EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches

Seth Godin says, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. —George S. Patton

Henry Ford said, “Those who never make mistakes work for those of us who do.

Parents who let teens run around with unearned adult freedoms are naive and stupid.

The weird thing is that the more efficient, on task, on goal you are with your time, the more energy you have. Working with no traction, or for that matter simply wasting a day, does not relax you, it drains you.// Strange as it may seem, when you work a daily plan in pursuit of your written goals that flow from your mission statement born of your vision for living your dreams, you are energized after a tough long day.

You must sell benefits, not products.

A year of intense exercise and watching what you eat will likely change the trajectory of your life physically. You will melt away fat, tone up muscle, feel better, and change your habits, likely for life. But only ten days of that exercise program won’t move the needle on the scale. To create big-time success you have to stay focused and stay intense over an extended period of time.

If you don’t own the goal and it doesn’t come from your dream, then you won’t have the toughness to persevere when the going gets tough. And I will promise you that the going will get tough. There is never an exception—everyone who wins must push through obstacles, lots of them. You simply will not get up at dawn for your three-mile run because your wife wants you thinner. Big goals require big backbone—wimps need not apply.

Having children doesn’t make you a good parent, it means you had sex. That’s all.

The problem with your company is not the economy, it is not the lack of opportunity, it is not your team. The problem is you. That is the bad news. The good news is, if you're the problem, you're also the solution. You're the one person you can change the easiest. You can decide to grow. Grow your abilities, your character, your education, and your capacity. You can decide who you want to be and get about the business of becoming that person.

John Maxwell says a budget (for your money) is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. Managing time is the same; you will either tell your day what to do or you will wonder where it went.

If you as a leader allow people to halfway do their jobs and don’t demand excellence as a prerequisite to keeping their job, you will create a culture of mediocrity.

you find yourself unable to stop micromanaging, ask yourself if your team has a problem. You may have to reorganize or bring in some more talented people who have the capacity to earn the right to be delegated to. If your team continually drops the ball you are right to micromanage until they don’t drop the ball or you get some new team members.

one reason people make bad decisions is they don’t have a good decision as one of their options.

I finally realized that results are generated by activities. If I manage my activities then the results I want occur.

Humpty Dumpty is hard to put back together, and so is trust.

The Bible says in Habakkuk 2:2, “Write the vision and make it plain.” The written goal is the breakfast of champions. You just can’t do big things without making your goals specific, measurable, yours, with a time limit, and in writing.

If you are going to open a retail store you would want to consider Christmas. Most retailers make the majority of their entire year’s income between

Nothing was left to chance; every smell, every piece of furniture, and certainly the design of the floor plans made these model homes world-class.

It is hard to work your day job and spend a ton of hours on your business, but it is harder to make a mistake and lose your home in foreclosure because you jumped before the boat was close enough to the dock.

Quadrant II is the important but not urgent. This may be the most important use of your time as an EntreLeader. The things that fall in this category impact the quality of your life and business possibly more than any other area. Examples of what falls into this area are exercise, strategic planning, goal setting, reading nonfiction leadership/business books, taking a class or three, relationship building, prayer, date night with your spouse, a day off devoted to brainstorming, doing your will/estate plan, saving money, and having the oil changed in your car. We can all agree that things that aren’t urgent but are important may be the most important activities we engage in as we look back at our life. The problem is we live in a society where the urge to be in motion, frenetic motion, at all times seems to be the spirit of the age. There is something about a quad II activity that causes you to pause and let a breath out, sigh, then engage in it. Activities like the ones mentioned above are the building blocks of a high-quality life and business, and yet because they are not urgent they seem to be some of the things we avoid the most.

Businesses and entrepreneurs have become experts at microwaving rather than Crock-Potting their business plan. They are so worried about the moment, Q1 or Q2, that they lose their vision and their soul. They trade real, rich, abiding, deep success for the momentary win and then are constantly having to start over. Have a long-term vision and execute it. As the billionaire advised me, slow and steady wins the race.

If you wouldn’t want your mother to buy the item or the service then don’t sell it.

My friend John Maxwell says a budget (for your money) is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. Managing time is the same; you will either tell your day what to do or you will wonder where it went. The weird thing is that the more efficient, on task, on goal you are with your time, the more energy you have. Working with no traction, or for that matter simply wasting away a day, does not relax you, it drains you. Have you ever taken a day off, slept late, wandered around with no plan or thought for the day, watched some stupid rerun of a bad movie as you surfed the TV, and at the end of your great day off found yourself absolutely exhausted? Strange as it may seem, when you work a daily plan in pursuit of your written goals that flow from your mission statement born of your vision for living your dreams, you are energized after a tough long day.

Goals convert vision into energy. When you lay out exactly what you want to do in detail, you immediately start feeling the room move and the earth shake. You are pulled into your new life like some scene from a movie. Goals help make great men. J. C. Penney once said, “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk.

Business is really not that hard. You are, however, required to do the basics or you will not win.

When leadership sets the goals by themselves they are not goals, they are quotas. And no one likes quotas.

Goals Must Be Specific and Goals Must Be Measurable Goals cannot be vague. Vague goals are not goals; they are dreams and wishes, and you don’t want to end up being one of those dreamers who do nothing. You can’t simply say I want to lose weight; that is not specific enough. You can’t say you want to be better educated; that is not measurable or specific. “I want to make more money” is a dream and won’t happen, because while “more money” is measurable, it is not specific. So you should set goals by saying things such as: 1. I want to lose thirty pounds. 2. I want a waist that is four inches smaller. 3. I want to make $100,000 per year. 4. I want a college degree in ________.

Good to Great by my friend Jim Collins.