THIS IS SERIOUS, my ego screams.
She wants my work to be great. For her, it isn’t enough to create, it’s only worth while if I create something great. For her, it isn’t about quantity, only quality.
She is not content with letting me practice and discover my process. She wants serious results, and she wants them now.
She, my ego, has begun her screaming, and quickly my previously delightful project becomes a source of anxiety. Doubt has set up shop and I find I’m no longer working for the sake of it. I’m no longer happy just being on the field, suddenly I need to run the fastest and the best.
Are you dedicated to creating goods and services that you are proud of and can stand behind?
Do you strive for excellence and are unwilling to accept anything less?
Do you think of your work, whatever it is, as your art?
Do you strive to perform at your highest level?
Sure, you might not always act like the master you are. And sure, sometimes your words might betray you. But at the heart of you, do you see your artist?
The type of economy you inhabit, as a customer and/or as a business, is yours to define. If you imagine a different kind of market society, and a different way of valuing the world, you have the opportunity to shape it. You are contributing to an integrity-driven economy each time you allow your values to drive your decisions.
Too often though, we betray our values when we find ourselves overcome by money pressures. In these moments, we see our integrity as a cost. But the true cost is acting on our price/profit-motivations, as we can make short-sighted choices that prove far more costly in the long-term.
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Plans involve making educated assumptions on what the convenient future could entail for your business. But why plan for a future that isn’t going to happen the way you planned it to? In most instances, people think predicting the future is hogwash, but strangely not when it comes to business.
Planning involves educating yourself on where you are going, developing a strategy for how you are going to get there, and a vision of what you want to experience along the way. You don’t need to predict the future, you just need to know there is a route.
I’ve found answering these 10 questions on business planning is a solid foundation on which to build a sustainable strategy for growth.
1. Why are you starting the business?
Does it make me less professional or less able if I don’t have THE answers?
Is it so bad to “not know”?
I know experts want to be seen as right — but I just want to see everything.
I’m curious.
I want to think beyond the answers spoon fed to me by others.
I want to think beyond their attempts to assert their “knowing.”
I’ve been told those who “know” things are experts, and that they can help me make the right choices. I’ve been taught that when I have a problem, an expert will have my solution. And I’ve been led to believe that, by asserting my own “knowing,” I can create evidence of my own professionalism and abilities – and be an expert too.
To not know and to admit it, to be open and asking questions can feel wrong in the world of expertise. It can feel shameful to “not know”,
A small auditorium of 100 business men and women in a business park outside Lisbon. Most are Portuguese entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
I am on the Entrepreneurship panel with three other speakers. A mayor passionate about sustainability from Ericeira, Portugal and two bio-technology innovators.
I was more dynamic live, where you could see my slides too. They really drove the presentation. And it distracted the viewer from my nervous rambling.
My intention was to highlight why people (specifically the business community) should care about innerpreneurs.
How can you sell to someone you don’t even know? How do you know you can help or add value to their lives when you don’t even know their problem?
Get to know your prospective client before you tell them what they need. Build a connection, understand their challenges, show that you respect them as an individual. No one appreciates being treated like a walking $ sign.
Don't like something? Improve it. In three words, 500 years ago, Michelangelo summed up the Innerpreneur and Cultural...
photo credit: David Sifry
We never can seem to get there fast enough. Starting a business, growing a business, it can never happen fast enough. We want our dreams to be realized today. We are impatient for the bright future we see in front of us. And each step forward we take is soon forgotten as the endless road of ‘everything that isn’t’ stretches before us.
photo credit: jacky_oh_yeah
In 1986, when Russell Ackoff, a pioneer of management education, retired as Professor at the Wharton Business School, he was asked what were the benefits of a business education. With savage irony he replied that there were three.
Creative Commons License photo credit: -raggie-
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
A few months back I was helping to design the header graphic for a new blog that was being launched. The blog's...
Here’s mine.
click for a better view complete with clever annotations
This past week a business partner and I shared pictures of our creative spaces with each other.
