THE DISCIPLINED ENTREPRENEUR

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Balance: Honoring Differences Rather Than Forcing Similarities

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Balance: Honoring Differences Rather Than Forcing Similarities

Balance: Honoring Differences Rather Than Forcing Similarities

Ask five people what work-life balance means to them and you’re likely to get 5 different answers. Shoot….if you were to ask me what work-life balance means across five different stages in my life you would get 5 different answers. Balance is hard. It means different things for different people. It means trade-offs. It means prioritization. It means treating two different things equally. Wait. No it doesn’t. Not al all. In this case, screw equality. I was recently lying on my

Type 2 Discipline: Getting to the Good Stuff

Activate New Users By Doing The Minimum

Activate New Users By Doing The Minimum

When it comes to starting a new venture -- success follows a singular focus on the needs of today. It does not follow the concerns about the unpredictably predictable shit storm of tomorrow. Finding focus in the midst of deep uncertainty is akin to plowing a boat through several feet of ice that’s gathered on top of the water - it's really hard. Anytime you’re starting something new, think of yourself as an icebreaker seeking to maintain momentum regardless of what’s happeni

Strength Through Vulnerability

Strength Through Vulnerability

When it comes to thinking about great leaders, I’ve been conditioned to immediately zero in on characteristics that reflect a strong personality– traits like confidence, decisiveness, vision, and fortitude. But are these “strong” traits enough to be successful today? There are countless leaders across industries that match this description of strength – from Steve Jobs to Jack Welch to George Patton to Vince Lombardi, and Mark Zuckerburg. There’s no emotional coddling coming

One Plus Anything Equals Zero

One Plus Anything Equals Zero

In football, the quarterback is the undisputed leader of the offense and the bell cow for the entire team. The quarterback calls the plays, touches the ball just about every play, and perhaps most importantly – dictates the successes or failures of the team based on his performance. So what happens when you have two quarterbacks that are both good enough to play? Maybe Jimmy is a better passer and Joe is a better runner? Perhaps Connor throws a better deep-ball, while Tyler h

Safety to Start-Up: Stacking The Deck in Your Favor

Safety to Start-Up: Stacking The Deck in Your Favor

While it’s appropriate to emphasize the need to understand the fear that’s holding you back from pursuing that amazing new endeavor, it’s equally important to understand how to maximize success for first-time entrepreneurs. So, let’s change the narrative away from fear and learn from the brave souls who dive into the shark-infested waters of something new and different. What motivates new entrepreneurs to move away from a safe career and to invest his or her precious time in

The Future of Venture Capital

The Future of Venture Capital

The real question for venture capital isn’t if change is coming, but how change will impact the start-up world. So, let’s pull out a dusty tool from the management consulting toolkit and breakdown both the “as-is” and “to-be” VC model. Venture capitalists are pioneers of the finance industry, and let’s remember that VCs are the group jumped in to serve entrepreneurs when the rest of the finance industry wouldn’t touch high-risk markets with a ten-foot pole. Banking counterpar

The Hidden Risks of Venture Capital

The Hidden Risks of Venture Capital

As both an entrepreneur and someone who spends a lot of time supporting other entrepreneurs in the startup world, I’ve seen a lot of different approaches to growth and investing. When it comes to venture capital investing, one thing has become very clear: change is coming. The venture capital world of tomorrow will look a lot different than the venture capital world of today. Let’s start by acknowledging that today’s model of venture capital is broken. According to a May 2012

Lead With Purpose. Lead Like a Grandmother.

Lead With Purpose. Lead Like a Grandmother.

Managers don’t want to know about your personal life. It’s a best practice for managers to not learn much about their employee’s personal life so that it does not interfere with professional decisions. What a load of shit. When I was a young engineer, my manager shared this piece of advice with me while communicating how the head of the office ran things. At the time, it made a lot of sense to me in a classic engineering way: professional decisions should be professional; if

8 Ways To Conquer Your Fear and Move On With Life

8 Ways To Conquer Your Fear and Move On With Life

Fear is a paralyzing beast that lives in all of us. It spends every hour of every day working to keep us locked inside the soul-sucking cage we call our comfort box. Dramatic? Maybe. Just don’t dismiss the impact fear can have on your life and how fear can stop you from doing the amazing things you’re capable of. But how can we conquer this fear? How can we be comfortable in an environment where we expose ourselves to fear? We get there by believing our true job is to expose

What’s The Real Reason You Haven’t Started The Business You Dream About?

What’s The Real Reason You Haven’t Started The Business You Dream About?

Odds are you’ve thought a lot about creating a new business on your own. You’ve read books and blogs, shared ideas with friends, and probably even discovered that someone else brought “your” ideas to life. Yet for some reason, good or bad, you haven’t made a clear decision to start or not start a business. And if you’re like a lot of people I know – you’re no closer to a resolution than you were last month. I recently spent some time with my friend Joe helping him decide whet

A New World Without Email Alerts On Your Phone

A New World Without Email Alerts On Your Phone

Like most entrepreneurs, I don’t just like to win, I love to win and I hate to lose. The only thing worse than losing is the idea that someone might beat me because they outworked me. So, naturally, I put everything I have into winning – whether it’s starting a company, pick-up hockey, Pictionary with friends, or feather bowling at Cadieux Café. Whether it’s email, voice, text, chat, or any other form of communication – people know how to track me down and can count on me to

Change Your Business With a Meaningful Hello and Goodbye Each Day

Change Your Business With a Meaningful Hello and Goodbye Each Day

Without question, the worst part of my otherwise amazing business school experience was being immersed in the anxious negative energy created from being one of the five hundred Type A MBA students going through interview season together. I have vivid memories walking through the beautiful Winter Garden at Chicago Booth (below) and feeling overwhelmed by the high-stress energy of my classmates throughout recruiting season. Just from walking into the Winter Garden, where my cla

Stop Being a Wantrepreneur. Start Being an Entrepreneur.

Stop Being a Wantrepreneur. Start Being an Entrepreneur.

The difference between entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs is simple: wantrepreneurs pursue inspiration and entrepreneurs create inertia. And believe me…the power of inertia is stronger than the power of inspiration. There are countless websites dedicated to inspirational quotes. We subscribe to daily inspiration emails. We pay $6.99 for a card with an inspiring line. Co-working spaces spend thousands of dollars to paint inspirational quotes on walls. Ever wonder why we love ins

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Startup Founder Communication

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Startup Founder Communication

Leadership is communication and effective communication is always a challenge, even in the most ideal environments. So what does that mean for communication for the time-starved, high-stakes, high-failure world of startups? It means everything – especially for founders. When you think of early-sate startups, think college roommates. Close living quarters and a general lack of maturity lead college roommates to fight; poor communication (of course, binge drinking probably didn

One Simple Strategy To Hire Proven Winners

One Simple Strategy To Hire Proven Winners

Keep it Simple Stupid. It is a beautiful approach − so long as you don’t complicate things. Let’s go back to the fundamentals of business: the team is the single most important part of your business and there’s two parts to having a world-class team: Hire great talent Create an amazing environment for the team to grow and thrive Establishing and maintaining the right environment for your team is an ongoing process, but you only hire someone once. Let’s get it right. You can d

8 Entrepreneurial Lessons From The Greatest Rivalry In Sports

8 Entrepreneurial Lessons From The Greatest Rivalry In Sports

America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. – President Harry S. Truman When the Navy Midshipmen and Army Black Knights meet for the 115th installment in the greatest rivalry in sports, it will bring together everything that is good and right about football, college athletics, and America as a whole. As The Disciplined Entrepreneur, I love seeing smart hungry young people work towards a noble cause and relentlessly purs

Do What Matters – Develop a 6th Sense For Your Team

Do What Matters – Develop a 6th Sense For Your Team

As a leader, your first job is to create a profitable and sustainable business. Your second job is to develop talent and support your team. Right? Wrong. If you’re not prioritizing your team, you’re failing your team, your business, and yourself. The success of your business is 100% dependent on the success of your people. To create a healthy culture, your team needs to know that you care and you’re there to support them, regardless of how convenient it is for you. Too many l

Rest, Reflection, and Recharge – An Entrepreneur’s Thanksgiving

Rest, Reflection, and Recharge – An Entrepreneur’s Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving in America, the time-honored tradition where we all take the opportunity to pause, reflect, and express thanks for the many wonderful things in our lives. The beauty of Thanksgiving is found in its simplicity. There is no expectation of gift-giving, no commercial campaign with retailers spending millions to gain access to your wallet, and no mythical creature visiting your home for the holiday. The entire holiday boils down to enjoying a single meal with fam

Ten Tips For Pitching Your Startup Before You’re Ready for Investment

Ten Tips For Pitching Your Startup Before You’re Ready for Investment

If you’re like a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, you dream of the day when you meet with a respected investor, deliver a knockout pitch, and an investment is immediately made in your company. That’s a great story-line, but there’s a 99% chance that your reality will look a little different. Many startups have the opportunity to pitch very early on − even before you’re ready for investors. Press and marketing creates buzz and helps to get you on the map, so it’s important for

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