The Agile Scaleup

Grateful for Adversity; Love vs Lust; Allocate vs Accumulate; Happiness

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES: (Happy Thanksgiving Week)   Trust that everything life brings you is a gift.   Brother David Choose to Be Grateful -- especially choose to be grateful for adversity. This is the message Barrett Ersek, founder of Holganix, shared last week at a gathering of Entrepreneur Organization (EO) members. Take four minutes to watch this video presentation (start at 12:04) where Barrett describes how he chose gratitude when his business faced a death blow. And if you have time, back up to 8:50 and listen to his story of when he first tested the power of gratitude - an incident with his family. I plan to share Barrett's heartfelt message with my family on Thanksgiving Day. Love vs. Lust -- this ended up being the theme of my keynote presentation before 1200 military leaders, entrepreneurs, and students at General Hugh Shelton's Values-based Leadership Forum last Friday in Raleigh, NC. I was the warm-up speaker for American icon Tom Brokaw, the trusted voice of news on NBC for so many years. I framed my speech by referencing the famous Grant Men's study looking at what makes us happy (268 men that have been followed for over 70 years) where the lead researcher for the past 40 years summed up the findings in one word - if you want to be happy then "Love - full stop." Here's an excellent look at the study along with a 6 minute video by the lead researcher Dr.George Vaillant. Give vs. Take -- rather than define hate as the opposite of love, I chose lust. Long ago, someone explained the difference between love and lust. If you love someone or something you're willing to GIVE them/it your all; if you simply lust for someone or something, you want to TAKE. So love vs. lust is really a decision between giving and taking. Therefore, the overarching value that drives decision making should be whether it's an act of love (give) or lust (take). Listen vs. Talk -- listening is giving attention; talking is taking attention. Asking questions is inviting others to participate; making statements is taking away their opportunity to contribute. If leaders can keep the give vs. take framework in their mind as they go through their everyday activities, they'll have a values-based compass for taking the right actions and making the best long-term decisions. Allocate vs. Accumulate -- in preparation for the speech, I reread Lynne Twist's book The Soul of Money. It was a powerful reminder that money is like water - it needs to flow - and be directed in loving vs. lustful ways. As she notes "money is a current, a carrier, a conduit for our intentions. Money carries the imprimatur of our soul" - challenging us to be known for what we allocate, not what we accumulate. What you appreciate, appreciates. Happy Thanksgiving.

Entrepreneurial Bullets; 4 Best Books for 2011; Year in Provence; Summer in Barcelona

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES:  Happy Global Entrepreneurship Week! Here's a link to activities in your region. Entrepreneurial Bullets - Lead vs. Silver -- Ben Horowitz has penned another brilliant blog post - please take 3 minutes and read. In essence, many companies think the best way to deal with a strong competitor is with a silver bullet, some creative twist that leapfrogs them. Instead of trying to be clever, maybe what you really need to do is hunker down and get the fundamental product you're offering right in the first place - what he's calling lead bullets. Notes Horowitz, "there comes a time in every company's life where it must fight for its life. If you find yourself running when you should be fighting, you need to ask yourself: "If our company isn't good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?" Turbulence Ahead: 4 Must Read Books for 2011 -- here's a link to my latest "Growth Guy" column. As I note in the opening paragraph "Looking for the perfect holiday gift to keep you and your company from becoming irrelevant? Here are four must-read books that will help you thrive, no matter what the economy throws at you in 2012 and beyond." See how many of these latest books you've read. 7 More Books for Entrepreneurs -- The Wall Street Journal, this week, highlighted seven books that can actually help entrepreneurs - based on interviewing real, live entrepreneurs! I was happy to see that Mastering the Rockefeller Habits made the list (Barrett Ersek, thanks for the support). Here's a link listing the other six - again, see how many of these classics you have already read An Entrepreneurs' Life -- John Warrillow's latest blog highlights his family's year in Provence, France. Author of Built to Sell, which I highlighted as one of the five must read books for 2011, Warrillow shares 6 hints for making the move with his wife and two young sons (4 and 6). He concludes, "Recently I got a note from an Italian-American entrepreneur who, at age 44, is considering taking his family to live in Italy for a year. I told him that it was a "game changer," which is the best way I can describe the decision. I think I now come at business problems with a broader perspective; but the real dividends have been on the home front, where our sabbatical has brought us closer as a family and given us some amazing memories and a larger world view than we had before we left. Bon Courage!" Ben Franklin International School -- here's my annual unabashed appeal to get you to move to Barcelona for a year and come hang with my family (four children 15, 13, 8, and 4) in one of the most beautiful cities in the world with one of the best international schools (just named #1 in the region), Ben Franklin International School. Now's the time to plan for the fall of 2012. Visit Barcelona Next Summer -- and if you want to just visit for a few weeks, our 5-bedroom flat with housekeeper/cook is available next summer. June 24 - July 14 is already pre-booked; July 15 - August 26 is available. Let me know if you're interested.

George Clooney; Best Website; Entrepreneur Rally; Martha Stewart

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES:    Best Aussie Event -- actor George Clooney and entrepreneur Martha Stewart will lead a line-up of internationally acclaimed business leaders (Russell Simmons, Jeff Taylor, Muhammad Yunis, and Michael Fertik) who will present at the inaugural Global Leadership Forum at the Sydney Convention Centre on December 12 -- hosted by our Gazelles partner The Growth Faculty . This one day seminar is an opportunity for businesses and their employees to be inspired by leaders who have revolutionised the way we communicate, invest, shop, use technology, act and live in global business. For more info click here. Use promo code "gazelles" to save some money. Best Website -- Dr. Glen Richards' Brisbane-based Greencross Vets website is one of the best I've seen in any industry. What I like best is how everything aligns - the photos, messages, and support - with the needs of pet owners. No wonder they are the largest vet clinic group (75 locations) in Australia. Proud to have them as a Rockefeller Habits practitioner. Best RIA -- and congratulations to Steve Sansom and his Memphis-based team at Green Square Capital, focused on entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs invest, for winning one of Schwab's three national Pacesetter awards for Registered Investment Advisors (RIA). Notes Schwab "Taking a page from the Rockefeller program, Green Square developed a strategic plan by working backward. It began by creating a 10-year view and worked backwards to create a one-year and quarterly view." That 10-year goal includes $10 billion under management. Today they are at $1.5 billion with just 12 employees, one of the most efficiently run RIAs in the nation. Congrats Steve. Best Victory -- if you need cash, Woodie Neiss has done the impossible - pushed through a crowd-funding bill that creates an SEC exemption for small businesses and startups trying to use the Internet to raise relatively small contributions from a large number of people. Notes Neiss "See what happens when you mess with an entrepreneur who wants to crowd-fund money from his friends, family and community but is shot down by archaic security rules??? Crowd-fund Investing had a HUGE VICTORY in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday! Our bill HR 2930, passed with a rare, almost unanimous burst of bipartisan support 407-17?!?!" Best Rally -- now Neiss needs to get it passed in the Senate. As part of the Global Entrepreneurs Week, Neiss is holding a rally outside the offices of the SEC in DC on November 17, 8am - 2pm - the entrepreneur's version of Occupy Wall Street! For more info and/or to contribute (Woodie is raising $10k to support the rally - I donated) go to this site and watch Neiss's short video. Need Best Corporate Start-up Stories -- did you work for a large company and then made the plunge to launch your own business? My next FORTUNE column will focus on five avenues/ways a person can make the leap. Do you have an interesting story of how you escaped and got started? How did you finance it? How did you survive without the big salary? Did you take an entire team with you when you left? Did you write a book that then launched your own solo career? Did you join an angel network or judge a business plan contest and found a venture you could leap into, getting a piece of the business? Did you have a neighbor with a great technology, but needed someone with corporate experience to run the business side of the venture? Send a quick note to [email protected] - we'll call and interview you.

Amazing Adventure; 5 Key Books; Critical KPI; 8 Traits of Transformative Companies

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES:    When you love something it tells you all its secrets.   Bob Parsons, Founder of GoDaddy   FORTUNE Growth Summit Amazing Adventure -- apply to be one of only 8 CEOs for this Jan 28 - Feb 4 executive excursion (filmed documentary), more below... but first: 5 Important Books -- my latest FORTUNE column is on the newsstands and online, highlighting five important 2011 books and what you'll learn from each. They are 5 books you might not have heard about, as opposed to the three biggies out this fall (Jobs biography, Collins latest, and Reichheld's updated Ultimate Question 2.0). BTW, a link to the column is something you might twitter or react to in a blog - gives you something to write about to build your own brand. Your Favorite Books -- and please go to the online FORTUNE column and suggest your recent favorite books in the "comment" section - or comment on the books I've listed. Let's make this a social thread of great business books from the past year or two from which we can all benefit i.e. one of the comments has already turned me onto a book I've not yet read, but it looks excellent. 8 Traits of Transformative Companies -- Todd Klein, VC behind the fastest growing company in the US last year, Ideeli, and head of YPO's Venture group, is also author of Built for Change (2011 release). Todd, our other celebrity CEO at the Growth Summit in addition to Bob Parsons, shared 8 traits of companies not just reacting to the future, but creating the future (criteria he uses for investing): fearlessness, irreverence, detachment, process, banishing small thinking, reinvention, universality, and appetite for destruction. Grab a copy of his book and make sure you have all eight traits represented in your business. Critical KPI, Labor Productivity -- Greg Crabtree, author of Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits!, suggests it's important to track labor productivity defined as gross margin divided by labor cost (total payroll). I agree!! Since payroll is one of your biggest expenses, you need to see if you're getting the best bang for your buck. Then use this number for deciding when to hire i.e. hire down to a certain ratio, then drive the company up to a higher ratio, then hire back down, then drive hard back up a little higher than before and keep repeating while slowly improving labor productivity through methods like LEAN and focusing on STRENGTHs. Greg's book has lots of other practical accounting ideas - have your CFO pickup a copy. End of Sales Commissions -- and this from Justin Roff-Marsh, author of The Machine, a book on sales process improvement. He has a free chapter from his book on the topic of sales commissions. Dan Pink unleashed a raging discussion on the topic at the Fortune Growth Summit and Justin, who feels the same as Dan, was swamped at his book table in the back of the room. Here's a link to his thoughts on the topic and a place to get the free chapter. Green Lake, WI -- does anyone own a home on Green Lake in Wisconsin? Amazing Adventure -- entitled Mother Nature, CEO: What nature has to teach us about innovation, leadership, and success, this transcontinental leadership, hike and kayak expedition will take place in Panama, January 28th to February 4th, 2012. Marketing guru David Meerman Scott is one of the distinguished faculty members along with leading scientists, musicians, and naturalists. Notes Nathan Gray, host of the excursion: There are only 8 openings for participants. We're looking for 8 accomplished and articulate individuals who have a passion for enquiry and adventure. Our invite is a casting call for intrepid explorers. We will be video documenting our time together - we'll even have a young film maker with National Geographic credits using a waterproof camera to cover our kayak trip from the Continental Divide to the Kuna Caribbean coast. You'll be asked to sign a release, though you'll have veto power on final edits. We want all of us to act naturally, confident that no embarrassing moments will appear in the final edits. You need to be in good physical shape, though no prior kayaking experience is required. Despite the impressions created by the white water photos on the Earth Train website, the river you will be descending isn't difficult. The river trip isn't about white-knuckle excitement, rather it's about experiencing the majesty and subtleties of a remote tropical biome with a group of accomplished leaders. Celebrating the World Series -- I opened the FORTUNE Growth Summit with the quote below - seems to be the key to accomplishing almost anything in life - hope to see all of you in Atlanta May 15 - 16 for our next FORTUNE Leadership Summit featuring four hours with Jim Collins - please mark your calendars. Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.   Sam Ewing, Major League Baseball Player