These days it seems hard to say “no”. We are besieged with requests for our time, our attention, our talent, our money, our influence. People have learned the art of asking, don’t you think? What seems tougher for most of us is that magic word: “no”. Here’s something that makes “no” easier – “because”. “No, […]
Leadership
Your House Just Burned Down
Thought-experiment time… Let’s say your house just burned down. And your office and all your business stuff was inside along with all your personal stuff. Nobody was hurt – even your pets made it out just fine. And let’s say you’re doing okay with the shock of losing everything – heck, the insurance company has […]
How to Create a Culture
You can’t “create” culture. It’s a reflection of your identity as the leader of a group or company. Who are you? That’s what your culture will end up looking like. So if you don’t like your company (or club, or group, or church) culture… you know where to start working on the problem: in the […]
Divide and Conquer
Instead of trying to duplicate every product feature of your competitor, why not focus on one feature? Why not do that one thing, and do it exceedingly well? This is the new version of “divide and conquer”. While your competitor is busy trying to be a Swiss Army knife, you simply decide to be a […]
Workaholism Is Stupid
There’s a romantic image of the hard-working entrepreneur, bleary-eyed, sleeves rolled up, in the office late at night all by himself… “burning the midnight oil”. We buy into these images, don’t we? The problem is, they’re founded on lies. The lie says that if you want to succeed, you have to sacrifice your free time, […]