Courage of Conviction

Success

Matthew Best — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:12:09 +0000

Success is a topic that everyone loves to talk about, but few will do what is necessary to achieve success. When it comes to success, it’s about shutting up and getting down to the business of success:

I can’t stress how important it is to actually define success. Without a clear definition of what success means to you, you’ll never know if you are successful.

So what is your definition of success? What does success look like? What does it feel like?

Dashboard

Matthew Best — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:19:56 +0000

When you look at most successful businesses and organizations, a key characteristic is that the leaders of these organizations know how the organization or business is doing at any given time. They know because they measure, not just results, but more importantly activity and key indicators. I wrote a short article about this idea. Here’s a couple of the paragraphs:

One of the most important parts of any strategic plan is the implementation of that plan. Without implementing what you’ve laid out, all you’ve really done is a nice exercise in philosophy.

A key to implementation is measuring results. A common question I hear is “but what do I measure?”

The big question of course comes down to what to measure. Each business and organization is different. When in doubt, measure something, anything - you’ll learn over the course of a short time span if what you are measuring is what you need to measure - is it a key indicator for how well your business is doing or is what you are measuring a lagging measurement that tells you something after the fact. If what you are measuring is not assisting you to make future adjustments, then change what you are measuring. Just like most things in life - the hardest part is getting started.

Goal Getting

Matthew Best — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:39:00 +0000

I wrote a short article for my weekly newsletter on goal getting - that is, accomplishing goals. So often in our society and especially in the development field we focus on the first part - goal setting.

The key to a great strategic plan, that most people forget, is not the goal setting part. I work with many clients on goal clarification. Without the clarification, nothing else can happen, so don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here.

To make a strategic plan truly “great” or effective, the focus needs to shift to goal getting once the plan is in place.

The simple version of what success is can be summarized into two parts - set the goal and be clear about what it is and do actions necessary to accomplish the goal. So simple! And here’s the thing - most entrepreneurs struggle with this because it is so easy. Entrepreneurs aren’t into doing things the easy way - they exist to figure their own way of doing things. That’s a great trait to have and at the same time it can be a huge detriment. The key is knowing when to use this strength and when to lay it aside. When we master that, simple is acceptable - the switch flips in our minds that says that what we are doing is easy, so long as we allow it to be easy. And that’s where the goal getting starts to happen.

Being Organized

Matthew Best — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:52:20 +0000

I wrote an article on being organized - my definition of being organized is probably not what you would expect.

For me, organization has nothing to do with perfection. Let’s be serious for a moment - my wife and I have three children aged 5, 3, and 1 - perfect organization just doesn’t happen in our house. There is no expectation that everything will be in its own place and tidy.

To me being organized is not about spending a great deal of time cleaning, buying organizational supplies, sorting, etc. My definition of being organized has everything to do with effectiveness.

The questions you want to ask yourself when it comes to being organized are:

What’s your definition of being organized? Are you looking for perfection? Do you need to alter your definition and expectations based on your circumstances and your personality? What small changes to your physical space could you make that would make you feel 10% more organized? How about mentally? When’s the last time you looked at your strategic plan?

The Unexpected

Matthew Best — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:36:59 +0000

I wrote a post about dealing with unexpected events - those things that are out of our control. Unexpected things are like wrenches in our plans, however they are also the things that let us know that we are alive. Only people who are alive have to deal with unexpected things, or challenges, or problems - so in that sense, we should celebrate the unexpected.

Here’s one way to handle unexpected things:

We can never fully expect everything that will happen over the course of the week, or each day. That’s why it’s important to allow yourself some cushion. You need not only a financial cushion to pay for necessary unexpecteds, but also a time cushion, and a stress cushion. Never pack your day so tight with activities that a small unexpected could throw the whole day into chaos.

You can read the whole post here.

Washing the Phone

Matthew Best — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:08:21 +0000

I wrote an article about washing my cell phone. Yes, it’s true - I wasn’t careful, didn’t check the pockets of my shorts and ended up with a clean, but unworkable phone. In times like these, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from such mistakes. In fact, events like this give us a moment to ask some questions of ourselves. Here’s a sample of the questions this event caused me to ask:

I tell you this story for a couple of reasons - first when you go through an unpleasant experience, what’s the silver lining? What are you learning from the experience? What do you have control over?

Second - make an assessment - ie. ask yourself questions - How bad do I need a phone? Can things wait until a later time without chaos happening?

Being Flexible

Matthew Best — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:37:15 +0000

I wrote a post about being flexible. Being flexible is so very important to so many parts of life - not just business. Being stiff, or rigid, is the equivalent to death. Dead things have no flexibility - they snap. Things that are full of life bend - the palm tree is a great example. Here’s some more questions from the posting:

What do you do with this extra time that you now have? Do you travel back to the office? Do you pull out a laptop and answer some e-mails? Do you pull out a book to do some reading? Do you networking with someone nearby? Do you work on something you have been procrastinating?

All of these are great options. However, unless you plan ahead of time, you’ll never know what the best use of that extra time will be. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about planning what to do with extra time ahead of time.

John McCain’s Dream World

Matthew Best — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:17:36 +0000

I didn’t see McCain’s speech, but I heard enough snipits and read enough about it to feel comfortable enough to comment. What I take away from it was that Sen. McCain is in self-absorbed dream world. McCain’s speech covered just about every issue there is, and that’s the problem. It highlights one of the things I don’t like about John McCain - no vision. A vision is not a checked off task list, which is what McCain gave. In that sense, his speech was similar to so many State of the Union addresses - not a state of the union, rather a list of goodies the President wants.

A vision is what Reagan gave when we he talked about America being a shining city on a hill and his talk about the winning the Cold War. A vision is what Kennedy spoke about when he talked about putting a man on moon. A vision is what FDR spoke about in defeating the Axis and the freedom from fear. These are visions about freedom and human expansion.

My biggest pet peeve about McCain is that the man is all about himself. He’s always been about himself as an elected politician. This speech exemplifies this. Again no vision for the country. Not even a vision for the GOP, which is hopelessly rudderless at the moment. McCain has no interest in providing a vision for the GOP - he stated so when he said that he would be running against Congress and Bush. He cares nothing about providing coattails to those who should naturally be willing to work with him.

His notion that partisanship is a bad thing is probably the most troubling aspect of his speech. An efficient government that would allow him to do whatever it is that he wanted to do is a bad government. The most efficient government there is, is a dictatorship. I’ve always said that I support a gridlocked government - it means that the people cannot get screwed over any more than they are right now.

As far as I’m concerned, this speech continues to show me that a McCain presidency would be scary prospect.

Taking Time Off…If You Dare

Matthew Best — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:14:52 +0000

I wrote a post on my EADD blog about taking time off from work - whether you are the owner or not. Here’s a small sample of questions people should be asking themselves:

If you have your own business, take a moment and answer this question - why did you start your business? Was it because you got tired of being told what to do? You wanted more freedom? I’m sure for many of you, those reasons were a part of the equation.

If you work for someone else, you can ask yourself a similar question - why did I go to work for the company I work for? I’ll bet that one of the reasons has to do with having more freedom in some form.

Ok, so here’s the deal - we entrepreneurs need to take time off in order to be refreshed, renewed, and re-charged. Without taking time away, even the most creative entrepreneur becomes stale. Without time off and away from the business, even the hardest working person becomes prone to accidents and mistakes.

Take time right now to determine when you will take some time off, even if it’s only a day. Spend time with your family, take a small trip, or just take a day and go to the park and read.

Optimist vs. Pessimist

Matthew Best — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:34:36 +0000

I wrote a post on the idea of an optimist vs. a pessimist. Here’s the beginning:

Oscar Wilde once defined a pessimist as “one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.”

I suppose, based on that definition, you could define an optimist as one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses neither.

What does this have to do with your business or job? Everything. Every day we are confronted with options - do we delegate or just do the job ourselves? Do we organize our space or invest time in marketing? Do we do what is urgent or what is important?

How do you make your decisions? Are you the type of person who looks at a glass with water filled to the halfway mark and says that the glass is half-empty or half-full. Or are you someone who says that both of those answers are wrong - the glass is always full, it’s just a matter of what it’s full of.