Preserve, Destroy, Create: Your Only Path to Breakthrough Growth

“If it’s not broken, why fix it?” We’ve all said that as a justification for not moving forward with a difficult situation or decision. The question is, what if the status quo is broken and we’re just ignoring the need for repair? What if we lack the awareness, clarity, courage, or strength to take painful action to get to a better place? Business activity falls into three buckets: Preservation, Destruction, or Creation. To move to the next level, a business must go through all three phases.

Are You The Gatorade of Your Market? “No one else has the ability or right to do what we do in our market.”

When you hear “Gatorade,” what do you think? While the name may conjure up seemingly simple ideas such as “sports drink” or “flavored water,” the science behind the Gatorade brand is actually very complex, and is focused on something much bigger, bolder, and specific.

Sarah Robb O’Hogan, North American President of Gatorade and Global Chief Marketing officer of Sports Nutrition for PepsiCo, shared how Gatorade’s brand weakened during the bloated economy, and how the recession brought the brand back to its core consumer. Gatorade’s global mission is “to be the world leader in innovative sports nutrition.” Says O’Hagan: “No one else has the ability or the right to do what we do in our market.”

15 Ways to Be a Lousy CEO

Leadership isn’t just about knowing how to do the right things. It’s also about being hyper-aware of behaviors that can quickly alienate your employees and bring down your organization. In a position of leadership, everything you do counts. All eyes are on you, even when you aren’t there. Employees feel your presence throughout the day because you set the tone. This is what it means to be a leader – to be aware of how your actions and decisions impact others even when you are physically absent. My 17 years of business leadership have taught me 15 ways how to fail at leadership.

Strategies for Evaluating and Building a Solid Banking Relationship

One of the most important strategic relationships a business owner has is with his/her banker. Yet so often, we treat this relationship as a commodity.

Switching banks is not something that I would recommend lightly. As veteran business owners know, the process is cumbersome, stressful, and time-consuming even under the best circumstances. However, sometimes you have to know when it’s time to make a change.

Status Quo Bringing You Down? Our Obsession With Being Better

It’s that time of the year when we tell ourselves that we’re going to be better next year. There’s no shortage of experts to help us achieve “better” or “more.” Is it just me, or are we experiencing an obsession with how-to-lists, habit lists, and steps to a better place?

Group Dynamics: Small Stones Cast Big Ripples

Throw a tiny pebble into a pond and watch the ripples reverberate. They cascade outward beyond the point that our eyes can see. The effects occur on the surface and beneath it. Have you ever thought about this change principle in the context of an organization? One of the most disruptive actions regarding a group’s dynamic is the addition of a new member. In an organization, bringing in just one new employee into a company can potentially affect the chemistry and interactions of existing employees, and therefore compromise productivity. Consciously or subconsciously, employees are thinking, “How will this change affect my job?” “How will this person affect how we do things around here?” Their sense of organizational trust may be challenged.

“Always.” “Never.” “Every.” A Guaranteed Path to Failure.

Always, Never, and Every are the easiest ways to set yourself up for failure. There’s no room for error. Everything is presented as an all-or-none… an absolute. Who wants to live life with no wiggle room for error?

The quest for perfection is too exhausting and completely self-sabotaging.

Be a little kinder to yourself. Show some self-love. Lower the self-expectations just a notch.

Getting to “I Love What I Do and I’m Great At It.”

How much valuable time do you expend on activities that don’t fuel your passion or make you struggle? That’s the question I considered as I listened to David Siteman Garland talk about the activities that fill our time on a daily basis. David was a special guest at an event hosted by one of the most remarkable networking communities in the DC region called Cadre

As an Entrepreneur, I Am Thankful

It’s always the right time to live life from a place of gratitude. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, today I reflect on what it means to be thankful as an entrepreneur.

Creating a Culture of Fanatical Belief: The Most Brilliant Marketing Campaign. EVER.

What if you could generate about $1.6 million in sales every year by filling a room with people that pay you to stare at them? Meet “Braco” (pronounced Braht-zo), a “gentle man from Croatia” who apparently has a remarkable gift that has helped countless lives. Each year, 200,000 people pay $8 each to stare at Braco for 30 minutes. In silence. He tours the U.S. and Europe to reach people who are “seeking help from life’s difficulties, health problems, relationship issues, and more.”