Three Character traits instrumental to success

Crave Learning – I like to remind my students that education does not end with a college degree. As an entrepreneur, it is important keep abreast of industry trends and changes. One of the easiest ways to do so is by reading. Audible is an amazing audio book service owned by Amazon that allows me to ‘find time’ when driving to read the latest business books. By doing so, I am constantly being fresh ideas to my businesses and keeping abreast of the latest industry developments which help prevent competitors from getting ahead of me.

Unafraid of Taking Risks – Nothing great was ever achieved without risk. At Sharp Marketing my team members take this to heart. Every week we have ‘postmortem’ sessions where the entire company spend a few minutes going over any issues or failures from the previous week. The end goal is to first understand what the mistakes were and then adopt new policies or procedures that allow us to move forward as an organization. This fosters a collaborative environment where team members aren’t afraid to make mistakes.

Be Ironman Committed – The Ironman Triathlon is one of the most grueling competitive events out there. It features a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a full 26.2-mile marathon. To complete one takes an almost god-like amount of discipline in three distinct fields – nutrition, physical exercise, and mental toughness. In my case, I used to train for at least 20 to 30 hours a week on top of my full-time job. Many of the people I trained with were successful business entrepreneurs. I quickly came to realize that they applied the same level of training intensity for triathlons as they did for their own businesses.