Many years ago, when my business started growing and I was building my team, I hired 5 horrible employees, all with bad attitudes, poor work ethic and questionable morals. 100% MY fault, of course.

My mentor, Dr. Nido Qubein, often repeats the mantra “We live, they watch, they learn.” It’s a reminder to his leadership team and faculty that they are ALWAYS “onstage” – living, teaching and demonstrating their core values to the students by how they behave, not just by what they say. He understands that the MOST impactful and meaningful way of instructing and inspiring students to embrace their core values takes place outside the four walls of the classroom, not in the books they’re given or the instruction provided.

Last week a news story broke about a landscaper who mowed around a dead body lying in the grass he was cutting, giving the excuse that he had thought it was a Halloween prop. I’ve heard a lot of excuses over the years for people failing to do their job or skipping over important details in their work, but this one takes the cake…

Continuing on the “fear factor” train from last week’s Rant in a nod to Halloween and all things frightening, here are items 4 through 6 of the things you should be very, very afraid of as the owner of an MSP…

With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I’d give you a list of 6 things that should ACTUALLY frighten you as an MSP, not just the normal ghosts, goblins and politicians. This week, I’ll give you 3, saving the final 3 for next week…

Have you ever watched someone do something that should be as familiar and routine to them as brushing their teeth, but they look like they’re doing it for the first time? What should be a routine, ordinary procedure turns into a total cluster f&#@ in figuring things out, a mad scramble and clown show of errors? 

A lesson I have to teach and reteach and remind folks is this: results don’t happen by accident. I wish I could magically change someone’s situation for the better by simply having them attend my event, but I can’t. This is why many stay home.

Most people do not know how to make decisions and don’t even realize it. They’re in a perpetual state of “think it over” on just about everything in their life and therefore get nowhere fast, living the same life they did yesterday, making no progress. One day they’re going to wake up as an old man or an old woman and think to themselves, “I could have been great,” but they’d never decided to do anything about it, never getting started.

Someone at a recent event came up and asked me how I overcome “the feeling of being unmotivated and exhausted all the time.” Well…I think he was projecting his feelings about his company, so let me tell you a story….

Last week, I spent two days with Don Miller, NY Times bestselling author and previous speaker at our annual Boot Camp event, at his home here in Nashville. He built the home to be a place to bring people together – his family, his friends and fellow entrepreneurs. It’s a magical place he calls Goose Hill.