Thanks for closing the Q on time and even squeaking in those last few orders on Friday afternoon before the closing bell ! This morning, whatever the number was, it feels good to have the wind at your back and a new page open to a new week, a new month and a new quarter ! Still lots of room between now and the end of December.
Most importantly this morning, let the natural rhythm of the tides of the ocean or the early morning cool air of Vermont create your direction this morning.
Don't try to change Mother Nature. Embrace the heat since after all it certainly beats February. And, don't stress out that you're in the office and your prospects and customers are not. This is just the natural rhythm of the seasons right alongside and deeply intertwined with the natural rhythm of sales. Don't overthink it...but plan around it by detailing out your time over the next eight weeks.
Right this minute take your mind of this page!.
Stop reading and writing emails at the same time while you're thinking about keying up your next call.
Now take yourself 100 feet off the deck and just think for 30 seconds about the reality and the power of these words taken into the context of celebrating the event of the 4th of July taking place 242 years ago. 240 years is simply a tiny pencil point in time, but the dynamic impact of these words has lasted for centuries and remain powerfully with us still today.
This week, while you're keying up your work for the balance of the summer, and thinking about taking Wednesday and most probably the rest of the week off, just reflect for a minute, maybe five minutes, on the power of these opening words in a tiny document that's only 1,300 plus words long.
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Celebrate this 4th, not for the barbecue, not for the party with friends, and not for the day off from work, but for the reality and the depth of the word "Revolution" and then take that word back and apply it to your work and your career, and, as I say to my students of entrepreneurship at Tufts, where I have the privilige of teaching, "Break some Rules!".
Enjoy the day!
Coach & Advisor to Derby Management
Director, Entrepreneurial Studies, Tufts University
Cummings Family Professor of Entrepreneurship