My entrepreneurial adventures | The Fourth Revolution Blog

Why Excellence should be a Consistent Attitude

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude” – so says Colin Powell. Like other things, excellence seems to be what you should do when others are not looking!

What I find interesting in this quote is how is could be misinterpreted as for some people, the line is extremely fine between excellence and perfectionism. And if perfectionism is applied to everything including the things, it can obviously be a quite counter-productive behavior.

According to Wikipedia, “excellence is a talent or quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards”. Colin Powell thus suggests that we should develop an attitude that seeks to always surpass normal standards, even by a little – and not be satisfied by the ordinary in all circumstances.

That is a tough standard, still Colin Powell is probably right to suggest that it is only by being relentless seeking excellence in all aspects that one will also become excellent in large endeavors. In my experience, excellence in executing large projects is a close attention to detail and excellence in all aspects of execution.

Be relentless seeking excellence. And you’ll achieve great things.

Credits: I found this great quote on Lifehack from where the image is also imported from.

In Truth, are You a Freelancer or an Entrepreneur?

Am I a freelancer or an entrepreneur? Contrary to what I thought I am probably in the first category. And before that realization I had some difficult moments – I should not believe I am an entrepreneur while I am just an elaborate freelancer. And that might just be good news that I just get this realization now.

I had this realization listening to Seth Godin in a Skillshare class on entrepreneurship. This issue is actually explained at length in Seth’s post “The Difference Between a Freelancer and an Entrepreneur”.

Seth Godin goes on to explain:

If you’re a freelancer:
- Ensure a steady stream of work
- Create an environment where you don’t go crazy and melt because of overwork
- Consistently increase the quality of your work and generate a waiting list for your time (and increase your prices) (at the same time).
- Scaling will be limited, linear and occur through the hiring of a limited number of additional partners
If you’re an entrepreneur:
- you look for an exponential scaling of your business, so:
- Relentlessly hire people to delegate work to
- Give yourself a promotion so you are constantly doing work you’re unable to hire anyone else to do
- Build an organization that has the cash flow to permit you to do those two things…

The business I am building in consulting, focusing on high-end specialized consulting, without an army of junior consultants, will not scale exponentially. It does not mean that it cannot influence deeply and leave an imprint in the world. It means I should not be frustrated for lack of (exponential) growth but focus on developing the contents and depth of intellectual property, and grow linearly by recruiting a number of partners.

This difference between (elaborate) freelancer and entrepreneur is fundamental. When I look around I realize how many people call themselves entrepreneurs when they are freelancers. It’s trendy to be an entrepreneur but in truth there are not so many around.

Maybe someday I will venture into real entrepreneurship, building a product that has the capability to scale. Now, I focus on developing my business brand with a better understanding of what it entails in terms of business model. And with more excitement than ever.

How to Manage your Personal Idea Funnel

Following on our previous post “How to Focus on Execution and Still be Open to New Ideas”, let’s develop further the concept of “idea funnel”

The Funnel is a marketing concept that is available in Sales & Marketing and as well in Innovation. But rather than take the innovation funnel I like to compare my own Idea Funnel to the Sales one, because the steps are more relevant. The reason is that the sales funnel is linked to emotional awareness while innovation funnels are more often very rational in their description.

Let’s look at a common representation of a sales funnel. Translated to my personal Idea Funnel, the steps cover the following:

Awareness: an idea just popped up in my consciousness! Can I verbalize it now?
Qualifying interest: a quick ‘due diligence’ to check that the idea is relevant, feasible and could be somewhat useful – and that it is not just a mere fantasy?
Desire: do I feel an emotional twinkling when I consider this idea? Does it get me excited? A definite key factor if I would consider putting the effort to put it in action!
Action: how would this idea fit into my current execution program? Is it time-driven with an expiry date or can it be queued in my execution program? What could be synergies with some other projects I am working on?

And naturally, most of your ideas should fall to the side somewhere along the way – because remember that Focus Means Saying No to most ideas!

What about using this Personal Idea Funnel for your own ideas?

How to Focus on Execution and Still be Open to New Ideas

As an entrepreneur and a creative writer, I steadily encounter the issue of having too many ideas popping up even in the middle of the (painful) execution of a previous idea. The same can be said of business opportunities, which are but a certain version of an idea.

Ideas are cheap until they are executed; and execution is tough – you can’t execute so many ideas simultaneously with the right focus – a focus that is required to be ultimately successful. And time is scarce so you can’t properly execute fully too many ideas in a given timeframe.

One of the issues is of course that during execution, new ideas will necessarily pop up from the work that you can’t just throw away for later. And some more from your life. What can you do? Bloggers and authors suggest several opposed strategies which can be summarized as follows:

Note new ideas for later and ignore them for the time being (so as not to lose focus)
Don’t bother about the sunken costs of what you’ve been doing – if a new idea has much higher merit just go for it, now (in start-up talk, “pivot”!)

I tend to believe that there is value being persistent in the execution of a idea, even if it does not turn out to be as successful as anticipated. The learning from executing an idea until the end is invaluable. At the same time, if a really great idea crosses your life it would be dumb not to go for it – but that should be quite a rare thing.

I thus suggest to go for a middle road: don’t stop executing what you’re doing but still do a basic ‘due diligence’ on your new ideas to evaluate their potential before deciding to go for it or not. In marketing terms, have an idea funnel. But still, do finalize execution on some ideas to get the learning, and limit the number of ideas you pursue at any one time to a handful!

Picture from Julia Sweeten’s blog post Stop Generating New Ideas with is a great glimpse into the struggles of the creator (although the issue might not be to stop generating ideas but how to recognize if a new idea might have more merit and value than the one you’re executing).

Why You Should Focus on Your Life’s ‘Body of Work’

Pamela Slim, the author of Escape From Cubicle Nation, just released an other book, Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together.

She takes an interesting view on the fact that we actually create a Body of Work in our lifetimes, that ties together all our experiences – even if they do not seem connected. In hindsight, the sum of our experiences will make sense. Why not reinforce this meaning voluntarily from now on?

Pamela writes: “Viewing your life as a body of work is not a short-term game. You want to focus on meaning, skill development, professional network development, craft and mastery. There is no one right answer for everyone.”

The book is full of examples of people that change radically their careers and lives and still find a way to bring everything back into their body of work – and expand it further, meaningfully, by opening themselves to new encounters and experiences.

You are in charge of creating your Body of Work. Take this responsibility and create this incredible story you will be able to tie up together in hindsight. Like we already mentioned in this blog, Life is Not about Finding Yourself, Life is about Creating Yourself!

Why Quantity is not Quality for Reports and Presentations

I often experience that a thick-looking report, or presentation, benefits from a positive first impression, in particular in traditional corporate settings – notwithstanding the quality of its contents. This is wrong!

Pamela Slim in her latest book ‘Body of Work‘ mentions that “There is a conspiracy cooked up by marketing wonks, consultants, and executives to pay for words by the pound, and to question the intelligence of a corporate “professional” who does not create complex and obtuse presentations. They are wrong. Your instinct to keep things clean and simple is right.” She quotes an experience where she sat for a few hours through a powerpoint presentation in a corporate setting without being able to understand what it actually was about.

Sometimes, providing a long presentation is also a way to hide from the fear of having a real candid conversation about the issue at hand, making sure that the allocated time is spent looking at a content that has been carefully polished, and avoiding questions and debate.

While substantial evidence backups might need to be gathered separately (as an appendix), I believe that the presentation or report message needs to be clear and crisp and should ideally be delivered in less than 25% of time allocated for that particular discussion – or at the minimum leave time to elicit proper discussion while the material is presented.

The value lies in the confrontation of ideas and in the discussion. The quality of the presentation or the report is to act as a sound trigger for that discussion. Never judge the quality of their content separately from the discussion – and possibly the decision – that it will trigger.

How Negotiating is Different from Selling and Why they Should be Split

“When you are negotiating, you have to say no a lot. When you are selling, you are always trying to find the ‘yes’“, writes James Altucher in his book ‘Choose Yourself‘. He goes on to explain that it is difficult for the same individual to be good on the two roles.

This observation makes sense – negotiating means achieving a balanced agreement in which both parties’ interests are preserved and enhanced; it is quite different from the sale perspective which might be considered focused on bringing business – promising everything the client could want.

That is certainly an interesting perspective, because in most organizations I know, the sale people are also the ones driving as well the negotiations before the finalized contract is handed over to the rest of the organization for execution. This observation would mean splitting much more clearly than it is now, the sale function from the contract negotiation team, and make sure that the chief negotiator is not just trying to close the sale, but also has in mind other issues such as legal protection of the organization, actual feasibility of the agreement etc.

Who is facing the client in your organization? And how do you make sure you involve a negotiator before the sale is closed?

Why We Can Elicit Criticism by Just Being Present

Aristotle said “there is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing“.

Again and again I find that I do my best work when I expose myself. And often when I push myself at the edge, or even beyond the limit of my comfort zone. When it is tough and I feel inadequate, where the impostor syndrome hovers in the background. Of course, that is also where one is more vulnerable to criticism.

What I find particularly interesting in Aristotle’s quote is the relation to being. That simply, being somebody, and being present, necessarily exposes to criticism as well.

There is no doubt that just being there in the world, even doing or saying nothing, does change the world a little. There is no hiding from it. Simple observation does change what is being observed. I know from my coaching practice that sometimes, just being silent, and fully present, can be a great vector of change in people and groups. It can be extremely powerful.

It leads to a reaction from the environment, which will resist, often in the shape of criticism. And that is where be absolutely need to be ourselves, and take the best part of the inevitable criticism.

We are, thus we change our surroundings, thus the surroundings will resist. Be aware that criticism can come also from just being here, and fully present.

Other Fourth Revolution posts on overcoming criticism: ‘What should you do with Criticism?‘ and ‘How can you stop trying to please everyone?‘

If You’re not Scared a Lot You’re Not Doing Very Much

This is a quote from Robin Sharma. I feel it is true – although one can debate the “a lot”. There is probably a limit to fear beyond which it becomes improductive.

Anyway, the truth holds that if you are not scared enough, you probably are not sufficiently outside of your comfort zone. Pushing further the approach, Robin Sharma continue: “Your excuses are nothing more than the lies your fears have sold you“.

When you’ll start doing something that counts, your environment will resist and you will feel, dee within you, that feeling of fear. That’s fine. It means you are starting to move things.

As one of our grand masters said, “Named must your fear be before banish it you can” (Yoda). Name your fear. Look in its face. Defy it. Acknowledge it.

And then move on. Continue what you have been doing.

How scared are you today? If you are too comfortable, it is time to change things around here. When do you start?

Why You Should Better be a Big Fish in a Small Bowl

In his latest book David and Goliath, bestseller author Malcolm Gladwell makes a dramatic point about the fact that we’d better be a big fish in a small bowl than a small fish in a large bowl.

He expands this thought through the story of people who choose their universities: “We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institution makes us better off. We don’t spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of advantages limit out options“. And indeed his examples in the book show that people would probably have been better off in smaller, less known institutions than failing (relatively) in large and more elite institutions.

This thought can of course expand to many areas of life beyond education: the organization in which you work, and even the social community groups you join.

I do fully agree with this statement, which is also at the basis of the concept of niche when it comes to entrepreneurship: better be widely recognized in your specific niche than try to get known in a too wide and crowded segment!

When it comes to you, what choices can you make to be a bigger fish in a smaller bowl?

So, What is Consulting Really About?

One of the best definitions so far of Consulting is “the art of influencing people at their request. People want some kind of change – or fear some sort of change – so they seek consulting, in one form or the other” – Gerald M. Weinberg.

This probably means that a lot of ‘consultants’ probably are not consultants are per this definition – probably better defined by temporary support or project management support. Actual consulting is really about influence and change. On the other hand, many of us are actually consulting in our private or social life without knowing it.

Influencing people at their request requires 1) permission and 2) provocation and support.

Consultants, did you get permission? And then, are you using this permission effectively to provoke and induce change?

When to Decide That a Goal is Not Meant to be Reached

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at” is a famous Bruce Lee quote.

We need to be able to let go when we don’t reach our goals but progress towards them has been sufficient.

Some people don’t have goals. They err aimlessly in the world and will never get anywhere.
Some other people have goals and will be relentless until they reach them. Sometimes these people are visionaries that suffer from never reaching their goals. Or, they suffer when they reach their goal and figure out they are not satisfied. They might be producing great things but remain frustrated.
Some other people have goals, and know when to decide that progress has been sufficient and that they now need to update their goals, without reaching their original aim. How can they decide this change without feeling regrets of changing path without having accomplished their quest? One simple criteria applies: when the new goal is more exciting and appears more fulfilling than the previous goal.

Don’t change goal every other day, but recognize that only excitement and passion will drive you to do new stuff. If you find a new goal that is more compelling to the point that the previous goal looks dull and unattractive, switch. And, above all, don’t feel regrets and let go of any that might remain.

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