Entrepreneurship

Thanks to Ken Pasternak for yesterday’s ode to hospitality. It got me thinking and seriously feeling as you’ll see in today’s video.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! In this era of social media, a good brand can go south in a heartbeat. Remember, the cell phone video of a passenger forcibly being dragged through the aisle and removed from a plane because the airline was oversold.

You ought to be upset. That restaurant where your honey popped the question or the tavern where you and your friends watch Monday night football isn’t opening its doors again. And, it didn’t have to be this way.

When in doubt, write a book. That’s been my leadership practice for the past 22 years. I have published five books, a few of them bestsellers. But, the one that may be most meaningful to me is “PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow,” and I think it’s quite topical at this particular time in our challenging economy.

This is the fourth in my series of five Monday video posts focused on leadership lessons during challenging times. Today’s post focuses on how to address a subject that often creates emotions like anxiety and shame.

This is the third in my series of five Monday video posts focused on leadership lessons during challenging times. Today’s post focuses on how to deepen your relationship with customers at a time when you probably have a streamlined or almost no marketing budget.

Entrepreneurs and their employees are the lifeblood of the American economy. Small businesses create almost two-thirds of new jobs and represent the majority of existing jobs in the U.S. I feel a deep sense of empathy for the sleepless nights so many entrepreneurs are going through right now.

I’m a bit contrarian when it comes to naming a business. When I started my boutique hotel company at age 26, I gave it the name Joie de Vivre, which is basically unpronounceable, unspellable, and unknown in the U.S.

More than 35 years ago, Guy Kawasaki popularized the word evangelist in marketing Apple’s Macintosh as an "Apple evangelist," and he became one of the world’s best known marketers. He’s a bestselling author of 15 books, a venture capitalist, and, most important to me, someone learning to surf around age 60.

When I think about what it means to be rich, I often think of something that Dave Brubeck, the late American jazz pianist and composer, who was still performing at concert halls around the world at the age of 81, said when he was interviewed by Hedrick Smith for a PBS documentary.