My workshops and writings revolve around one idea – The little things that we do everyday matter more than the huge audacious goals we set at the workplace. Do the little things right, the big goals will take care of themselves. 

 Execution is always the key. If you get that right, you and your business will grow. If you don’t, you will be the person that had great ideas and wanted to do a lot of things but ended up doing sweet nothing. Good intentions don’t matter, what matters is what gets done.

 A few things the best professionals (that I have come across) do day in and day out to succeed at the work place.

      Fanatic about Diaries/To Do Lists

1. Write everything down: ‘The faintest of Ink is better than the sharpest of memory.’ This is a quote I use almost every day in my workshops. I harp about it – whether I’m conducting a Managerial Effectiveness workshop or on Sales. Write every small bit down on your diary. If it’s a meeting you have in 3 days OR the commitment to call someone back in half an hour OR an idea about a new project. Make a note of it. Once everything is written down, it frees up your mind to think more creatively about each of the subjects. Otherwise we are busy trying to recollect the things that need to get done. 
2. 3 minutes, 3 times a day: Check your diary 3 times a day for 3 minutes. Once in the morning, before you start the day. Once in the afternoon, before you do Lunch. And once before leaving for the day. Doing this will help you assess the work you have finished and what needs to get done.
3. Carry stuff Forward: Please ensure that you take the trouble at the end of every working day, to carry what has not been completed on that day, to the subsequent pages on your diary when you would do them.
4. Keep going Back and Forth through your diary: To constantly check what you need to do in subsequent days – so you can plan now if required. Go back to see if you have missed out on something that needs to be done.

 Tackling Procrastination: Irrespective of how passionately we feel about the work at hand, ever so often we will get into a mental space where we won’t feel like doing stuff.

1. Get Started Quickly: There is a certain power in quickly getting started with something you don’t feel like doing. Once you start, the rest usually follows.
2. Do the thing you feel like: At the work place, we often have multiple tasks to do. If you don’t feel like making that report, quickly knock off something else on your to-do list that you feel like doing currently.

 All the things mentioned above seem simple. Some seem like plain common sense. Doing them consistently is the challenge. Happiness for most is about converting their dreams into realities. These simple tools are a few ways to making your dreams come true. One day at a time.

If you are in business and really serious about succeeding as an entrepreneur or an employee, I suggest that you learn to swallow your ego.

In Business as in life, you are going to come across all kinds of people. The good, the bad and the ugly. As much as you would always like to work with people you admire, you are going to find a whole lot of people and situations where you would be terribly tempted to do the thing that first comes to your mind – like walk away from a business deal, quit a job or fire an employee. You may feel like ripping the person in front of you into 3 pieces. But for your own larger interest, you would have to bury your pride and move on.

A few examples:

With your boss: I have a friend who works under a terrible boss. Every day, he battles the urge to hurl abuses at him. However, he works towards overcoming his emotions. Why? Needs the money, but more so knows that he is learning a lot in the profile – experience that will come in handy when he starts his own venture.

With your Employees/Staff/Team members: My otherwise good driver once refused to do something that was within the confines of his job. I threatened to fire him. He still disobeyed. I was extremely tempted to act upon my threat and save pride. But I didn’t. Since then, he has been his regular ‘good’ self. Today when I hear from friends about the pains they go through to find a decent driver, I’m happy about my decision of not firing him that day just cause he had hurt my ego.

With your clients: As a businessman, I sometimes feel that our clients are completely unreasonable with us. Since we mostly work with large companies, we deal with multiple people who influence and take decisions. There are some clients who know that they are spoilt for choice and thus try to take undue advantage of us – treat us in a way that hurts our ego. Again it’s so tempting to reject the business. But if we are looking at meeting our objective of sustained growth we have to service a whole array of clients – the ones we love to work with and the ones we have to work with.

The thing to remember and ask yourself is – is swallowing my ego actually taking me ahead? Is it helping my cause [more money, more business, promotion, learning, etc.] in the medium and long run? If the answer is an affirmative yes, then swallowing your ego could be the best thing for your career.

In Business, there is always a choice between doing the smart thing AND the thing that comes to you first/easily. Always do the smart thing. The thing that may be a little more painful at that time but will always be more helpful in the long run.

Now, there is no magic formula on how to do it. Just do not act upon stuff immediately. Control the urge of saying or doing the first thing that comes to your mind. Wait. Hold your horses. Get some perspective by talking to a sensible friend and then take a more rational decision. 

That client who made us feel stupid to start with – ended up giving us a whole lot of training workshops. The money we made from the project is helping us grow our business and buy the car I desired for a long time. All because I swallowed my ego and massaged his a little.

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs I was exposed to multiple Business Ventures from an early age. Dinner conversations were usually about the ups and downs our Businesses faced. It was a natural progression for me to be an Entrepreneur. Since College, I have started 3 companies – An Events Company [ENT Unlimited], a Travel Company [trip2goa.com] and an Executive Training Company [Work Better Training]. The events company died a natural death after college. The Travel Company started off with a bang but now operates on a small scale. Finally with Work Better Training we have made a small but significant mark in the Executive Training space in India.

As my career chronology indicates, I have had more failure than success as an Entrepreneur. Yet without those failures I would have never ended up doing what I believe is my true calling. My failures led me to this juncture of my career.

A few things I have learnt from my failures:

1. Blame Nobody: If you have failed, for whatever reason, hold yourself responsible. If it was recession that caused the failure, well, you should have kept that in mind and accordingly taken the risks. If a partner cheated you in Business, well you should have been a little more careful in selecting a partner. Don’t blame anyone else. Hold yourself 100% responsible for the failure. Doing this could be the biggest factor in your long term success.
2. Seek the Learning: It’s easy to brush off failures in your career without introspection. Take the time to delve into your failures objectively. Crystallize them in words. Put them down on paper – in points if possible.
3. Learn from other people’s failures: My mother always told me that smart people learn from their own mistakes but geniuses learn from mistakes made by others. Keep a close eye on the reasons why others succeed or fail.  There is always a lot to learn from both.
4. Strength & Weakness Finder: If you consistently fail at something in spite of trying your best that could be an indicator of a natural weakness you may have. Failure often acts as a strength & weakness finder which helps you understand yourself better. Operate in jobs that exploit your Strengths.
5. Perseverance: The more interesting/new stuff you try, the more you fail. Let the fear of failure not stop you from venturing out and doing game changing work. Follow the Try – Fail – Learn – Try again – Succeed cycle to great measure. The important thing – don’t stay knocked down for too long. Sulk, but get back on the horse as soon as possible for a wiser attempt.
6. Die another day: Every failure at the time seems like the world is coming to an end. But trust me; it never does. There is always another day, another month, another year to make amends.

Every autobiography I have read of successful Business Professionals talks about the virtues of failing. Most of their success stories start with failed attempts. However, failing is never fun. It’s not going to be a party when it happens. But when you do fall down, don’t refuse to get up.

India Won the World Cup last night. The Men in Blue really gave a billion cricket crazy Indians tremendous joy. Although the whole tournament has been a testimony of the power of team work, the one man who stands out and has really made India the best team in the World is Mahendra Singh Dhoni [MSD].

MSD is in a way, destiny’s child. He has had his share of luck. But winning the T20 World Cup, the No.1 Spot in Test Cricket, the IPL, The Champions Cup and now the World Cup is not a play of good fortune. It is because he is the best leader the Indian cricket team has ever had.

Can an excellent Captain make a terrible set of players into World Champions? Probably not. I can’t picture MSD leading Kenya to World Cup glory. But a captain can definitely take a bunch of talented players and make them World Leaders. That is the power of Good Leadership. And that’s exactly what MSD has done time and again.

Although a short column can’t do Justice to the learning’s from MSD, let’s attempt to look at a few key areas where he really stands out.

Keeping his Cool

Many a TV Expert would suggest that it’s important for players to keep their cool during the big matches. But that is easier said than done. While watching the Cricket Match on TV, I have a hard time keeping my cool. But yet somehow Dhoni manages to do that. Somehow manages to keep the pressure of a Billion people aside and play his natural game. All of us are going to see ups and downs in our professional life. The key is to keep our cool. Remember that no one incident in Business is going to destroy you for life.  It’s what you do every day that matters.

Don’t meddle too much with the way people work

As managers, we sometimes have the tendency of meddling a little too much in the way people operate. Give too much unsolicited advice to our subordinates. Poke our nose into everything they do. Its good intentioned – but a leader needs to know where to draw the line. Each person has his/her own way of working. Concentrate on the objective to be achieved. Make people accountable to that. And let them be. Intervene in their methods only when really required.

Show Faith in people

This aspect in Business is really misunderstood. A lot of companies in the great desire to grow at a rapid pace don’t really concentrate on the hiring process. They hire purely on qualifications without considering any other aspects. Hire with great care, but once you do hire, show faith in the people that you hire. It’s important to remember that if you have selected your players – you need to show faith in them through good times and bad.

Do what you believe is right

Half the country will think that you should bat first. The other half will say you should bowl first. It’s impossible for the captain to predict for sure what the right decision is. But you can’t take decisions based on what everyone else thinks. A leader must take decisions based on what he, with the knowledge he possesses of that situation, believes is the best decision.

Be Bold

Not Sunny Deol style, ripping–out–pumps–from–the–ground bold. But bold enough not to live in the fear of failure.

Some people like MSD are born leaders. They somehow already know these things about leadership. But the truth is leadership can be learnt too. MSD with this World Cup has already provided us professionals the inspiration to do the same.

Every once in a while, when I feel fat, I start working out. Tell myself this time its going to be forever. Buy those expensive shoes. Register at a gym – pay a 6 month membership at least, to tie me down to the cause. And then, on receiving a few compliments on losing weight [mostly from my mother who always thinks I’m losing weight], I stop working out. Tell myself I don’t have the time. That work is more important. The excuses are countless. Then I start putting on weight again. And the cycle that’s been going on for the last 10 years, continues. Without any real improvement in my physical appearance.

Actually, we do the same in all aspects of our life. At work – we start a certain project and abandon it half way through when the going gets tough OR the initial euphoria dies down. Start on a fresh note with our colleagues and subordinates but after a while, go back to our original behavior. In terms of personal development – we get into the habit of reading and learning but then go back to our regular routine.

The key to any kind of improvement is Consistency. Anyone can do a certain thing for a couple of days or weeks. But working out through the year consistently – that’s what brings you results. The most successful professionals across the board share that one thing in common. Consistency in action towards the pursuit of goals.

But again, that’s so damn hard to do.

In life, we usually concentrate on the bigger decisions in life. Blame them for making or breaking our careers. Honestly, what’s more important are the small decisions you take every day. Those decisions, without us really realizing, become the ‘make or break’ decisions. At 7 pm in the evening – when it is my designated time to work out – when I choose TV – that’s a part of me broken, without me realizing the impact.

So what will it take to do stuff consistently? Simply put – Going against the tide. Not succumbing to the easier thing to do. Our mind will play games with us. Make up a thousand excuses for not doing the things that we have decided to. And we listen to that voice. Not because we really believe what that voice is saying. But it’s just the easier thing to do at that point.

I don’t have a text book solution but here are a few things that have helped:

1. Be very conscious of your small decisions. Concentrate on a few big decisions and then follow them up rigorously with the smaller right decisions every day.
2. Power through the weaker moments. Every time your mind starts playing devil, don’t give yourself too much time to reason. Quickly get into action. Wear those shoes and start Jogging.
3. Keep the right & relevant company. The kind of people who manage to motivate you. Who peg you on when you’re down and out. Who have a track record of success in the area you desire to improve.

And most importantly, don’t give up on yourself. You may have gone back and forth in the past. But trust me; another shot at improving yourself never goes waste. Irrespective of past failures, pull up your socks, and get started. Today.

The Success of Pan Asian Bowl, therefore, did not surprise me.

There are a few things all of us – young entrepreneurs like me or established business men, can learn from Anish and Pan Asian Bowl.

1. Passion: It’s hard to find a man more passionate about his work than Anish. He absolutely loves his work. Anish was extremely passionate about starting the venture and equally about running the day to day operations.  A lot of Entrepreneurs are excited about starting off, but lose their steam once it’s off the ground. That reflects in their ventures. When a leader is passionate about work, the passion rubs off onto the employees and customers.

1. God Lies in Execution: On most days, you will find Anish on the restaurant floor at PAB. Taking orders. Training his team on the job. Ensuring that things are going right. As a business man, especially one starting up, you need to be there – on ground, where the action is. That’s where your insights about the business will come from. That’s where you will make connections with customers. That’s where you will see how your product, your dream is actually faring. A lot of Business People think their job is to sit behind the Cash counter or inside a cabin instead of being at the forefront. Irrespective of how many Managers you have, do not lose touch with your customers and employees. In the end, your business happens one customer at a time. One transaction at a time. [We’ll talk about scaling up some other day].

1. The Back-end boring Operations are as important as the front-end Glamour: A lot of Business people love the front-end of business. Where we sit in an AC office. Where we see the money coming in. But fail to realize that a good front-end often depends on a tedious, unglamorous, boring operational back-end. Anish travels to the Fish market along with his team at 4 am every morning to get fresh fish. Being in a fish market is no fun. But he cares about the quality of fish, because we, his customers, care about the quality of fish.

1. 4. Fanatic about Customer Service: Anish is customer service personified. He LOVES his customers. He goes out of his way for you, will recommend the right food, instruct the chef if required on your special requirement, remembers what you ordered the last time – the list is endless. You don’t feel like a guest. You leave the place feeling that you own a part of PAB.

Customer Service is a lost art. Do you make your customers feel awesome? Or have you taken them for granted?

1. 5. Overtly Fanatical about Service Recovery: What triggered this column was my last outing at PAB. My beautiful wife and I decided to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary at PAB. For some reason, there was a minor screw up with the order. Our experience at PAB wasn’t top notch as it usually is. This got to Anish. The next day both me and my wife received this message from Anish:

“I apologize for last night, I believe we did not live up to expectations at PAB.
Kindly text me your order & your thoughts, I wanna work on it right away,
Our Guest Satisfaction Rate is 100% & I cannot let anyone leave dissatisfied.
Will be waiting for your text.

Apologies to your wife.

I promise I’ll take this right to the drawing board till we bring you’ll back smiling.
Will be waiting”

The next day, as a surprise, we got a couple of parcels delivered to our place. One with the awesome PAB food we relish, prepared by Anish himself. The Second – a Cake with “Happy Anniversary” scribed on it. Not just had he recovered from the mistake, he had managed to delight us again!

Every Organization screws up. The key is the recovery. If you manage to delight your customers at recovery – they will forgive your mistakes and become even more loyal customers. A great recovery creates Word of Mouth which is of utmost importance for every organization.

1. Don’t need to give discounts. Concentrate on quality: From Day 1 of operations, I don’t remember Anish doling out discounts to rope in customers. Even to friends, it’s always retail prices. But he delights us with the food and the service. A lot of Business People think that giving discounts will get customers back. If you concentrate on the quality of experience, they will come back anyway.

1. Spending time with his people: Anish spends as much time as possible with his team. It’s not just about taking your people out on an annual picnic [which he does too], but creating a bond with your people on a day to day. Know your people. Understand their strengths and weaknesses. Get to know them personally. Their problems. Their aspirations. If you serve your employees well, they will serve the customers better.

1. 8. Continuous Innovation: The PAB food offering in its first year had gone down well with its customers. The prestigious Times Food Award being proof of that. But the PAB team reinvented their Menu. Added a few offerings. Knocked a few off their list. They didn’t just sit on their laurels. They innovated.

To succeed in any business in the long run, it’s important to reinvent yourself periodically. Facebook changes its established layout from time to time [although it causes temporary discomfort] if the customer experience is enhanced. In your business, are you looking at continuously innovating your offering? If you don’t keep innovating to suit your customers changing needs, be rest assured somebody else will.

There is no guaranteed formula to succeed in business. I have seen Business failure closely through my own ventures. Sometimes you try to do all the above in some way and still fail. That’s the nature of Business and Money. But not doing the above as a Business person operating in today’s competitive environment is a sure way to fail. The success of PAB has lessons for all of us. Let’s try to apply some of them to our own businesses. If a young Entrepreneur starting his first venture can do it, so can we.

In business – what you say and what you do are the only 2 things that matter.

When we lose control over our temper, we end up saying and doing a lot of things that have an adverse affect on our Business and in turn our careers. Remember that once you say something, you can never take it back. If you are upset and tell your subordinate that he is a worthless Idiot – telling him later that you didn’t mean it won’t repair the damage done. Once you say something it stays. Irrespective of whether you mean it or not – words once uttered cannot be taken back.

Be careful of what you say when you are in a bad state of mind. One thing said could damage a relationship you built over years. The scar you put on that relationship would be a lasting one. The good deeds done through the years will be sidelined and those few nasty words said would take focus.

Professionals usually lose their cool on people they believe they can afford to lose their cool on – like small customers, subordinates, etc. The Manager blows his top on his team but will not do the same with his own boss since he knows the repercussions would be detrimental to his own career. That, by itself, is proof that all professionals can keep their calm and control their emotion even if they are seething from inside.

The difference between a good professional and a mediocre one is one’s ability to soak work pressure and not pass it on to the colleagues. Eg. If you are at the receiving end of a chiding from your boss – you should not go and download the same to your team. This passing on of anger & frustration in business is called Emotional Leakage. Pass on the message. Do not pass on the nasty words because it may not help the cause. The same is true while dealing with the customer. You could have had a tough interaction with one customer which could put you in a bad state of mind. But if you pass on those frustrations on to the next customer, you have created bad blood with both customers.

Are you not going to be in a bad state of mind when at receiving end of a customer/boss/colleague that loses their cool? You definitely will. However, the key to being a good professional is your ability to manage & control your temper by being totally conscious of your behavior. Be aware of your temper-losing patterns. Do the stuff that puts you in a good state of mind.

Irrespective of what the situation, learn to control your temper. Each person will have his own way of doing it, find yours. For some people it comes naturally. For others it does not. The easier thing to do is to let go and say the nasty thing. It will definitely make you feel better for the moment. But managing your temper will help you long term and lead to you making progress in your career.

Most celebrities, politicians & high achievers start losing the plot because they have a coterie of yes-men around them. People who don’t tell them the truth because they are scared of the consequences. This often leads to their downfall as they start believing what they want to believe which is far from the on ground realities.

Leaders & Professionals who produce great results in the long run often encourage their Inner Circle to contradict them and tell them things as they are. Hearing & knowing the truth in the right spirit is a key factor to one’s professional success. Here’s how we can get started:

Step 1: Ask people the truth

Encourage people to tell you the truth about yourself. If they start with something nice, great – but encourage them to tell you the negative stuff, the improvement areas. People love being asked for their opinions and will have lots of inputs if you ask them with an open mind. Appreciate your truth tellers for being honest with you.

Step 2: Having the gumption to LISTEN to the truth

This is what most of us can’t handle. Listening to the truth when it’s not that nice-sounding. We run away from it. Counter people’s opinions with justifications [which sound perfect to our ear] instead of just listening. Tell ourselves it’s not true. Get defensive. All of this instead of listening, asking and probing for more feedback.

Step 3: How to use the Truth?

The problem with the truth is – there is no one truth. The Truth often is an opinion. An interpretation which is highly subjective. If 3 people report into a Manager – each of them will have a different truth [opinion/feedback] for their Manager which in their mind is the absolute truth.

Hence, if a manager wants to improve her own performance, it’s important for her to heed the feedback of all three and start dealing with each one in a slightly different manner based on the truth as they see it.

Is the truth as people see it always accurate? Not at all. But remember that you are using their truth to improve. To make the modifications required to become a better professional. People are entitled to have their opinions. In the end, you need to try to do as much of an impartial assessment of yourself based on the “truth” mentioned by people. Then take the required improvement action based on the situation you have at hand, because you know your situation best – they do NOT. So use the truth as other people see it, don’t be a slave to it. Make it your slave.

The higher you go the more risk you have of not hearing the truth or dismissing it. Nothing stops you more from hearing the truth than success. That’s why very few people last at the top. For your own sustained success, stop doing that. Trust me it’s never too late to start hearing the truth about yourself.

Why Kashinath gets paid more: When Kashinath first joined the company – he was a driver. Just like other drivers we have had in the past. But Kashinath was different. Kashinath didn’t say NO. If we asked him to stay back for some work that came up, he didn’t frown. When we asked him to help us out with our Team Building activities, he did so, with much enthusiasm. Learnt the ropes and now does the entire set up without much guidance. Since we share the office space with my IT business, Kashinath observed how the Engineers assembled PCs and can now put one together in 15 minutes. From being just a driver – Kashinath has added value to himself, thus making him very valuable to our system. That reflects in his take home salary.

Why Guru does not get paid as much and may just get fired from his Job: Guru may do what’s told to him…but the expression on his face is always one of reluctance. His Body Language is so lethargic. Guru has a million reasons NOT to do something. [‘I can’t deliver this letter to XYZ Client because I don’t like travelling in the Bombay Local Trains.’ etc etc].  He is so reluctant to do or learn anything new. Unwilling to go beyond his comfort zone of driving.

The take away and a few questions.

Both of these professionals joined the company at almost the same time. Yet today, Kashinath is almost an indispensible part of our company and Guru is just another employee serving his time.

The only way to get paid more is to become valuable to the company you work for or the client you serve as a business person/self employed. So, how do you add value to your company?

1. Learn – Become an expert at something. If you keep learning, it benefits you as an individual in turn benefitting the company. The more skills you have, the more ways a company can use your services to make more money. So the question is – What effort have u taken in the past 7 days to learn something new related to work? Are you really an expert at anything?

1. Getting Better at your Job – most people would get better at their jobs if they spend some time doing the job. But if you want to make quicker progress than most others, work at being more effective and efficient at doing the job you have been entrusted with. Being acutely aware of how you are doing your job. Be a harsh judge of your personal performance. Ask your boss what you need to do to be able to do your job better. It’s a simple yet a very powerful question to improving yourself at your job.

1. Do stuff beyond your job profile – If you do what you’re getting paid for, you’re not doing anything special. When you take more responsibility, take on new challenges, you become important to the organization. Kashinath’s job is to drive a car. But when he jumps out of his seat to get my bags so I don’t need to take the effort, that’s going beyond his job. I love him for that. Don’t mind paying more for it.

1. Work Harder. Do more – Nobody who worked strictly from 9 – 5 made exceptional progress. You have to stretch yourself to achieve exceptional results. Be willing to spend more time working at your job, at getting better at your job, at learning.

Add as much value as possible to the organization or the client you are working for. You may or may not see the financial gains immediately. But trust me; going the extra mile never hurt anyone. Don’t do it for your organization, do it for yourself. You will be the bigger beneficiary than your company.  This is the time, although all times are in fact the time to get started on adding thick value.

Every year seems to go by in a rush. Irrespective of the nature of events and occurrences during the year – the line that most of us would use…hopefully sitting at a lovely beach shack on the 31^st of December, is ‘God…last year just flew by’.

The beauty of dates is that it leads most of us to introspect in some way or the other. As humans, we are thinking all the time. But dates like New Years, Birthdays and Anniversaries lead us to think deeper/introspect. But is thinking about the past and future helpful? Since all of us do it, I guess it is. But what’s more important is HOW we go about thinking about our past. That’s where the difference could lie in what happens subsequent to the introspection on these important dates.

Looking Back as Individuals

As individuals, irrespective of where we stand today – there is always room for a better future. But when we look back, we often look at events in our life and blame those events for the way we turned out. For Example: I had a torrid child hood. My Parents fought all the time. There was no peace in the house, etc. Don’t get me wrong, all of these occurrences have a huge bearing on how we turn out – but my point is looking back and placing blame on them is not going to be of any use.

The truth is nobody really knows why we or life turns out a certain way. Nobody knows why one woman gets raped as a child and then grows up to become the richest and more powerful woman in entertainment [Oprah Winfrey] OR why some others spend the rest of their life wallowing in the sorrow of their past. But citing something that has happened in the past as a reason for something not going right today – is just a waste of your time. Let that thought not cross your mind.

Stop looking at stuff like that. Concentrate only on the events in the past that were under your control and where you screwed up. Like not studying hard for that 12^th standard exam when you could have. That was totally under your control. Nobody could have stopped you from studying more. But you didn’t. Take your lesson from that. Take 100% responsibility for it. And use that learning in the future to give your 100% to whatever you are doing or not do it at all [that was my learning from doing badly at exams as a student].

Looking back on Business

Each business makes some decision based on what they think is right at that point. Each business and business person does an analysis [some detailed, some based more on intuition] and then decisions are made. But some of the decisions, big company or small, go wrong.

The success of a Business depends on the outside world. The external world. You do business only when a customer [external party] buys something from you. Hence, you are going to have stuff like the recession/downturn, key people quitting, competition introducing predatory pricing, etc. happening to your business. So when you look back at business, take 100% responsibility for everything that happens – whether you believe it’s because of an external force or internal – cause it really doesn’t matter. Both factors would be responsible for the success or downfall of a business.

Whether it’s about your own self or your business, look back. But look back only if it’s going to help you make a better future. Cause the future is the only thing we can change – based on how we look back at our past and act in the present.

Happy Looking Back and have a great New Year!