Strategy Wins

Updates from March, 2017 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  snasta 5:24 am on March 25, 2017 Permalink  

  Begin with the end in mind… 

  Asked for advice today from a young engineer on how to be engaged in a career more meaningful than a corporate path was allowing. My answer:

  You can’t plan from today to the future, but you can from the future to today.  Pick a future in 2040 you want to live in.   Imagine it deeply.  Then figure out what is missing that is keeping that from happening, even if small, and focus on that.  Figure out what is keeping THAT from happening, until you find something small enough that you might be able to make the difference to make it happen.  Do it, but never forget your long-term future.  Keep revisiting it until it happens.

  — Christopher Allen (@ChristopherA) March 25, 2017

   

  

   
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  snasta 9:05 pm on June 4, 2016 Permalink  

  Muhammad Ali – Favorite Quotes 

  Was a boxing fan in the era of Ali….and then not any more.  I suspect I was an Ali fan a lot more than a boxing fan.  Ali had a way with words as much as he did in the ring.   Some of my favorite quotes, they seem to apply to life and business as much as boxing:

  1. “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. You can’t hit what your eyes don’t see.”
  2. “Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
  3. “The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”
  4. “I don’t count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count. That’s what makes you a champion.”
  5. “Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”
  6. “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
  7. “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it.”
  8. “It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.”
  9. “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.”
  10. “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest.”
  11. “At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.”
  12. “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”

  RIP Champ.

   
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  snasta 11:38 pm on May 31, 2016 Permalink  

  Legend Augie Garrido Steps Down as Texas Baseball Coach 

  Trails end, baby, they all end.

  Augie Garrido

  A Zen teacher, a life coach and also a baseball coach.   I had the privilege of meeting Augie Garrido on his home turn when Randy Cohen set up an EO event where Augie took us through his process for getting his team ready for game day.   I learned a lot about the detail of preparation and got an honest look at a big time athletics program.   And then, Augie taught me how to catch.  Well, OK I knew how to catch but my sport, in India, was cricket.   In cricket you catch bare handed.  Augie loaned me a glove and spent fifteen minutes teaching me how to catch with a glove on one of the most legendary fields in college baseball.   A fun afternoon with an amazing teacher.

   
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  snasta 7:47 pm on March 26, 2016 Permalink  

  Richard Branson’s Favorite Quotes on Risk 

  Richard Branson is one of the folks I follow on Facebook. Here are his Top 10 favorite quotes on risk. I can be risk averse, over-analyze, over think and prioritize research over intuition. These quotes provide a good reminder that you do have to try new things and risk a bit.

  My top 10 quotes on risk: http://virg.in/risk

  Posted by Richard Branson on Saturday, March 26, 2016

   
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  snasta 4:56 am on March 9, 2016 Permalink  

  From the Newsroom… 

  “Let’s not let the wish be the father of the thought.”
  -Charlie Skinner, The Newsroom

   
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  snasta 4:46 am on November 17, 2015 Permalink  

  The problem with worry 

  Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its strength.

  attributed to Leo Buscaglia (via Svetlana Frolova)

   
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  snasta 3:46 am on May 21, 2015 Permalink  

  The purpose of life…. 

  “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
  ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

   
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  snasta 1:11 am on February 28, 2015 Permalink  

  Yeah…I’m a Star Trek Geek…Leonard Nimoy passes away 

  A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

  — Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

  Dad is an engineer, 2nd graduating class of IIT Mumbai. He got me deep into tech stuff long before I knew Star Trek existed–with oscilloscopes, audio waveform generators and soldering irons laying around the house. However, when we moved to this country in 1977 watching Star Trek reruns was one of my favorite things to do. Of course as a tech guy, Spock was a favorite character.

   

  A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) onFeb 27, 2015 at 11:59am PST

  It was interesting to hear a former football jock on the radio, a mere kicker no less, making fun of Trekkies and sci-fi geeks on the radio tonight. It got me thinking how much science fiction has inspired the tech sector. Before Star Trek, Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov inspired scientists and engineers. Star Trek, no doubt, inspired a generation of scientists and engineers–some of whom insisted that the first space shuttle be named Enterprise. As much as I love football, I do wonder if the country would be better served with a bit more science fiction on TV and a bit less NFL.

   
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  snasta 3:14 pm on February 20, 2015 Permalink  

  Performance is reality 

  “I think it’s an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises — but only performance is reality”

  Harold Geenan

   

  via my friend Cameron Herold, author of Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less.   Cameron’s Painted Picture concept is hugely valuable—a topic of a separate blog post.  Want to improve your PR?   Read Cameron’s book.   He created incredible PR at 1-800-GOT-JUNK (where he was the COO).

   
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  snasta 2:03 pm on February 11, 2015 Permalink  

  Startup Defined…from Lean Analytics 

  A startup is an organization formed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.

  Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster (Lean Series)