The more committees and Boards you join, the more egos in your life. Egos want your time, and before you know it your diary is full of egos. Egos who get upset if you change their slot. Egos who get upset if you can’t see them when they want to see you. Egos who get…
Keep your first promise
As you become more successful, your profile rises. As your profile rises, you get more invitations. More opportunities. And suddenly you’re in dilemmas where you’ve committed to one thing, but a better thing has come along and you don’t know what to do. There’s only one thing to do. Keep your first promise. You You’ve…
There’s comfort in the crowd
When raising money, a useful technique is to ask Bob for a commitment “subject to”. Ie: Bob will investment R1mil subject to you finding another R4mil. Then when you go the next potential investor you can say “Bob is in for R1mil if we raise another R4mil”. Both Bob and the new investor can take…
Be on time
If you make a bad first impression, you’ve made your job hard. Not impossible, but why make a hard job harder? The first step in making a good impression is to be on time. That means be early. Anticipate traffic and parking and the lots of little things that could unexpectedly delay you. It’s not…
Management accounts don’t make a company
It’s tempting to think that smart, neat, timeous management accounts mean you have a great company. Especially when you’ve been involved in companies where the financial reporting is a mess. But don’t be fooled. Management accounts are just delayed temperature reading. They’re essential for making decisions. But they’re not essential for building a business. Management…
Be a super optimist
Everyone knows that to be an entrepreneur you need to be an optimist. What is less known is that optimism is not enough. You have to be a SUPER optimist. You have to be irrationally optimistic. You must see light in the darkest of nights. You must have faith when everyone else is leaving the…
Go alone
The crowd wants you to be like the crowd. People are suspicious of outliers. That’s probably a good instinct for zebra and impala. Not so for entrepreneurs. You can’t win by being like everyone else. Too much competition. And if you lose, there’s no crowd to console you. You’re on your own. Rather do things…
“Free for” is better than “free from”
Trying to be “free from the crowd” means you’ll still live in fear of the crowd. Trying to “free from poverty: means you’ll still live in fear of being poor. Fear is bad. Better to “free for”. Free for being yourself. Free for finding financial freedom. It’s just words, but words matter. “Free for” is…
Don’t get rid of bad stuff
When you have negative stuff in your life, ie: people, it’s tempting to try get rid of it. Don’t. The more you try to get rid of it, the more it consumes you. The more you fight, the more significant it becomes, all of our proportion. Ignore the bad stuff. Focus on the good stuff….
Rather have enemies than not know who your enemies are
Some people go through life not having enemies. Keeping everyone happy. Keeping opinions to themselves. That’s all good, except with you’re in the fire. When you’re in the fire you don’t want surprises, ie: unexpected enemies. Better to live a life of principle, say what you mean, offend if you have to. Rather have enemies…
Are you the real deal?
You want to be taken seriously? You want people to listen to you? You want to be a player? There’s only one way: Prove yourself. Get in the trenches. Fight, struggle, survive. Don’t give up. That’s the only way to be the real deal. There is no easy way.
The 10 commandments of communication
Clarify your ideas before communicating. Before pushing out information, make sure you’ve simplified the message and tailored for the audience. 2. Focus the message. Don’t try achieve too much with each communication, just pick one goal and push that. 3. Consider the environment. Maybe it’s a big office, maybe your bosses are there, maybe it’s…