By: Paul Martino and Randy Komisar, with Danny Shader Bill Campbell should be remembered as the one-dollar coach—not the “trillion-dollar coach.”    We bristle when we hear him called that. He’s got to be rolling over in his grave. Because one of the things that made Bill so special is that he was never motivated by money. He refused any compensation for his coaching, though maybe he’d let you buy him a beer. People are what inspired his work—influencing them, helping them grow, seeing them realize their full potential.  That’s how he’d want to be remembered: as a great coach who pure ..read more

Many companies avoid underserved markets, primarily for three different reasons. First, design and production are often more difficult. Second, there’s the perceived issue of brand ethos. Some companies look at a market like plus-size clothing and decide it doesn’t fit with their brand image.  And finally, one of the largest challenges to creating products for underserved markets is that there simply isn’t a template to work from. If no one has done it before, it’s difficult to know where to start.  Keep in mind, if a market has been overlooked, that also means there’s a lot of po ..read more

As the co-founder of a startup, NakedPoppy, work is on my mind constantly. I mean, it takes full-on obsession to create a company out of thin air.  So, when I try to separate myself from work—specifically when I meditate in the morning—my to-do list tends to creep in and interrupt me. It’s a real struggle to clear my mind when it wants to churn with the responsibilities of the day ahead.  In an ongoing effort to dismiss stressful thoughts, I’ve uncovered a special mantra: I have enough time to do everything I need to do today.  This reassuring statement shifts my mental outlook and re ..read more

The big secret to taking care of yourself is all about what you choose to do on a daily basis. Taking care of yourself isn’t that complicated.  Unfortunately, we make it complicated. We overthink what it means to “be healthy,” we think being productive and effective is all about “doing more,” and most of all, we dramatically underestimate the power of consistency. As a society, we want the result more than we want to optimize the process. We want to be seen as a hard worker more than we want to “work smart” and have more downtime to ourselves. The entire conversation around wellness is ..read more

You may not know who I am. That’s fine. For the purposes of this article, it only matters that me and my writing partners are professional writers who’ve been making solid full-time livings from our books — mostly fiction — for years. And that’s not because any of us hit the lottery with one huge breakout hit, either. Our company, Sterling & Stone has scores of published books, nearly a dozen authors working with us, and we’re currently publishing at least one book every week. We succeed because we’re prolific, in pretty much any major genre you can imagine. Which means we write a l ..read more

Just as an investor goes to great lengths to make sure you are uniquely qualified, you should do the same thing with them to determine whether they’re the right person to help you fund and grow your company.  A lot of startup founders approach the process of raising money incorrectly. The biggest problem I’ve seen is that when it comes time to raise, founders are not thinking about what happens after the raise. They see the raise itself as a kind of finish line.  There are a few reasons for this, but mostly it boils down to the fact that most founders view fundraising as a kind of neces ..read more

When conflict is present, so, too, are emotions of anger, fear, and frustration. And those feelings can disrupt your company’s overall performance. Whether you’re a company leader or an entry-level employee, navigating interpersonal conflict in the office is something we all have to do. Conflict happens. Disagreements fester, and grievances bloom. It’s inevitable, even in the most professional work environments. Personally, I’ve experienced conflict at pretty much every stage of my career, including my present one. I serve as co-pastor alongside my husband at World Changers Internationa ..read more

Thus it’s easy to assume that an anti-vaxxer parent must just be misinformed. One of the greatest challenges we face in the healthcare industry is understanding how to talk convincingly with parents in the anti-vaccination movement. “Anti-vaxxers” believe in abstaining from vaccinations and regular vaccine schedules for fear of them causing autism and other side effects in their children. This anti-vaxxer movement has grown in force, despite the most popular study connecting vaccines and autism being formally retracted, and the whole claim being scientifically debunked. Thus it’s eas ..read more

A system is a collection of actions and rules that get you where you want to go. Setting goals is important to the writing life. If you want to be prolific, it’s important to know how much you can do in a day or week, and always be striving to improve. But as everyone who has made a New Year’s resolution on January 1st and dropped that resolution by January 31st can tell you, having a goal isn’t really enough. Sure, you start with the goal. Write a novel. Or a non-fiction book. Or a collection of short stories. Or a memoir. That’s the “what.” But in order to actually achiev ..read more

A ..read more