Lately, we have spent a lot of time discussing the concept of “solopreneurship,” which originated from the term “solopreneur.” This newly evolved buzzword was born from the many discussions we’ve had on our radio show, The Consultant’s Corner, about the nuts and bolts of running your own business. This subject has stimulated a tremendous amount of interesting conversations!

My most recent post was titled, “Is Becoming an Entrepreneur Really That Risky?” This topic evolved from a question I received about the risks and uncertainties involved in becoming an entrepreneur after a 30-year career, as well as thoughts about possible economic trends to consider ahead of time. I would like to expand on this discussion and go deeper into the specifics of taking this leap.

On our weekly radio show, The American Entrepreneur, I talk a great deal about leadership. One point I try to stress is that it’s a leader’s job not only to lead people and projects, but also to look around corners and spot trends. Leaders need to to tackle what’s happening now, anticipate what will happen in the future and make sure those resources are aligned.

I was working with a long-term client of mine the other day, dck Worldwide global construction firm, and I got to thinking. Some of the things they do are almost mind-boggling! For example, they are building hospitals in Guantanamo Bay and fighter jet hangers in Yuma, Arizona for the US military. You name it and dck has built it and literally all around the world.

Entrepreneurs get something started, they keep trying to move it forward, they realize that it’s not working so they retrench and start again. However, it's that feedback mechanism of continually building on that, and as a leader you know it's really important to get your mind around those three key areas of vision, alignment and execution. As I discussed in detail in my last post, “Are Leaders Made or Are They Born,” here is where emotional intelligence, or EQ, comes in.

On our radio show, we started a really good discussion about leadership at all levels: leading people, leading projects, etc. Afterwards, we received a great deal of buzz from our listeners. People sent in numerous responses, and the most popular question was, “Are leaders born or are they made?” I have found through research and also through my own experiences that it's actually a little bit of both. 

As consultants, one of the opportunities that we have is that we get in and out of so many different organizations in various sectors of the economy, various regions of the country and in countries all around the world. We get to see what might work in company A and be able to adapt and apply to companies C or D. We see some of those differences, but we also listen very closely for trends.

Each week on our radio show, The American Entrepreneur, we talk a great deal about leadership. Recently, I got into a discussion on this subject with a leader and his team from one of the organizations we work with. They were talking about leadership, what does it mean and what does it particularly mean to their organization. Then the conversation eventually evolved into, “Is leadership just about leading people?”

Sales are scary because selling often makes people uncomfortable. As human beings, we innately shy away from things that make us uncomfortable.

Aid for this discomfort can be found in becoming more familiar and developing a better understanding of sales as both a function and a process.

When it comes to mid career professionals, we’ve noticed that there is a good bit of misplaced humility out there. Seriously, most professionals don’t give themselves enough credit for how good they actually are.

We see two primary reasons for this misplaced humility: