust quickly and make decisions when road blocks appear.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
Stephen R. Covey
Persist Until You Succeed
If at times you get knocked off your path it doesn’t mean it’s over. Adjust and figure out how to get back on the path again. Brian Tracy said, “Your ability to persist longer than anyone else is the quality that will guarantee great success in life. Persistence is self-discipline in action and the true measure of your belief in yourself. Resolve in advance that you will never, never give up!”
The first step in your journey is to see in your mind what it is that you really want and to truly believe you are capable of achieving it. The mind is a powerful force and when you use it to create the life and the outcomes you desire, amazing things will happen.
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He’s actually inspired all of us that we can stretch our limits in our lives and we can do more than we think we can do.
Patrick Sang – Eliud Kipchoge’s Coach
A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The amount of information that we are exposed to on a daily basis is amazing.
It comes through social media, television, radio, books, and the list could go on and on. It’s great how much access we have in this day and age to information, but it is potentially dangerous as well. I want to look at the potential impact information can have on our lives.
I’ve talked previously about the importance of being powerful creators of our own lives. As we walk through this process it will demonstrate why it is so important that we are intentional about it.
You get in life what you create.
Create > Life
This is why you see people from all different backgrounds, countries and races doing amazing things in the world, regardless of where they start out. We’ve seen people rise up out of poverty, from having absolutely nothing and becoming extremely successful and wealthy. At the same time we’ve seen people who would be considered privileged, create amazing things in their own lives.
On the other hand, we’ve watched people on both ends of the same spectrum create un-powerful lives and end up even worse off than they began.
The things that you expect in your life are the things you create. What you expect to happen, drives your creative capacity.
Expect > Create > Life
But now, taking one more step back, where do your expectations come from?
You expect what you think about.
Think > Expect > Create > Life
Life is a result of what we think about. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is a deep tendency in human nature to become precisely like that which you habitually imagine yourself to be.”
This philosophy spurred the writing of books such as Think and Grow Rich, As a Man Thinketh, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Magic of Thinking Big, and others.
But if you go another level deeper, what is it that influences your thoughts?
It’s the things you allow yourself to hear and see. The inputs that you are exposed to
Inputs > Think > Expect > Create > Life
This is why it’s so important to be conscious of the things you allow yourself to be exposed to.
In such a fast paced, chaotic world, all of the different media outlets are fighting for your attention.
Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a news station that just reports on the good things that happen? The happy, feel-good stories? It’s because they would go broke. It’s the stories of fear, tragedy and disaster that catch our attention.
Your brain’s job is to keep you alive, not make you happy and the media understands this. That’s why they don’t use the happy, feel good stories to grab your attention. It’s the tragic, shocking stories that get your attention. It’s the same reason traffic comes to a halt as people rubber-neck to see an accident, but at other times those same people don’t think twice about looking at the most beautiful sunset they would have ever experienced as they are making their commute home.
When you look at the path of how the inputs in our lives impact our thoughts, which impact our expectations, our expectations turn into our creations which results in our life you can understand why it’s so important to pay attention to the inputs we allow into our lives.
When you look at the path of how the inputs in our lives impact our thoughts, which impact our expectations, our expectations turn into our creations which results in our life you can understand why it’s so important to pay attention to the inputs we allow into our lives.
You have to protect your mind. You have to be vigilant about what you expose yourself to because every single input matters.
So what does this mean to you? How do you do it?
You have to consciously choose what you are going to allow yourself to be exposed to. According to a Nielsen Report, US adults watch 5:04 of TV per day on average (35.5 hours/week, slightly more than 77 days per year). It’s time to cut back. Make a choice as to what you are going to give your attention to. Are you going to focus on the good or the bad? The things you can’t do anything about, or the things you can impact?
The first time I trained for a marathon I did all of my training on a treadmill and my routine was to watch the news while I ran. I knew about everything going on. Politics, the markets, the wars and all the other dark, dirty and fearsome content. But then one day I decided I didn’t need to know all of it and continue to fill my mind with all of the garbage and I quit watching the news. The result?
- Not watching the news didn’t limit my capacity.
- It didn’t end or cause the start of any war.
- I wasn’t uninformed because the things I needed to know came to me in different forms.
- It drove my parents crazy when they said something to me about something in the news and I had no idea what they were talking about.
- It cleared my mind!
A number of years ago I listened to Darren Hardy speak on this topic and the following are his thoughts combined with my own on how to best manage the inputs you let into your life.
Selective Listening
Be specific about the things you let in. You don’t have to give it all your attention, just the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that impact you and your family and ignore the rest.
Remember, what you give your attention to becomes your reality. Focus your attention on what is good – ideas, knowledge, talents and skills
Low Information Diet
Limit your intake. Filter your news so you’re only getting the things that are important to you. Do not over-consume!
Mind Your E2E Ratio
Your E2E Ratio is a concept from Brian Tracy, which stands for Entertainment to Education Ratio. Recognize how much of your time is focused on Entertainment vs Education. One study stated that 95% of people spend their extra time on entertainment, while 5% (the successful) spent their extra time focused on education.
Feed Your Mind
As you feed your mind with high quality content, your thoughts and ideas become more powerful.
I enjoy good music, but I rarely listen to it. I prefer to spend any time I can listening to books or podcasts online.
For example, last week I wrote the article, Dealing With Negative People. This morning at the gym, with TV’s on every wall broadcasting news stations and ESPN, I had my headphones in listening to, “Talking to Crazy,” a book that someone suggested to me after reading my article.
Separate yourself from the average. Use your extra time to fill your mind with positive and inspirational material.
When we are fully aware of the impact the things we allow as inputs have on our lives we can be more conscious and selective to ensure we are letting only the best things in. Be intentional in all you do and live the life you most desire.
How to Increase Your Productivity
When I sit down to write an article, or as I’m planning an upcoming mastermind call, the topics usually come to me because of conversations I’ve had throughout that week.
On our mastermind call yesterday, one of the things we discussed was how to keep focused and work efficiently towards your goals. I received a comment from someone that said they work much more efficiently and are better at getting things done as deadlines approach. This comment reminded me of a post I had written back in April of 2013. Today, I want to share that information again.
The following is portions of my post from April 18, 2013:
Last night, my daughter, Tia, finished practicing piano and was sitting at the table looking very stressed. My wife, Tamara, asked her what was stressing her out. From there the floodgates opened up and out came all of the things she had to get done in the next few days with some tight deadlines: French test, write a paper abut her experience in Africa, create a video to use at the piano recital, prepare her presentation for the Rotary Club, basketball practice, and…
That was when Tamara stepped in. She told Tia to make a list of all the things she needed to get done and the deadline for each one. She also needed to figure out which ones she could have help on and who could help her.
This made me think about Zig Ziglar and his “Day Before Vacation” teachings, which he asks:
- As a general rule, on the day before you go on vacation, do you get two or three times as much work done as you normally get done in a day?
- If you can learn why you are that much more productive on the day before vacation, and then repeat that process on a daily basis without working any longer or harder, does it make sense that you will be more valuable to yourself, your family, your company, and society in general?
- On the night before the day before vacation, do you take a sheet of paper and say to yourself, “Now tomorrow I’ve got to do…,” and then make a list of things you must do?… In it’s simplest form, that’s goal setting and it’s critical. Next, did you organize your must-do list in the order of importance and accept responsibility for completing those tasks?
The day before we leave on a vacation, Tamara and I both have our to-do lists. On that day, both work related and non-work related things get completed efficiently. This all happens because we have deadlines and we need to focus to get those things done.
This is what Tia will experience over the next few days. Her French test, the Rotary presentation, piano recital and all the other things coming up are going to happen if she’s ready or not. So she needs to focus and prioritize to ensure she does well at all of them.
Going back to Zig and his day before vacation example, he says “On the way to work the next day your self-talk was upbeat and centered on what you were going to get done. You arrived at work on time so you were punctual. You immediately started to work, making you a self-starter. You were highly motivated and optimistic that you were going to finish every task you had set for yourself. You were enthusiastic about your work and decisively moved from one task to the next, making good choices as you did so, even if the next job on the list was disagreeable.”
I love this example related to unpleasant tasks. “An ol’ boy down home said it best, “Friend, if you’ve got to swallow a frog, you just don’t want to look at the sucker too long. He aint gonna get no purtier! As a matter of fact, the longer you look, the uglier he gets.” That’s the way unpleasant tasks are.”
“As you move from task to task, if someone tried to interrupt and talk about last night’s television program or last night’s game, you disciplined yourself to stay on task and not be distracted from your job… Since there was no “tomorrow” for you on each job, you persisted until you completed each one… and momentum built with the completion of each task… Perhaps the most exciting part of this vacation scenario is the fact that your co-workers instinctively picked up the pace [as well].”
If this approach works so well on the day before vacation, or the days before a test or a presentation, won’t it work just as well every day?
A big part of this is in your planning. When you plan and track things, the odds of their happening go up substantially. If we plan our months, weeks and days we will be more productive and balanced.
Tia spent the evening writing about her experiences in Africa. She made her list and prioritized it. When Tamara told her to pause and to make a list to prioritize, it relieved a lot of the stress in the situation.
Plan your time efficiently, and act upon your plans so that you don’t spend your time reacting to what is happening to you.
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Your Not-To-Do-List
At the end of every day I take a look at my list of things I needed to accomplish during the day. If there are any items that couldn’t be completed for some reason, I deal with them. It might be rescheduling them, delegating them or deleting them all together. I then review my list for the following day, which are items I had already scheduled along with new items that surfaced in the mean time.
The next morning, when I sit down at my desk, the first thing that I’ll do is review this list again.
In the past I’ve had days that this list seems to grow bigger and bigger, regardless of how much I check off of it each day. I’ve found myself feeling great as I’m checking off item after item, feeling like I’m being producing and getting things done. But then I’d get to the end of the day and realize there are still a lot of important items that I haven’t even looked at yet. How can this be? I’ve been working and knocking things off like crazy.
Often, this problem arises not because of the number of items on my to-do-list, but because of what the items are and which ones shouldn’t even be on my list in the first place.
One of the best exercises you can do to increase your productivity is to create your Not-To-Do-List!
Think about this, there are things you do every day that move the needle the most for you and/or your company. Maybe it’s sales, maybe it’s marketing, maybe it’s coaching your team. It’s whatever you do that creates the biggest results/revenue. These needle movers are the things you should be spending your time on.
Now look at all the things you do on a daily basis that are not creating these results. That are not the needle movers. If you are putting off the needle-mover items to work on these other things, you need to stop. Stop Now! These are not the things that need your focus and that you need to be spending your time on.
It’s hard to make changes that free up big blocks of time in our days. We have smaller moments that we need to utilize and take the best advantage of. You need to create your Not-To-Do-List to free up these moments so that you can focus on the needle-movers in your life.
Let’s do this right now! Don’t put it off, grab a pen and paper and lets get started…
What things do you spend your time on that don’t serve growth, a greater income, empowerment, your God, your family or a bigger future?
- Make a list of the non-needle-mover activities that you spend your time on.
- For each item mark it as:
- Automate,
- Delegate, or
- Eliminate
Now that you’ve made this list, follow through. Maybe it’s your monthly bills that you can get online and automate the payments. Maybe it’s a daily task that you’ve felt it was just easier if you took care of it yourself. Delegate it! Maybe it’s something that just really doesn’t matter. Eliminate it!
When you clear the clutter from your to-do-list, you clear your mind. Your stress level decreases and your creativity increases.
As important as a To-Do-List can be, even more important is your Not-To-Do List!
*Add this exercise to the top of your To-Do-List right now! Actually do it and get it done!
By joining one of our Mastermind Groups, you’ll put into practice more life hacks like this that will help you to become more productive. You would be a part of an elite group of goal-orientated people who want to help each other succeed and get to the next level in life and in business.
If your life and/or your business are not where you thought they would be at this point in your life, hurry over to our Mastermind page and fill out the form. That will allow us to contact you to give you more information and to see if you qualify to be in one of our elite Mastermind Group!
Book Quote of the Week – 134
“Don’t worry about losing. Think about winning.” – Coach K.
You Can Do Hard Things
An Excerpt, with some minor edits, from a note I was sending someone hoping to help them in a tough spot. I wanted to share it here as well, just in case someone reads it that could gain something from it.
You have been searching for answers and feel that you are not getting them. I can promise you that there will be a day when you look back on this time and will be able to see blessings that you cannot see now. You will be able to see where His hand was guiding you. You will understand the Why. Why you had to go through this trial. Why it wasn’t easier. And that is how you will make a difference in the world for many, many people. There are people near you that need you now. There are people nowhere close to you now that are going to need you. Everyone is dealing with their own struggles and challenges and they need help. Most can’t be helped by someone that has the book smarts on the struggle. But the person who can make a difference, the person who can change their life, the person who can save them is the one who has been there. The one who has been in their shoes and has conquered that challenge. My friend lost a baby boy and a brother in a short period. Nobody could really help her through those difficult times that hadn’t been through something similar. But now, she can take those tragic experiences and help many others going through their own tragic times. I often recall an old Young Woman’s theme, “I can do hard things.” Every hard thing that you have pushed yourself through, whether it was in a relationship, a sport, in business or something else has prepared you for something you will go through and deal with at some point in the future. Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” You’ve been through hard things in the past and it has strengthened you. You are going to go through hard things throughout your life and they will continue to strengthen you. Right now may be the hardest thing that you have had to deal with up to this point of your life. You can do it. You will grow from it. You are amazing. YOU are going to make a difference in the world!
Book Quote of the Week – 105
“The people inside the talent hotbeds are engaged in an activity that seems, on the face of it, strange and surprising. They are seeking out the slippery hills… they are purposely operating at the edges of their ability, so they will screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better.” – Daniel Coyle
Book Quote of the Week 90
Sales is about being able to communicate with your potential customer what it is that your service or product does for them in such a way that they can see it. Because if they can see it the same way you can see it, they’ll buy it.
Brandon Craig
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Book Quote of the Week – 069
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“It is very important to take risks in life and business, but they need to be calculated – there is no point in risking your neck for something with little chance of success.”
Richard Branson
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Book Quote of the Week – 050
Peter Diamandis
Peter has a set of rules that guide his life. His 28 Peter’s Laws have been collected over decades. Here are some favorites:
Law 2: When given a choice…take both.
Law 3: Multiple projects lead to multiple successes.
Law 6: When forced to compromise, ask for more.
Law 7: If you can’t win, change the rules.
Law 8: If you can’t change the rules, then ignore them.
Law 11: “No” simply means begin again at one level higher.
Law 13: When in doubt: THINK
Law 16: The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.
Law 17: The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself. (Adopted from Alan Kay)
Law 19: You get what you incentivize.
Law 22: The day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.
Law 26: If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
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Book Quote of the Week 044
Book Quote of the Week – 040
Quote
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!'”
– Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud High-way: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
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“My confidence came from my vision… I am a big believer that if you have a very clear vision of where you want to go, then the rest of it is much easier. Because you always know why you are training 5 hours a day, you always know why you are pushing and going through the pain barrier, and why you have to eat more, and why you have to struggle more, and why you have to be more disciplined… I felt that I could win it, and that was what I was there for. I wasn’t there to compete. I was there to win.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
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Book Quote of the Week 036
Quote
Whatever your brand stands for, you have to deliver on the promise. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and deliver everything you promise. That’s the only way you’ll ever control your brand. And beware: brands always mean something. If you don’t define what the brand means, a competitor will.
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Richard Branson: Business Stripped Bare Notes & Quotes
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Notes/Quotes:
Richard Branson is someone who has always fascinated me. I love his story. I love what he’s done, how he’s done it and how he continues to do it. Following are some of the notes I took while reading one of his books, Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur
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.There’s a lot of great stuff in this book. Highly recommend reading it and then reading it again. Make your own notes and occasionally refer back to them or come back here and read these notes again. There are a number of great things that you’ll be reminded of and will help spark new ideas to grow yourself and your business.
People
- Avoid taking on someone else’s legacy
- If you are in the mood to buy a new business – wait. It can take a long time to change a business culture. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off starting one from scratch?
- In business, someone who can stay cool and calm under pressure is an asset.
- There’s no rule book. the past is the past. We can’t preserve it
- small, compact companies are, generally better run
- Put people together in a way that will have them bouncing ideas off each other, befriending each other, and taking care of each other, and suddenly they are coming to you, not with gripes and problems, but with solutions and great ideas.
- Given the right conditions, exceptional people will reveal themselves
- There’s another thing about teams: they don’t last forever
- When the business lets you, shake things up a little
- The best manager is someone who cares about people and who is genuinely interested and wants to bring out the best in them
- A manager should basically be a considerate person who is as interested in the switchboard operator and the person who cleans the lavatories as he or she is in the fellow managers
- A self-disciplined employee will have the patience to conduct routine business routinely, the talent to respond exceptionally to exceptional circumstances, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two
- you can’t dictate attitudes from on high. All you can do is hire the right people and empower them to sort things out as they happen.
- If someone has paid you for something, and it goes wrong, being cagey or defensive will kill you stone dead
- If someone has a lousy experience at your hands, they will warn people
- If you are able to sort out your customers’ problems better than they expected, then they will be your loyal friend for life
Brand
- Befriending one’s enemy is a good rule for business – and life
- A brand always means something, and ultimately you can control the meaning of your brand only through what you deliver to customers
- Turnover can be huge, but it is the profit margin that matters
- I learned another key fact about running a business: try to have a plan B
- Publicity is absolutely critical. You have to get your brand out and about
- A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a full-page ad, and a damn sight cheaper
- it is sometimes better to follow a pioneer than be a pioneer
- Maintaining a consistent tone in the face of rapid growth was a key requirement
- You can’t restructure culture. If you’ve burnt people, if you’ve killed their enthusiasm or commitment, then changing office space or putting a few more dollars in their pocket will not unduly affect the culture that exists
- Whatever your brand stands for, you have to deliver on the promise. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and deliver everything you promise. That’s the only way you’ll ever control your brand. And beware: brands always mean something. If you don’t define what the brand means, a competitor will.
Delivery
- Don’t waste your precious time. Phone calls and emails can eat your day. Don’t let them. No one will think less of you for getting to the point.
- I advise every owner of a company to keep a notebook and jot down the things that need doing
- You must never forget that every change ushers in unforeseen consequences
- Success one day does not give you a free lunch every day thereafter
- We’ve started, so we’ll finish
- Never imagine that you are immune from big events. Make your small decisions in the light of the bigger picture, and you are at least pointing your craft in the right direction to ride out any storm
- One business mantra remains embedded in my brain – protect the downside
- Remember to communicate, and pay attention to detail
- Don’t be afraid of changing your bank if they are unreasonable. Banks are not for life. But don’t put it off till the last minute
- Out of recession, new ideas and new business often grow
- If you are a late entrant to the market, you need to be radically different to win over customers.
- If you rip off the customer, then you will destroy the integrity of the brand
- When you’re first thinking through an idea, it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity
- You can never go too far wrong by thinking like a customer who’s new to the business
- It’s easy – too easy, in fact – to relinquish your responsibility for your idea to experts. This is almost always a mistake, because experts are only experts in their field. They’re not experts in your idea. At this stage, the only person qualified to assess your idea is you
- You need to flesh out your own ideas. You need to do your own research. You need to take responsibility for how you plan to turn an idea into action
- Keep a cool head. You’re in business to deliver change, and if you succeed, the chances that no one will get hurt are virtually zero. This is the rough and tumble of business. Be sportsmanlike, play to win, and stay friends with people wherever possible. If you do fall out with someone, ring them a year later and take them out to dinner. Befriend your enemies.
- Being a well funded company puts you at a tremendous advantage
Learning from Mistakes and Setbacks
- Never do anything that means you can’t sleep at night
- You can’t protect yourself against the unexpected, so you need to keep your house in as good an order as you can. If disaster strikes, you don’t want to find yourself doing twelve things at once and misprioritising them in public. It’s vital, therefore, that you take control of your internal business risks – the ones you can influence.
- I think it is counterproductive to be ruthless. You’ve got to treat people as you would yourself, or better
- You definitely should get the best people around you when confronted with a serious problem. Don’t try to deal with it all by yourself. Don’t be afraid to seek help and advice.
- If you drive down the retail price fast enough when you are the dominant player, you never allow anyone else to catch up because they can’t make enough money. It requires the dominant player to be brave, because it can mean cannibalizing your existing sales by dropping the retail price. (i.e. Apple and the iPod)
- Protect your reputation. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes
- If you’re hurt, lick your wounds and get up again. If you’ve given it your absolute best, it’s time to move forward.
Innovation
- The best, most solid way out of a crisis in a changing market is through experiment and adaption.
- Innovation is what you get wen you capitalize on luck, when you get up from behind your desk and go and see where ideas and people lead you.
Entrepreneurs and Leadership
- True leadership must include the ability to distinguish between real and apparent danger.
- You need to understand the challenges to your enterprise and face up to them. Equally, you have to resist the temptation to overreact at the first sign of trouble.
- Every business plan should include: “This company will have lots and lots of parties and social get-togethers.”
- The creator’s job is to find someone with expertise who understands the vision and is prepared to follow the path.
- If you can keep the business relatively small, people will know each other within the organisation and feel like part of the team.
- Decent leadership is about explaining clearly and unemotionally why a decision has been taken.
- Failure is not giving things a go in the first place.
- Only a fool never changes his mind.
- DON’T BRING ME YOUR PROBLEMS – BRING ME THE SOLUTIONS
Social Responsibility
- It is possible to turn a profit while making the world a better place.
- What can you do to make a difference?
- One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never! – Sir Winston Churchill
- Don’t forget to listen
Epilogue
- It is important to look for one’s strengths – to try to excel at what you’re good at.
- What you’re bad at actually doesn’t interest people, and it certainly shouldn’t interest you.
- So don’t let your limits knock your self-confidence
- Success for me is whether you have created something that you can be really proud of.
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