Entrepreneurs often have the worst bosses. Themselves. Even though many entrepreneurs make excellent leaders, all bets are off when it comes down to ourselves.
Why treat ourselves worse than we would treat an employee or a friend? Research shows that dog owners are more serious about buying healthy food for their pets than buying healthy food for themselves. What have we ever done to deserve this?
Consider yourself as a friend. Be nice.
So-called overnight success is the result of ten years of excruciatingly hard work and sacrifice. To achieve it, one must be patient. Very much so.
Loading an e-commerce website, on the other hand, should take but a split second. In this case, one mustn’t be patient. Zero chill allowed. When two e-commerce platforms offer similar services, one ever so slowly, the other super-fast, which one will prevail?
If a process can be done faster — without compromising quality — it should be done faster. None of us have time to witness their frustration barrel overflow.
As a business, it’s fair to demand the fastest possible service from other companies, especially ones that you offer and expose to your end-clients.
In this patience paradox, macro patience on the one hand, and micro patience on the other hand seem to be very far apart, but the line that separates them is a fine one.
Discomfort is normal. Nuisances here and there are inherently part of life.
An occasional minor headache that vanishes with some over-the-counter medicine is slightly annoying yet acceptable.
These little problems are part of the game. Deal with them as they arise. Don’t go out of your way to obliterate them. The cost to avoid them would be too high.
A severe migraine attack is a different story altogether. When you’re no longer able to endure light and sound, worse, become unable to move, you become debilitated. There is nothing you can do. It’s literally the only thing you can do. Nothing. Call it a day.
It’s horrendous to be debilitated, especially while operating a business. We like to be in control, but in the end, we can’t control what we can’t control.
There is, however, one more thing we can do, albeit not while debilitated.
Identify and eliminate debilitating risks in your business before they occur the next time. Prevention is better than cure, after all.
Big names, from big companies, have ridiculed others over innovations they deemed worthless in the past. Only to lose significant market share — or worse, cease operations altogether — eventually. The price to pay for reluctance to embrace innovation is possibly gigantic.
Notorious quotes such as: “people will never accept a mobile phone without buttons” haven’t aged well.
Business owners should never ridicule a competitor over innovation. Furthermore, business owners should ask themselves: which innovation can potentially bankrupt my company?
Sometimes it’s as if we’re looking at archeology take place right in front of our eyes.
A couple of years ago, there were barely any kick-scooters in cities. Today, cities are developing dedicated parking spots.
What seems normal today may seem archaic tomorrow. That’s how fast the world is moving.
One cargo ship getting stuck in a canal blocking global trade is a rather unfortunate event. Yet every business has similar events waiting to unfold. One mishap with the potential to block your entire sales pipeline. A disaster making your business come to a grinding halt.
There are two ways to go about this problem.
One way is to invest in growth. We could make the canal both wider and deeper. We could invest in technology to guide more vessels through in less time, thus increasing throughput. Translation; increase sales funnel capacity by increasing productivity. We can achieve this by having the right amount of people, using the right tools and processes to reach maximum efficiency.
These initiatives will surely pay for themselves as growth is certified. However, these actions don’t take a potential disaster into account.
Another way to go about this problem is to invest in conflict resolution. A procedure that describes what to do in case of emergency. The right people with the right skills and equipment with a clearance to respond to a call of distress.
Short-term growth is increasing bandwidth today. Long-term growth is eliminating bandwidth shrinkage tomorrow.
Under promise, over-deliver. If you don’t know by now, hopefully, the rock you were living under was at least a fancy one.
The problem with this piece of advice is this. Some people are natural over deliverers. Some people have an innate desire to please other people. For those people, too much of a good thing is never enough.
Sometimes the extent to which people-pleasers over-deliver knows no limits. Handing out gifts (without charging) to their clients as Oprah Winfrey did with her audience.
Under promise, over-deliver is forever a solid business principle. However, if overdelivering is in your DNA, ask a third party to run a check. They should establish whether you’re overdelivering or straight-up selling yourself short.
Seeing to-dos accumulate faster than you’re able to complete them is frustrating. In reality, a lot more work gets done than featured on your list.
Even though some tasks are seemingly banal, it’s still worthwhile adding them. Scratch that. It’s worth scratching them off.
Every time we complete a task, a mini shot of dopamine is released. A feeling of accomplishment washes over us.
Answering a business phone call, for instance, might take a dent out of your schedule. Perhaps a dent that deserves a reward.
Throughout the day, we end up doing much work we didn’t plan. Consider adding impromptu tasks to your list so you can scratch them off right away. Now you’re getting so much work done.
You could have won this week. Even a couple of times. Heck, maybe every day. Twice! Depending on your definition of a win. If you feel like you haven’t won in a long time, maybe it’s time to redefine winning.
In Start With the Why, the author Simon Sinek describes how he was once present at the Gathering of the Titans, an annual meeting of America’s 50 top business leaders. When the attendees were asked whether their companies met their financial targets during the past year, about 80 percent raised their hands. When asked whether they felt successful, (very) few hands remained up.
Orson Welles once said: if you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
People need wins. Define what winning looks like to you. Don’t let others define it for you. Grant yourself a victory now and then.
No knowledge is useless. Even though some obscure trivia only seems to come in handy at parties or quizzes.
Even listening to somebody talk about a topic you seemingly already master can be interesting. Perhaps a new angle provides a fresh perspective?
The knowledge that seems unimportant at a particular moment in life might be useful somewhere down the road. Maybe someday you can help a friend by sharing some insights on a topic important to them.
As for the chunks of knowledge that you can’t put to good use, knowing what doesn’t interest you helps you (re)define your interests.
No knowledge is useless.
It’s hard to hit the bull’s eye without taking a shot at it. Not sure about the math, but taking a shot in the general direction of the bull’s eye surely increases your chances a thousandfold. You can’t do anything wrong if you don’t do anything, to begin with. Does that imply that you can do right by inaction? Unlikely. However, in some (large) corporations, this seems to be the case.
Companies today need loyal employees who don’t shy away from controversy. Employees who have the guts to go against the grain deliberately.
Employers must create environments that encourage this type of behavior. A climate where it’s not only okay to fail, one where failures are forgiven promptly.
It’s the way forward. The path towards growth. If it weren’t for persisting through adversity, none of us would walk, after falling on our faces as babies, time after time.