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Success Requires Overcoming Emotional Life Upheaval
All of us go though times of emotional upheaval. Whether it be losing a business, losing a job, being betrayed by those close to you, divorce or breakup, health issues; the list goes on and on.
In the last 2 years, I’ve experienced all of these, and while it is very easy to look back and wish things were different, I would like to share a few of these and what I’ve learned through experience, and encourage others to get up and keep going!
Health Problems – Why ME!
When we face unexpected health problems, its very easy to become depressed, feel sorry for yourself, and ask the “why me” question.
Two years ago, in one phone call I found out it was a miracle to be alive. I was having a massive brain hemorrhage, and had to have emergency brain surgery. While laying in ICU I found out that hemorrhages the size of mine had a 98% fatality rate.
Ironically, before surgery I had no fear, but after surgery my main concern was would I ever be what I was before? While I’m truly blessed to have no cognitive deficient, my level of energy has not returned to the levels it was before. To this day I have moments of acceptance that I’m not quite what I once was, and have to accept my limitations.
Have there been moments of depression wondering why this happened? Absolutely! Have I asked “why did this happen to me”? You bet! Have I felt sorry for myself? More than once!
What Did I Learn?
Having my sense of immortality ripped away put life in a completely different perspective. Am I still an extremely driven entrepreneur. You better believe it. I’m currently involved in 3 different ventures, Ideashares, TrustedResponse, and Serious Startups.
But what I learned was simple. Focus your life on influencing those around you in a positive way, and what are the best ways to use your time. This can be on a personal level or business, but it’s vital you realize the impact you have on others is worth more than money.
This is not to say you shouldn’t make money and strive for success. In reality, it becomes easier to make money in business if your mind is focused on solving problems for those around you. This could be for your job, startup, or personal relationships.
Losing A Business
In fairness, the business didn’t fail, but there was doubt by partners that I would ever be what I was after surgery. This led to disagreement and ultimately selling my stake.
Having put my heart and soul into building that company, it was a truly devastating life changing event. Was I worried about pay bills? No. But what to do with myself, and what I wanted to do next weighed heavily me. The next six months was spent trying to figure out who I was, and more importantly, who I wanted to be.
It is very common to become defined by what we do professionally. When things change dramatically, you can feel lost and begin to question your value. I faced this question many times while battling depression. On the outside I was moving forward with a new venture, but internally I hadn’t recovered emotionally.
What Did I Learn?
After hitting a very low point emotionally about a year after my surgery, it took baring my soul to people I greatly respected, and asking their advice. What surprised me was their openness and help to get back on track emotionally, and how many of them had gone through similar emotional upheavals in life. Suddenly I realized it was totally normal to be feeling down.
Putting up a facade and acting like everything is OK is normal, but if you’re going through serious trials, don’t be afraid to talk with others and ask for help!
Betrayed By Those You Trust
I’m not going to talk about what happened specifically, but while getting back on my feet and taking several large financial gambles, people I trusted to help build a new future stabbed me in the back. This resulted in a significant loss of money, but more importantly a serious emotional scar.
What I Learned
It’s amazing how so many people are consumed by the here and now, and don’t look at the big picture of what success truly means. This often leads to only looking out for themselves, and when money is involved compromise their principles.
However, there are people out there who share values, appreciate who you are as a person, and share similar dreams. It’s just a matter of opening yourself up, sharing who you are as a personal and what you want to achieve. When you do this you’ll be amazed at the doors that will open and relationships that will be forged.
You Can’t Change The Past
The most important thing I’ve learned in the last two years is that it’s pointless to feel sorry for myself, or waste time wishing I had made different decisions.
Of course it will take time to overcome these types of problems, we’re only human after all. But the key to success and basic happiness is appreciating the opportunities we have ahead of us, not dwelling on what we can’t change.
We only have one life to live, and every second that goes by is one we will never have again. We must learn from the past, but be focused on the future!
This is what I have learned. What will you do?
EP16: John Lee Dumas Pitches The Freedom Journal, Then Pitch Of The Dokiwatch For Kids
Dealing With Ego: Why I Love/Hate Consulting
“I need a solution to X problem, you’re an expert, can you help me”?
That is the foundational reason a consultant is hired.
It drives me nuts when you go out and find an answer to a problem, only to be met with objection because it doesn’t fit the status quo or doesn’t validate their point of view. On the flip side, if what you recommend is embraced, implemented and helps your client go to the next level, it is extremely gratifying and worth dealing with clients who embrace change only in theory.
So how do you deal with this reality?
I’d like to share one of my experiences, how I dealt with it, the risk/reward outcome, and ask those who read this to share their tips and tricks with the rest of us!
Business Ethics When Dealing With Massive Ego
A few years ago I was hired to help flush out business model, functionality requirements and customer acquisition strategy for a new tech company. This venture was a spin off from an existing company that wanted to build a SaaS solution for their clients.
While we agreed on target demographics, general business model etc, important things like what does this software do and how do we get customers were completely opposite.
I spent quite a bit of time talking with potential customers, and asking what they would love to have automated and/or streamlined. In those conversations, I bluntly asked how they would react if approached in different ways from a marketing and sales perspective. Trends were identified, similar functionality requests were made over and over, which quite frankly made this pretty straight forward. 150 potential clients all wanted XYZ, and said what would make them pay attention to it.
So I put together a plan. Top to bottom, here’s what needs to be done. Development, marketing, pricing models etc.
Enter Ego Conundrum
To my surprise and irritation, without even reading what I spent 4 months working on, the person who hired me pulls out his own plan, and proceeded to tell me while he appreciated the time spent, they had decided to move forward in a different direction!
Politely I said “totally understand, would you mind letting me take a look at yours.”
Looking through this alternative, it was blatantly obvious zero research had been done. It was so completely one-sided it would make your head spin, included things every potential customer I had talked to didn’t want, and marketing strategies so antiquated I was stunned.
Very quickly I remembered meetings where everything in this plan had been brought up, and everyone else at the table other than me had been saying yes, yes, sounds great. In reality I had been hired to validate these ideas not actually help develop a plan.
Enter Business Ethics Dilemma
Now I faced a serious problem. Based on the research, if they went down this path a lot of capital would be wasted.
I’d been hired to help them determine the best course of action, but to tell the “boss” he was wrong would require a massive slap to his ego, and likely burn a bridge. But if they followed his plan, 6-12 months later so much money would be wasted the bridge would be burned for not having said it was a bad plan.
I decided to diplomatically relay a few things potential customers had requested in the hope he would be open to listening. Immediately was told he knew the market better than me, and that customers don’t know what they want.
Next, I tried to explain a few thoughts on more efficiently marketing the service, and the value proposition points potential clients had told me. This too was instantly rejected.
It was now clear trying to change his mind was pointless. I now had to make a hard choice, burn bridge now or later.
My Decision And Its Repercussion
I decided that it was better to be upfront, and let the chips fall where they may. A rather strong, but polite case was made, and my prediction of what would happen if his plan was followed.
I stated strongly this wasn’t being against making changes to my plan, but that I truly wanted to do the best for my client, whether they agreed with me or not.
As expected, this was not well received, and I was not so politely asked to leave.
Fast forward a couple years, after zero communication – and hearing from others what he thought of me – out of the blue my phone rang and it was that old client.
After wasting $500k, having absolute rejection by clients, significant internal problems with employees, and even conflict with business partners, he realized that I had really been trying to help him make the right decision. He told me that I had serious “balls” to have stood up to him that way, and apologized for bad mouthing me to others.
We haven’t done business again, but to this day I still get phone calls from people who he’s recommended me to, and hear he says I shoot straight with the clients best interest at heart.
So while I have a love/hate relationship with consulting, it never ceases to amazing me the outcomes you can’t predict. All I can say is it’s always best to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t feel good in the moment.
This is just one of many crazy things that have happened to me. I’d love to hear your experiences, similar situations and how you’ve handled them!
How Children Inspire Greatness
We all desire to be successful, famous, and–let’s be real–have lots of money.
But what is the true source of that desire?
I want to be someone my 4-year-old daughter can look up to, have the ability to give her a great childhood, and when she grows up, the resources to help her have a better life than me.
Last week, I talked about redefining success and what it truly means to you. The goal of this one is to spark thought in how being a parent can be the foundation of achieving your own personal definition of what success means.
Children Inspire Entrepreneurship
My last company was started literally 3 weeks after finding out I was having a child. From that moment on, my goal has been to build a company, make enough money to have time, and ultimately have a fantastic team handling day to day operations.
Whether that means hundreds of thousands, millions, or billions, is not the point. It’s having enough money and resources to create a powerful bond with my daughter, see all those “firsts”, have freedom of time, and be a powerful father figure to her in any way that I can.
Long nights, hard days, incredible amounts of stress, lack of sleep. These are all prices to be paid to accomplish these goals. 19 months ago my price went even higher, after nearly dying from a massive brain hemorrhage.
As most of what I had worked for collapsed around me, before even getting full clearance from the doctors, my mind was in 6th gear on how to get back on track, get back out there and do it again. Not because of ego, but taking care of my child, making sure there was enough money to give her a good education, and in the long run, be around to see all those “firsts.”
Could I give up on being an entrepreneur? Yes. I have a standing 6 figure job offer from an old client of mine. But in the end, nothing is being built to achieve the goal of time, and I would always be tied to the “job.”
I joke about nearly working myself to death, which in my case is actual reality, but when your sense of immortality is ripped away, you have 2 choices. Be afraid to take risk, or become inspired to push harder than ever.
I choose the latter. Everyday when I wake up, the entrepreneurial fire burns within my soul to go out and make a difference. For her.
Children Inspire Leadership
Leadership requires accepting there are those who follow and trust you to make good decisions. Then making every effort to make those decisions not just for yourself, but for the good of those who follow you.
As a father, I have no greater follower than my daughter. Obviously that will fade when she becomes an adult, but between now and then, when she looks at me and asks questions, eyes full of wonder and trust, the desire to be someone she can rely on both now, and when she is grown inspires me to be great.
That same attitude is something I apply to business. Not that those who follow me can’t think for themselves, but they have placed trust in my ability to lead. They are taking a risk to join forces, to leverage their talents and futures on accomplishing the vision, and ultimately choosing me over someone else.
My daughter didn’t choose me, but in business, you always have a choice. Customer, employee, partners, investors. Who you are and what you set out to do is what inspires others follow.
Inspire Children To Make A Difference
The title of this article was about becoming “great,” but what is greatness? To me, making a difference in the lives of those around you, whether it be one person or millions, is the true essence of greatness.
As parents, we have all the inspiration needed to become great. Through hard work, innovation and entrepreneurship we have the opportunity to achieve it.
I see success in business as a powerful way to inspire my daughter to become great. If in the most important development years of her life she sees a man willing fight through hard times, be a leader, try to make a difference in the lives of those around him, then she has someone worth following.
If at the end of my life the only person I truly made a difference for is my daughter, then that’s OK with me. That is my definition of greatness. What is yours?
The Startup Cult is Redefining Success (And Not in a Good Way)
I often joke about the “startup cult” spreading across the world.
The coolness of entrepreneurship is on the rise, but so much of it is compartmentalized into just raising capital, getting some PR and having “founder” as your job title. Not he true nature of being a business owner, leader, and innovative thinker that is required to be truly successful.
While there are amazing organizations all over the world helping startups, sometimes is seems like many of them exist to salve egos, take advantage of wantrapreneurs, and look good on paper from an economic development perspective.
Accelerators and incubators are popping up everywhere, but with so many of the hardships of launching a company accounted for – seed capital, office space, mentors, business networks etc – why is the success rate of these companies not significantly higher than those bootstrapping? What truly is success?
Enter Startup Cult
The vast majority of businesses will never exceed $1 million in yearly revenue, and most currently operating were started with $5,000 or less.
The startup cult I’m talking about encourages and teaches entrepreneurs to raise capital and chase the billion dollar unicorn, but much less attention is spent on how to actually operate a business. Few people want to learn about how to deal with cash flow issues, employee politics, horrible clients, partnership conflict and so on.
Looking back at a decade of serial entrepreneurship, the hardships, rewards and disappointments, it disturbs me to see so many founders obsessed with, and feeling euphoric when, they raise capital. Not getting clients, not achieving growth goals or even making a profit, but getting investors to write them a check.
While a select few will become founders of legend, most will fail and some will become successful on a smaller scale.
What Is Success?
Don’t for a second think I’m saying you don’t have a billion dollar idea, or not to chase the dream. What I’m saying is there are tons of great small business ideas, and just because you “only” turn it into a million dollar company doesn’t mean you failed.
In reality the average household in America makes $54,000 a year with two incomes. Make $100,000 and you’re in the top 10%.
While in the short term it might not be as cool as chasing a billion dollar idea, in reality you have much greater probability of building a $1, 2, 3 million dollar company in a fraction of the time needed to raise capital, get to market, grow, and maybe have an IPO. Is the potential ROI massive, of course it is, but is it smarter to go for the single or double versus a home run?
This goes back to what truly is success? Is it making enough money you’re not worried about paying bills, having freedom to make your own schedule, spend time with family and friends, watch your children grow up, see the world, make a difference?
Or is it being one of the few with more money than you know what to do with, and going down as the Steve Jobs of your era?
What Does Success Mean To You?
It may seem like I’m saying you shouldn’t apply to an accelerator, that entrepreneur centers are a waste of time, not to raise capital or swing for the fences. Nothing could be further from the truth. The point of this article is to inspire entrepreneurs to look at life from a different perspective, and define what success means to them.
This is something you need to think about and let it become a serious foundation of your life. There are many ways to make a difference and to become successful.
Happiness and satisfaction with life is controlled by your own personal definition of success. What is yours?
Expressing Your Creative Passion With Polarr
A group of creatives and techies with passion for visual expression decided to create a web tool their fellow creatives to express themselves, without losing the fidelity of their creative desire and inspirations. This turned into Polarr.co.
While there are many tools online for making basic modifications to photos, Polarr actually learns from the unique style of each user,and performs recommendations and customized renditions of their photos in a high quality and production ready environment.
Since most creatives, or Polarrians as they like to call their users, would much rather spend their time at photo shoots, coming up with new aesthetic angles, and interacting with their cusomters, creating a tool to shorten the time needed for post-production is the primary focus of Polarr.
I have personally used the system and found it to be very easy to use, enabled me to create some fantastic images (I’m a horrible photographer) and the best part, it’s easy to use. So many tools out there are so complicated it take more time learning how to make basic modifications, I’d rather just pay someone else to do it. With Polarr, you can quickly and easily make great things happen without wasting time or money.
Professional creatives will find this a great tool to increase their productivity, and people like me with creativity thought but not the talent to turn into reality, will love what Polarr is doing, and their approach to technology and creativity.
They’re a relatively young startup, so go check them out and share with your friends!
16 Kick Ass Quotes On Leadership From People Who Walk the Talk
So often we become consumed with telling people what to do that we forget the true essence of leadership. Take a few minutes and learn from those who came before.
As a follower, you must know who to follow. As a leader, you must earn your followers!
Bill Gates
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
George Patton
Lead me follow me or get the hell out of my way!
Sun Tzu
A leader leads by example, not by force.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A leader is a dealer in hope.
John C. Maxwell
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and little less than his share of the credit.
Anthony J. D’Angelo
You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.
Gene Mauch
You can’t lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.
Peter Drucker
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes…but no plans.
Theodore M. Hesburgh
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. you can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
Davy Crockett
Be sure you’re right…then go ahead!
Henry Miller
The real leader has no need to lead, he is content to point the way.
Eric Hoffer
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Harvey S. Firestone
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
Ronald Reagan
The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.
Theodore Roosevelt
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss…The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Dennis A. Peer
One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.
Andrew Carnegie
No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
Short sweet and to the point. Everyday, take the time to learn from those who came before you on how to become a better leader. Leaders are forged, not born.
Share how these quotes impact you and others that you find inspirational!
Oh Snap! I’m a Leader Now!
How many of you have experienced an epiphany where you realized people were following you and trusted your judgement?
I’ve had several of those in my career, and each one has forced me to analyse what I’m doing and become a better man. While these moments cause you to accept responsibility and the weight of leadership, they also provide opportunities to take things to another level and surprise yourself.
So let’s dive into a few moments where leadership can be realized, and the choices you face.
I Want To Live Up To Your Expectations, And Be Who You Want Me To Be.
That was said to me after a former employee asked me to write his biography for a new job. I had hired him out of college, and watched him grow from being a hot headed, high maintenance employee to a rock star designer in high demand.
What I said in his biography was everything I had seen him become, and what he had told me were his ultimate goals in life. This made me realize that he viewed me as a leader, respected my opinion, but what meant the most to me was his desire to live up to expectations.
Over the years I have tried to help mold him professionally into someone who could communicate with clients, deal with the stress of managing a team, and to know when to take a stand, but more importantly how to be a good businessman.
The challenge I now face is being worthy of his respect. Not to boost my ego, but to not let him down. Leadership is a two-way street.
I Used To Hate You. Now I Understand You.
A few months ago I got a phone call out of the blue from another former employee who has started his own company. He’s now having to hire and fire, deal with difficult clients and cash flow issues.
He had left my company in a huff feeling like he wasn’t being valued, in spite of being told the reasons we couldn’t pay him more at the time. We were in a bit of a cash flow crunch, and just couldn’t afford to raise his salary.
Our conversation quickly turned to him asking questions about how I had dealt with the stress of building a company. How to deal with employee issues, and how to approach difficult clients.
It was in that moment I realized that in spite of the rough ending to our business relationship years prior, how I had conducted myself then had stuck with him. To him, I was a leader he could trust to give solid advice. Since then, we’ve had more conversations about how the advice given had been implemented, different spins he’s applied that have worked and what didn’t work.
The choice I’m faced with is always doing the right thing, even if it’s not popular in the moment. As a leader you can’t be swayed by emotion when making tough choices.
I Want To Work FOR You! Don’t Do This Without Me!
A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation about a business idea with a man I have a great deal of respect for. He has been very successful, currently runs a multi-million dollar company, and has influence superior to my own.
He was so inspired by the passion and logic behind the idea, with great vigor he said he would walk away from what he’s doing now, and would work for me if I asked. Very quickly I made it clear that my goal was to work withhim, not him work for me.
The moment of realization I had was that age and prior success are not what makes you a leader, but the ability to inspire others, not only through intellect but also passion. I have always been a passionate firecracker in life and business, but so often forgotten the impact it influences those around me.
As a leader, I must always maintain passion for what I’m doing, or it is only reasonable for those following to have doubt. When your fire begins to wane, search for reasons to keep going and fan the flames!
If You Do Not Know Where You Are Going, Every Road Will Get You Nowhere – Henry Kissinger
As a leader, you are out front building the road those behind you will travel. You will never be able to predict every challenge you will face, but you must know what your goal is and stick to it.
Those you have inspired to travel the hard road with you will help you to make it through hard times, pick you up when you fall, and someday a few will begin to build their own road.
It is up to you to accept the responsibility of being a leader, for you never know when the road they build can join with yours. In times of need they can becomeyour inspiration, and help take you up to the mountain peak!
Be a leader who inspires trust and loyalty, or be greedy and have nothing but mercenaries. The choice is yours.
But always remember that followers choose their leader!
How to Deal with Differences In Entrepreneurial Vision
On occasion I like using similes to make a point or start conversation. So to start things off on dealing with differences in vision for business growth, let’s think about this:
“All Roads Lead To Rome” is like “There Are Many Ways To Reach A Business Goal.”
Are there many ways to grow a company? Of course there are. Just because you spend marketing dollars on Adwords versus traditional marketing doesn’t mean you will grow faster or slower. Hiring Employee A instead of Employee B could be a good decision or a horrible one.
People often look at these decisions only from the short term benefit or drawback, but how these decisions are made generally comes from underlying vision for the company as a whole.
In business, the debates behind closed doors on why moves are being made is generally how they fit into long term vision for the company. These arguments can lead to chasms between partners, employers and employees. Simple decisions create massive conflict.
Speed Of Growth
One of the most common sources of conflict is speed of growth. How aggressive should you be in marketing, gambles in expanding overhead vs cash-flow, or shifts in pricing structure.
Generally there can be logical argument for both sides of these debates. The more conservative want slow growth, the aggressive say “let the dice roll, we’ve got this.”
Unfortunately, in business there are opportunities presented which require quick, decisive action. While there may be no risk in refusing to take advantage of them, for entrepreneurs wanting to growth and expand quickly, not being able to get everyone on board to make a gamble creates doubt about the long term.
While you might compromise on one decision, when you see a competitor whoseized it and is reaping the benefits, disagreement on future decisions grows rapidly.
The evidence supports my decisions, why won’t they listen to me?
This will run through your mind over and over, until you find yourself rather irritated and speaking out with aggression.
Enter Conflict
Because the business is more than just a job to entrepreneurs, it’s amazing how quickly differences in opinion escalate into personal attacks. Rather than just debating until finding a good compromise, personal egos rise and it’s now my way or the highway.
Tensions rise, friendships are destroyed and business partnerships become fragile.
When clients, investors or employees begin to sense these conflicts, it’s a normal and quite frankly reasonable to lose confidence and begin looking for alternatives.
Addressing Differences
When these issues arise, you have 4 options You can either be adults on both sides and fine the right choice, or have no excuse for the outcome.
- Trust Your Partner
- Find Compromise
- Go Separate Ways
- Destroy Your Company
In my opinion, the only logical choice is a combination of trusting your partner and finding compromise. If this can’t be reached, then going separate ways is the only alternative. This doesn’t have to be abrupt, but if you don’t do this then destroying the company is going to happen.
It may take time, but your fall will be much more difficult to overcome, and can destroy opportunities for the future.
Turning Conflict Into Success
Having conflict is very normal in business. Arguments about the next steps in growth and finding agreement in what are the long term goals can be very hard, but it also provides an opportunity to build a stronger relationship.
If you are willing to put aside your ego and view these conflicts as a way to collaborate, finding an even better option is often the outcome. This just requires willingness of everyone involved to not always be right. To put the needs of the company and all those who follow you before your own.
When you do this, overcoming conflicts, finding better options and achieving success as a team becomes much more likely. It’s just a matter of suppressing ego.
All roads may lead to Rome, but aren’t road trips better with friends?
These are just a few things to think about in resolving business conflicts. Share your experiences and ways you’ve been able to solve problems. with others in the comments below!