James Clear – Adamant About Beauty

Taking stock of 2020, thinking ahead to 2021

December 17, 2020December 21, 2020My lifeLeave a Comment

The last two weeks of December are a time to take stock of the year that is ending, and to look forward to a new year that is about to begin. I usually make a list of highlights and lowlights for the former, and a list of goals and resolutions for the latter. Sometimes I even partake in goal-setting retreats…

This year, I have lacked inspiration. 2020 is consumed with COVID-19, nothing else seems to matter. And planning for 2021 seems pointless as who knows what the world will look like in 2021…

In a moment of weakness, I asked my husband if we could just skip this favorite tradition of mine of making these lists and sharing them with each other between 12/31 and 1/1. He looked at me in surprise, and said “absolutely not.”

So I had to find tools to help me through my “blahs” and inspire and motivate me to think about 2020 constructively, and plan for 2021 productively.

Here is what I came up with.

To take stock of 2020

From Atomic Habits by James Clear, which I loved, I am using these three questions as a guide (and not allowing myself to put down “COVID-19” as the single word answer to that second question):

What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well this year?
What did I learn?

From Living the Sutras by Kelly DiNardo, I am doing this exercise:

List my big priorities
Which do I have to do? Choose to do? Want to do?
For which of these would I like to adjust the intensity of my efforts? (increase or decrease)?

And to start planning for 2021:

From John DiJulius, I am using the grid pictured above to start planning for the future.

This will help me plan for 2021 and maybe even think big towards 2031. This is how he explains the three columns (direct quotes):

“Column A: Do Now Sell Now – may seem obvious. However, when thoroughly examining all your current inventory of products and services, you can really get creative. For instance, when you package or bundle high margin offerings with low margin, increasing the overcall value and attractiveness to the customer, you can increase sales.

Column B: STOP DOING – is critical to your survival and usually a blessing most businesses wished they would have done much sooner. You can’t chase every opportunity and need to say “No” to everything that is out of your sweet spot (easy to do + profitable). Easy to do means it has been (or can be) systemized and it requires very little tweaking—a rinse and repeat model. This may mean eliminating products and services that aren’t easy to do and profitable. This may mean losing, some call it firing, a percentage of your customers who aren’t easy to work with, high maintenance, and are not profitable.

As Seth Godin said during his presentation at this years’ Customer Service Revolution, “Firing an unprofitable group of customers (with kindness and care) allows you to focus on your most profitable customers. You need to focus on customers with high lifetime value.” You can’t scale your operations or in some cases survive during these times by being all things to all people.

Column C: Do Now Sell Later – is where the magic happens. It is where the excitement starts, by figuring out how to totally disrupt yourself and the rest of your industry. What should you be developing now that will allow you to grow 10x faster, revolutionize your business model, and leave everyone else in your industry behind?”

With all this help, with all these tools, I have no excuse to forego this favorite tradition of mine…

Tinos Reading List – 2019 Edition

June 26, 2019July 10, 2019My lifeLeave a Comment

One of my biggest pleasures on vacation is the ability to read during the day for hours on end. I try to consume a book every day or two. Fiction, non-fiction, recently published books, older publications. Always paper books – no e-book for me, even though it does mean all of these traveled in my suitcase from DC to Tinos, via Geneva.

Here is my (very ambitious) reading list for this year’s time in Tinos.

Bad Blood by Jon Carreyrou. I have been fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos for as long as I can remember, thinking of her as an example of what a woman entrepreneur can accomplish. Her company’s demise makes her all that more fascinating to me. And this book reads like fiction – and is the perfect example of reality being stranger (and more stressful!) than fiction.

The Next Girl; Her Pretty Bones; and Her Final Hour by Carla Kovach. These three will be my guilty pleasures, crime thrillers that will be hard to put down.

Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing by George Cloutier. I have been meaning to read this for some time after my husband gave it to me as a reminder that while a company’s mission is everything, profits make the mission possible.

The Naked Truth by Leslie Morgan. This is our next Book Club book, a memoir of a woman in her 50s who gets divorced and decides to actively date for a year (aka have sex with five guys) to get over her sorrows.

Atomic Habits by James Clear. My friend Jenny gave me this book as she knows one of my favorites is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I can’t wait to dive into this one!

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham. A Brigadoon-recommended book, these never disappoint.

Building a Great Business by Ari Weinszweig. Adam Ross, co-founder of Heyday, with whom I enjoy trading book recommendations, said this was the best book he read in 2018. “Unconventional, but awesome,” I believe were his exact words.

Le Prophète by Khalil Gibran. My sister Cyrille gave me this book (one of her personal favorites) last week. I guess she thought I needed to add something less prosaic than all my business books to my reading list…

Le Nouveau Féminimse by Barbara Polla. It’s not a Tinos reading list without my Mom’s latest non-fiction… and this one will be quite the controversial read.

What are you reading this summer?

The Business Books That Make Me Smarter

February 6, 2019February 6, 2019BusinessLeave a Comment

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about the email newsletters that make me smarter. Today, I want to share some of the business books I have read and loved, and learned from.

Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury.

An oldie but goodie, this book was published in 1Roger Fisher981 and is almost as old as I am. It is still the best book on negotiations that I have read, I go back to the five propositions on a weekly basis:

“Separate the people from the problem.” (watch out for emotion, make sure the negotiation builds the relationship, instead of destroying it)
“Focus on interests, not positions.” (what are they really asking for?)
“Invent options for mutual gain.” (grow the pie)
“Insist on using objective criteria.” (commit to a real conversation)
“Know your BATNA.” (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)

Love Is The Killer App by Tim Sanders.

Other than the amazing title (the world needs more love), I return to this book almost daily for the way Sanders suggest we treat others in the workplace. Every day, I try to be a “lovecat.”

How? By sharing my knowledge, my network, and my compassion and love. Because, “Those of us who use love as a point of differentiation in business will separate ourselves from our competitors just as world-class distance runners separate themselves from the rest of the pack trailing behind them.”

Good To Great and Built To Last by Jim Collins.

From Good To Great, I go back to the idea of the bus: get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to drive it. Not necessarily the other way around. “First who, then what.”

From Built to Last, I go back to the acronym BHAG, Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I ask myself, is my BHAG big enough? It is clear and compelling enough?

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

Duhigg explains habits as cue, routine, reward. He also explains that you can’t stop or extinguish a bad habit, but you can work on the cue and the reward, and thus change the routine, change the habit.

The concept of keystone habits (the habit that makes every other good habit easier) is also eye-opening.

On that same topic, on my reading list next is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

I love lists. But am I using my various lists in the most impactful, efficient manner? This book is about how to create the right checklists, and how to use them to save lives (in hospitals or in the airline industry for example) and make businesses work better. I read it twice, and still feel like I would learn more by reading it a third time.

The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma.

There are so many lessons from this book, I wrote a separate blog post on it after finishing it. It is a reminder to think about our thinking. Indeed, as Sharma puts it, the “one thing that makes us fully human is our ability to think about our thinking.”

Think about your thinking. And read books that help guide, improve, challenge, grow your thinking.

What are your favorite business books?