An Entrepreneurs Words Podcast

I'm going to ask a question to which I already know the answer. But I'm asking it anyway. Have you ever hated doing something? Maybe it's something boring that turns into pure drudgery. Perhaps it's something you just flat don't want to do. 

My favorite Major League baseball team is in a slump. They can't hit their way out of a paper bag. Their starting pitching has been amazing, but the bats are asleep. They are losing games 1 - 0 or 2 - 1. For a fan, it's agonizing to watch. 

What do sandpaper, tiny bits of stone and gravel, a 1969 John Wayne movie and successful people - especially entrepreneurs - have in common? The one-word answer is . . . grit.

We've always been told that there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes. I submit that there is one more guarantee that's much more pleasant. We can be guaranteed that every day will be a good day . . . if we make it so. How? 

The other day I was speaking with a man who was miserable in his job. He was feeling very stifled and unappreciated. He told me about several decisions his boss had made that proved costly to the company and impacted his bonus on a personal level. 

The U.S. Marine Corps is well known for taking raw young men and women and transforming them into lean, mean fighting machines (or so goes the saying). The process they use is fascinating and very instructive. It involves breaking down an individual and then building them back up. 

Tyler is an entrepreneur. He runs a small but growing company that recycles old computer equipment. Tyler is very frustrated right now. Marie is a stay-at-home mom. She has two small children under the age of five and produces marketing materials for three companies, working from a spare bedroom. Marie is very frustrated right now. Why are Tyler and Marie so frustrated?

Here are several scenarios. Tell me what's missing. A manufacturing operation is experiencing an alarming increase in the number of product rejections. A child chronically fails to turn in his homework assignments. Monthly financial reports for a company seem to always be delivered at least two weeks late and sometimes more. Bears are constantly getting into trash bins in a neighborhood and making an incredible mess.

Southwest Airlines has been in business since 1967 and has recorded 43 consecutive years of profitability. The company flies 707 Boeing 737 aircraft with 278 more on order. Southwest pioneered low-cost travel and has grown to be one of the largest airlines in the world. 

When is the last time you thought about being eaten by an alligator? When was the last time you contemplated being run over by a cement mixer? Or, how about being beaned in the head by a meteorite? Probably never - right? 

Here's a set-up question. What do you think of companies that aren't honest with their customers? The answers range from, "That's terrible" to "It happens every day." Unfortunately both answers are correct. 

Let's look at two scenarios. A busy and stressed-out entrepreneur is on the run. He stops by the desk of a colleague and says the following, "I need some PowerPoint slides for a presentation about our XYZ product. This is a top priority - I need it ASAP."

"Just concentrate on throwing the ball over the plate rather than breaking the sound barrier, and be more varied and selective with your pitches." That's the advice catcher Norm Sherry gave to future Hall of Fame pitcher, Sandy Koufax, in 1961.

Here is a fascinating subject for all entrepreneurs (and everyone else for that matter). It's the world of auto-antonyms with a focus on one particular word in the English language. What is an auto-antonym you ask? Don't worry; you didn't miss anything in school. Until I looked it up, I had no idea about auto-antonyms, sometimes called a contranym. 

In 1961, Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies suffered a 23-game losing streak. The 2013-14 NBA Philadelphia 76ers enduring a 26-game losing streak. In 1976-77 the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the longest losing streak in NFL history at 26 games.

How often have you encountered situations where you conclude that luck must have played a part in the outcome? Perhaps you barely escaped being involved in a horrific accident. Or you walked into a meeting with a prospective customer with whom you'd never spoken and won a major account just by "being in the right place at the right time." 

We've explored the concept of Vision in this podcast before. But I'd like to share a technique that has worked for me - perhaps you'll find it valuable too. Simply put, vision is "what it looks like when we get there." Remember when we were young and a family vacation to Disneyland was being planned? What was the focus? 

I've been watching with great interest as my 2-1/2 year-old grandson and his 11-month old sister explore their relatively new lives. Building an entrepreneurial business is a lot like raising a child. There's a tremendous amount of nurturing required. Let's look at the parallels.

As entrepreneurs exactly who are we? What makes us tick? Is there some sort of DNA gene that we can point to? I've thought a lot about some of the exceptional entrepreneurs I've known over the past four decades and have identified some of their traits and tendencies that stand out.

What do the following have in common? A To'ak Chocolate Bar, Sapporo's Space Barley Beer, the Shure KSE1500 Electrostatic Earphone System, the Rolls Royce Phantom Serenity automobile, and the Bunn Tiger XL Super-Auto Espresso Machine? OK, here's a hint. The chocolate bar costs $260; the beer retails at $110 per six pack; the earphone system costs $2,999; the Rolls Royce runs $1.1 million, and the Bunn coffee machine is $12,000.