Mark Watson is the founder of Aquila Capital Partners. I had the pleasure of listening to one of his interviews and an audience member asked him, in Q2 where he would invest $1 million. It’s the same question we’re answering at Flagstaff Ventures. Mark invests in the technology that driv... »
As a general rule, employees don’t form unions if they are thrilled with management, pay, working conditions and their jobs. Especially in the United States, forming a union is not a recreational activity. It’s difficult and could cost workers their jobs. Amazon and Starbucks both face f... »
If you’re a college basketball fan, the NCAA Final Four games last night were a blast to watch. Kansas beat Villanova, so everyone in my neck of the woods is happy. The Carolina-Duke rivalry was elevated to a new level. Last night was the first time the two teams have met in the Final Fo... »
During the pandemic, there has been a run on seeds. With vacations and business travel cancelled, people stayed home and grew vegetables and flowers. As Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith shares in her book, The Well Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature, there’s a lasting imprint of our hunter-gat... »
Last month, Netflix announced a first quarter forecast of only 2.5 million new subscribers. That would be the weakest quarter for the world’s largest streaming service since 2010, when the majority of Netflix customers still got DVDs in the mail. The day after the announcement, Netflix shares ... »
Ideas come and go. Every day, I write down a handful of new ideas in my planner. I’ve done this for years. I try to write down at least ten, not because any of my ideas are all that great, but because it gets me in the habit of seeing ideas come and go. Also, it doesn’t hurt to capture w... »
In the last few months of 2021, The Harris Poll collected data to see how the United States felt entering 2022. As we enter the third year of the pandemic, mass lockdowns are a distant memory, vaccines are readily available and the economy grew at the fastest pace since 1984, but Americans are anxio... »
“The omicron coronavirus variant is slowing the economic recovery, making worker shortages for already- shorthanded employers more severe and leading consumers to pull back from spending on restaurants, hotels and airlines that have been battered by two years of pandemic upheaval,” reports Dav... »
Like a dog waiting for its master to come home, in the last few minutes of a long day, trapped inside with nothing more than a bowl of water, as the garage door opens and excitement oozes out of the furry little creature, each trip I take on this bright blue and green ball around the sun beckons me,... »
My clients and friends in Italy find it hard to believe that the United States enacted a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages for twelve years. I no longer drink alcohol, but I’m told if I move to Italy they will kick me o... »
During a recent coaching call, I was asked about several specific investments I’ve made and my outlook on those assets. While the answers I gave were specific and strategic (i.e., fluid and reactive), the underlying principles were not and they centered around having skin in the game. Nassim N... »
Each month, we have really great coaching calls for Look Over My Shoulder members and received two excellent questions from members, Dr. Michael McCarthy and Dr. Kim Mai. The principles and strategies reviewed during the call teed me up nicely for a small handful of new client calls and progress rep... »
There are too many examples to count in which a struggling writer, faced with writer’s block or a tight deadline, experiences an epiphany, resulting in prolific prose only after he or she starts writing about what they know. In an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Maggie Gyllenhaal talked about... »
Raymond Joseph Teller is an American magician, writer, actor and film director. He is half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller, along with Penn Jillette, where he usually does not speak during performances. Jillette shared the story at an event where we were both speaking on stage to a large g... »
Before the pandemic, I’d sit at the bar of my favorite local Italian restaurant and order a Negroni, dinner and glass of wine. More than once, a bartender or server would ask me why my newspaper was pink. If you read the Financial Times, you’ve probably been asked the same question. The ... »
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Be the peace you wish to see in the world.” This is such a true statement and concept which extends into every other area of your life. If you want more joy in your life, stop searching for it and start creating it. If you want more love, peace, prosper... »
Google dominates online advertising. The company reported revenue of $183 billion in 2020. More than $147 billion, or 80.3% of total revenue, came from Google’s ads business. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is on pace to grow 36.9% in 2021 to $250.6 billion in revenue. While regulators... »
A few months ago, one of our private clients reached out with a human resources challenge. I swiftly recommended he call Sean Barnard, our trusted HR expert and certified professional in this area. Sean has decades of experience building, leading and managing high-performance teams and was a general... »
In her book, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron shares the story of her teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche’s, response to being asked if he had ever been afraid. He explains that he was once confronted by a fierce guard dog. The people he was traveling with ran from the dog. He ran toward the dog. The dog ... »
I played tennis with an attorney friend last weekend and I learned a few things. First, I learned my knees and right shoulder are not as young as they used to be. My joints groaned like the hull of a wooden ship in a heavy storm. Ice and Advil were my best friends for a few days after our match. Sec... »
In his new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman takes readers through a sobering assessment of “time management” and presents a new way to form a better relationship with yourself and escape the dangerous “efficiency traps” lurking around every corner. In a nutshel... »
When the big stack of mail gets plopped on my desk each day, I won’t lie, there are many letters I’d prefer not to open. When I see a return address from an attorney or the IRS, I react with as much gleeful anticipation as a toddler sitting in front of a very large bowl of steamed brocco... »
Danny Meyer, the famous founder of Union Square Hospitality and Shake Shack, calls mistakes the greatest renewable resource on earth. As humans, we make mistakes all day long. I made at least 20 mistakes just trying to write this article. Like waves in the ocean, there are always more mistakes comin... »
Most people, particularly dentists and doctors, need way too much information and are paralyzed by and can’t move forward because of the misconception that they must wait until the time is perfect to move. If you have 80% of the information you need to make a decision, you probably have enough and y... »
One decade ago, Ashleigh Barty won the girl’s Wimbledon title at the age of 15. This year, she won her first Wimbledon women’s final and her second Grand Slam title. Barty tends to be very quiet and holds her cards close to her chest, but over the last several weeks, it became obvious how very ambit... »
In a wonderful conversation this week with a 5-10 year startup now producing over $40 million in annual revenue, spitting off lots of profit, I was pleased to hear the co-founder admit he struggled with a common problem I see happening right now in professional practices throughout the world–the pro... »
Last month, the U.S. government declared emergency powers in order to keep fuel supply lines open, due to fears of shortages following a cyber attack on the Colonial pipeline. This one pipeline provides almost half of the fuel consumed on the east coast of the United States. Following a ransomware a... »
Head-scratching has turned to frustration. It’s a mystery that I have invested several dead-end hours trying to wrap my head around. You can’t hire anyone for that good paying job. It’s easy to think it’s you, your location, or your business. It’s not. Every industry is being affected throughout the... »
Apple put privacy back under your control recently with its latest iPhone update, iOS 14.5, and the new feature called App Tracking Transparency. Apple announced this change last June and Facebook threw a historical hissy fit. Google has sworn to protect you from unwanted cookies but that’s on... »
Before the 2021 Rose Bowl, Alabama Coach Nick Saban had quite an answer when ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi asked him for one thing he learned this disruptive year. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep everything in some kind of a controlled mechanism that I thought was going to lead to better performance, ... »
“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the ... »
In his latest book, The Quick Fix, author Jesse Singal, takes psychological research to task. He demonstrates over and over again how only half of all published experimental psychological findings are successfully replicated by other researchers. The subfield of social psychology fares even worse. W... »
Big data. The name alone commands respect and intrigue, like Big Oil. And that’s the trouble with labels. They over-simplify and often stupefy people into thinking one way about a related issue, challenge or opportunity. For years, I’ve been arguing that we’re in the age of actiona... »
I listened to an interesting report on NPR recently about police hypnotists, which I didn’t know existed. Apparently hypnotism is one of many tools detectives will use in Texas to help get more information from victims and suspects. The problem and challenge, as you might imagine, is the power... »
Last week I was browsing through a book on Epicurean Philosophy and stumbled across this great quote by Epicurus, who lived from 341 to 270 B.C. “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” How true this sti... »
One of my favorite cartoonists wrote in the introduction to his first book, “I’ll never forget the first time I ever laughed out loud at a cartoon. The year was 1989. I was casually wandering past a stationery display in a department store when a batch of greeting cards caught my eye. I ... »
I see a lot of smart people giving dentists and orthodontists dumb advice. Your in-box and social media feeds are filled to the brim with mostly well-intentioned people trying to make a buck convincing you this one metric or that one metric will solve all your problems. They promise efficiency and g... »
I continue to hear from my orthodontics clients a common thread of frustration and angst as we search for qualified candidates on their behalf. Every position from office manager to treatment coordinator, dental assistant and front desk continues to be a struggle. Each owner often asks if the proble... »
Massimo Chiapponi launched his Parma bike shop Italia Veloce in 2009 with fellow “retro- velo” enthusiasts Christian Grande, a multidisciplinary designer, and advertising executive Max Rabaglia. He has been racing bicycles since he was a kid and turned his hobby of hand-built bikes into an Italian b... »
As we continue to navigate the pandemic, our administrative team members have been working remotely since March 2020. Here’s what we’ve learned: Schedule fewer meetings No meetings back-to-back Designated “meeting-free time” Flexible work hours Find ways for remote colleagues to socialize We’ve also... »
In a New York Times feature on his summer garden to-do list, Timothy Tilghman, head gardener of the Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York, shares tips and advice to home gardeners. “If you can’t enjoy weeding, you won’t be a happy gardener. Everyone enjoys the neatness of a fresh planting,... »
At the time of this writing, there are only a few days left in the year 2020. To quote Leslie Jones and her thoughts about the year, “I would say it was a train wreck and shit show but that would be unfair to trains and shit.” Naturally, we’re all ready to move on from this year and to s... »
The Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon is so ubiquitous that one of the mailers was even found by FBI agents in the junk drawer of notorious gangster, Whitey Bulger. Comedians and television shows make fun of the coupon and I’ve done a fair amount of my own ribbing of the brand. At peak circul... »
Some articles grab you by the shoulders and shake you awake. This is one such summary of an article by Jared Hopkins in The Wall Street Journal. Definitely worth a read. Here are the highlights: First lesson: go all in. If you have an idea that a small test group of your patients, clients, donors or... »
In 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and Lieutenant Edwin P. Ramsey ordered the last cavalry charge in American history. Nearly eighty years later, the presidents and CEO’s of Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GSM, Sanofi, and others leading the vaccination charge, are our new heroes. Saddling u... »
In The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill demonstrates how people have a tendency to reap where they have not sown. You see this with companies who assume the grass is greener and hop into another industry or mess with their core product or service, to their detriment. Coke did this with New Coke in the ... »
In my work with clients abroad, I get to learn about all sorts of fun advertising regulations and standards. Because a full 20% of our client base is outside the U.S., I’ve been forced to learn quickly. In the United Kingdom, for example, they have the Advertising Standards Authority. It does nothin... »
In a recent edition of The Burleson Report, I wrote an article about hindsight and how looking backwards can help uncover bigger trends and assist learning, especially when applied to the future. It was a rather simple assessment of a complex prediction in the rise of the renminbi versus the U.S. do... »
There’s no shame in recognizing that the skills of a doctor are akin to those of a master chef. Perfection and the need for recognition of excellent work are in your DNA. Combine those traits with the need to grow your practice through personal recommendations and online reviews… and the pressure yo... »
There is an increasing likelihood that as the numbers of COVID-19 cases increases, the nervousness of your Team Members will exponentially become heightened. Family, friends and the news itself will likely influence the decision of someone on your team to ask themselves: “How much am I putting mysel... »
If you observe the most productive and most successful people on the planet, you’ll notice three very important similarities in how they achieve results. It doesn’t matter if the person is an entrepreneur, doctor, lawyer, politician, religious leader, actor, teacher or any of a million different occ... »
From Melanie Evans and Alexandra Berzon in The Wall Street Journal: “During a pandemic, hospitals and local, state and federal agencies rely on a range of real-time metrics to respond to emergencies quickly. They need to know how many beds are available at each facility, whether hospitals need... »
Apple trotted out the iPhone 12 to adoring fans earlier this month, like a proud farmer showing off his prized bull at the county fair. It’s dangerously thin! Gasp! It has many cameras! Bazzinga! It runs on 5G! Shazam! It comes in the most-beautiful color of blue that even God is jealous!&nbs... »
In his excellent book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King addresses the phenomenon of writer’s block. He says, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” I agree. I’ve written thousands of pages of content, spread across ten pub... »
In a few short months, Disney has gone from the envy of Hollywood to a company scrambling to adapt to a prolonged crisis. Without the anticipated summer blockbuster movie releases, the firm has been forced to realign its priorities. The reopening of Disneyland in California has been postponed indefi... »
I’m a relatively inexperienced sailor in unknown waters, which is one of many reasons I hire an experienced captain with local knowledge whenever I’m offshore and out of my element. I joke with friends when we go sailing in the midwest on small lakes. During a quick safety briefing of th... »
Ro, a digital health care startup, just raised another $200 million in venture capital, bringing its total to over $376 million. The company will use the funds to double its 70-person computer engineering team. With over $250 million in revenue generated last year, the firm’s latest round of f... »
A school bus driver in Massachusetts has his students to thank for encouraging him to become a history teacher. While driving kids to school, Clayton Ward would talk to them about their history lessons. “It inspired me, hearing them say ‘You should be my teacher,'” the 30-year old ... »
In his review of the new book, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions, David Roll shares what is known about the evening before a critical World War II invasion, when General Eisenhower visited the 101st Airborne Division at Newbury, a town in the south of England: “... »
The first half of 2020 was one for the record books. We saw an entire decade’s worth of job gains vanish in two months. Then, about a third of the 21 million lost jobs came back. More than 1 in 7 U.S. workers lost their jobs during the economic shutdowns. Even though we’ve added jo... »
The pandemic and economic crisis have forced Disney to adapt very quickly. Without the anticipated summer blockbuster movie releases, the firm has realigned its priorities. The reopening of Disneyland in California has been postponed indefinitely. Hong Kong Disneyland has shut down again and Disney ... »
Maria Konnikova holds a Ph.D. in psychology. She writes about her research on how quickly people make up their minds and how unwilling they are to change them. She’s a New York Times best-selling author and also a world-champion poker player. For her latest book, The Biggest Bluff, she trained... »
Today, when someone in Beijing gets the coronavirus again, the entire world knows about it within hours. 52 years after the Hong Kong flu, we still don’t know how many people actually died from it. The WHO says between 1 and 4 million people. That’s a pretty big range. For the dad reading this... »
During periods of growth, it is common to create certain complexities inside your business that, left unchecked, will stifle or even strangle growth. Consider this one of the great paradoxes of running a business. The more successful you are and the higher you reach for the stars, the more likely yo... »
Barbara Kingsolver said, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.” In coaching clients, I often ask to see a lot of numbers. KPIs and benchmarks, historical performance and pro forma data are all important. The reason I ask for data is because our memories ar... »
In a recent course on passive income streams, while teaching the concept of leveraging one’s time, I quoted the author of Rework, Jason Fried, who also happens to be the co-founder of Basecamp. Fried said, “40-hour weeks are made of 8-hour days. And 8 hours is actually a long time. It ta... »
Angela Duckworth is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies grit and self-control. In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Professor Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.... »
Scientific American describes the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly like this: “One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically ... »
In coaching, consulting and reviewing the reports from our on-site trainers, human capital challenges are at the top of the list of items we’re hired to fix. As I’ve done with most systems, challenges and opportunities in business, I help my clients and trainers develop and deploy “... »
When Brian Carroll was laid off unexpectedly from his sales position at a car dealership in Michigan, he received a call from a past customer wanting a car. Carroll told the buyer he no longer worked at the dealership, but the customer didn’t care. “He hired me to find the exact ca... »
As of November, Nike no longer sells directly on Amazon. Nike is not alone. Birkenstock, Louis Vuitton, North Face, Patagonia, Asics, Ralph Lauren, Rolex and Vans do not sell directly on Amazon either. Nestlé Nespresso dominates a huge direct-to-consumer channel and paid Starbucks $7 billion to take... »
From the first Netflix earnings call of 2020 and MarketWatch: “What does it mean to “watch” a show on a streaming service? For Netflix Inc., it now means viewing at least two minutes. The streaming service noted in its first quarterly earnings report of 2020 on Tuesday that it has change... »
Indian spiritual leader, Sri Chinmoy, explains that peace begins when expectation ends. Perhaps the most dangerous trait I see in perfectionist doctors and business owners is the attachment to their expectations on how things should be; how a certain result should be achieved. They are attached to a... »
There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal today about NFL coach Andy Reid, who is taking the Kansas City Chiefs to Super Bowl LIV in Miami this weekend. The author, Andrew Beaton, focuses on two of Coach Reid’s unique abilities. He thinks like an outsider and he doesn’t ha... »
I’m back from a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas, where we hosted 50+ TC Boot Camp attendees, three private coaching clients, a quarterly planning meeting for two of my companies and a scouting trip for a few long-shot investments. In two of the three private coaching meetings, a common theme we di... »
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a brilliant general. In the Second World War, he devised the “Eisenhower Box.” This is a matrix that ranks priorities according to importance and urgency. Eisenhower didn’t want unimportant things coming to him in an urgent manner. He also didn’t want... »
The internet once promised complete information equality. Children in poor countries would have access to the same knowledge as a child in California. But, it hasn’t turned out that way. Different countries have different ideas about the internet. China and Turkey censor their internet aggress... »
Five years ago, Nir Eyal wrote a book called Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, which helped startup tech firms understand user psychology. He discussed the research on slot machines, which use variable rewards and pleasures that come at unpredictable intervals. If you haven’t read, ... »
Mark Twain wondered, “whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.“ His quote could have been written 1,000 years ago as easily as today or 1,000 years from now. This is one of many reasons I like Twain. He knew how to think ac... »
“Silence is the presence of time undisturbed.” In a world savaged by noise, distraction and heedless entertainment, it has become more and more difficult to locate and protect our ability to be silent. It’s fascinating to consider the amount of creativity produced during a day in which one is ... »
I’ve been presenting on the power of patient gifting and marketing automation for many years. The most common question from audiences revolves around cost. I’m asked, “How much should I spend on a new patient welcome gift, shock ‘n awe package or new start ‘wow’ b... »
It’s Q4 2019 and time to start planning for next year. According to Definitive Healthcare and McKinsey and Company, here are the top healthcare trends for the coming year: Consolidation – Over 803 mergers and acquisitions took place in the last 12 months, in addition to 858 affiliation and par... »
From T.S. Eliot’s essay, The Perfect Critic, for the literary journal Athenaeum in 1920: “The vast accumulations of knowledge – or at least of information – deposited by the nineteenth century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when th... »
Karin Krog is a too little appreciated Norwegian jazz singer. Her album with Dexter Gordon, Some Other Spring, was produced in 1970 but sounds as rich and energetic as anything being produced today or in the heyday of Kansas City Swing or 1940s bebop. The album has earned its rightful place in the t... »
There’s so much talk about algorithms, digital disruption, artificial intelligence and the future of everything, it’s hard to focus on anything, let alone what consumers really want. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t read an article about some group of people who might lose their ... »
Most small business owners are used to giving answers, not asking questions. If you followed around some of the world’s top CEOs and leaders, you would find the exact opposite is true. The best leaders are great at asking questions, so that the best ideas win and the best answers quickly becom... »
Advertisers wasted $5.8 billion last year on digital ads that were viewed by bots and fake accounts. According to the Association of National Advertisers and fraud-detection company White Ops Inc., “Ad-fraud schemes have quickly risen and been much more difficult to measure.” No kidding.... »
The latest online shopping craze has a unique twist. Instead of sitting in front of a web browser or flipping through items on a smartphone, millions of Chinese consumers are obsessed with live-stream shopping. ShopShops employs real people to go into real stores, like a T.J. Maxx in New York City, ... »
If you’ve been hanging around me for very long, you know that I like to read. A lot. As a rule of thumb, even though I read nearly every new business book that comes out, I read them quickly and scan for common principles that I might be able to apply to my businesses or to help my employees, ... »
From a recent Kiplinger editorial survey, “On Valentine’s Day, one in five die-hard sports fans turns down romance to watch a game. A good chunk of men, 31%, want their lovers to be bigger fans; 18% would take a pay cut to change their partners’ interest level. and both sexes would... »
During the American Civil War, morphine was widely used to treat pain, dysentery and malaria. Many farmers and citizens grew opium poppies to help support the war effort, rushing morphine to the front lines. So many soldiers were addicted to morphine during the war, that they had to be given syringe... »
Recently, Smile Direct Club (SDC) launched a new ad campaign and celebrity endorsement from Shawn Mendes, the pop star and Canadian singer-songwriter. I have no idea if their expansion into Canada and the timing of this endorsement are intentional or lucky happenstance, but I know this is smart mark... »
Adam Phillips is a brilliant writer, psychologist and regular contributor to The London Review of Books. The closest I can come to the kind of people who think at this level, is that they let me subscribe to The London Review of Books. Barely. Although I don’t agree with Phillips on a lot of i... »
In the 1980s, Ross and Lepper published the seminal work on the perseverance of beliefs. This is the tendency for people to continue to believe something is true even when it is revealed to be false or disproved. In one study, students took an aptitude test and were told they scored poorly. Later, w... »
I returned from a great meeting with clients recently and met my assistant to go over our plans for the coming week. If I’m in one of our offices, I like to go walking around and say hello, let people know I’m still alive and, occasionally, like I observed today, I get to see a new emplo... »
At lunch this weekend, my 10-year-old son told me “at mom’s house, we keep our opinions to ourselves.” I didn’t even finish swallowing my food before I said, “I completely disagree,” quickly stopping all conversation at the table. I asked, “When should you f... »
Most small business owners have scores of reports they check each month to help them manage their money. Expenses and revenue are tracked meticulously. Budgets are set and regularly reviewed before new investments are made in technology or human capital. Even the average business owner has some idea... »
It’s no secret that I am not a fan of social media and Facebook groups. Particularly for pathologic perfectionists (i.e., orthodontists), this method of communication is dangerous for several reasons: First, those who post in these forums assume they assert unique views and ideas, imagining themselv... »
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