The Power of NO
We need the courage to start and continue what we should do, and courage to stop what we shouldn’t do.
–Richard L. Evans
What will you say no to today?
We need the courage to start and continue what we should do, and courage to stop what we shouldn’t do.
–Richard L. Evans
What will you say no to today?
I was walking along the promenade in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Stretched in front of me were vendor after vendor selling to the evening crowds. I love cake. At one table, a woman and her family had the most amazing cakes for sale. I bought a slice of the chocolate one and sat across from them to enjoy it. Afterwards I watched as between busy periods the woman and her spouse were close together.
“People like us, do things like that”
This was one of my biggest take away ideas from the day I spent in New York with entrepreneur, marketer, and teacher Seth Godin. I’ve been paying attention to Seth Godin, reading his books, his blog, and watching his videos since I first saw him speak at the Direct Marketing Conference in 2005. I admire Seth for many reasons and jumped at the chance to spend an entire day with him (and several hundred others) at his one Q&A session in the US in 2016.
“All businesses are people businesses.” Bob Park, President & CEO, Fincad
Bob Park is an entrepreneur who has overcome numerous challenges and changes in the twenty-five years since he co-founded Fincad. Bob and his original partner started the business in 1990 in the early stages of the modern over-the-counter financial derivatives business. Coming from the brokerage industry, they saw that there was a tremendous imbalance between what the derivatives experts in the big banks knew and what their clients, mainly non-financial companies, knew. As a result, the corporate treasurers and CFOs of those customer organizations were making costly mistakes or even being cheated. Bob and his partner set out to level the playing field by providing the customers of the banks with the knowledge and technology needed to deal in the derivatives markets in an informed way. Bob started with almost no money and has weathered stormy periods to reinvent himself and his company.
If you want to dramatically improve the results of your company or organization, you need to focus on both your culture and people. Chris Edmonds’ has been showing people exactly how to do this for over twenty years. He has now taken this knowledge and beautifully presented it to us in his latest book The Culture Engine.