The Pursuit of Worthiness

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Two weeks ago, after much deliberation, I decided to quit my job.

This was by no means an easy decision. For starters, as much as I hate to admit it, there is a certain level of comfort that comes with logging into your bank account every 15 days knowing that you’ve been awarded a paycheck; secondly, in spite of the many challenges that the company has faced in the last eighteen months, I am still hopeful about its prospects of achieving profitability by the end of the year; and finally, as trite as it may seem, I have become quite fond of my colleagues – many of whom have contributed immeasurably to my growth, both as a person as well as a professional.

However, if there is one thing that I promised myself when I graduated three years ago, it’s that I would never pursue a belief, an idea, or a vocation without being fully aware of and invested in my underlying motivation. Therefore, when it became clear that my reasons for staying revolved more around self-preservation (e.g. security) than self-worth, I knew I had to make wholesale changes.

Leaving was merely the first. For, as I came to realize, if you are truly committed to making difference, you must be willing to:

1) Find a Central Idea Around Which the Details Arrange Themselves – Gandhi. Einstein. Nightengale. In many ways their transcendent careers were defined by their singular focus – be it non-violent resistance, theoretical physics, or the creation of modern nursing practices.

2) Give Yourself Fully – It is not enough to simply affiliate yourself with a cause you believe in; you must be willing to dedicate yourself completely to its undertaking – even if that means sacrificing pleasures  (e.g. entertainment, material goods, sleep etc) that you’ve grown accustomed to. 

3) Become Thy Master – In order to give yourself fully, you must first gain control over your mental faculties – so that you have the discipline to avoid distraction, the fortitude to meet obstacles head on, and the flexibility to adjust as the landscape around you evolves.

4) Take the Path of Least Resistance – Part of being disciplined means avoiding the temptation to thoughtlessly “impose your will” on external circumstances regardless of the cost. Sometimes, the most effective approach is to simply let matters unfold in front of you – thereby giving yourself the opportunity to move intelligently (and more importantly, without impediment) towards your ultimate goal.

5) Find Like-Minded Individuals – Finally, seldom is a journey as meaningful alone. By “advancing with suitable allies, towards a common [ideal], everybody benefits and makes his/her bright virtue more brilliant (I Ching).”

In short, if there is anything that I have learned in the past couple of weeks, it is that as challenging as it may be: only by aspiring to be worthy do you truly become worthy of your aspirations.

Managing Expectations

Over the past several months one question has consistently kept me up at night: how can I, both as an individual dedicated to self-improvement and as an aspiring social entrepreneur, manage expectations more effectively (i.e. reconcile what I want to happen, with what actually takes place)?

It is a quandary I’m sure we have all wrestled with over the course of our lives. Be it in a professional setting (e.g. driving profitability within a year), an interpersonal setting (e.g. winning over a member of the opposite sex), or a personal setting (e.g. following-through on a commitment to write a monthly blog (ugh!)).

In each case the challenge (it appears) lies in being able to manage  internal and external forces adroitly. For instance if a company’s goal is to achieve profitability, managers must not only work  together to align internal strategic goals (which in and of itself, I can assure you is no easy task),  but also to address the ever-changing needs of their vendors and consumers. Likewise, if one’s objective is to write a monthly blog (ugh!),  he/she must not only account for external work-related obligations but also internal desires to spend whatever little free time he/she has relaxing/”being lazy.”

Needless to say, succeeding is an art – one that takes years to master.

Nevertheless, upon reflection, it seems as if organizations/individuals who do succeed – who do reconcile their aspirations with actuality – do so in large part because they abide by the following core principles:

Believe in a vision – It all starts with a vision; whether your goal is to change the world or simply get out of bed, you must be fully and deeply aware of what you are trying to accomplish before you can set out on your journey.

Focus on achieving quick wins – By design, a vision can either be vague or specific. However, regardless it will only come to fruition in a viable manner if you embrace all the steps it takes to attain it. If your goal is to run a marathon for example, understand that before you can run 26 + miles you must run one.

Develop a set of key metrics – How you measure progress is entirely up to you (e.g. businesses oftentimes use KPIs); the point is that you must push yourself to meet certain standards. For example, if my goal is to write a blog at least once a month and I know writing is difficult for me, I might try and define how much time I have to come up with a concept, how early I must create an outline, and how long it should take me to flush it out.

Implement a set of processes – Metrics are meaningless unless you can measure them meaningfully; thus, it goes without saying that you must create a set of processes that will enable you to take advantage of the data you collect/feedback you receive. If for instance your goal is to talk to a girl without coming across like a complete tool (clearly not talking about myself!) – wherein quick wins constitute being able to smile, say “hello”, and hold a conversation for more than 5 minutes without stammering – then perhaps you might want to try: engaging in dialogue with someone new every day, going out to a social event once every weekend, or incorporating something you read/heard in your day-to-day conversations.

Communicate these processes effectively – Communication is key throughout, but especially here. For if your vision is ever to succeed, everyone who has a stake in its realization must be in agreement – if not for their own well-being, then at least to ensure that you do not neglect yours.

Execute  – Once the aforementioned processes are in place, there is no need to wait; meet your shadowy future with courage and determination. If you fail, you’ll fail quickly thereby giving yourself more opportunities to ultimately succeed.

Seek feedback – Lastly, in order to ensure that you give yourself every chance to realize your ultimate vision, it is imperative that you seek  feedback every step along the way. Is your long-term objective in line with who you want to be? Are the metrics you’re holding yourself to a true measurement of whether or not you’re making progress? Are the processes that you have in place enabling you to receive feedback as efficiently as possible? Are all the parties involved on the same page as you or do you need to communicate more precisely? Are your actions moving you in the right direction? Etc.

The more frequently we answer these key questions, the sooner we will realize that: by holding ourselves accountable we put the future in our hands.

Thoughts?

The 3 Needs

Having spent the last couple of posts focusing on self-improvement, I thought I’d transition back to the business side of things for a bit.

The past 2-3 weeks a few of my friends reached out to me regarding concepts that they’re working on, and as is usually the case, it got me thinking: assuming all else is equal (e.g. a great founding team, seed capital, discipline, a bit of luck etc.), what exactly makes for a viable business idea?

If you ask me, all great companies have one essential ingredient in common: they all address three fundamental needs.

Philosophical Need: On a macro level all companies, large and small, must address an overarching “philosophical” need. For Google, it’s ensuring that search is as intuitive as possible, even as content on the web continues to proliferate; for Twitter, it’s enabling people to broadcast what they’re doing whenever they want, wherever they want; for Boeing, it’s making flight as cost-effective, and safe as possible; for Toyota, it’s manufacturing more fuel-efficient automobiles without sacrificing standards; and for Ikea it’s providing consumers with quality furniture at a discount – just to name a few.

Practical Need: Of course, addressing a macro-level need, while powerful, is not nearly enough. There are practical considerations as well.

Take Twitter for example. The social media upstart would have never become a phenomenon, if its value proposition was solely predicated on enabling users to publish status-updates (i.e. answer the question, “What am I doing right now?”); after all, what’s the point in telling people what you are doing, if nobody is there to listen?

Thus, not surprisingly, it wasn’t until Twitter addressed an even more basic need – the need to integrate with existing social media applications (e.g. Facebook, AIM, gchat etc) – that it started to realize its potential as a tool that could empower people to concurrently reach out to an audience with a megaphone while engaging  individuals  in a “coffee-shop.”

Mechanical Need: Finally, no concept can truly succeed unless it addresses the most elemental (and forgotten) need of all:  the need for a simple mechanism that will make the philosophical and practical solutions feasible.

In Twitter’s case, the mechanism is obvious: SMS technology (i.e. text-messaging). However, what about more traditional companies like Ikea or Toyota?

If you think about it, they too have distanced themselves from the competition by addressing mechanical needs. Ikea is able to provide furniture at a discount (“philosophical need”) by using material comparable to its peers (“practical need”) because it transfers the majority of its assembly costs to its consumers by selling ready-to-assemble goods (“mechanical need”).

Toyota on the other hand is able to consistently manufacture top-of-the-line fuel efficient cars (“philosophical need”) by employing some of the automobile industry’s most advanced technology (“practical need”) because of its world famous Toyota Production System (“mechanical need”).

In short, when considering an idea, ask yourself one question: how many needs does it address?

Beauty in Structure

First of all, I would just like to apologize to all my fans (er Mom and Dad) for being MIA the past month and a half. Between moving, my computer crashing, starting a new job, and preparing for a board meeting, let’s just say that things got a tad bit hectic!  But now that the dust has settled I promise that I will do my best to follow-through on my original 3-4 post a month commitment.

So if it’s alright with you, let’s get started!

Last weekend, while catching up on the 300+ blog posts that I had missed since the move, I stumbled upon a provocative entry by one of my favorite bloggers, Eric Reis, that I just had to share.

Having been a part of 4 smallish companies/start-ups, I can tell you unequivocally that until I read “Cash is not king,” I had neither seen nor heard those four words together, in that order – ever. For, if there is one philosophy that professors, entrepreneurs,  executives, and VCs alike have repeatedly bludgeoned me with over the last 4-5 years, it is that aside from customer and employee satisfaction the only thing that matters to an emerging venture is cash on-hand.

It has been the one truism that all businessmen and women have subscribed to for decades – from the revered former CEO of GE, Jack Welsh to queen of financial literacy, Dr. Karen Berman.

Not Reis though. He takes a slightly different approach, opining that while cash is indeed a key component to the long-term sustainability of a business, the number of iterations a company has left is much more indicative of how successful it will be.

What matters most is the number of iterations the company has left. While some cost-cutting measures reduce that number, others increase it. In lean times, it’s most important to focus on cutting costs in ways that speed you up, not slow you down. Otherwise, cutting costs just leads to going out of business a little slower.

The full formula works like this:

runway = cash on hand / burn rate

# iterations = runway / speed of each iteration

Very few successful companies ended up in the same exact business that the founders thought they’d be in..successful startups [manage] to have enough tries to get it right.

If that is indeed the case, and I would argue that is, then the obvious question becomes: how do we (irrespective of our personal and/or professional aspirations) ensure that we give ourselves as many chances to succeed as possible?

If you ask me, though there are, as my old English professor used to say, “many ways to skin a cat” (i.e. many ways to execute), there is only one philosophical approach that  leads to results.

1) Internalize your strengths/passions: It took me years to understand this about myself, but I am just not good at faking it. I am without question, at my best when I pursue endeavors that are in line with my core competencies.

Consequently, if you are anything like me I highly suggest that you take a few moments at some point to reflect upon and jot down some of your professional, personal, and interpersonal strengths/passions; if you’re honest with yourself you should be able to list three to four for each, complete with concrete examples from your past.

2) Create a list of short-term objectives: Once you are acutely aware of your strengths, the next logical step is to come up with a prioritized list of short-term objectives that leverage as many as possible.

Even if you have yet to fully grasp your niche, the idea is that by immersing yourself in that which is consistent with who you are and what you’re good at, you will achieve self-realization and fulfillment sooner rather than later.

3) Create a list of long-term objectives: If possible,  think about where you want to be 10-15 years from now (be it in terms of your company, your career, or your personal life) next.

Though your answer may be vague (e.g. I want to make a social impact through business by motivating young people to take interest in issues that they’re passionate about), trust me when I say: the more you use that ultimate vision – whatever it may be – as a guide post, the more productive your life and business choices will be.

4) Assess your needs: Having come up with a prioritized list of objectives, the next step is to understand, “what it will take to get there.” The more honest you are about how much capital you’ll need, what sorts of skills you’ll need to acquire, the kind of resources you’ll need to have, and what types of people you’ll need to know, the more effectively you will be able bridge the gap between your desires and your reality.

5) Create a milestone plan: Once you have a keen sense of your “needs,” it follows that you should devise a milestone plan designed to address each in order of their significance.

Case in point, if you’re goal is to achieve something on a grand scale, your best bet will likely be to form an army of mentors who have a vested interest in what you’re trying to accomplish first. Everything else is tertiary.

6) Execute: Enough said.

7) Document: Finally, regardless of what path you decide to take, make sure that you document every step along the way. Simply put, when you know what you’ve done (i.e. what has worked and what hasn’t) you will know exactly what you must do.

Like it or not, freedom derives from constraint. The sooner we accept that fact, the closer we’ll be to meeting our vast potential.

The Basics are Good

If you don’t know of Umair Haque, the director of the Havas Media Lab – “a… strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation” – you should; the man is an absolute genius.

His post, “Why Ideals are the New Business Models,” is unquestionably one of the most impactful reads I have come across in a while. Not so much because it’s profound (though I assure you it is), but more so because after years of having the “merits” of business models shoved down my throat (seriously, I was almost gagging!), it is refreshing to see someone take a stand.

He argues, in essence that:

Business models aren’t today’s fundamental economic challenge.

If there is a silver lining to the current economic crisis it is that the complex, cumbersome business models of yesterday are slowly being supplanted by the basic ones of tomorrow; and as President Palmer (for all of you 24 fans) declares in a recent AllState commercial: the basics are good.

Twitter for example has become a world-wide phenomenon for two reasons. For starters, it enables people to answer a basic human question: what are you doing (thinking) right now? Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), everything Twitter’s engineering team does reinforces that notion. From emphasizing the concept of followers, to building robust back end functionality (e.g. integration with mobile phones and other social media platforms), they are dedicated to making the act of tweeting (i.e. sending and receiving simple status updates) as easy for their users as possible.

In contrast, Facebook’s latest redesign marks a troubling departure from and obfuscation of its original objective. By making a conscious effort to mimic Twitter and focus on “conversations” rather than life-streaming many (including myself) believe that Zuckerburg and company have created two distinct challenges for themselves: first, to impose a seismic shift in philosophy will not be easy considering Facebook has over 120M users (the majority of whom are used to interacting with the interface in a particular manner); and secondly, in trying, they will effectively dilute much of the value they had previously created.

In other words, instead of doing one thing well (i.e. enabling users to engage in each other’s lives), Facebook is on the precipice of doing two things “poorly” – though of course it remains to be seen if that has any effect on their long-term strategy (or viability).

My guess is no.

Creating something valuable in the first place is.

In his book, “Four Steps to the Epiphany” serial entrepreneur Steve Blank writes:

“If you want to get my blood pressure up when you invite me in to see your newly formed startup introduce me to someone with a Business Development title. This is the most ill used and ill-abused title in a startup. By itself this function and title more than likely decreases the probability of success when used early in a startup more than any other single factor. When I hear it used in an early-stage company I question the competence of all involved.”

The point is, if you can’t convince consumers of your product/service’s value before or during production, chances are slim to none that you will be able to sell it to them (i.e. via Business Development) once it’s completed – irrespective of its merits or your efforts.

“Monetizing” + “business models” = zombieconomy

Though I fundamentally believe that you must become ramen profitable in order to have any chance of creating value for your customers in the first place (unless of of course you’re Twitter), I do agree with Haque in one key respect: innovation and consistent long-term growth derive from a customer-centric approach.

It’s not about beating the snot out of your competition in order to achieve higher margins anymore. It’s about building lasting reciprocal relationships with your end user.

Forget business models. Focus on ideals

If creating value is today’s “fundamental economic challenge” (and like Haque I believe it is),  then nothing will empower us to rise to the occasion more than pursuing concepts founded in our ideals.

Freedom. Peace. Fairness. Justice. Principles like these not only create “authentic, deep, meaningful value” for the customer, but also (as I can tell you from experience) equip founders with: the focus to navigate a difficult competitive environment; the stamina to stay in the office until the wee hours of the morning; the determination to cold-call hundreds of prospects in an effort to pre-sell; and the humility to listen to and learn from users and mentors alike.

Thoughts?

1 to 100,000

The other night I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed, mindlessly glossing over pictures, posts, and status updates, when one headline in particular caught my eye. My friend and mentor Mukund Mohan (founder of a new do-it-yourself PR company called Buzzgain), had posted a talk by Matt Mullenweg, the visionary genius behind none other than WordPress, entitled, “The First 100K Users Are Always the Hardest.”

Having spent the better part of 18 months working on two start-ups, and having experienced firsthand just how difficult it can be to attain 100 users – much less 100,000 – I felt compelled to hear what Matt had to say. If not to gain an intuition for achieving critical mass (though of course, I thought that would be nice!), then at least to audit what I had learned from my time as an entrepreneur.

Much to my surprise, the lessons that I had gleaned and the teachings that he bestowed were, for the most part, one and the same.

1) Be your most passionate user – If you can’t spend hours a day using your product, you cannot possibly expect anyone else to.

More than a year after we decided to close up shop, my former partner Ryan and I still chuckle about the mistakes that we made at The Freight Exchange. Not because we made them (for it’s always difficult to manage unknowns and succeed in spite of them when you’re doing something for the first time), but because we made them trying to start an online load board for shipping carriers and brokers.  If the concept doesn’t sound particularly interesting, well, it’s because it isn’t!

2) Be anal – Everyday is an opportunity to be a new user.

One of my fondest memories working with Ryan came in early August of 2007, when after a particularly grueling and mind-numbing afternoon of work, Ryan and I decided to step outside onto the fire escape adjacent to his apartment to get some air. However, no sooner had I come to my senses, than Ryan took a deep breath, directed my attention to the brick edifice across the way and said, “You know, if you think about it, the only reason that building is still standing is because every brick was laid just right, every ounce of mortar was applied just so…” That’s when I knew I had a like-minded partner.

3) Get off the “computer” – Reorient yourself!

Like many first-time entrepreneurs (or so I tell myself), Ryan and I figured that superior technology, class room theory, automated processes, and the illusion of credibility would be more than enough to propel sales. However it wasn’t until we began cold-calling, sending out surveys, and meeting folks in person, that we realized albeit too late that: there is simply no substitute for human spirit, insight, and interaction.

4) Do your own support – Every time a current or prospective user contacts you is an opportunity to impress them.

The problem with expanding too quickly is that it marginalizes a founding team’s usefulness. For instance, at Smart Genetics our CEO oftentimes found himself with the unenviable task of prioritizing  between the launch of company’s flagship product Alzheimer’s Mirror, acquiescing to the demands of board members, seeking financing, forging partnerships, creating a physician outreach program, running operations, and testing different revenue generating strategies all at once! So alas, instead of pushing a customer first approach (which is the way it should be in my opinion), we were forced to spend the majority of our time focusing on making sales.

5) Have a tagline – Distill what you’re doing in 5 customer-centric words or less.

Post. Find. Deliver. If not for those three simple words, TFE would have nose-dived in less than four months instead of gliding to a halt in seven. For, not only did they enable us to frame our value proposition both internally and externally, but they pushed us to recognize inconsistencies in our overall strategy as well. So even though the result was ultimately the same, I’d argue that we were able to stay in afloat long enough to learn how to build a company “the right way.” Not bad for a $5000 investment if you ask me!

6) Get version 1.0 out ASAP –  Nothing beats real users using your product, even if it sucks.

If only Ryan and I had internalized that truism a year and a half ago! Maybe then we wouldn’t have burned through our funding pursuing speculative development projects that ultimately provided little or no value, and actually engaged and catered to our target audience. (But hey, look on the bright side; had that been the case, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this post.)

7) Measure EVERYTHING – Do as your users do, not as they say.

Despite the tremendous feedback that Alzheimer’s Mirror received from media outlets and customers alike, it became abundantly clear once we filtered through the noise and started focusing on actual analytics, that in order to succeed we were going to have to overcome three distinct challenges. For starters, the $399 price point was simply going to be too high, especially in a down economy; secondly, older and less tech-savvy consumers were  going to be reluctant to purchase a direct-to-consumer risk assessment over the web; and finally, in spite of the test’s merit, 70% of our consumers made health-care related decisions in conjunction with their doctor.

8) Simplify  – Period.

To say anymore would be to, as Matt says, defeat the purpose.

9) Start strong, finish strong – Create a synergy of expectations.

Though I can’t be certain (for unfortunately with so much on my plate, I never had a chance to prove or disprove my theory), I’d be willing bet my right pinky finger that we could have gotten a few more sales at Smart Genetics if our landing pages didn’t look like we were selling used car insurance instead of a genetic risk assessments!

10) Be a painkiller not a vitamin – People don’t care if you make their lives marginally better; they want you to help them kick butt now.

Part of the problem with Alzheimer’s Mirror was that the test itself had very little inherent value. For starters, Alzheimer’s has no cure, and so even if someone is at increased risk for developing the disease, there is little if anything they can do to prevent it. Secondly, even if there are things one can do to delay the onset of AD, they are no different from the life style choices physicians already recommend to their patients regardless of genetic disposition (e.g. eating healthy, exercising regularly, challenging the mind, socializing etc).

In short if there is anything I have internalized in the past two years it is that business, like many things in life, is a journey into the unknown: the more you understand what drives you, the more readily your path and destination will reveal themselves.

Personal Brands

This afternoon Albert Maruggi, a PR thought leader with over 25 years of experience, hosted the first ever “Social Media Throwdown”, featuring a battle of wits between social media behemoth Geoff Livingston and brand strategy savant Hajj Flemings. The topic? The existence and importance of personal brands.

For his part, Livingston argues that personal brands are not only difficult to achieve, but that companies that promote the brands of their employees do themselves a disservice; whereas Hajj contends that “personal brands” are an integral part of what makes us human, and as such, one of the key reasons we provide value to teams and organizations in the first place.

Now while I don’t usually make it a point of stepping into the ring with two heavyweight champs (much less one!), I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I agree with my man Hajj.

To illustrate why, let me address each one of Geoff’s “7 Corporate Pitfalls to Promoting Personal Brands,” in turn (I apologize in advance for the sports analogies):

1) The personal brand is a cost to the company.

Though I wholeheartedly agree that you must never let employees build their own brand at the expense of a company’s, I would argue that: a) the best organizations sustain their vision in large part by investing in the brand of their people (e.g. Google, Amazon etc) while b) the companies that impose their “personality” on employees’ creativity, intellect, passion, and moral compass are  more likely to “fail” (e.g. Lehman Brothers, AIG, General Motors etc).

2) The now popular employee is likely to get poached: a common concern I hear is that competitors can easily identify the stars, and hire away these folks…

That’s certainly a risk. But if you ask me, it’s one that companies absolutely have to take. For starters, an organization’s ultimate success is built on the collective and individual growth of all of its employees. Secondly, the more well-regarded a particular employee/manager is, the more well-regarded his/her organization becomes (e.g the Livingston Communication brand ironically, is reflective of Geoff Livingston’s stature). Finally, in an era of high turnover, stars are much more likely to leave  if they feel their wings have been clipped.

3) Employee exits leave a chasm to fill… after they’ve built up trust with the market using social tools, they leave the company, and a gap is left that the brand can’t fill.

I suppose, but I would contest that if you build an organization the right way and put the right processes in place you should be able to replenish your coffers rather easily. For instance: you think Pete Carroll of USC lost any sleep over the departures of Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush? I think, after 7 straight seasons of 11 or more wins that’s highly unlikely.

4) The personal brand has a human failing, which then gets aired out in the marketplace and tarnishes the company’s entire social media effort in process. Think this can’t happen? Let’s go to sports and Barry Bonds. His steroids use has permanently tarnished the records he carries and the entire era of MLB he dominated.

Sure, but I would counter that when you build an organization the right way from the ground up you are able to do two things: 1) prevent those sort of failings from happening and 2) overcome and thrive in spite of them. Thus, as much as I loathe Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens for instance, Bud Selig, his $18M salary, and his negligent testing procedures are far more culpable in my mind.

5) Similar to Risk 1: The company sacrifices building its own larger commitment to the marketplace by building a personality. In essence, building the personal brand is a distraction from the company’s real purpose, which is serving its stakeholders.

I agree that companies should never sacrifice a customer-centric approach for the individual glory its employees. However, by definition employees are stakeholders as well.  Therefore I would argue that their success is directly correlated to end-user satisfaction.

6) But how long until people realize that seeing individuals as the only voice of the company on the Internet is an indication that the company doesn’t really care about the social web?

Individuals should never be the sole voice of a company; nor should their voice overwhelm those of their peers and customers. But I also believe that a “star” employee who is given the freedom to connect with a target audience in a manner that is consistent with the company’s core principles is a powerful ally.

7) A solo personality can polarize customers, or push away potential prospects. A team offers different voices and tones for different stakeholders.

True, but a strong personality that acts in accordance with the larger principles and mission of a team (e.g. Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, etc) can also captivate and unite an audience on a monumental scale.

Lastly, in response to Livingston’s closing argument suggesting that “Teams win and stars lose:” I would contend that it just ain’t that simple:

1) First of all, while it is absolutely correct to say that stars can’t succeed without role players, last time I checked, role players can’t exactly succeed without stars either! Can you imagine the Bulls without MJ, the Cavs without LeBron, or the Colts without Peyton Manning? There’s a reason they were and are MVP candidates year in and year out. It’s because without them, their teams wouldn’t be very good.

2) On the best teams, even role players develop personal brands/identities that are consistent with the overall vision. For instance on the championship Bulls teams (since Geoff brought it up): Rodman was the pest/rebounder, Pippen was the lockdown defender, Steve Kerr was the 3-point specialist, and Toni Kukoc was the jack of all trades.

So, while there most certainly is no “I” in “team,” there isn’t necessarily an “I” in “personal brand” either.

Thoughts?

Lemonade Anyone?

The other day I happened to come across a clip of Richard St. John’s well-known talk at the 2005 TED conference entitled: “Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes.” Needless to say (though I’ll say it anyways), I was thoroughly impressed after just 2 words, 1 minute.

In fact, I was so inspired by Richard’s life-lecture that I decided to examine my own experiences to see what eight words I might retrospectively come up with. However, as fate would have it (and in my case it usually does), something very peculiar happened when I unlocked the dilapidated filing cabinet otherwise known as my head, and opened the drawer labeled “Akash’s Kick-Ass Pearls of Wisdom.” Rather than pull out the two most obvious, relevant and comprehensive binders – the ones chronicling my recent experiences as both a business owner and a business controller – I was compelled,  for reasons unbeknownst to me, to reach all the way into the back and pick out a solitary, dusty, beaten folder from my youth.

Twelve years ago, you see, I decided to do what most kids do when they’re bored senseless in the middle of July and looking for an extra little cash: wake up every morning for four weeks straight, set up a little table, little chair, little sign, and little cooler on the corner of busiest intersection in my neighborhood, and holler until I no longer sounded like a prepubescent – all in an effort to sell lemonade.

Little did I know however, that over a decade later those dog days of summer would hold the keys to a lifetime’s worth of success:

1) Purpose – In order to succeed, you must first find a purpose. Back then of course, mine was to buy a pool table, but as I’ve gotten older those kind of things have become less and less consequential; and I’ve come to realize that nowadays more often than not I’m at my best when I “hitch my wagon to something greater than myself (Obama).”

2) Reputation – Reputation is everything. Even today, folks from the neighborhood still come up to me and tell me that the only reason they bought lemonade from me in the first place was because I shouted so loud (so consistently) they figured if they gave me money, I’d shut up! But hey, I must have done something right because they all kept coming back.

3) Flexibility – To succeed you must be open to and willing to change. Had I not constantly tweaked my signage, slogans, and offerings (e.g. I started selling popsicles and pink lemonade) to meet the demands of my target audience I’m not sure I would have achieved my goal as quickly as I ultimately did. 

4) Friendship – Success is not a solitary endeavor; on the contrary, the degree to which we succeed is directly proportional to the number and quality of people we connect with. Many of my customers for example, ended up being regulars not because I sold “the best lemonade ever” (even though that’s what I advertised), but because I developed genuine friendships with them – friendships that in many ways helped shape my views on life, love, and growing up.

5) Persistence – Success ain’t easy. I still wonder why, even when things didn’t go well (and trust me, there were more than a few occasions when they didn’t), I refused to quit. Part of me thinks it’s because I had nothing better to do with my time; part of me thinks it’s because I really wanted that pool table; but deep down I think it’s mostly because I was and always have been one determined S.O.B.

6) Joy – You must enjoy what you do. I can’t tell you how excited I was to jump out of bed every morning, scarf down my breakfast, gather my things, run outside, and set up shop; for in my mind, another day meant another chance to: inch one step closer to my goal, run my own establishment, feel like a “grown-up,” and chat with the regulars.

7) Journey – Oftentimes the journey is just as meaningful, if not more so, than the “result” itself. Case in point: even though I never got that pool table (um, thanks Dad!), the primary reason I am able to look back on those days fondly, is because they yielded something far more valuable: perspective.

8) Love – Finally, in order to succeed we need a little love. I’ll never forget my Mom coming out to give me words of encouragement, my Dad driving me to the grocery store specifically to buy lemonade and popsicles, or my best friend and neighbor helping me out for hours at a time even though I didn’t give him a dime; if that’s not love I don’t know what is.

Thoughts?