Infinite Mountain Tops

This Week's Summary:

Learned: Continuous Improvement

Planning: Planning

Business idea: Know the cost of the problem

Vet Opp: Home Depot

I met: Tami McVay

Stoic Quote of the Week

Salvation: to see each thing for what it is‚ its nature and its purpose.

-Marcus Aurelius

What I learned this week:

Every day, we should work to get better, and I’m going to guess that each of you reading this believes that. But do you really? Do you track your food intake to see how you feel? Do you track your workouts to see if you are getting stronger or more fit? What is more fit? Have you defined that? What about your performance with your team? Do you look at your interactions and reflect on how it could be better? We all say we want to improve and have an attitude of continuous learning. Partly because we know that is what we should be doing: getting better. All this is lip service if there isn’t a plan or a path that you are following, and if you are following a path, how will you know when you arrive if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve? I know because that is the way I am. I read books on personal and business development. I workout most mornings and take short walks throughout the day. I capture my wins for the day and keep a log of gratitude. These are all good habits that I hope each of you is following also. But all of these actions are the spray and pray approach. How do I know if I am fit? One measure I use is the scale, not the best, but it is a measure. Another measure is how I feel at the end of the day and even throughout the day, and tracking that. Nothing fancy, a simple scale of 1-10 that I can log throughout the day. OK, that’s alright, but what am I measuring to? One of my life categories is Bad Ass Green Beret, and that category covers my health and fitness. Now, I have a measure and category of my life that I can manage, but I still don’t have a goal or outcome. Back to weight, easy, 205 because I know how I feel at that weight and how I sleep better. That’s easily measurable but not something that really pulls me to action. What is the real why behind the 205? It comes back to how I feel and what I can do. Can I go on an elk hunt at 10,000 ft for ten days? Can I do some of the manual labor around the house and ranch? Those are hard to measure progress on unless I am tracking my feelings and performance throughout the day.

One final thought on this because it came up last night during our Veteran Business Leader Mastermind (VBLM). What happens when I get there? You know, the top of the mountain? First and foremost, celebrate because you put a crap load of work in to get there. Second, because you have spent the time working to improve your efforts and performance every day, you will see the next mountain that you want to scale. In life, the mountain tops are infinite.

Planning thought of the week:

I had a couple of business strategy conversations this week, and the points of the conversation were twofold. You must have a plan. What the plan looks like isn’t as important as the creation of the plan. Remember that your plan must be checked and adapted to real information periodically. I recommend at least once a quarter as a mark on your timeline. I was also asked, what’s more important, the plan or planning? Planning is important because that is where all the thoughts, discussions, and problems are addressed. In the worst case, you have at least talked things through.

Business idea I heard about or thought of:

Business is about identifying a problem and fixing it better than anyone else because none of us want to deal with problems. Imagine that: a problem-free world 🤠. In a problem-free world, we would become lazy and create problems. Good, because I like solving problems. There will always be problems to solve. So, do a little math on the problem. If you identify it, there is someone else who has it, too. How many people have it (Total Addressable Market (TAM))? How much pain does the problem cause, $10? $1000? Or more? Now multiply the two. There’s your revenue opportunity. Back to the solution, the fix. How much does it cost to do it or make it? If that cost is lower than the price point or the cost of the pain the problem causes, then you have an opportunity for a business. You can also add in a very subjective variable called value. In some cases, you value the solution a lot more than the person accepts the problem. In that case, you don’t have a business. You can also have the inverse happen; you undervalue the solution so no one thinks it is real. How do you? Test, measure, and adapt.

I hope you enjoyed last week’s first edition of the Tribe Connection. It is a notification email to let you know what we have happening and where. We want to foster and develop more of a community. Being part of the community is about knowing what is happening and going on. If I travel to your neck of the woods, I’d love to get together in person. We want to build a Tribe of people who want to grow and succeed. MTF.

Veteran opportunity of the week:

I’ve said it many times before, and now Home Depot is jumping on the bandwagon. The trades are short of hard-working, motivated individuals who want to be successful. Home Depot is offering free training in the trades. You can check it out and learn more here: Home Depot.

Someone I met this week:

I met Tami McVay a while back, but just in passing. This week, we got to hang out, and I learned about her time in the USMC and how she crushed it in the IT world, creating software until she burned herself out. She is an amazing thought leader, speaker, personal success, and business coach. To put it bluntly, she is kicking ass and taking names again, just like a good Marine should. I’m excited because not only do I know what she does and why, and I can point you in her direction, but we came up with a couple of ideas that we are going to pull together in 2025 to execute together. I’ve always said that I wanted a Marine on my team because of their attitude and willingness to grind it out. Just don’t give me more than one 😂.

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