Posted by admin on July 10, 2010 under Featured Articles, Life | 
A sudden feeling of nausea, shortness of breath and massive head pain had me leaping from my theater seat and rushing to the restroom. The producer, a good friend, had invited me to sit in on a rehearsal to provide feedback. The outing ended when I suffered a minor stroke–and started a journey that would change my life.
via Is Your Business Killing You? – workaholic – Entrepreneur.com.
Posted by admin on July 9, 2010 under Advice, Featured Articles |
There is no magic formula for small business success, but most owners who do well share the same six personality traits, according to a new report.
via Guardian Life Report Identifies Six Traits of Successful Small Businesses.
Posted by Matt on January 22, 2009 under Featured Articles, Leadership |
I haphazardly picked up my copy of John Maxwell’s The 21 Most Important Minutes In a Leader’s Day. John asks a simple question: “If you were to reproduce yourself in another leader, would you be satisfied with the results?” This has been a rather thought-provoking question in my mind. To look at it another way, if you were doing your own leadership evaluation, how would you be coaching yourself to change? And perhaps another important question would be, are you reproducing yourself in another leader at all?
The purpose of leadership really isn’t to reach the top, but to help somebody else get there. Further, the goal of leading people is to develop them to their full potential, not to use them to help you reach your own. In fact, we’re at our greatest when we’re developing others anyway. So how do you reproduce your leadership qualities in someone else? Just a few thoughts…
- Find someone to lead. Tribes are everywhere, just waiting for the right leader.
- Pour your life into other leaders. By life, I particularly mean time.
- Listen, learn, and respond to leaders. Don’t just talk – you don’t know it all.
- Provide opportunities for leaders under you to take risks, even when you will end up sharing the cost.
- Empower people with the time, resources, and help to get the job done.
- Check in. People don’t respect what you don’t inspect.
- Model your values, techniques, and passions – don’t hold back.
- Be accessible. People can’t grow under your leadership if you’re hiding in the ivory tower.
- Get fed. Find a mentor. Don’t stagnate in your own leadership growth.
- Remember that you were quite wet behind the ears when you started out!
Who are you leading? How are they doing? Are they a satisfactory reproduction of yourself? Would you be, based on how well you’re leading now?
This article was posted by our guest, Brandon Cox, who leads a church in Bentonville as Pastor. He also blogs at Life Here and There and designs web sites.
Posted by Matt on October 29, 2008 under Advice, Featured Articles |
The entrepreneur is born with a unique drive and ambition. Starting something and carrying it through to completion becomes a lifelong passion for those born with this entrepreneurial spirit. To do anything but start a business will lead to frustration, and starting a business from scratch and seeing it through to success will fuel our passion.
As a kid, I always knew I wanted to start and run my own business. This intense desire for the entrepreneurial challenge may have been provided by a series of early experiences. At age 9, I took a paper route and was thrilled the first time I purchased something with my own hard-earned money. When it was time for our scout troop’s popcorn drive, I was tenacious about out-performing my friends in popcorn sales. I also watched my father’s career end early and in personal tragedy as a result of a careless and unrepentant Fortune 500 company to which he had devoted his life. In any case, I knew that SOMEDAY I would start a business and chart my own path.
The problem for me was that SOMEDAY simply did not come. While in college, it seemed like I was the target of every get-rich-quick scheme. Thankfully, I never took the bait. In my twenties, I spent lots of time researching what seemed like several perfectly viable ideas, but I kept waiting for one of those “home run” ideas where talk turns to action. So I kept working at a job that I didn’t particularly enjoy but I knew that SOMEDAY things would be different.
What I realize now is that there are not that many “home run” business ideas. Most companies that are wildly successful today (Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart) started very small and grew over time with many years of hard work. The founders of these companies took an idea and invested their lives to realize the often distant target of success.
I’ve learned some secrets along the way to successful entrepreneurship, and it would be unfair of me not to share them with the world.
1. Find a skill or talent you already possess.
2. Form an idea from your talent that you’ll love to pursue.
3. Cultivate your passion – good ideas don’t change the world without passion.
4. Ask yourself, “If I were independently wealthy and didn’t have to do anything, how would I spend my day?” Develop your business concept around the answer and you’ll be that much more committed to it.
5. Do your research and gather facts. Educate yourself as fully as possible.
6. Form friendships and find mentors that will help support the successful execution of your idea.
7. Realize that not every good idea is a winning idea.
8. Also realize that perfect opportunities do not exist.
9. Calculate the risks involved, but don’t be crippled by fear.
10. Find something that you can start part-time, while you keep your bill-paying job and when the part-time income exceeds the full-time, make the switch to your new entrepreneurial career.
11. LAUNCH! Start this process today.
12. Give back. Share your experiences and invest in others.
You can’t complete what you won’t begin. Take the leap with courage and pursue your passion, and start today!
photo credit: Erik Charlton
