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I’ve been challenging some commonly held beliefs (or memes) for a while. Often this conversation is in my head. Sometimes it is with clients and their beliefs about how their industry works. (I may even talk to myself when no one is around, but I am not aware of any proof.)
I was recently reading […]
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We love our heroes.
In the movies, sometimes they start out as hero material, and sometimes they are reluctant heroes; forced into the role.
In sports, our heroes range from the all-star lineup of the favored team to the quarterback on the opposing side who leads the underdog team in a playoff run.
We want […]
When you start to think you know it all, something will happen to make you believe you don’t know anything at all.
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“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” ~ Ygritte – The Game of Thrones
It is tempting to give people advice on starting a business. Do this and not that. As if everything is black and white, yes or no answers. If we had followed all of that advice 15 years ago, we would not have started our business […]
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“I’ve always wanted to be a brooding, deep, dark artist, but I can never keep that facade going for more than 15 minutes.” ~ Bryan Callen
When I first started in business, we would meet other entrepreneurs all the time. The ones with some experience appeared to be highly confident and flawless. They talked about how […]
Before you can avoid the bulls, you need to learn to spot them. With people that can be a challenge.
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“I never rode a bull – I’m not that stupid.” ~ James Caan
Some years ago we were visiting Dorothy and her spouse, friends who lived in the country near the Alberta foothills. We were city dwellers, so we enjoyed getting out of town for a little adventure.
After sitting around chatting for an hour or so, we all decided to go for a walk before […]
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“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.” ~ Buddha
We often get in our own way when pursuing success.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people starting businesses because they have lost their job or fear they will lose it in the future. Some people […]
We don’t build great teams in business for the sake of building great teams. It would be like hiring all the best hockey players and then not playing hockey.
Great teams need a purpose or goal.
We build a great hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.
The same goes for business.
For business, the purpose is to serve clients in exchange for revenue. If we do that efficiently, we know we are winning because we generate profit and growth according to our goals.
Our brand is how […]
A dysfunctional culture can doom your organization to mediocrity or outright failure. How can you tell if you should be worried?
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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” ~Peter Drucker
We often see a sports team that seems to have a great pool of individual talent, yet it can’t seem to win consistently and fails to get very far in the playoffs. Then we have the underdog team that surprises everyone with a playoff run, sometimes even taking the top prize.
The difference between winning and losing in […]
Startling but true, these success-driven behaviours can be your worst dysfunctional nightmare.
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“You have that enormously positive expectation that you’ll be free, and then you realize that you are in a worse prison than before because it’s one of your own making.” ~ Michael Gerber
Entrepreneurship puts intense pressures on people, and when that happens, we dial up those success traits to the extreme, or take a few shortcuts to survive.
You’ve probably seen this yourself as the business leader or the employee.
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We tend to wrap a lot of who we are up in what we do. For many of us in business, life has gotten more competitive, busy, and stressful, so we don’t need to be sabotaging ourselves on top of it all.
As an entrepreneur, leader […]