In the beginning, we all focused on getting better. We read. We watched. We learned. We searched far and wide to move forward. Then something happened. We got good. And then something else happend. We stopped getting better. We settled for good, and changed our focus to profit. Seems kinda funny. If getting better got us this far, why stop …

We all want to hurry up and get done with our job. Time is money. Chop, chop. Get a move on. But we shouldn’t hurry so much that we’re rushed. It’s one thing to hustle, cutting out all extraneous motions while doing a good job. It’s something different to rush through our work so we can move on to something …

Almost all of us start out improvising. We’ve really got no idea what we’re supposed to be doing, so we just wing it. And for some of us, it works. We see some early success. We start to gain some traction. But, then we keep on going, totally unprepared for what’s coming next. Improv might be a cool way to …

It’s pretty straightforward when trying to solve a problem with something in our homes. Your roof is worn and leaking? Pay for a new roof. Your water heater isn’t heating the water anymore? Buy a new water heater. The carpet is dirty, tattered, and torn? Get some new flooring installed. Solving problems with inanimate objects is fairly easy. It gets …

We often find ourselves bemoaning the fact that we’ve got to deal with competition. If only I didn’t have to compete with all these other companies… But if we stop and think about it for a moment, it’s really a good thing that we’ve got competition. If we didn’t have competitors, it would mean that we’ve chosen to work in …

We’d all love to be able to sell everything, offering our customers a one-stop shop for all their needs. And some businesses do. But, all too often, they don’t do it well. We can be really good at something. We can be quite good at two thing. We can be pretty good at a few things. But, let’s face it, …

Too many of us start out asking. What’s it gonna take to get you through the door? We want your business. When are you going to buy from us? We’d love to work with you. Would you please leave us a glowing review? Maybe if we started out from a place of giving instead of taking, we’d find ourselves in …

Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough. Alain de Botton We’d all like to think that we’ve acquired enough knowledge to achieve success, especially those of us who’ve been in our industries for a minute. But time and again, experience teaches us (if we’re paying enough attention to notice) that we’re woefully deficient …

Too many of us, in our all-out sprint to achieve success, spend every waking hour working. Doing our job. Prepping for our next job. Working behind the scenes on our business. Marketing our business. Thinking about our business. All that work can be overwhelming, and will eventually lead to burnout. If we find ourselves stressed, not getting the rush that …

For better or worse, we find ourselves stuck in a hierarchical world, where we’re arranged according to our (perceived) importance. If we look around us, we can see people at different levels/stages of life and career, with those people at the bottom working to move their way up the hierarchy. In general, there are two different personality types we find …