Friday, May 20, 2005
Home again, home again
I'm back home after a week travelling to and from Virginia for my daughter Becca's graduation from Virginia Military Institute. It was a pleasant trip with my wife, Joanne, and middle son, Ben. We drove back with Becca and stopped to see our oldest son, Jon, on the way back.
Great family time!
The graduation turned out to be filled with events, so I didn't get nearly as much planning done as I expected. Having two additional drivers on the drive home, however, gave me the freedome to at least run through my mind the directions I want to go with my business.
And Jon will likely contribute some of his design tips to the site in the form of articles. He's also found an interesting angle on eBay that seems to be working quite well for him. I might be able to persuade him to contribute some tips on that as well.
I wrote up a few thoughts during the graduation weekend and postdated them as blogs. It's funny how interconnected things are in life, that a graduation can provide lessons on business.
Look for them under Business Lessons from My Daughter's Graduation.
Jeff
I'm back home after a week travelling to and from Virginia for my daughter Becca's graduation from Virginia Military Institute. It was a pleasant trip with my wife, Joanne, and middle son, Ben. We drove back with Becca and stopped to see our oldest son, Jon, on the way back.
Great family time!
The graduation turned out to be filled with events, so I didn't get nearly as much planning done as I expected. Having two additional drivers on the drive home, however, gave me the freedome to at least run through my mind the directions I want to go with my business.
And Jon will likely contribute some of his design tips to the site in the form of articles. He's also found an interesting angle on eBay that seems to be working quite well for him. I might be able to persuade him to contribute some tips on that as well.
I wrote up a few thoughts during the graduation weekend and postdated them as blogs. It's funny how interconnected things are in life, that a graduation can provide lessons on business.
Look for them under Business Lessons from My Daughter's Graduation.
Jeff
Monday, May 16, 2005
Business Lessons from My Daughter’s Graduation—Don’t Play It Safe
As I watched my daughter Becca graduate from Virginia Military Institute, I couldn’t help but think of the qualities that brought her to that point and how they apply to a business owner.
The family has always joked about how high maintenance Becca has always been. I don’t know if there was ever a single decision or rule that her Mom and I ever made that she didn’t demand that we justify to her satisfaction. And if she didn’t agree, she would use her full arsenal of weapons, ranging from pathetic, puppy dog eyes to straight out confrontation to try to reshape her world to suit her.
Her unlimited enthusiasm and unfeigned gratitude for each bit of latitude that her employers gave her won her praise as “one of our best workers” from every one of her employers even if she never did master the simple art of getting to work on time. There was never a limit she didn’t try to push and never a risk she didn’t want to take.
She always sought jobs that required her to excel in areas where she felt inadequate and held them only until she felt she had mastered that skill. Then she moved on to another job that promised to force her to improve another area of weakness.
So now the young woman who used to regularly get hilariously tangled up in her words regularly speaks at undergraduate research symposiums, doing presentations on her award-winning research. She worked her way through a college that is one of the most demanding in the country in terms of academics, physical endurance, and exceptional character and did so with a double major that the faculty warned her would be too grueling for anyone to accomplish.
She earned a double major in what seemed like the totally unrelated subjects of mathematics and psychology—and found a way to use them together. She earned a commission as an Air Force officer, where she’ll continue to combine those two subjects in improving assessment systems that seek to make the best fit between Air Force personnel and where their individual skills are most needed.
And after her time in the Air Force is over, she wants to use the skills she’s developed to… open a coffee shop. Make sense? I don’t see the connection. But Becca’s life has always been one of going outside the norm and combining things in unusual ways—but with great success.
And her qualities are essential to business success. Do you succeed in business by playing it safe? No, you succeed by taking risks. Do you succeed by staying in your comfort zone? No, you succeed by pushing your limits. Do you succeed by copying what everyone else is doing? No, you succeed by finding a path that is unique to your passions and blazing a trail for others.
You succeed by questioning your world and reshaping it so it to better benefit others. Focus on that and you’ll be surprised how success falls into place.
Jeff
As I watched my daughter Becca graduate from Virginia Military Institute, I couldn’t help but think of the qualities that brought her to that point and how they apply to a business owner.
The family has always joked about how high maintenance Becca has always been. I don’t know if there was ever a single decision or rule that her Mom and I ever made that she didn’t demand that we justify to her satisfaction. And if she didn’t agree, she would use her full arsenal of weapons, ranging from pathetic, puppy dog eyes to straight out confrontation to try to reshape her world to suit her.
Her unlimited enthusiasm and unfeigned gratitude for each bit of latitude that her employers gave her won her praise as “one of our best workers” from every one of her employers even if she never did master the simple art of getting to work on time. There was never a limit she didn’t try to push and never a risk she didn’t want to take.
She always sought jobs that required her to excel in areas where she felt inadequate and held them only until she felt she had mastered that skill. Then she moved on to another job that promised to force her to improve another area of weakness.
So now the young woman who used to regularly get hilariously tangled up in her words regularly speaks at undergraduate research symposiums, doing presentations on her award-winning research. She worked her way through a college that is one of the most demanding in the country in terms of academics, physical endurance, and exceptional character and did so with a double major that the faculty warned her would be too grueling for anyone to accomplish.
She earned a double major in what seemed like the totally unrelated subjects of mathematics and psychology—and found a way to use them together. She earned a commission as an Air Force officer, where she’ll continue to combine those two subjects in improving assessment systems that seek to make the best fit between Air Force personnel and where their individual skills are most needed.
And after her time in the Air Force is over, she wants to use the skills she’s developed to… open a coffee shop. Make sense? I don’t see the connection. But Becca’s life has always been one of going outside the norm and combining things in unusual ways—but with great success.
And her qualities are essential to business success. Do you succeed in business by playing it safe? No, you succeed by taking risks. Do you succeed by staying in your comfort zone? No, you succeed by pushing your limits. Do you succeed by copying what everyone else is doing? No, you succeed by finding a path that is unique to your passions and blazing a trail for others.
You succeed by questioning your world and reshaping it so it to better benefit others. Focus on that and you’ll be surprised how success falls into place.
Jeff
© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Jeff Baas, One Stop Web Support
