Trust is key to build a business--how do you build it?

Without trust your business cannot succeed. Pure and simple.

How do you build trust?
- You have the best interest of your customers in mind
- You build the business to help your customers, to provide and creates value
- You do what you say, the way you say when and the way it needs to be done
- You take responsibility for your mistakes and you do not make too many mistakes

You have a bonus point when
- You are easy to do business with

How did he go from broke to Twitter king?

I have been following @ev, Evan Williams since I signed up for Twitter earlier this year. I figured that it would be interesting to know what the guy managing this new and intriguing company was doing. I enjoyed the article he wrote for the New York Times talking about his life but I am missing something that I think will make a difference to others...

He talks on his article about how he started in business and how he failed, lost money, had to search pennies to buy coffee so broke he was... I admire he turned his life around and had a number of really interesting projects and work experiences... What became O'Reilly Media!!! Blogger... Twitter... Oh WOW! (and no, this last one is not a company name :-) He went from broke to twitter king...

What I am missing on his interview and when and how he turned his life around... I bet it did not come without some faith, action and a couple of realizations along the way... and I will "tweet" him to ask him to share his secret sauce.

Cold Play just won a bunch of Gramy's... What is their secret?

I loved the interview with Chris Martin from Cold Play (the British rock group) at 60 min this weekend.

Despite the recession and a tough music industry, the group has several Grammy's and got its fourth straight multi-platinum album: "Viva La Vida". They have sold seven million copies!!! Even their world tour was virtually sold out...

What amazes is what Chris Martin said...

"We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill"

"Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more."

"I can't dance like Usher. I can't sing like Beyonce. I can't write songs like Elton. But, we can do the best we can with what we've got. …. And so that's what we do. We just go for it."

So that is beautiful example of being a 10... no wonder I am inspired when I listen to their songs.

This week, I am practicing living in the moment and being a 10!

It is easy to be overwhelmed with all the bad news about the economy and the pressures of day to day work and family obligations. What I get is that it is ok to feel overwhelmed... But when I live in the moment... and focus only on what I need to do right now and I put my heart into whatever I am doing... it is pure joy and fun...

Recipe for the winter blues and the economic upturn

First, you got to acknowledge what is going on. What you see in the news is depressing. Job loss is the worst in decades. Maybe you have debt. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe you are not getting as many customers as you used to. And, if you leave in the Northeast, yes, it is freaking cold and you have cabin fever.

It is what it is. Move on. Dwelling on it is a recipe for being depressed and getting down the road of no return!

Everyone is looking for the answer. Who has the answer? Maybe the economists have the answer? Maybe the government has the answer? Maybe Wall Street has it??? No way. Reality is NOBODY has the answer. The government poured a tone of money in the economy in the 30s and until the 40s the unemployment rate was around 20%!!! It was not until the war that all those people started getting jobs. And God knows we don’t want another war to get the economy going.

All the government dollars spent will not make a difference if nothing gets created.

So here is a quick recipe:

(1) Acknowledge but don’t dwell

(2) Stop generating negative conversations around you. Don’t engage on other people’s negative conversations either.

(3) Stop going around like someone has the answer. Decide what you stand for.

(4) Start creating. Create a goal or two around your commitments.

(5) Get in action.

(6) Get team. Play to give, not to get.

(7) Be a 10.

(8) Take an action a day.

(9) Faith. It will work out. Just keep in action.

(10) Trust yourself. You can do it. You make a difference and it starts with you.


Oh, by the way, for the winter blues: Be a 10. Just get out of the house and put a big smile on your face!

Entrepreneurship: A Valuable Experience for Life (by Barbara Bordow Osach)

In these times of great economic uncertainty, when fear and concern pervade the public conversation, many of us are confronted by the need to change the way we operate to preserve the lifestyle we have. Oddly, in our quest for security, our most valuable guidance comes from the operating practices of risk-takers: entrepreneurs.

No matter how you earn a living, having an experience of entrepreneurship, whether for extra spending money or for your bread and butter, teaches you ways to approach goals and obstacles that bring out the skills and attitudes needed to create opportunity and succeed in any venture. What does it take?

What does it take to have an entrepreneurial way of operating?

Uncertainty, risk and the possibility of failure make most people feel uncomfortable, but when old ways of operating no longer suffice, it's nearly impossible to take the actions to produce the results you want to achieve unless you come to grips with operating at risk, with faith and trust. As an entrepreneur, you always deal with uncertainty – the good idea you have may or may not produce the results you need and want. A successful entrepreneur confronts uncertainty and takes action anyway, even when he or she doesn't know how to do what needs to be done.

Regardless of the business you start, as an entrepreneur you quickly realize that you are responsible for everything, even things you delegate to others. You have a stake in the success of the enterprise, and where you engage other people, that means you have a stake in their success as well. Leadership is at the heart of entrepreneurship.

Take this entrepreneurial approach with your group at work, your volunteer committee, or sports teammates, and you'll be amazed at the ideas that start to flow, the work that gets accomplished, and the “can do” attitude that spreads throughout the team. And when you work with others this way, innovation and creativity flourish, and together you can solve problems you didn't know how to solve.

Note: This article is a contribution from Barbara Osach. She is an Author and lives in Connecticut. She has published several books and is an expert in leadership development, education, workforce development and financial literacy. She will be launching a new book shortly "Navigating the Mortgage Minefield : Your Complete Guide to Avoiding Costly Problems and Finding the Right Loan in Today's Market".

Faith - A source of empowerment

For the most part, people think of faith in the religious sense. I am not writing about that... I am writing about the kind of faith we learn and need as an entrepreneur.

Faith is a critical element for entrepreneurial success. It involves believing in something without proof and evidence. Lack of faith in the entrepreneurial world leads to stress and hopelessness. Having faith as an entrepreneur gives you strength when things are tough.

A successful entrepreneur knows that in any endeavor, you will encounter barriers. At times, it feels like these barriers or obstacles will be impossible to overcome. Successful entrepreneurs keep on exploring "how could I/we proceed?", "what could be done", "what would someone else do?"... As they continue to take appropriate action and have faith in the future, we succeed.

It is no different for large projects or projects that have never been done within an existing company or within a community you may work to support. At first, that "thing" you want to accomplish looks impossible. It takes enthusiasm to get started but as a leader, it will take faith to keep going until you accomplish what you intended in the first place.

In the beginning of my career, I started a community project that did not really go anywhere at the time. The project kept changing. I kept changing the project to accommodate the circumstances or what I thought was possible or not possible. Looking back, I can see clearly that I did not confront my lack of faith.

I can see clearly that if I kept taking action towards the target vision or intended outcome, there was no reason not to succeed. It was a bad habit to keep changing the target (modifying the project to fit what I thought was possible). By changing the intended outcome, I could not even know if I succeeded or not. It masked my stops. It will certainly mask yours too. I am glad though I am able to look back and see that the root cause of my changing the target was a result of my lack of faith - my lack of faith that eventually I would succeed.

In my entrepreneurial endeavors, there are times where things seem hopeless. At those moments, I now know, I need to step back and have faith. That renews my enthusiasm and keeps me in the game full power. It is a source of empowerment. It is actually kind of fun to keep looking at a barrier or obstacle and keep asking: how could one do it? How would Mr. or Mrs. Super Successful do it? What would Warren Buffett do here? What would Bill Gates do?

Finally, as entrepreneurs, faith also comes when your venture does not take off and you need to move on. If you read Bill Gates and Paul Allen's biographies, you will see that as did many other successful people, they failed a couple of times. They did however continue to take action in the direction of their vision. The rest is history.

What about you? Are you going to continue to refine your vision, learn from the mistakes and move on with faith?

Decide - Commit - Succeed

One of the most important aspects to success is our commitment towards it, and more specifically, our decision to be successful. How we operate - how we think as well as the actions we take - is what makes us successful.

To make the difference is starting a business, we need to make a solid commitment to it. It is a choice, and it is a choice totally independent of the circumstances in life. One can decide now, today, that you are taking on a whole new level of success, even with the "recession" glaring out at us.

"Decision" doesn't mean you kind of want to do something, or you're still thinking about it, or one day you would like to. It means you're cutting off every other option. You are burning the bridge. There is no other option. You are deciding now.

"First you have to decide to be successful.
It all starts with the decision."
-Richard Giannamore

"You can't give yourself an option. There is no option. It's either do or die. That is the kind of decision you have to make." – David Neagle


Most of us operate inside of "a hope, a wish, and a dream." We think, "I would like to be start a busines," but many don't really believe they can actually suceed at it, so we don't make a conscious decision to achieve success. This is where we lose out. We typically hear people say "I will try it out"... Sorry... trying will not get anyone there.

When we are operating inside of "hope, wish, and dream," it is easy to let fears and beliefs stop us from taking the actions that would make the difference in achieving success. It is easy to have the circumstances dictate our emotions, and have the emotions dictate our actions. We think we need to wait until we learn more. We try to figure out the right course to take. We get opinions from many people before proceeding. We do not want to take any risks.

Remarkably, once we decide to succeed - while action is required - all the pieces begin to show up as we step into that decision we make. We begin to see opportunities where we did not see before. It doesn't matter what the boundary or obstacles appear to be, we do not get stopped by the circumstances.

But one cannot make the decision with a back door. There are no plans for what you will do "if this doesn't work out." You must be willing to commit 100% and operate in faith, trust and risk. We must be willing to confront the discomfort and keep taking actions consistent with "getting there".

Also, we think that what we can or cannot do is a function of our capabilities. But it is our belief system that keeps dictating what we do or don't do. When we make a serious commitment, we start to take action despite our beliefs and we keep going. When we keep going, we can only succeed. It is being in action that dictates the results.

"Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results." – Jim Rohn

That is the case at first, our beliefs determine our actions. But once we make the commitment and take action anyway, results we never thought possible get produced and all of a sudden our beliefs start to change. So our beliefs tend to shape what we do and don't do, but when you make a commitment, there is that moment of truth that you go against your belief system. Over time, your beliefs will change. Have you noticed that what you believed 10 years ago is no longer what you believe today in many cases?

Decide, commit, succeed. End of story.
So keep going... what is your commitment for 2009?