My life is a big struggle between two motivations — fear (in a thousand forms) and this sentiment, expressed awesomely by Teddy Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Life in the arena is incredibly scary, but a life short of maxing out one’s potential to make a difference in the world is tragic. Here’s to courage.

I attended a conference this week where an economist, (Brian Beaulieu), spoke. He shared an optimistic view of the US economy over the next 12 to 18 months. This was interesting because it’s so different from current headlines and the national mood. As I listened to his reasoning I tended to agree with him. And even more interesting was to think about how my business strategy might be different given an optimistic view of the near-term economy versus a pessimistic view.

So let me ask you, if you knew the economy was going to do great for the next couple of years, how would that change your strategy now? Would you take more risk? Start a new business? I don’t think we need to know the timing of the next boom to know that those who start beat those who don’t, and leaders with optimism and courage are more effective than leaders driven by fear.

What would you like me to write about?

I usually write about ideas inspired by current events at my own companies. Sometimes current events are pretty routine though. If there’s a question or topic you’d like to ask me about, please do. If I have anything potentially useful to say about it, I will.

Some of the big ones from my own experience.

1. Treat people incredibly well. “People” is mostly customers and employees, but also vendors, community members — everyone.
2. Invest in becoming unusually good at what you do. No amount of sales and marketing can substitute for expertly and reliably delivering your product or service.
3. Tell the truth way more than most people do.
4. Be really picky about who you hire, nothing less than the best you can find.
5. Listen eagerly to what your customers want and make sure you are their best choice to get it.
6. Run a meritocracy where high-performing employees are rewarded and recognized, and where low-performing employees are quickly removed.
7. Make sure every employees knows the specific results you expect them to deliver, and an accurate, recent grade of their performance compared to those expectations.
8. Know the numbers intimately, especially revenue growth, profit, and cash flow. The decision-maker who doesn’t like to read financial statements is in big trouble (but doesn’t know it yet).
9. Recognize that business is a continuous competition that produces fast-growing winners and bankrupt losers, and be clear about what strategy (series of actions) you intend to win with.

This year, with the help of some excellent business coaching, I have been more proactive and willing to take risk to pursue faster growth in my acoustic panel and projector rental businesses. We’ve developed and introduced more new products than ever before. I’ve committed capital courageously to fund growth. We’ve raised our standards for hiring and employee performance to new heights. And we’ve emphasized values and culture tirelessly in every meeting, and as many day-to-day situations as we can.

Setting our sights higher has paid off. We’ve achieved continued, accelerating, growth. This was pretty fun until I realized we’ve outgrown our parking, office, and warehouse space. Right now I’m working on a plan to provide the space we need for the next chapter of growth. It’s uncomfortable in a way that maintaining a status quo business size is not. Growth is demanding of cash and courage. Choosing when and where to expand our physical infrastructure is an open-ended, multi-faceted decision process. It’s stressful, it truly scares me, yet I wouldn’t miss this for anything.

I’m going to Ethiopia next Summer with a group from my church. If you want to do short-term missions with me, we’ve got room, let me know.