Since I was a little kid I have suffered. I have suffered from feelings of inadequacy, suffered from Imposter Syndrome, and suffered from feelings that I don’t belong. In 2010, I became aware that depression had taken hold of me. I did not know I was depressed until the day I was sitting at my desk and I physically felt the cloud move away from me. I must have been living with mild depression for a long time and did not even know it. I wouldn’t get serious about treatment for this depression until nine months into my wife Janet’s…
How much weight are you willing to shoulder?
Climbing the organizational chart. It is a great feeling, leaving more and more people behind you as you move up in your organization, getting more perks, a nicer office, getting to rub elbows with the top brass, and a higher salary. Having been a CEO I can say that the air can sometimes just be cleaner up there. It is cleaner because there is just more of it to breathe since you are at the top. You don’t have to deal with all of the little details of running the business and hopefully have direct reports that are really good…
And why doing so isn’t what is best for you or your company.
In the past year, I have used this phrase three or four times when in conversations with people with whom you would not normally utter those words. I used them with two shareholders, my boss and chairman of the board, and in a job interview.
These are normally words spoken by an employee over a beer with a friend or co-worker while either complaining about their boss or their company, talking about their job search or simply explaining that work is not the most important part of their life.
This article isn’t about all the reasons the companies cause people…
The Republican Party no longer reflects my values, especially my value of Integrity (a.k.a., doing the right thing).
Dear Ms. McDaniel:
At the end of the day, I am a nobody. My resignation from the republican party at age fifty-three, after being a member since I first registered to vote when I was eighteen years old will not cause concern within the ranks of the party because I am not a well-known member of the party, have no sway over public opinion as a writer or television pundit and do not hold a high-profile elected office position. In fact, I…
Understanding how will bring you clarity and peace this year.
How will you suffer in 2020? This is not a question that I will answer here. It is one that you will need to answer.
In my article “Are your employees suffering”, I wrote about how it is our nature to focus on pursuit and avoidance, and per Buddhist teachings, it is this pursuit and avoidance that leads to suffering. In case you did not read the article or are not familiar with the concept, below is a graphic from it that illustrates this and here is a link to the full article in Medium: https://medium.com/swlh/are-you-your-employees-suffering-d10ec9d9bfe?source=friends_link&sk=2b5fab1dd8608cd99e5212e00c117de0
How to build a culture that will enable your business to withstand the test of time
The pyramid of Khufu is thought to have been built around 3,200 B.C., and as with all of the other Egyptian pyramids, has stood the test of time like no other man-made structures on earth….and they were built on sand!
For years the pyramid has been a symbol used in business to visually show the characteristics or general steps that need to be taken to reach the pinnacle of success. It is a very effective tool for communicating what needs to be built on what, and what priorities come first in order to reach a goal, whether it is a…
Sell, sell, sell…
Today is Lesson #1 on How to Succeed at Failing in Business. As The Failure Guru, I am dedicating these lessons to help you fail. Everyone assumes that people who start businesses want to succeed but some don’t…they actually set out to fail, or appear to want to fail in the eyes of everyone who tries to help.
The one thing I regret about my business failures is that I did not have someone like me to teach me how to fail. In the coming months I will provide you with critical lessons that I wish I would have had…
Without them, your foundation may crumble
First, this article is dedicated to my son Peter. During the 2016 elections, Peter was nineteen years old and we had numerous debates about the pros and cons of capitalism. Some of what you are going to read here about Purpose and my philosophy surrounding it was shaped by these discussions. Thanks Bud.
In business we talk and write a lot about “foundations”. As in “The foundation of our success is based on…”.
This “foundation” we talk and write about is usually based around culture and includes references to the best people, customer satisfaction, founder’s vision, company values, etc.
Advice from The Failure Guru for entrepreneurs on how to tank your company.
People hate to make decisions, and let’s face it, your people are not nearly as smart as you or they would have your job. Micro-managing gets a bad rap but the fact is that it streamlines your business because it ensures that every decision will be in line with what you want and it will also ensure that if and when your employees do make decisions, they will take a long time to contemplate them because they will be afraid of being wrong. …
Given that I had a “growth at all costs” mindset at 23 years old with my thirty seconds of business experience and virtually no scar tissue, it stands to reason that the only thing I cared about was growing the top line and assuming that the bottom line would take care of itself. While that has validity…it is the balance sheet that determines whether or not your company will ever get to the point where the bottom line is taking care of itself. This is a trap that many entrepreneurs fall into…and I even took accounting and finance at John…
Matthew Caiazza
I am an entrepreneur and CEO who is passionate about helping businesses and helping others.
