Naked On A Stage….Dressed In A Meeting
We talk a lot in business about the power of teamwork. Great companies are built, it is said, on the power of exceptional teams.
There is certainly truth to this but it obfuscates the fact that teams are composed of individuals. And unless an individual is strong, smart and innovative, his value to a team is minimal. People don’t get great because they are joined together in groups, they can only contribute excellence in a way that– in the best of circumstances– makes the group greater than the sum of its parts.
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John Fitzgerald Reagan
I was just a kid when out of the corner of my eye I saw JFK standing on the steps of the Capitol, coatless and hatless on a frigid January afternoon, taking the oath of office as the 35th president of the United States.
In a flash, all of the dates and factoids about this place called America came together in an explosive epiphany that manifested itself in a burst of passionate patriotism. Somehow, with his natural gift of leadership, his God-given ability to make us aspire to greatness, I understood what had come before in the shaping of this exceptional land and what would be next as we set our sites on the moon.
Can you do me a favor?
–> Please Take This Short Survey <—
I announced last week that I am making a fundamental change in the way I interact with the thousands of people who follow me on TV, read my Entrepreneur.com articles, listen in to my ABC radio show, and read my business and marketing books. I’ve realized that I haven’t had the opportunity to work with many of you one-on-one and I want to change that. The Internet provides the means for us to engage together through video, blog posts, comments, teleseminars, and email so we can work on our businesses together and learn from each other in a community environment.
I’m going to share with you insight that I’ve gained over the years. I’ve put together a short 3 question survey for you to take that will provide me with the insight I need to begin to help you overcome the challenges and struggles you face with your business.
I’ll be in touch later this week with the results of this survey and my next “Business Dispatch” video.
We’ll Talk Soon,
Mark Stevens
CEO, MSCO
–> Please Take This Short Survey <—
You Cannot Lead It If You Do Not Love It
I see IT in their eyes.
It is a lack of pride in the companies they have been hired to run, or that they inherited. To them it is just a job, a means of earning a living or of fulfilling a responsibility. READ MORE
The Strange Orbits of School and Life
I never learned a thing from teachers. Ever.
By that I mean the kind of academics who preside over classrooms, drone on about the Boxer Rebellion, go through the litany of dates and isolated factoids the curriculum requires them to do, and then walk alone, high and mighty, out of the class when the bell rings.
At precisely the critical juncture when the students are free to leave the building and walk back into real life, well that’s when (for me) the real learning would begin.
Hungry Eyes
When Ernest Hemingway was a young American expat struggling to find his voice as a writer of pristine, bone-thin fiction, he would make time to study the work of Impressionist artists.
There was a message in their work, he believed, a code, that he could build into his craft. But he insisted on viewing the paintings on an empty stomach, when he was hungry, believing that this would help him to decipher their genius.
Utopian Economics
Imagine if everything in the world was free. Yachts, homes, jewels, cars: everything.
And add to that, imagine there was an unlimited supply of everything. Everyone who wanted an ocean front mansion in East Hampton could have it. The same for Mercedes SLs and Harry Winston diamonds.
Utopian economics, right?
Perhaps, but I have a question: when would you stop scooping up every luxurious bauble in sight? Sure, the first week you would dash all over the place, snapping up the objects of your dreams. But what about the second week? Would it still be supermarket sweepstakes? The second month? The second year? READ MORE
The Call Of The Wild. The Gravity Of Discipline.
Everywhere we look, there is temptation. Gorgeous gems to buy. Exhilarating experiences to indulge in. Partying, drinking, working on incredibly exciting brainstorms, nights that never have to end, meals that can be endless feasts, people that fascinate and that are made to dance off with into meadows and to cavort under waterfalls, enterprises that respond to our input and blossom like magnolias in sunlight.
The more we give, do, absorb, partake, enjoy, relish and the more we do so with reckless abandon, the more we are enveloped in a magic that never comes when we simply nibble at the intensity of life. Everything that is good and great is a narcotic of sorts, tempting us to stretch the envelope, test the limits and keep on breaking the sound barrier until we pass out or fall asleep. READ MORE
Running Into Lightning, Arms Wide Open
There are two kinds of people in life: those who run away at the first sign of lightning and a far smaller group who dash headlong in its direction.
That the former seek shelter from the storm is understandable. There is danger in the black clouds and wiry bolts of electricity. All of the experts will tell you to head for bunker and stay put until the danger passes.
But what do the experts know? They aren’t smart enough to see with their myopic vision that the DANGER NEVER PASSES. Run from the lightning and you’ll be running from everything: READ MORE
There Ain’t No Pacifists In Boardrooms
Everyone who brags that they are “a pacifist” is really lying.
Pacifism is an intellectual deceit perpetrated by those who want to elevate themselves above the average man or woman. To distance themselves from the Great Unwashed.
To this pretentious class of snobs, anyone who favors war — even in defense of liberty — is too much of a dumb slob to understand the pious sanctity of a blanket refusal to go to war. READ MORE
The Staggering Beauty of Ugly Math
Every year, young people make a pilgrimage to MSCO in search of a career in marketing. When we ask them why they are interested in making marketing their life’s work, they respond in a flash:
“I want to do something creative.”
That’s when I launch into a sermon they neither want nor expected. The point of which is that any endeavor, every profession or avocation, can and should be treated as endlessly creative. READ MORE
The Leaders of the Free World
Do not live and work in the White House. They toil away in garages, home offices, office suites, factories and corporate parks.
They are the men and women with ideas, with innovations and with the determination to turn their concepts and prototypes into marketable products. They face daunting challenges and overwhelming odds. It is an uphill battle of titanic proportions. Always has been. Always will be. If they don’t know it when they begin the journey, they run smack into the hard truth at some point along the way. READ MORE
When The Truth Is Found To Be Lies
The Coen Brothers’ 2009 film, ”A Serious Man,” is built around the 1967 Jefferson Airplane classic, ”Somebody To Love. ”
It is a typical Coen Brothers’ tangled story of despair, masterfully executed and focused on a Big Bang epiphany that all of the most cherished truths, vaunted seers and wise men are about as smart and right with their theories of life – as a village idiot. READ MORE
