Tag: personal development

Coaching Athletes vs. Coaching Entrepreneurs

COACHING ATHLETES: All professional athletes have coaches. No serious competitor would attempt to compete at peak level without one. A coach is not just another player or colleague; a coach is a specially trained person with a very specific role. A coach does not have to be a star athlete....

The Entrepreneur Mad Hatter

Today I feel like Johnny Depp in the movie Alice in Wonderland, who plays the role of the Mad Hatter. An entrepreneur in an early-stage startup company has a lot of different hats to wear, and this can be enough to drive you stark-raving mad. In order to keep my...

What every entrepreneur should learn from Abraham Lincoln

Starting a business is tough. No one will dispute that fact. Statistics tell us that approx. 90% of all startups will fail within the first 5 years. So what is the key entrepreneurial trait that differentiates the other 10 percent? No, it is not that these entrepreneurs are smarter, have...

The perfect ski run

I watched the crazy downhill guys on TV yesterday. As these skiers were getting ready to plunge down the icy slopes of a mountain at speeds of up to 140 km per hour, they prepared themselves by closing their eyes and envisioning skiing the course, turn for turn, in an...

Starting at the End

I often get everything backwards… ass backwards. Whether it is in my life or with my business, I often get things turned around the wrong way… and this causes me to struggle and flounder. While running a small business I am continually confronted with problems and challenges that are complex...

“If you are so smart… why are you not rich?”

“If you are so smart, why are you not rich?” I saw this written on a T-shirt the other day at a gathering of entrepreneurs. It was a blatant challenge and it made me stop and think. In looking back on my 20 years as an entrepreneur, have I failed...

Meetings with Remarkable Men

I saw a strange French movie in 1979 that made a big impact on me. It was called Meetings with Remarkable Men and told the story of G.Gurdjieff, a philosopher who traveled through Central Asia in order to discover spirituality through dance, music, near-encounters with death and by meeting remarkable...

A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste (Part 1)

My own company is in a crisis right now… a real crisis with tough decisions to make, sleepless nights to endure and an impending sense of doom that is like a nasty hangover.  A bit of bad luck, bad timing, some strategic mistakes and a global financial crisis have all...