Archive for The Entrepreneur
Just Enough Anxiety
“What exactly is just enough anxiety? It is the right level of anxiety—at any given moment in time—that drives you forward without causing you to resist, give up, or try to control what happens. It unleashes your productive energy and makes you want to do better. Just enough anxiety produces the optimal state of arousal [...]
First Focus, Then Expand
“First focus, then expand” reminds me of the old adage: “The only place that Success comes before Work is in the dictionary.” You don’t hear that one too often any more. Too old-fashioned and Calvinist even if it’s still true. But Work isn’t the problem for most people I know. Most people I know are [...]
Serendipity
Serendipity rarely walks into a noisy room. I mentioned this to a friend some 25 years ago when we were in high school. Coincidentally, he was my first Quaker friend, and the Quakers know something about quiet. Many entrepreneurs get energized by the noise and bustle of each workday. What more might they find if [...]
Discipline is Remembering What You Want
Coincidentally related to my last post, here’s the current mantra of my friend Jen: Discipline is remembering what you want. Discipline is remembering what you want. Discipline is remembering what you want. And, of course, doing what it takes to get what you want.
Discipline and Wisdom
Discipline without wisdom is pointless. Wisdom without discipline is fruitless.
My Balanced Scorecard — Have Fun. Do Good. Make Money.
Have fun. Do good. Make money. These are the things on my scorecard, and the first among them is all three. Today I was talking with some business friends including one fellow who’s trying to decide what to do with the valuable remnants of a business that recently collapsed. He had many ideas, any of [...]
Shaw on Mistakes
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Shaw was a playwright and critic, not an entrepreneur. But his words are universal. It’s hard to find a successful entrepreneur or leader whose modus operandi is centered around avoiding mistakes.
Thomas Moore on Work
The failure to find the right job or to enjoy the one you have creates a special kind of depression. …An opus is the lifelong process of getting life together and becoming a real person, and it is no coincidence that the word is also used for a musical comopsition or an artist’s total production. [...]
Cicero on Needs
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) Cicero’s political career was sufficiently distinguished to earn him a place in Western history, but he’s even more famous for his work as a writer and orator. But it wasn’t a palace and an audience that [...]
Nietzsche on Fatigue
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago. – Nietzsche
