Ideas are free, execution is priceless.

My friend’s venture firm incubates, builds and grows tech startups. He once told me that a huge red flag in the acquisition process is when a company has what’s called a customer concentration risk. Meaning, a significant portion of the organization’s recurring income can be attributed to a single source, and that company runs the risk of losing anticipating revenue at best, and full blown brand extinction at worst….

We’ve always been told that comedy is tragedy plus time. Maybe the equation of the self works in a similar way. What if maturity was just identity plus time? After all, knowing who we are isn’t the hard part. Knowing how to use who we are to navigate the losses, rejections, failures, mistakes and transitions life throws at us, that’s the real work. Opening ourselves to the wisdom that…

When success comes to us fast, early and often, it’s not unusual to think that it will keep coming. When we’re young and naïve and the whole world is still in front of us, of course nothing could possibly block the flow of good in our lives. We’re bulletproof. But one of the lessons we learn as we get older is, attachment often means thinking that the good times…

Client services is an inherently stressful business model. Here’s why. Companies that hire your agency to do marketing or public relations or consulting are essentially paying you for something else. To worry for them. That’s what your monthly fee goes toward. Outsourced anxiety. And such, clients not only want, but expect their agencies to be neurotic. Practically twenty four hours a day. Think of it from their perspective. If…

It’s called the pursuit of happiness because it takes real work. And the mistake we make along the way is believing that happiness is intentional. It’s not. Happiness is incidental. It’s a side effect. It’s not the target, it’s the reward we get for hitting it. Maybe instead of buying into the happiness industrial complex, what would be more productive is an apprenticeship in the art of acceptance. Not…