Last Week Again

I originally posted this on Tumblr but....how would do you ever get to that?
Also, I've been encouraged again to post more regularly here so thought I'd start with this - some reflections on the past week - a normal crazy week. I'll admit that the first few on entrepreneurs are kind of raw. While perfect companies never invite me in, I'm finding the common dysfunctions of entrepreneurial ones a little....tiresome? discouraging? Common? Here goes:

1. crazy entrerpreneurs - several drinks this week with employees of entrepreneur owned firms. Common theme - employees observe that being an entrepreneur has little to do with managing a business. I agree, it generally has something to do with starting or buying a business (desperation, no other choice, unable to work for someone else). Managing a business is a whole different thing.
2. everyone’s exception to the rule (whether it’s true or not) - yeah, Bill Gates appears to have started and successfully managed his business
   
3. ego - I think I won the argument about where ego comes from (or at least I put up a good fight): ego is the manifestation of insecurity - check it out - the people that demonstrate the lowest level of ego are the ones who are most comfortable with themselves
4. agreed - many insecure entrepreneurs do great things
5. up for debate (but what I believe) - because they have a lot to prove?
6. secret sauce - one of my entrepreneur friends observed there is no secret sauce for running a business. I disagree, and he agreed. There is. It’s people. Great people = successful business. Bad people = no business. Note: bad managers attract bad people.
7. deal with it - firing people is a key way of getting to good people - yes it’s hard - good people will thank you for it - and respect you
8. relax - when I found out Britney Spears was following my daughter on Twitter (I know, she auto-follows - kind of like tweet-cyncing) I tweeted a version of Britney’s latest song title to make a joke “well f u seek amy” (Britney uses it the same way) - and lost 15 followers in 5 minutes. Seriously. Lighten up!!
9. friends - I talked to a great friend feeling a little down who’d analyzed it back to wishing popularity would translate to more people who really care (this person has LOTs of friends). It’s a tough one. Caring means investing beyond a drink here and there. Lots of people don’t get that.
10. Google Latitude. A couple of friends turned me on to it. I think it’s creepy. But…yesterday my daughter was driving 2 hours to school and I got to follow her the whole way. I know it made us both feel better. Also, I will speak to her about shutting me down once she got there!
11. taking Friday off - now that it's summer I want to do more of that. In the meantime I'm heading to Whistler to go skiing. It doesn't really make sense to me either :)