Uncategorized

Possibly the greatest investment you can make is in people. When you invest right, talent can amplify your impact and profit. When you get it wrong and there is not much that can make you poor and miserable faster. Just like financial leverage, people leverage cuts both ways.

Last week we celebrated the inaugural “411 Day” appropriately on April 11th. We hosted a webinar for over 1,400 and shared ahas on a decade of lessons we’ve learned since The ONE Thing was published. We also discussed a podcast I recorded with Gary Keller on the same subject. My favorite part of both conversations was the idea that “game sees game.”* 

The tale goes like this. A new bride is preparing a pot roast for dinner. She carefully crops a few inches from each end before putting the roast in the pan to brown. Her husband asks why she is trimming away so much. “It’s grandma’s famous recipe,” she replies. “I don’t really know why.”

When something you want is within your control, you must act. When something you want is controlled by someone else, you must ask. Sometimes, the difference between a “no” and a “yes” is what you’re willing and able to do. To find out which, you have to be willing to ask. 

Bank runs used to be called “panics,” and they were a heck of a lot more common than they are today. The recent collapse of SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) makes this topic relevant again. In this edition of The TwentyPercenter, we’ll break down what bank runs are, why they happen, and how you can keep your money safe. 

My big break in publishing came when HarperCollins hired the former deputy editor of Esquire, David Hirshey. One editor gushed, “He has the ‘Golden ROLODEX®.’ He knows everybody!” When Hirshey hired me to be his editorial assistant, one of my many tasks was to keep his ROLODEX® up-to-date. When Hirshey’d return from a networking lunch, he’d dump receipts and business cards on my desk on his way to his office. From each business card, I’d type a ROLODEX® card (with a manual typewriter no less.) If it was someone cool, I’d make two. One for David and one for Jay.

Texting is one of the few mediums where we can have quality sales conversations at scale. I’m not talking about impersonal mass text blasts. With one simple hack, you can host dozens of personal conversations concurrently. That hack is text replacement. 

Summer camp for me was a visit to my Aunt June’s dairy farm in Mississippi. We’d rise early for breakfast and then bring in the cows. I would slop feed into the troughs with my cousin Greg while my uncle James Royce managed the milking. Chores were nonstop until noon. And we didn’t always approach them with cheer. June would sometimes scold us when we loafed, “Start it like you’re gonna finish it.”

Last week more than 10,000 KW associates from 57 countries gathered in Anaheim for our 2023 annual convention (aka Family Reunion). Since my 2022 MegaCamp recap was met with cheers not jeers, here are some top quotes, aha’s, and takeaways from our big event. 

In a 1975 paper, British economist Charles Goodhart wrote, “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” This provided the genesis for Goodhart’s Law, which is commonly stated: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Anytime we use a number as a proxy for an outcome, we risk creating a host of unintended consequences. This appears to be especially true when it involves incentives.