It’s entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come true.
Rather than demand whatever it takes, we ask, What will it take?
The only way to get more done is to have less to do.
If the boss is constantly pulling people off one project to chase another, nobody’s going to get anything done.
Most people should miss out on most things most of the time.
You can only work exactly the same way, at the same pace, doing the same work for so long before monotony bites.
Much corporate anxiety comes from the realization that the company has been doing the wrong thing, but it’s too late to change direction because of the “Plan.” “We’ve got to see it through!” Seeing a bad idea through just because at one point it sounded like a good idea is a tragic waste of energy and talent.
The thing is, most people just don’t enjoy haggling, period.
Ultimately, startups are easy, stayups are hard. Keeping the show running for the long term is a lot harder than walking onstage for the first time.
No is easier to do, yes is easier to say. No is no to one thing. Yes is no to a thousand things. No is a precision instrument, a surgeon’s scalpel, a laser beam focused on one point. Yes is a blunt object, a club, a fisherman’s net that catches everything indiscriminately. No is specific. Yes is general.
It’s almost impossible to work on something and not be tempted to chase all the exciting new what-if and we-could-also ideas that come up. There’s always one more thing it could do, one more improvement it should have. But if you actually want to make progress, you have to narrow as you go.
You can’t credibly promote the virtues of reasonable hours, plentiful rest, and a healthy lifestyle to employees if you’re doing the opposite as the boss.
You just can’t bring your A game to every situation. Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be.
If you spend 20 percent each on getting five things to 80 percent, well, then, you’ve done five things!
What’s our market share? Don’t know, don’t care. It’s irrelevant. Do we have enough customers paying us enough money to cover our costs and generate a profit? Yes. Is that number increasing every year? Yes. That’s good enough for us. Doesn’t matter if we’re 2 percent of the market or 4 percent or 75 percent. What matters is that we have a healthy business with sound economics that work for us. Costs under control, profitable sales.
If you’re pitching your boss to let you work from home a few days a week, a common rebuff is how envious your coworkers would be if you were granted this special privilege. Why, it simply wouldn’t be fair! We all need to be equally, miserably unproductive at the office and suffer in unity!
When you want something bad enough, you make the time – regardless of your other obligations. The truth is most people just don’t want it bad enough. Then they protect their ego with the excuse of time. Don’t let yourself off the hook with excuses. It’s entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come true.
Just like work expands to fill the time available, work expands to fill the team available. Small, short projects quickly become big, long projects when too many people are there to work on them.
Knowing when to embrace Good Enough is what gives you the opportunity to be truly excellent when you need to be.
Questions bring options, decrees burn them.