Reading Time: 2 minI just finished Seth Godin’s latest book The Practice, and it’s excellent. If you’ve not read it yet you should absolutely pick it up. His main push in the book (and in his other work lately) is encouragement to get out there and do your craft, but do it for yourself. The act of doing […]
Business
What happens if Section 230 is repealed?
Reading Time: 2 minDonald Trump has been pushing hard for Section 230 (part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act) to be repealed, but what happens if is it? For starters, it’d make things much worse for Trump. The bulk of Section 230 is this statement: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as […]
We did it ourselves
Reading Time: < 1 minThere are some professions that tend to be underappreciated until something goes wrong. Take the I.T. department at a large company, where many people will think one of two things: You could say the same about production staff at a concert. There are dozens of people working to make sure all goes smoothly, and if […]
Planning for Growth
Reading Time: 5 minI’ve always considered myself to be a pretty good planner, but as I’ve learned more I’ve realized how poor a job I often do. Over the past year, I’ve refined my processes quite a bit and I feel I have things in a much better place (though always looking to improve). For me, planning really […]
Five stars isn’t perfect
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen looking at the rating for your business on Google or your product on Amazon, what’s the ideal score you should have? Most think that a 5.0 rating is the goal, but it probably shouldn’t be. When consumers see a score of a perfect 5.0 on a product or business, they instantly become skeptical of […]
Goals are a commitment to the process
Reading Time: < 1 minSetting a goal is easy enough: “Lose 20 pounds by March 1” sounds great. If you follow something like the SMART framework, that simple goal essentially checks all of the boxes. While losing 20 pounds might be the goal, setting that goal really means that you’re committing to a process. This likely means eating less […]
The two types of failure
Reading Time: < 1 minIn Atul Gawande’s amazing book “The Checklist Manifesto“, he suggests that there are two types of failure in the world. The first is ignorance—we may err because science has given us only a partial understanding of the world and how it works. There are skyscrapers we do not yet know how to build, snowstorms we […]
It’s just not a priority for me
Reading Time: < 1 minThere’s another side to being so “busy”, and that’s when it comes to excuses. There are very few situations where you’re ever “too busy” for something. The only two I can think of are: If you’re in jail. If you’re in the hospital. The rest of the time, your rejection of a request isn’t because […]
If you don’t say no, your yes is meaningless
Reading Time: 2 minI was at a networking event once where a gentleman stood up to introduce himself. He said something like: “I’m Bob from Insurance Company. We can help with your auto insurance, homeowners insurance, health insurance, life insurance, renter’s insurance, travel insurance, pet insurance, motorcycle insurance…” and on and on. I’m not saying that a wide […]
Hate your customers, hate your business
Reading Time: < 1 minWe all want to love what we do, but it’s almost impossible to do that if we don’t love who we serve. As Seth Godin has said, “if you hate your customers, you’re going to hate your business.“ While you may have a bad experience with a restaurant or hair salon, they’re generally working hard […]