BAJAN SUN MAGAZINE
OCT 2014
Strong positive attitude.
Willingness to try new things--and fail.
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
In the early 20th century, greeting cards were given for
Christmas and Valentine's Day. In 1915, a few weeks
before Cupid's favorite holiday, a warehouse fire
destroyed J.C. and Rollie Hall's entire inventory of
Valentine's Day cards and left them $17,000 in debt.
They borrowed money, purchased an engraving firm,
designed two new cards and printed them in time for
Christmas. Nearly a century and countless new ideas
later, Hallmark Cards sets the industry standard.
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried
anything new." Just ask the people at Coca-Cola circa
1985. The Coke folks realized the error of their ways
and reinstated the traditional formula, but many of their
other forays into new flavors--cherry and vanilla to
name two--have proved to be huge successes.
Naps.
Einstein was supposed to be a big believer in midday
siestas to recharge the brain. Some companies--Google
and Nike, to name two--have created nap-friendly
guidelines for their employees. There may be a lesson
there for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Other
entrepreneurs have utilized naps in a different way:
bringing napping equipment to the workplace. No lie.
MetroNaps installs sleep pods in companies' buildings
for employee use.
Rise above the mundane details. The stories of Einstein
having a closet full of the same suits are exaggerated,
but the point of the story is made: He didn't want to
spend intellectual and chronological capital wrestling
with one of life's mundanities. The definition of
mundane details will vary from person to person--you
say spreadsheets, I say boring--but know what you
consider mundane and hire someone to take care of
those tasks before they get
neglected and drag the
company down. Howard
Hughes--be f