Leadership

Scar Tissue

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“When you run a company long enough, you will get some scar tissue. After a while, you will go through so much that you don’t have any skin left. But that’s alright, scar tissue is tougher than skin.” ~ Perry Moss, President of Rubicon Global. 

Last week our hosting vendor went down causing our website to crash for about 15 minutes. Of course, during this time we were supporting one of our largest customers where they were preparing to use our platform to live-stream their employee engagement event around the world. Immediately my cell phone started blowing up about the issue while I’m trying to coordinate with our team to investigate the root cause of the problem. Meanwhile, I’m standing outside of a prospect meeting where I’m about to give a presentation. Talk about feeling a burning on the back of your neck from stress!

Later that day, I was meeting with Perry and openly sharing about what happened.  He then shared with me a story that was way more intense than mine and then he looked at me and said, ‘It’s just scar tissue. If you keep going and pushing hard you will get through whatever challenge you’re dealing with and you will look back and see that it made you stronger’.

I know with my company, the bar keeps getting raised and problems we were dealing with in the past seem trivial to what we’re working through now. However, I expect that six months from now, I’ll look back and feel the same way.

This was a reminder for me as an entrepreneur that there are going to be some really hard days but if I keep moving forward, continue learning, and constantly get better, I know that I will overcome the challenge. 

Burn the Boats

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I’ve recently been reading a book called Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill. The premise of the book is that you can achieve anything if you want something bad enough and set your mind to go out and get it.

In the book, there is a story about an ancient war general who leads his troops to the enemy’s land. His army was outnumbered by a more powerful enemy. Once he and his troops arrived, he instructed his troops to burn all the boats. Before the battle, the general addressed his troops and said, ‘ You see the boats going up in smoke? That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice. We win or we parish.’ They won.

I believe the idea of going all-in and not hoping to achieve something but rather making up your mind that you will achieve it, is the only way to truly be successful at what you do.

I find this to be true for me personally with my marriage and professionally running my own company.

Everything worth doing is hard and there are days when I question myself. I have to always remember that I will figure out a way to achieve my goal and take steps everyday towards making it happen.

Next time you find yourself questioning if you can make it, just remember…. burn the boats!

How Google Works

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How Google Works“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”         – Mario Andretti

I recently read a great book, How Google Works and recommend it for entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone looking to think bigger. Here are a few highlights that I found inspiring.

Don’t Look for Faster Horses

There is a quote by Henry Ford where he says that if he asked customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse, instead of a car. The bigger point in the book is that new products should be based on a specific ‘technical insight’, meaning the product is not just incrementally better than what already exits, rather it has significant technical advantages that pushes the product beyond the current market.

All product owners should be able to clearly answer the question, ‘what is your product’s technical insight?’.

OKRs – Objectives and Key Results

OKRs are the most important things that an employee is working on and how success is measured from the results of their work. Each quarter, every Google employee publishes their OKRs to the entire company. Starting with with the top, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt present their OKRs at an all employee meeting. This gives direction to the company overall and creates an environment of transparency. OKRs are published so all employees can look up any other employee’s OKRs which helps everyone understand what people are working on and what they are passionate about.

Review Yourself

A golden rule for management is to make sure you would work for yourself. In the book, it is suggested for you to write an actual review of your own performance and then share it with the people who work for you. The main point is that if you wouldn’t like to work for yourself, other people probably don’t want to work for you either.

E-mail Wisdom

Respond quickly. In the book, they make the point that some of the best and busiest people are known to be prompt on e-mail. And not just responding quickly to certain people, but to everyone. This encourages a flat organization and speeds up the pace of work. A response can be as simple as, “got it”.

Think Big

Think Big

In the book, the observation is made that most people tend to think incrementally rather than transformationally. It is common to here “you’re not thinking big enough” or “think 10X”, at Google.

It’s those who truly think big in ways that are thought not to be possible, who push innovation.

What ‘Could’ Happen in the Next Five Years?

New products, businesses, and industries are created when you can imagine what ‘could’ happen. When you remove the shackles of today’s limitations you can open up a new world of innovation. In the book, questions are posed such as “do your customers love your product?” and “do your customers use your product regularly?”. Asking questions about what ‘could’ happen will lead to new ideas and possible innovation which drives the company forward.

My dad got me this book, How Google Works as a gift and I recommend it to any entrepreneur or business leader interested in innovation and growing a company.

Everyone Needs Their Own ‘BC’

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It’s true. Everyone needs what one of my best friends, Ross Kirchman and I call, ‘BC’; short for Breakfast Club. IMG_1565

A few years ago we started meeting every Wednesday at 7am, before work at a nearby Starbucks. We would meet for an hour with the goal of keeping each other accountable to goals each of us would set to push ourselves beyond our current lifestyles.

By most measures, we were doing well. Each of us had good paying jobs with growth potential, we both had completed our MBA programs, and were having fun going out with our girlfriends.

However, each of us wanted something more. Neither of us wanted to be content or just settle for something short of what we felt like we could achieve.

So it started. Each week we would meet for an hour to discuss ways to push ourselves in different areas of our lives. We would discuss everything from advancing in our professional career, growing to be a stronger Christian, to ways we thought we could become a better leader.

The big point is that we did not just talk about ideas and then go off to work and feel good about ourselves. Each week we would commit to actions we would take to achieve specific goals and then we would hold each other accountable.

For example, one of my big topics was starting my new company at the time. I would commit to writing a business plan and doing research by a certain date and presenting it at BC, where Ross would provide feedback. We would share ideas and think about ways to take steps towards accomplishing our goals.  We had a mutual respect for one another and neither of us wanted to let the other down.

Ross lives in West Palm and I live in Atlanta now so we don’t meet each week at a Starbucks. Now, we talk on the phone every third Friday of the month at 7am. Last month we both presented our goals for this year. I know that each month, Ross will want to hear about the progress I’m making towards them and I will be doing the same for him.

Having someone there to keep you honest, share ideas, and encourage you helps, no matter what the circumstance or what you’re trying to achieve. It may be something different for everyone. For Ross and I, it’s BC and it’s something I plan on doing for the rest of my life.

Creating a Movement

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I recently got introduced to this cool video by Alan Urech about creating a movement. The video is only about 5 minutes long and you’ll be glad you watched it.

A few interesting take-aways.

  •  When being a leader, you’re not the most important person but rather it’s your immediate followers. There would be no movement if there were no followers, so pay attention to them and make them feel like leaders too.
  • It takes someone with guts to start something but it also takes guts of a fast follower to validate that the leader actually started something.
  • Once you hit a tipping point, it becomes uncool not to follow due to the fear of being left out.

For me, I can’t say that I try to start a movement every day but I do try to be a leader. I guess, like this guy in the video, if you’re willing to be bold and put yourself out there, you have a shot at starting a movement that you never even thought possible which is a pretty neat thing.