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Every business has what I have come to think of as a decision bottleneck: the single binary choice that determines whether the operation moves forward or stays stuck. Small businesses, in my experience, stay stuck in a rut because they aren’t sufficiently clear about the nature of what they need to decide, which leads to…

One lesson that took me too long to learn was the need to pick a boring business category, a truth so obvious in hindsight that it almost hurts to admit. For years I chased excitement, adrenaline, and passion when I should have been focused on cash flow instead. That mistake cost me a decade and…

Everyone should try selling something once. Not because you’ll get rich, but because you’ll find out exactly how you handle rejection, math, and human nature—all in the same week. As many people know, my first foray into sales was selling Cutco knives back in 2002. I was pretty horrible at selling knives. I remember having…

The biggest expense for any business isn’t on the P&L; it’s opportunity cost. We can chase our tails to save $500 and miss $500,000. Why do we do this? The Root Of Opportunity Cost Bad decision making. Why do people make bad decisions? In a word, indecisiveness. From everything I’ve studied about successful people in…

At its core, accounting is a system of accountability. But what is “accountability,” really? I thought it would be interesting to explore the idea in detail. Accountability has multiple dimensions. There is accounting for the finances in a business, which is the most obvious application. There is accounting for the physical inventory of a store…

You may have encountered the workplace ritual of rating a meeting on a scale from 1 to 10. I believe the idea has its origins in the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), which you can read about in a book called Traction by Gino Wickman. I like a lot of things about EOS, but this rating…

I remember working in one job where my supervisor would routinely walk around and mutter his frustrations about specific employees under his breath. In one case, he walked behind three different people and muttered “as soon as I can find a replacement, so-and-so is out of here.” The move was obviously intentional and calculated to…

In my early twenties, I had recently gone back to college after being laid off from my dream job. I came to realize something strange: I had started to dread the weekend. One Friday afternoon, it hit me. I was sitting in the common area of the college campus shortly before lunch. The campus was…

People throw around the idea of “core values” with a bit of pride injected. We have been told that we should be “proud” because we believe this or that. But what exactly is a “core value” and why do some people have different core values than others? The Origins of Core Values My theory: core…

I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions, mainly because I’ve had too many years of being “that guy” who signs up for the gym and quits going by the end of January. I came to realize that New Year’s resolutions are often fueled by two shaky motivators. False Motivator #1: Something Magical Happens On New…