The thrill of winning

Owning a business is not for the faint of heart.  Even if you do everything right – it’s still hard.  There are no guarantees and financial ruin, heartbreak and embarrassment are very real possibilities.  

But if there were no pressure, there would be no thrill.  If it was easy, everyone would do it, and it would be boring.

Navigating our current main challenge each day will make you a better more capable person.

You can do it.  Keep believing, keep learning and keep going!

Should you beat "Johnny" up?

Somebody crossed you.  They did you dirty.  Should you beat them up?

We all feel that way sometimes (I think)…Ok, men feel that way…ok most men do sometimes….ok, many men.

When I say “beat Johnny up”, I mean calling him out on Facebook, or yelling at him, or getting in his face, or overtly trying to ruin his reputation, or treating him unfairly back, or yes, actually beating him up.

Recently a friend of mine wanted to “beat Johnny up”.  After he had a little fun talking about it, I advised him not to do it.  It can only hurt your reputation.  People probably already know about Johnny.  He will get what he has coming, because that is how the universe is.  People get what they deserve.

If you beat Johnny up, then Johnny will try to exact revenge.  He’s a bad guy, so revenge could be worse than what he did in the first place, creating more problems for you.  Johnny has family and some friends, and they will get involved.  Maybe Johnny will badmouth you online, and without the whole story people will believe it.

There are lots of problems with beating Johnny up.

The alternative?  Go home and go to bed.  See Johnny as pathetic and feel sorry for him.  Better yet, ask “how did I cause this”.  Because, you did in some way.  If you didn’t cause it, you allowed it to happen, put the conditions in place for it to happen, or you had false expectations about every human being.  

Then forgive, and move on.  Holding a grudge on Johnny only increases the weight you carry each day.  More important than beating Johnny up is freeing yourself of the negativity inside.  Use that energy to move forward.

In business, the more people in your wake who like you and the less who have a grudge against you, the better.

One day, you’ll be driving your brand new car, and see Johnny hitchhiking.

Get "Lucky"

If you are bold enough to take the right action on a good idea each and every day and work hard, sometimes you get a break.

Some people call that luck.  Some call it karma.  Maybe it should be called “cause and effect”.  Maybe ROI.

Either way – get lucky.

How have you been in the way of progress?

You have.  Let’s just get that out of the way.

I know you are the leader and you THINK you are doing your best.

The bad and good news is – you’re not. 

Your company could be doing better.  

How have you been obstructing/preventing/not causing it?

Thinking makes it so

I am involved in a lot of businesses; ones that I started and ones that others did.  This I know for sure –

The way the guy or gal at the top thinks and what they believe about themselves and the business, determines how it comes out.

Thought is a force with unlimited powers; and you have the hardware to create thought.  But you have to have information and understanding to create quality thoughts.

All things you see around you are physical manifestations of what they started out as – a thought.

Thought makes giants of pygmies and pygmies of giants.

Walk around your business. Look what is going on.  If you’re the owner or leader – that’s all you.

If you have a problem, it is a thinking problem.

What are you thinking now?

Maps are for tourists, not explorers

How to run a business and do most things, is known.  All you have to do is find out how (most of it is written out for you or on an audio or video somewhere) and execute.

But when you are really innovating, there are no instructions.  It’s new territory.

Sometimes it’s a path with a dead-end, sometimes there are dead bodies that way from others who have tried, and sometimes it leads to paradise.

True entrepreneurs take the risk, and find out.

Lessons of your own history

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach us.” – Aldous Huxley

Getting better and doing better is a process of trying, failing or stumbling, learning and trying again.  Over and over.

Today, reflect on what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and what the results were.  What have you learned?

How will you spring off that understanding into a better future?

What problem can you solve that would solve 1000 others?

Stop and think about this.  Are you and your team always trying to fix problems that are really causes of another problem or issue?

For example if you can’t get enough leads to grow, and are always limited by it, should you;

• add to your services?
• change your brand to a way better one (get help)?
• move to a new city?
• get a new marketing manager – or get one and stop doing it yourself?
• create a new value proposition?
• innovate?
• get out of that business and into a new one?

If you can’t get “good employees” and are always struggling with that, should you –

• Hire a recruiter full-time?
• Make a great training program?
• Create an incentive program?
• Move to a nicer building where people would want to work?
• Get rid of your manager who is always chasing them away?
• Make a better career opportunity for employees?
• pay them for performance so they unlock their potentials and earn lots?
• Fire the manager with the bad attitude?
• Look in the mirror and change yourself, get out of the way, or hire someone else to run the place?
• charge more and pay more?

What’s the persistent problem?

What’s the cause?

Fix the cause.

Break some eggs, bake a nice cake.

Between a “bad now” and a “good then” there is a “working through it” period. 

It can be a bit messy as you try things and make mistakes, but that’s how you fix it.

What do you need to do to go from and “bad now” to a “good then?”

Something to fight for.

In my 2009 book “The Highest Calling” there are a lot of emotional moments.  (Get the audio in my voice.)  One of them was when the main character, who was failing in his business despite working hard and long every day, comes home after his wife and kids went to bed.  He was fighting to be successful for his family and in the process had let them down.  

Have you ever felt like that?

We are emotional and spiritual beings first.  Whatever we do in business, how we do it, the results, and the side effects and any collateral damage – we have to live with.  You can’t get lost in your work so much trying to achieve a goal, and lose what is most important – what you were fighting for in the first place.

I am not saying that success automatically comes with such sacrifice.  To the contrary.  Getting it right allows you to be an even better person.

HOW you do it is a choice.  It’s up to you.

A business is a tremendous vehicle to do good in the world; but it demands the best from you or it will punish you.

Nobody is going to take anything with them when they leave here.

It’s what they leave when they are taken that counts.