One of my favorite authors, Robin Sharma, also coaches clients like GE, IBM, FedEx, and Coke. He recently released a video called “The 5 Fastest Ways to Recession-Proof your Business.” Click here to watch the video. It is over 10 minutes long, so I will summarize for my blog.
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The Power of Forum
I just got back from a conference for EO Injected Forums in Sonoma, CA where I had a great time with my Forum mates sharing and learning together. It struck me that I talk about Forum lot in my blog, but not everyone has had the opportunity to be in a forum or even understand what a Forum is, so let me tell you about the Forum experience.
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Creating a Jobs Economy
Our nation is struggling to create jobs. You’ve likely heard that regulations have limited businesses’ capital, making it difficult for them to hire or expand. Have you wondered what types of changes to these regulations would help this economy create more jobs? Let’s discuss a few key changes that have worked in the past to encourage companies to grow and hire more people.
Many regulations create a big problem for the economy. Which regulations and policies are stopping us from creating the jobs that we are missing? Amity Shlaes writes an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, Three Policies That Gave Us the Jobs Economy.”
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What does your business card actually say about your business?
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching a presentation to my local EO Chapter by Simon Mundell Head of Business Development with RESULTS.com out of New Zealand. Simon shared some interesting material about how companies can operate better to get the results they are striving to achieve.
Of all the many things that Simon discusses, one stands out above the others; something so small that most of us tend to overlook its significance. Typically Simon will ask everyone in the group to pull out their business cards and swap with the person next to them.
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Investing: Sometimes the mattress looks good…
22 years in the investment world, running a money management and mutual firm taught me a thing or two. I experienced ups and downs, and learned a lot. The world is a difficult place when it comes to stock markets, and trying to decide where to place your money. In case you haven’t noticed, after a decade the markets today are still lower than they were in 2000. Scary thought.
It’s my experience that those in the marketplace that manage money have short streaks of what appears to be brilliance. They are labeled as a guru, right up until something changes in the market, and they go back to being the average Joe, or even worse, losing lots of money.
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What do you find in the space between opposites?
There are a lot of theories floating around on the world and how things work. There are just as many assumptions, which the majority of us live by to varying degrees. Take for instance, opposites. It’s the general consensus that everything has an opposite. If I asked you the opposite of dark and cold, you would likely say light and hot, respectively. Have you considered that dark is merely the absence of light, and cold the absence of heat? If you added 10 degrees of heat to -200 degrees, does that make it hot, or just less cold?
Looking at it from this perspective shows us that they are linear graduations on the same line, according to Dr. David Hawkins in his book I: Reality and Subjectivity.
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How Do You Get Great Ideas?
Many of us out there hold a strong aversion and distaste for meetings. You have heard it before, or possibly even said it yourself: “We do nothing but have meetings around here, so how am I to get any work done?” Why do we have such negative feelings in regards to getting a group of people together to discuss issues and create solutions to move forward?
I believe strongly in the power of the group and think it is vital to bring people together to create the best ideas. If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you have seen me discuss my belief in collective intelligence, an ideal I trust in so much that I even started a mutual fund managed around the philosophy.
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A Lesson in Listening
There are times when you have to make business decisions that are painful. Those decisions are often accompanied by the feeling that your work, effort, worry, and money have all been a waste.
For 4 years now, my partner Rich and I have owned a franchise of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. These franchises have been successful all over North America, and we wanted to bring it to Knoxville. The founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK is a fellow EO member that I met in 2001. For 4 years I watched the business grow and become successful before we bought the rights to the Knoxville market.
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Three Things Scrooge Would Say About Our Business
As we approach Christmas and get to spend more time with our family and friends in a spirited, colorful environment full of lights, we open our hearts and our pocket books to give and share what we have with others. While I cannot speak for you, it makes me feel good to give to others. When it is done with sincerity, I feel it has that effect similar to when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes. It changed him. I look to the holidays to have that growing heart experience and hope the holidays have the same effect on you.
