Make A Good Decision

Business leaders need to be able to make good decisions — often. One of my favorite ways of making a decision when I find myself wavering is to picture myself giving advice on this decision to a young professional who is just getting started in their career. I picture someone that I care for and want to see be successful. Maybe picture a son or daughter, niece or nephew. What would you tell them? How would you help them make the right choice? By mentally taking the decision out of your own hands, it is easier to see the decision objectively. By giving advice to a young professional you care about, it forces you to break down your thinking and give them the best you’ve got. Make a good decision today! Your business may depend upon it.

The Next Generation: A Great Son Doesn't Always Make a Great Boss

Very few things in this world are as satisfying as starting a business from scratch and making it grow with hard work and dedication. There are many large companies that started out in garages, small apartments or even the corner of a busy city street. In any case, all business owners that started from the bottom will eventually face the inevitable concern of figuring out who they will pass the torch to. Company presidents who face this dilemma are usually drawn to the idea of transitioning their ownership position to one of their children. After all, these are the people they often feel that they can trust the most. They grew up with the values you taught them and they are decent human beings and great sons and daughters, but maybe they don’t really have what it takes to run the business that took you so much effort over so many years.

There is a very common problem with a strong business that is passed to the next generation of the family. It’s been said that the first generation works extremely hard and barely enjoys the perks. The second generation works just hard enough to keep things running, but they enjoy all the benefits of their successful business. The third generation has everything they ever wanted, but they didn’t put in the same effort for it.

This risk can be minimized if you expect them to learn and earn what they are going to get. Make them work hard, do not give them all the advantages and perks without making them get a taste of hard work and 12 hour days of stress and tension. If you want things to run properly when you give away the power of your company to your sons or daughters, make sure they appreciate what you are giving to them.

The Perfect Hiding Place

When we were kids, we hid from chores, we hid from friends during a game of hide-and-seek, and on occasion ( if we’d really stepped out of line), we hid from our parents.

It wasn’t until we became adults that we learned to hide from ourselves.

People hide for different reasons, but we all do it…

and our work can be the perfect hiding place.

The trouble is, we are rarely called out.

Why?

Being busy is admired… even revered…

It’s easy to wear our busyness like a badge of honor instead of seeing it as a telltale sign that we are hiding.

Maybe we are hiding from something, or someone or maybe we are hiding from ourselves.

We all need balance between the intensity and demands of work and the intensity and demands of life. It’s the space in between that we crave. That space that grounds us in who we are and what makes us special. That space between that enables us to discover what ignites our spirit and what drags us down.

If you don’t have it, you need to build it in.

Come out, come out wherever you are…

Are you living the life you want or hiding from the one you don’t? It’s time to discover or rediscover what ignites your spirit.