Success Secrets - Choose Three Things

Lifehack has a great post on "How to Pare Your To-Do List Down to the Essentials" with some unique tips. One my favorites on the list is "Choose Three Things". These items, in a sense, are your "real" to-do list. Put the other items away, clear a chunk of time, and work on the three things that are truly "key" for your success. At least one should lead toward a major goal. I have found that taking the extra time to choose major tasks from the list of all of my tasks is calming and centering. Major energy can be devoted to major tasks, and you can knock off a few of the "B" tasks later, after the major work has been done. Thank-you Lifehack!

Techtags: To-do list David Allen Getting Things Done Lifehack GTD

Success Books - Charles G. Koch "The Science of Success"

In the previous post, I mentioned Charles G. Koch’s book , The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company.The book is centered around Koch’s concept of Market Based Management (MBM). Here are a couple of resources about MBM:

The Market-Based Management Institute has more about MBM, some resources, events, etc, while the Blog has some interesting commentary. There is also an excellent reading list here.

Techtags: Market-Based Management MBM Charles G. Koch Science of Success

Success Book and Podcast - Two Remarkable Men

I recently came across the works of two business leaders that had two major qualities in common: 1) They both run enormously successful businesses that are not, in general on the “radar screen” of many of us interested in business success, and 2) They are both scholars who have explicitly transferred free-market economic principles from the textbook into the infrastructure of their companies. And the results speak for themselves.

Charles Koch is Chairman and CEO of privately-held Koch Industries, a $90 billion giant involved in petroleum, chemicals, fiber, minerals and other basic industries. His current book is The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company.


John Allison is Chairman and CEO of BB&T a $120 billion bank holding company largely based in the South. Allison’s recent address to the Atlas Club can be heard here, and his appearance on EconTalk can be heard here.

What is fascinating about both men is their broad, “top-down” view of their business, and their determination to treat their business as a model of free-market economics. Normally, one envisions the economic principles of Hayek, Mises, Ayn Rand, and others as operating between individuals, companies or countries. On the other hand, one might normally envision the”inside” of a business to be more dominated by a strong leader, and more-or-less static systems, and run, perhaps, as a “survival of the fittest” where the hungriest, but perhaps not the most ethical , manager can win.

Nothing could be more further from the truth in the worlds that these men have created. Here are a few of the principles that they seem to have both used to grow their business and their people.

Reality. As Allison says, “What Is, Is”. You can’t “fake” value creation. You have to measure. You have to know when to “fold ‘em”. The “nicest guy in the world” has to go out the door if value is not being created. The most brilliant idea in the world has to be discarded if the customer hates it.

Only Reason can promote survival and growth. This might mean exhaustive analysis of a business before entering it (such as Koch does). This might mean using the concept of “comparative advantage” (usually found in the textbooks in the area of country-versus-country) to select the right businesses, the right people, and the right product mix. Allison remarked recently that even though Bill Gates’ contribution to charity through the Gates Foundation might contribute mightily to the world, his comparative advantage is clearly as the founder of Microsoft. At Microsoft, he changed the world and created value across countless industries on a truly historic scale, that has yet to unwind. Gates the philanthropist, Allison argues, Is unlikely to make the same revolutionary impact.

Reality is constantly changing. Static systems cannot work in an evolving world. Koch echoes Hayek and Mises in that business is a process of discovery and experimentation. In fact, Koch explains that he watches “opportunity cost” as closely as other costs. If an employee ignores a $100 million opportunity it is the same as if that employee cost the company $100 million Another example is picking the right new avenues for busines sgrowth. Economics is often concerned with the “marginal transaction”... the next sale, the next purchase, the next thing a consumer will choose to buy. Clearly Koch scrutinizes carefully each marginal event. There is where the “diamond lens” must focus, for that is the leading edge of the future. It is the willingness to drive change, to cope with it, and to be a part of it, that keeps these huge businesses in a constant state of renewal.

Also, Koch is a champion of “internal creative destruction”…the same force that trashed our black-and-white TVs when color came along, and trashed our cathode-ray tubes when Plasma and LCD appeared on the screen. But Koch demands that this creative destruction” (a concept attributed by most to Joseph Schumpeter) take place within the company. Only by consciously destroying and renewing from within can a company survive and grow to the gigantic proportions of a BB&T or a Koch Industries.

The basic unit is the individual. As in the larger society, the individual is the core unit of value. The individual must live within principles, act in their own long-term self-interest, and constantly be measured as to the value they contribute. As a corollary , these leaders impose no artificial limits on the compensation of the individuals in their companies, instead relating that compensation to the overall value contributed.

Business and a free market are sources of good. The free trading of goods and services among free people is the greatest engine of well-being and prosperity ever conceived, and the only known method by which both buyer and seller can benefit simultaneously. I particularly sensed from Allison his conviction that a successful business can affect far more lives in far better ways, than even the best-run government program or charity.

Long-term thinking is also a quality reinforced by both men. Each of them has been at the helm of their company for the better part of a generation. Koch frequently mentions decisions to buy or sell a business based on long-term analysis and praises the long-term views of his partners. And Allison mentions that ethics take on much more clarity as time goes by. The ability to “fool people” diminishes after you have been around a person for a while. And, he mentions, he has never m t a financially successful person who routinely takes advantage of people, and is enjoying a happy life. It catches up with you one way or another.

There are many more details in the book and mp3s I have mentioned. These concepts just scratch the surface, but it is remarkable how deeply these men have read and studied, and equally remarkable that they have applied their studies with such relentless rigor. I strongly Recommend reading Koch’s book, and listening to Allison’s mp3’s.

For more top Success Books please check out John Allison Charles Koch Hayek Mises Ayn Rand

Success Videos - Know Yourself

A great short video about a key career strength... Knowing yourself!

Commentary - How Many "Books Ahead" Are You?

Charlie Munger. Barton Biggs, Neville Isdell. What do Warren Buffett’s sidekick, a Hedge Fund Master, and the CEO of Coca-Cola have in common? They are passionate about reading, and feel it is the cornerstone of success for anyone. So… how many “books ahead” are you? Instead of measuring how many Plasma Screen TVs, cars, or houses you have, how about using the measure of what the most successful people use? How many books ahead are you?

How many books ahead are you in your field?
Everyone in your field is your competitor. How can you compete? Clearly reading will open the door to the advancements in your field, as well as to collateral advancements in other fields relevant to yours.

How many books ahead are you in Investing?
Do you want to leave your investments in the hands of your broker? A planner? Your accountant? The field of investing is changing day by day. Are you keeping up?

How many books ahead are you in business?
Are you aware of new worldwide trends? New lines of business you could be in? New styles? New standards? New worldwide markets?

How many books ahead are you in marketing?
If Search Engine Optimization complete changes every three months, how many people are reading what you neglected to read, and are beating you at your own game?

How many books ahead are you in personal development?
Who might be writing with a completely new approach to motivation? Interpersonal skills? Goal-setting? The ground is shifting under your feet. The answers keep changing.


How many books are you ahead of yourself?
Are you ahead of where you were last year? Someone once said “You are the same person this year as you were last year, except for the money you’ve saved and the books you’ve read”? How many books per year do you read? Did you know some people (very rich people) think in terms of how many books per week they read? Surprised? They find it crucial.

Human knowledge is exploding at an exponential pace. Much of this knowledge is immediately applicable to better our lives, our health, our finances, our relationships, even our souls. Are you “too smart” to read? Do you learn everything you need to know from drive time radio? Do you really think that will give you an edge? Do you really think there are no pieces of new knowledge you need to apply for the rest of our life?

Your competitors certainly hope so.

Note: This entry has been featured on Verve Coaching's Carnival of Powerful Living. Please visit their site and enjoy the other excellent articles!!

Techtags: Reading Success Career

Success Book Reviews - David Allen "Ready For Anything" Part 3

This is Part 3 of my review of David Allen’s Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life a concept-based exploration of the GTD (“Getting Things Done”) principles. This review will highlight some of my favorite ideas from parts III (“Create Structures That Work”), IV(“Relax and Get in Motion”), and V (“Remind Yourself of the Fundamentals”)

Freedom Comes from Discipline
This is one of the great paradoxes of success, and has immense significance in the way the world works. The implications of this concept go far beyond the GTD principles, but certainly GTD is emblematic of the concept.

For Allen, once a disciplined information and project management system is in place, the mind is freed for both higher-level thinking (i.e. one’s visions, long-term goals, etc) and for lower-level tasks without the incessant mental chatter and worry of “other tasks undone” creeping in.

I’ll never forget an incident in the 4th grade that drove this lesson home. I was having a rough day. My desk was a mess and I had to clean it out. I was stressed from the divorce of my parents, and certainly had little knowledge of scheduling, prioritizing, etc. After school, as I was tackling my messy desk, someone walked up to me and reminded me of a birthday party…was I going? Of course, I had completely forgotten the party, and was totally overwhelmed, with no tools to handle the flood of information and commitments. As I look back on my life, I am amazed how I was able to manage without an organized planning system. I got my first planner in the mid 90’s. Decades too late.

You Can’t Win a Game You Can’t Define
Allen tells us that a project is the stepping-stone to a goal. Let’s say you want to be a millionaire by 40. Allen might say “What projects do you have about that?” Projects are tangible and definable. They have titles that start with : “Investigate”, “Determine”, “Create”, “Write”, etc”. Within the projects are “next actions”, but the project is the vehicle that organizes action on the way to the goal. Projects cause us to objectify , quantify, and define parts of our goals into something where we know what an outcome actually looks like.

Principles Drive Policy
For a master of detail such as David Allen, who has taught so many of us that details, even seemingly unimportant details, matter, it is educational to understand that he and his organization have over 20 core principles that guide their behavior., including risk-taking, curiosity and even “being nice”. They act from impulses far above the granular level of “next actions”. Standards. Principles. These are the generators of consistency, of what we can/should expect of ourselves. The litmus test of any initiative, of any interaction with another. I have seen a few “movers and shakers” act as if principles and standards were an impediment to success. Not true. An organization with good principles and standards shines out. Doing business with such an organization is an obvious choice. You can almost “feel” the transparency, the absence of “games” or “slickness”. Also, Allen tells us, principles can help us reflect on why someone drives us “up the wall”: they may be violating some of your (explicit or implicit) standards.

Capture as Many Thoughts and Ideas as you can Without Analysis.
I first learned of this technique from a book about Richard Branson. It only took me a couple of decades to start this process myself. One of the keys is to suspend judgment about the ideas you are writing down. If it (an idea, a product, a location, a remark) interests you, your first job is to just collect it. Weighing, processing, acting (or not acting) on the data comes later. The goal is to conquer the censoring instinct to avoid recording the data. “It’s useless”. “I’ll remember it”, “This is a waste of time”. In essence, we can expect 2/3 or more of what we write down to be, at least near-term, of little value. But we are drastically increasing our supply of new, helpful input, and also relieving our conscious mind of archiving responsibilities. All for a $2.00 pocket notebook.

Lastly, the book ends with a bonus: a short appendix detailing the GTD principles and processes. This section is highly valuable because of its compressed nature. It’s all in one place. It’s dense, and is worth keeping at hand as an organizational aid, and also as a structure to meditate upon, to transpose into our lives, to shape into a ”freeing discipline” that works for us constantly.

I found this book an inspiring companion to “Getting Things Done”. A touchstone to reconnect me with the principles, and the meaning, of the earlier book.

Part 1 of this review

Part 2 of this review

TechTags: Getting Things Done GTD David Allen Ready For Anything Personal Productivity

Success Videos - Writing Your Resume

Here's a great video on writing a resume which I originally found via Sutree.com, a superb source for instructional videos. Presenter Rich Alexander makes the following points:

1. There is no perfect resume
2. You can have multiple resumes
3. Start the resume with an objective
4. State what you did (specifically)
5. Do research. Who are you giving the resume to?
6. Stay relevant. Must pertain to the objective
7. Be specific
8. Be organized and to the point
9. Show mature reasoning in your previous job changes
10. Be Yourself





Techtags: Resume Career Jobs

My Success Book Collection

I thought I would show a few of the books,videos, and tapes in my Success Books collection.

Success Book Reviews - David Allen "Ready For Anything" Part 2

This is part 2 of my review of David (“Getting Things Done”) Allen’s book Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life . Part one of my review is here.

“Ready For Anything” Part 2: “Focus Productively”

Part 1 of his book was devoted to clearing out your psychic RAM . Part two takes it from there. The chatter in your brain has been stilled by capturing and organizing all of the projects and tasks you are currently engaging in. The next issue is how to use that recaptured mental processing space for productive work. Here are a few key ideas form this section:

Results come from focused action, not just action
“Busy-ness” is not necessarily productivity. Doing the right thing, at the right intensity, for the right reasons, is.

Focus on the outcome. See yourself “doing it”.
I had a wonderful mentor, Rayburn Wright, who was the first to explain this to me. In essence, the mind does seem to self-organize around intention. The sub-actions seem to “flow” toward the destination. Many disciplines, such as those I mention in my review of “Quantum Success” and in my post about “My Success With Written Affirmations” are related tot his concept. Having an intention seems to recruit various sections of the mind to perform better and more cohesively.

Keep Desired outcomes in front of you.
This is a corollary of the previous principle. One of the best ways to “focus on the outcome” is to keep that outcome in front of you as much as possible. World-class athletes know this principle well, and you can often find their bedrooms adorned with posters of winning athletes, Olympic medal ceremonies, etc. I keep a list of my current goals in two key places: on my bathroom mirror, and at my bedside. Virtually the first thing I see in the morning, and the last thing I see at night are those goals.

I believe that one reason we must keep our goals constantly in mind is that opportunity is a near-random event. The opportunity to move ahead on a particular goal may come only once a week, or once a year, or even once in a lifetime. As Pasteur said, “chance favors the prepared mind”.

Here’s a particular example: as a trader, I wait for certain market conditions to occur. Some of these conditions occur only two or three times per year. And I need to remember not only what conditions I am waiting for, but what I plan to do when I see those conditions. I have found it particularly helpful to keep those goals in front of me. Also, I strongly agree with David Allen that this kind of long-term thinking should not be cluttering up my mind during day –to-day activities. Devoting “psychic RAM” to a distant and rare event seems to me to be a bit of a waste of energy.

Develop your ability to return to a state of “Readiness”.
When some event throws us off of our game, Allen asks: “How quick can you return to ‘Ready’?” That “recovery time” is an excellent indicator of productivity: of the ability to snap from “out of focus” to “in focus”. In my discussion of Doug Newburg’s “Resonance Model”, I mention Newburg’s key tenet that high-performance people in all walks of life have methods to “revisit the dream” so they can concentrate their focus back on how they want to feel and perform, and away from the disruptive events that are impeding that “flow”.

Capture thoughts and ideas from moments of inspiration
Sometimes, when I am thinking quietly in the morning, the “obvious next step” in a process will occur to me. Or a completely new application of an existing process will suddenly appear. These key insights are the kind of things that can change our planned projects and tasks, re-orienting them in increasingly productive directions. These insights, which we may have only during a few “inspired” moments, need to be captured, because such moments of elevation and perspective do not occur all the time. These “drivers” can move our daily work ahead faster and more accurately. So, some method of capture (notebook, voice recorder, etc) needs to be nearby. Also, we need to trust that these efforts are worthwhile. We need to have the inner discipline to write threes ideas down. Key insights are few. They are valuable. And we must recognize this.

Give full attention to the task at hand.
Allen’s methods allow us to collect and process sour tasks allowing us to pick the one important thing to be doing right now. Once we know we are doing exactly the right thing, the difference between world-class and second-class is concentrated focus on the task at hand. It is hard to us imagine having respect for a concert pianist, a surgeon, a pilot, etc who could not achieve this focus. This is where the “rubber meets the road”: it is the difference between outstanding results and lackluster results. In my experience with advertising people, I was often amazed at the stamina and persistence of highly creative people when they had the opportunity to realize their vision. Sometimes the change was miraculous. People who , I thought, were pretty typical people suddenly would “turn it on” and they could summon whatever was necessary during the task at hand, to take a project from “workmanlike” to award-quality material. They conserved their energy for the key times when maximum intensity was necessary. And they achieved great results.

More to come…

TechTags: Getting Things Done GTD David Allen Ready For Anything Personal Productivity

Commentary - The "American Idol" of (Chinese) Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the “rising tide that lifts all boats” , because growth and innovation brings prosperity to all. I recently posted about Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator, a startup firm that provides seed money to early stage companies, usually in the range of $20,000. Here’s a story I found at Rutledge Capital. In China they’ve done a sort of “American Idol” /”The Apprentice” combination in what must be the granddaddy of all business shows: a competition starting with 120,000 Chinese entrepreneur candidates on a show called “Win In China”. The winner gets approximately 1.2 milllion (US equivalent) to fund their dream. The scale of the vision is enormous. Clearly the Chinese are hungry for success in a big way.

Techtags: Entrepreneurshp Anna Wang John Rutledge Entrepreneurship Startup Y-Combinator Venture Capital

Success Book Reviews - David Allen "Ready For Anything" Part 1

This is Part 1 of my Review of David Allen’s Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life I read, Allen’s Getting Things Done in the fall of 2006 and have been using the GTD techniques ever since . This book provides clarifying insights, and even some philosophical background into the GTD techniques. The “feel” of the GTD method, so to speak.

Below are some of my favorite points from each part of the book

“Ready For Anything" Part 1: “Clear Your Head” for Creativity"

One of Allen’s key points is that the conscious mind is a logic and processing tool, not a reminder book. Post-it’s do not belong in our heads. One of the first steps to clearing out your “psychic RAM” (as Allen calls it) is a “ubiquitous capture tool”. Ideas, appointments, tasks, projects must be captured as they emerge. There are huge benefits to this. First and foremost is the lifting of that tiny voice of anxiety … “Oh…I can’t forget about this”. I use my little pocket Staples notebook, and regularly experience a cycle of :

a) recalling a task,
b) remembering that I’ve already recorded it and
c) that “ahh” feeling of solidity and satisfaction that the task is “in the system” and that I don’t have to worry about remembering it.

Allen’s admonishment to “get everything out of your head is harder than it sounds. I find myself pooh-pooh-ing the repetitive opening of my notebook for seemingly trivial things. Like breakthrough ideas. But seriously.. it’s those little things the ones I think I can remember, that I resist notating. But now that I have been doing GTD for a while, I recognize that counter-impulse, and I do write it all down, Ahh…the relief.

Allen’s concept of the “Weekly Review” has become a part of my week that I truly look forward to. When I am done with that review, I almost feel like I’m on “autopilot”. I close my files and relax. It’s all out of my head, and I can focus much more intently on a task-by-task basis because, when those nagging “reminder” voices come up, I can mentally affirm “it’s in the system”. There is no question that the time spent reviewing more than “pays for itself” in the calmness and assuredness with which I can later approach single tasks, knowing that, out of all my tasks I have consciously selected what I am doing for the right reasons. Not because it just occurred to me.

Allen also takes issue with the argument that “creative people” have cause to resist such organizational procedures. I agree with Allen: that’s humbug. Allen contends that you can be more creative when there’s “room” both psychically, and on your schedule, to be creative. For example: I am writing this blog post because the bills are paid on time, because I know what, and when I expect to be posing this, because this book made it into my “new reading” folder, etc. There is certainly no reason to think I could be posting more productively if I didn’t know what my tasks and “next actions” were.

To be continued…

TechTags: Getting Things Done GTD David Allen Ready For Anything Personal Productivity

Success Videos - Michael Fischer on Saving and Investing

Financial blog Getrichslowly has linked to a remarkable series of videos by Michael Fischer of Savingandinvestingbook.com Fischer clearly knows whereof he speaks, having spent nine years at financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs. What comes across clearly is Michael’s deep desire and commitment to help others just see how important finance is in all of our lives. The videos are:

Introduction
The power of compounding
Providers and users of capital
The difference between debt and equity
What is leverage?
An introduction to financial statements
Why do financial markets exist?
What is a bond?
What is a stock?
What is a stock market index?
The importance of diversification
What is a mutual fund?
Types of mutual funds
The difference between active and passive management
An introduction to dollar-cost averaging
The impact of time
The three enemies of growth
Coping with high-interest debt
Getting started
5 popular misconceptions about money

Fischer has included many examples, and has clearly put a lot of time, thought, and organizational skill into these videos. Well worth watching.

Techtags: Saving Investing Wealth Retirement Financial literacy

Success Master Skills - Disaster Avoidance

You can show off a new car. You can show off a new house. But you can’t awe the neighbors with compound interest. You can’t inspire envy with personal liability insurance. You certainly can’t impress anyone with a brown bag lunch, even if you tell them that it will add thousands to your retirement savings down the road. These are the Quiet Successes of Disaster Avoidance. They are often invisible, and even can appear negative or geeky. It is very hard to explain “I’ve done a number of things to make my life smoother and more stress-free”. It just doesn’t say “Rolex” does it? It’s not dissimilar to the problem you have proving your anti-terrorism credentials: if there is no terror, you get a yawn at best. How do you talk about “the disaster that didn’t happen” at a cocktail party?

The items below are tedious. Uninteresting. Boring. Adding them up, they are even somewhat costly. We are tempted, in these consumerist times, to let these expenditures go, but what we gain in freed-up income, allowing us to buy trifles, we actually lose in peace of mind. Each “quiet” task adds to a supply of comfort that grows over the years, and ultimately outweighs the finest clothes, the snazziest PDA, and the hottest plasma TV screen.

Consider these items. What would happen if one or two items happened, within the same week or a month, that could have been avoided by engaging in the “quiet success” of preventing disaster? Imagine these events happening, at random, throughout your life. Consider the drag on your happiness. Your serenity, your peace of mind. Even your life itself.

Can you “declare success” within yourself, and work on these items, or do you need to buy your success from others, by showing off your toys?

The List of Quiet Successes:

Living below your means
Wearing a seat belt
Seeing a dentist and optometrist regularly
Creating a “reserve” cash account of 6 months’ savings
Putting the maximum in your 401K
Buying long-term care insurance
Making a will
Personal liability insurance
Errors and omissions insurance (business)
Paying off your credit cards in full each month
Exercising every day
Quitting smoking
Eating in moderation
Drinking good spring water instead of soda
Eating a healthy diet
Getting a Colonoscopy
Eating cholesterol-reducing foods
Driving within the speed limit
Getting (and using) a library card
Doing your car’s scheduled maintenance
Getting a regular medical checkup
Having emergency supplies on hand
Brush and floss every day.

Success Videos - Paul Graham on Startups

Below is a classic video from Paul Graham, programmer, entrepreneur, founder of startup incubator Y Combinator and , importantly for this site, master next-generation business philosopher.

Graham has the extremely rare ability to reflect on his own process, and to articulate the nature of the explosive and limitless business epoch we are now in. And his wry wit is a double-rarity.

A few of Paul Graham’s ideas as I see them:

He is a tireless proponent of business startups (especially web startups).
He believes there is no limit to the number of potential business startups, because there is no limit to the amount of new ideas that people want. And, he implies in this video, there never has been, in all of human history.

Graham’s vision is that creating a startup company, getting rich, end completing the “chore” of earning a living early in life is a viable option for many many young people, and clearly he sees this path as much closer to a mainstream career option is common.

I might add that there are, as I see it, many reasons for this to be true.

Products are now often mostly informational: digital not physical.

Since products are both created and delivered via information, the huge capital requirements to create an industrial-age product have shrunk dramatically.

In the Industrial age, the huge economies of scale needed to make affordable products, could only be achieved by hugely capitalized, enormously large companies. Often these products were simple products as well. Oreos. Corn Flakes. Bathroom tissue. Now, a huge capital base is not required to create an attractive, cheap product, and furthermore, products can be complex and detailed. This also, as a corollary, implies that huge variety of differentiated products can be created.

Similarly, in the Industrial Age, distribution was difficult. Physical objects had to be distributed and there was limited shelf space. There were costs. Bottlenecks. Middlemen. In the Digital Age, none of these concepts apply. Distribution is perfect and instantaneous. Products can be nearly free, and highly differentiated. We can use more products, on our desktops, in a day, than our grandparents used in a lifetime.

Back to Paul Graham:
In this video, besides articulating his breakthrough vision of the new primacy of startups, he articulates remarkable insights into the startup process. In many ways he recalls the ability of a Peter Drucker to synthesize and explain the dynamics of startups. One of Drucker’s dicta: “The Purpose of a business is to create a customer” is, in essence restated by Graham: the main focus of a startup is to attract users. There are many more key points in the video that reflect classic business principles, although he refashions them to focus on the startup space:

Speed is a key driver of success.
Continuous improvement is key (also a big-business concept, and epitomized by Toyota).
Stay flexible. Let the customer shape the business.
Commitment is more important than brains.
Avoid excuses that prevent new initiatives.

Graham’s vision is the pulse of the age. He reminds me simultaneously of Emerson, Brian Tracy, Drucker, and Edward DeBono.

Tech Tags:Paul Graham Y Combinator Startups Entrepreneurship