Over the past three decades I have hired thousands of employees, built hundreds of companies and have conducted countless post mortems on careers. Here is what I’ve observed about individuals who have achieved success:

  • They get good at something by doing it over and over: Successful people do the work. They gain the knowledge, apply that knowledge to create a plan, put that plan into action, achieve an outcome, and adjust their strategy. They repeat these steps again and again.
  • They are good losers: Successful people enjoy the process and want to become better. They embrace losing as an educational process and look forward to getting back to work to apply their newly learned lessons.
  • They have empowering self-talk: Successful individuals ask themselves questions like What can I do to get better? rather than Why do I suck at this?
  • They know that they are a work in progress: These individuals evaluate their work based on the outcomes rather than using a “pass or fail” evaluation system.
  • They never depend on just talent: Successful people outwork everyone. Developing a talent takes years whereas directed, intelligent and deliberate work can be impactful overnight. Work ethic beats talent in the long run.
  • They do not keep score: Successful individuals know that the score during the middle innings does not matter.
  • They are fearless without being reckless: Successful individuals are students of asymmetrical risk.
  • They know that everything that they are good or great at today, they once sucked at.

Whether you want to finish your business degree or finally land that dream client, now is the time to take a good look at what is keeping you from success. Is it the way you are evaluating yourself? Is it negative self-talk? Is it lack of practice? Take the time to evaluate and adjust.

Joe’s Riff on Today’s Headlines
“77% workers believe they can return to their pre-pandemic jobs.”
— The Washington Post

I am an eternal optimist, who nevertheless looks for possible negative outcomes; in other words, a realist. It is not likely that anywhere near 80% of those laid off over the past 8 weeks will return to the jobs that they once knew. The longer there is no horizon to this crisis— a clearly defined end point —  the lower the odds of those jobs being there when employees are ready to return.

Take the enormous events industry and its myriad categories — professional sports, music concerts, business and trade conferences, and so on. Major events will not be the same for the foreseeable future. You will not have 50,000 fans in a stadium cheering on their team any time soon, or at a massive rave dancing to their favorite DJs.

All that will impact other related industries. Airline travel will cost 40-50% more and the number of seats available will be cut by one-third with middle seats being left open. Less people traveling means less hotel stays, restaurants visited and business meetings taking place. Those restaurants that survive will have less than half their pre-pandemic capacity (and income) due to social-distancing requirements, not to mention the shopping malls where many are located.

Are there new job opportunities to be had in a post-pandemic world? Yep. As I write this, Grubhub is reporting record earnings, and hiring new employees. More on this later.

Daily Inspiration
Joe’s Quote of the Week:

Take note of your teammates and your leaders during these times. ⁠Some athletes are great during practice, but they might not be so great during game time. Sometimes it depends on how you train, while at other times depends on how you are wired.
⁠
“It is better to perform reasonably well under extreme circumstances than extremely well under reasonable circumstances.” – French SWAT Team Member.

Untitled & Unfiltered
6 Musts for Entrepreneurs

In this episode of Untitled and Unfiltered we open a dialogue with business owners to discuss the 6 most important factors to consider when operating in a volatile environment.