On Quora, more people viewed my answers to questions than anybody else on PLANET EARTH. I don’t know if I’m still #1 for that but I logged in to answer a question this morning: What are the 10 essential things every business needs to be successful?
I love looking at my counterpart’s answers. I’m not Gary Vee… I think he’s amazing, he communicates with authenticity, but he would say things in a way that I might not.
So how do I word this in a way that fits me? When your heart is bigger than your metaphorical testicles… (Please laugh with me)…please don’t be an entrepreneur.
Let me give you the 10 answers that I got in looking at other people’s answers.
“Be honest with Self and with Others”
How does that help you build a business? Please share it with me.
I’m going to be honest with myself today. I want to make a shi(p) load of money. Why? Because when I make a lot of money, I can give generously. When I make a lot of money, I can feed people all over the world. When I make a lot of money, I can educate people in countries that don’t get educated. When I make a lot of money, I buy wells in countries so that girls don’t have to walk the whole day going to get water and then bringing it back to their villages or their houses so they can get educated.
So you go work on your heart, I’m going to work on making a load of money today.
“Respect everyone with understanding”
I’m going to go back to answer number one…While you’re respecting everyone and you’re giving great understanding, I’m going to go back to my rule of number one. I’m going to make a shit load of money. I took the ‘p’ out of there for emphasis this time. I’m going to make a lot of money so that girls in the village will not have to walk five miles to get water rather than get an education. So I’m going to go that route. I like building swing sets in countries where kids have nowhere to play, so I’m going to go back to making money.
“Have the right mind on how to be fair on both sides”
I have a right mind that, hey, guess what, I still want to go make a shit load of money. That’s what I want to do today. Why? because I want to give generously from my overflow of income
“Do not think only on your own game or benefit, but think for others benefit”
Well, I still want to make money, but I’ll give you a little bit here. I believe if you serve customers and you benefit them, you will benefit yourself.
So we can split the difference on this one. Yes, I absolutely think that if you have a good product or service, you’re going to benefit your customers.
“Have a mind of how to improve process on the job and share with others and have great teamwork”
Clearly, you have complicated a fairly simple model here. I’m going to go with: let’s do things as efficiently as possible with the fewest people possible.
And if they want to work as a team, that would be great, but I also believe in the law of MVPs and the law of mercenaries. You have some people that don’t play well with others, but they get the job done. Do you know what I do with people like that? I let them work alone. I don’t ask them to work in a team. Some people aren’t wired for the whole team thing. They have a finite responsibility and they do it really well.
And look at a football team, you got a defensive end who’s got one thought on his mind, I want to rip the head off of that quarterback… I’m fine with that. If you don’t really care what the 10 people around you are doing, but that’s your one, finite mission. I can work with that all day long. So I think teamwork is optional because if you are an MVP, you’re immersed and you do your job at such an extraordinary level, and it benefits everybody. But that’s like the law of osmosis. Your very presence benefits the team.
“Never to think you are better or smarter than us”
We got a problem here because I think I’m a damn near genius. Now let me just tell you that it’s in about only 3% of the skill set of what you need. I’m good at about three things, and there’s probably 97% of the things I’m awful at. But in the area that I feel like I’m fairly gifted that. Yeah, I’m sorry there, I do think I’m smarter than others. Guess what? In 99% of the other areas, I think you might be smarter than me. Some will give and take on that one. But in my area of genius, I have to tell you, I have to pat myself on the back.
“Always use kind words and be patient”
I think Gary V and I would both probably not make it on this one. I don’t think Steve Jobs would make it on this one. I don’t think Bill Gates would make it on this one. They’re not patient. They’re known to throw out a very colorful phrase. Sometimes kind words don’t get you to the goal line.
I have found that I speak to what I call the tribal language. As a general rule, I don’t curse. I do, when I think something can be much funnier and it gets attention to it, but 99% of what I say is well thought out. There are certain words I would never say, but when I’m with my team, there’s sometimes when you have to speak the language. I can say to someone, Listen, I don’t like what you’re doing. It doesn’t look good. And I found that I need to say that three times and they still give me that lost look. Tut this is where kind words don’t work and sometimes I have to look at it and say, You know what? Your work looks like shit. Oh, their head swings back…really?
Yeah, see, I don’t know if that was kind words, but you know what? Their work got better after that!
“You don’t have to disagree without being disagreeable”
I have to disagree with you there. Let’s agree that we disagree. When have we been to the point where… Gotti. I can disagree with you and still love you. I can disagree with you and still be on your team. I got friends I love and disagree with. I disagree with certain people who have certain political views. It doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re a good person. I think that most people that have an opinion or a hard stance on something, it comes from a good place, perhaps an experience they have that I have not. I think being disagreeable is okay.
Hey, I’m Italian. You fight at the dinner table. And then when it’s over, you give a hug. It doesn’t mean anything, but we disagreed.
“Take good care of your employees and have them know that you care”
I’m going to give you 50% of this. I think your employees want you to provide employment where they can succeed, do well, improve their life, have opportunities, learn.
So I give them all that.
I give them a place that they know is going to be in business. I give them a place where they could improve their income. I give them a place where they can get better at their position. I give them a place where they can grow, and if that makes them know I care about them, that’s great. But at the end of day, my primary responsibility to them is to give them a place where they can come to work every day and do what they do well, and grow in it, and to make money. Because they’re not going to come work for free.
“Study about different companies success and learn the goods, and learn the goods to be positive”
See, you had me and then you lost me there, positive. I believe in studying different companies successes, I’ll give you that, but why did you have to put that little feel-good story in here so that you could be positive? Hey, I’m a very positive person, but there are times when I’m negative because I see something that’s negative, and for this brief period in the day, I will express my negative view of what I see. Why? So that you can create something different and I will be happy and view it positively.
I’m going to share with the people that created this list of 10. These are absolutely worthless, awful, and will not help your company that much, but if it makes you feel better… great.
Next time I’m going to give you part two of this podcast where I share with you the five things you really might want to focus on.
