We find comfort in the status quo. Everyone is content when things stay the same. There’s comfort in repetition. But if no one ever tested the limits, tried to walk outside the boundaries, went where no one has ever before tried to venture, we’d never experience progress. Things would always remain the same. We evolve when someone is brave enough …
Just a Little Bit
Many jobs out there are cookie cutter: easily replicable by someone else in the industry. We’re all doing (pretty much) the same thing across our field. So, what is it that proves to be the difference between someone who’s wildly successful and someone who’s just another schmo schlepping the same stuff as everyone else? The real difference is just that …
Brilliant
It’s not too difficult for someone to be forced into a situation they’re unfamiliar with, where they end up looking like a clueless, bumbling buffoon. However, if they’re able to stay within the confines of their expertise, it’s pretty easy for them to look like a genius. For us (as the president of the business of ourself), the most important …
Humbly Confident
Confident people are unwavering in their beliefs. They’re sure that they know exactly what it is they’re doing. Prudent people are also confident in their beliefs, yet smart enough to know that those beliefs may need to be modified whenever new information comes along. It’s good to have confidence. It’s better to be humble enough to realize that we don’t …
What Job
What’s our job really for? It pays our bills so that we can live our lives. It gives us something to do (to help keep us from getting into trouble). It allows us to construct an identity for ourselves so that we believe we’re a nurse, a lawyer, an agent, an inspector… It makes it possible for us to contribute …
Left Behind (Not the Right One)
Achieving success in our business is wonderful. It’s exactly what we’ve been working for all these years. It may also be what leads to our downfall. When something’s working, we’re often hesitant to tinker with it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if all we do is rest on our laurels, and never move to improve, where do …
One Bit
What we bring to the marketplace is very personal to us. We work hard to produce a product that we believe is one of the best around. But that really doesn’t matter one bit. It doesn’t matter what we think. Our finished product isn’t for us, it’s for our clients. What they believe about what we make is the only …
Eating Out
My family went out to eat a few times this week, and the differences I noticed in the restaurants were striking. One place we went, it was easy to tell that the people working there cared. They cared about their place of business. They cared about the food they served. They cared about each other. They cared about their customers …
The Point
Chat GPT has been in the news a lot lately. With just a few prompts to show it what’s already out there, it allows anyone to create a mediocre letter, outline, article, or book-length commentary on almost any subject. But if its output is no better than anything else we can find out there already, what’s the point? Sounds a …
Wet
Everything is wonderful when our business starts to hit its stride. We’re the latest thing on the block! We’re new, we’re hot, and we’re in vogue! Everybody wants a piece of us! But eventually, someone else comes along and they’re the new, hot commodity. Good businesses find a way to stay relevant after the “newness” wears off. All the others …