I can't agree more with Kator's comment. Find a mentor - maybe pay for a business coach if you want but you would probably be able to find an experienced serial entrepreneur in your industry after one or two conferences.
I would however start today not with a book but a clean sheet of paper. Take a long hard look at you, your decisions and imagine explaining it all to a judge in five years time. What bits will you be proud of, which embarrassed by and which will land you in jail.
If I was to give five points I wish I had done more of:
- Always be hiring
- Always be filling the pipeline
- Always cut more out than you think is possible. Do less better.
- never ever lie, and stand up and speak the truth as needed
Spot on, for sure a mentor is great but introspection is a powerful tool.
The first thing I ask when I start coaching someone is what are your goals with your career? In my career I can literally boil it down to four points:
1) Passion
2) Leadership
3) Compensation
4) Hybrid (Tech + Business)
At any time in my career I can score these 1-5 (5 being best) and the closer I get to 20 the better I feel. That said this is just the "what's your motivation" phase, next comes the "what's standing in your way" phase where you look deeply at your strengths and weaknesses and see how they block your ability to receive what you're looking for in your career. Then comes the "ok so now what" phase where you start setting goals to help shore up your weaknesses and magnify your strengths. Then it's "rinse and repeat" basically measure, adjust and execute.
> might choose a different four but the idea is solid
The goal is to personalize these parts so they're your own. By all means I encourage people to pick their own but boil them down to succinct things you can describe in an elevator pitch.
They're very powerful when you talk to a manager or a potential employer about what makes you happy as an employee. It can be hard for a manager when you ramble on about what you want but I can blast these out along with a short example of each and use them as the basis of a productive dialog with the person I'm talking to.
In short, yes, pick your own, but know them cold and know how you measure them and how you can communicate to others when your not at a 5 in every area! :-)
Listening to LSE podcast ("Risk savvy") and mentions defensive decision making - where an intuition is to take decision A but fear of lack of defensibility if it goes wrong leads to recommending decision B
This is an interesting corollary to my "never lie" - and if you have any cultural affect on the company push for "failure is good if we fail fast and learn from it"
I would however start today not with a book but a clean sheet of paper. Take a long hard look at you, your decisions and imagine explaining it all to a judge in five years time. What bits will you be proud of, which embarrassed by and which will land you in jail.
If I was to give five points I wish I had done more of:
- Always be hiring
- Always be filling the pipeline
- Always cut more out than you think is possible. Do less better.
- never ever lie, and stand up and speak the truth as needed
- know where the money is going