65 Things I Wish Someone Would've Told Me When I Started My Company

March 06, 2008 1:45 PM

1. A successful speech is a group effort.
2. Activity isn’t progress.
3. Ask yourself how YOU can do it before asking how it’s already been done.
4. Be confident but uncertain.
5. Be gentle and non-critical of yourself.
6. Build credibility into everything you do.
7. Discard evaluative tendencies.
8. Don’t advertise your importance.
9. Don’t be stopped by not knowing HOW.
10. Don’t count on your audience to connect the dots.
11. Don’t fall in love with your own ideas.
12. Don’t reach for ready-made replies.
13. Don’t talk so goddamn much.
14. Don’t talk the energy out of your idea or else there will be nothing left for action.
15. Don’t waste your time playing to the wrong crowd.
16. Doubt is healthy.
17. Emulate, don’t imitate.
18. Every day is the answer.
19. Everything you do should lead to something else you do.
20. Everything you write MUST have a response mechanism.
21. Fear the known.
22. Find a way to catalyze your discontent.
23. Find out if this is an opportunity, or an opportunity to be used.
24. Formulas are reductive. Stick with practices.
25. Get the other person to learn it on their own.
26. Get the other person to say it on their own.
27. Get their email.
28. Give people new eyes, not new landscapes.
29. Good art is never finished.
30. Ideas are your major source of income.
31. If all you’re doing is speaking, you don’t have a business.
32. If all you’re doing is speaking, you have no audience outside of your audience.
33. If they want you, they’ll find you.
34. If you make it an issue, you give other people permission to make it an issue.
35. Know the patterns of your ignorance.
36. Notice your patterns of energy investment.
37. Patience. It’s only a matter of time. They’ll come when they’re ready for you.
38. Pinpoint your value and work backwards.
39. Publicists are full of BS.
40. Punch people in the face. Make it really, really clear.
41. Recognize threats to your ownership.
42. Refuse to define yourself by others’ assessments.
43. See more by striving less.
44. Seeking destroys the journey.
45. Seven words: “I respect your opinion of my work.”
46. Shut up and listen.
47. Something isn’t always better than nothing.
48. State your fee confidently and shut up. He who talks next loses.
49. Stop trying to win over complete strangers who don’t know how to value you yet.
50. The loudest person in the room is usually the weakest person in the room.
51. The map is not the territory.
52. The media doesn’t care about you.
53. The more time you’ve been given to talk, the less you should actually speak.
54. The number of eyeballs isn’t as important as WHOSE eyeballs.
55. The purpose is found in the process
56. The question isn’t IF they should use you, it’s HOW they should use you.
57. Wait for the right time to prove people wrong.
58. Wearing glasses makes you look smarter.
59. When you do an interview, you’re NOT there to answer their questions.
60. Writing is the answer to everything.
61. You don’t always have to organize everything.
62. You don’t need to apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong.
63. You don’t need to be the expert. Only the PERCEIVED expert.
64. You don’t need to justify your existence to anyone.
65. Your calendar is your inventory.