Whether you've been in business for 10 days or 10 years, whether you've got $10,000 in revenue or $10 billion in revenue, there will be competition in whatever pond you're in. As the pond starts to fill up, even if you're at the top, someone or something is gaining on you to knock you from your perch.
To continually innovate and keep things going, you must do one (or more) of these: find a bigger pond, explore new ponds, expand the pond you're in, or move to new bodies of water and go deep-sea fishing. It starts by asking yourself these questions:
• What's next? • What do we need to do to reach our goals? • How will our brand, services, products, technologies, and above all our people keep standing out from the rest?
For me, it was making myself big in my hometown of Sioux Falls, then the state of South Dakota. When I was big in South Dakota, I realized there are 49 other states I need to make myself big in. Once I've made myself big in the other 49 states, it's on to South America, Europe, and beyond. I started with my local pond of Sioux Falls and am working on expanding to global ponds and oceans.
The best way to look for and find new ponds is to be willing to start all over. To do it successfully, you must follow these three A's to success:
When I first launched C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett on Bloomberg Television, it took off like a rocket. When Season 2 never came to fruition on Bloomberg, haters thought it was because it was cancelled - and they couldn't be further from the truth. The show was so successful that I brought it in house on C-Suite TV and on the business channel on United Airlines. I knew there was something bigger out there and was ready to adapt and meet it head on.
Adapting means being ready to change at a moment's notice, and to be prepared for anything. I adapted C-Suite to be delivered online on C-Suite TV, breaking away from the traditional TV model because I firmly believe that's where the future of TV is heading. For me, personally, I don't ever take on a project without thinking at least five to ten years ahead, so I can map out how I can get it there.
The speed of business today makes adaptation more essential than ever. You must strike a balance between satisfying demand for who you are and what you offer now and adapting.
Ask - Find New Ponds
Traditionally, businesses find new ponds by building new stores, expanding their reach, tapping new markets, or buying competitors. But the concern here is overexpansion, which can lead to the pond drying up. What leads to overexpansion? Failing to translate your value proposition to new markets. What's effective in one market may not translate well whatsoever in another.
The key to expanding and finding new ponds? Asking questions and, more importantly, genuinely listen. Take the time to understand and listen to what your current and potential future customers are telling you before tapping them.
Automate - Move Faster in Your Pond
If moving to a new pond or growing the pond are not options, then you need to become the most efficient, deadly, fish in the pond you're currently in. Become the biggest, baddest version of you you can be through better communication, automation, and systemization.
However, don't confuse the word automation with personal. You can automate your communications without losing a beat of personalization. But by moving repetitive tasks to become automated, like welcome emails or drip campaigns, you're freeing up valuable time.
In business, we can't be so fixated on attracting new customers that we forgo our greatest asset - happy, current customers who keep coming back for more. If you can't expand or move ponds, then these people are your bread and butter, responsible for most of your profits, and who should be protected at all costs.
The Key
There's always someone bigger in you than your pond. The key to becoming the biggest and baddest? Always ask yourself what's next. This way, you can determine whether you should grow your pond, find new ponds, or do better in your current pond to decide how to grow and sustain your business.
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21st Century Fox and News Corp. won't be moving to the World Trade Center after all.
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My husband and I can't come to an agreement on who to appoint as a guardian for our three young children. He says his brother; I say my sister. How can we reach an agreement?
-- A reader
Dear reader,
Although my kids are now grown-up, your question takes me right back to when my husband Gary and I were trying to make this same decision. Like you, we were fortunate enough to have a few choices, but choosing among them seemed impossible. And let's be honest, there are always pros and cons to every possible choice, because no one, no matter how special, can really take your place.
Because it's such an emotional decision -- and because it's so important (if you don't name a guardian, the state will choose one for you) -- I think the best way to go about it is to make a list of all the important considerations. Then you and your husband can examine each one from a practical perspective as well as an emotional one and, hopefully, come to an agreement. That's what our estate planning attorney helped us to do and I'm happy to pass his insights on to you.
Ask yourself these questions Answering the following questions will help you zero in on what's most important as you consider the possibility of someone else raising your children.
Does the prospective guardian share your values? Whether it's religious, moral, political or personal, ideally you want someone to raise your children with the beliefs and attitudes that you hold dear. Of course, no two people think exactly alike, but if, for instance, you want your kids to grow up in a socially liberal environment, you'd want a guardian to have an open mind on social issues.
How intimately does this person know you and your family? How comfortable are your kids with this person? The closer your kids are to a potential guardian, the easier it will be on them during what is a very difficult transition.
How many children does the prospective guardian already have? What is their parenting style? If someone already has a full house, there may not be room for your kids. And in terms of parenting, you want someone who could provide a sense of continuity when it comes to things like discipline and personal responsibility.
What's the age and health of the individual you're considering? Since you mention your siblings, age may not be a factor, but it's good to think about these things. Depending on the age of your children at the time, this could be a long-term commitment.
Where does the guardian live? Do you want your children to be uprooted? It's one thing to move a toddler across country but quite another to tear a teenager away from junior high or high school where friends and social networks have already been established.
Focusing on these issues may point more toward one or another potential guardian. But once you've answered these questions to your mutual satisfaction, there's still another important consideration.
Think about financial stability Hopefully you and your husband have enough life insurance to provide for your kids financially through college. It's one thing to ask someone to care for your kids and quite another to ask them to support them.
But whatever your financial circumstances, whether it's through personal assets or insurance, your children will most likely have some type of inheritance that needs to be managed carefully. Fortunately, you can choose to appoint both a personal guardian and what's called a guardian of the estate. They don't have to be the same individual.
So let's say your sister is the most financially savvy and your husband's brother has the best family set up to care for the children. You could involve each according to their circumstances. However, it's very important that the guardian of the person and the guardian of the estate get along and agree on what's best for the kids.
Get the guardian's consent Once you and your husband agree, the next step is to talk to the prospective guardian. Make sure he or she understands why you've chosen them and is willing to take on the responsibility. Actually, I think it's a good idea to have a second choice in case the first one is unable at the time to fulfill the role.
Realize that you can revisit your choice every few years Nothing is cast in stone, not even your will. If something changes over the years, don't hesitate to change your guardian choice. No one's feelings should be hurt. The deciding factor should always be what's best for your children at the time.
Believe me, I know this whole process isn't easy, and hopefully your guardian will never have to step in. But make the choice now, and put it in writing. Then as you and your family go about living a full and happy life, you can rest a bit easier knowing your kids are taken care of--just in case.
This article originally appeared on Schwab.com. You can e-mail Carrie at askcarrie@schwab.com, or click here for additional Ask Carrie columns. This column is no substitute for an individualized recommendation, tax, legal or personalized investment advice. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, consult with a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner or investment manager. Diversification cannot ensure a profit or eliminate the risk of investment losses.
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Even before the "Night of Shame" on New Year's Eve in Cologne further fueled an already fervent anti-foreigner backlash, German leaders were desperately looking to Turkey to stem the flow of refugees headed to Europe from the war-torn Mideast. Now 10 German tourists have lost their lives at the foot of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. They are the victims of yet another suicide bombing by the self-proclaimed Islamic State in the wake of Turkey's decision last July to allow U.S. warplanes to fly from its soil to attack militant positions in Syria. Along the old route of the Orient Express, violence and disorder are weaving an interrelated and self-reinforcing pattern of crises that will be hard to unravel.
Writing from Istanbul, Kaya Genc recalls French novelist Gustave Flaubert's observation on a visit there during another tumultuous period in 1850 that aptly fits events today both in Turkey and Europe: "Everything here is breaking up, as with us." Also writing from Istanbul, Behlül Özkan argues that there is plenty of blame to go around for the linked crises of the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS, terrorism and refugees: "The U.S. and EU are also to blame, having assisted Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in their destabilization of Syria," he says. Ömer Taşpınar writes that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's fight against the Kurds is inhibiting a serious assault on ISIS.
World Reporter Nick Robins-Early chronicles the political turmoil and violence that have wracked Turkey over recent months while Charlotte Alfred, another world reporter, details efforts by authorities to ban media coverage of terror bombings. WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones reports that the tourism industry is reeling after the attack near Istanbul's most visited sites. She also follows the story of the struggle to get aid to 60,000 people starving and isolated in Syria. Amnesty International's Diana Semaan echoes our own "Forgotten Fact" report in pointing out that the hunger crisis in Syria extends beyond the city of Madaya that made headlines in recent days. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hopes that "out of tragedy and chaos" in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon a new commitment will arise from the international community to get child refugees back into school.
Alex Gorlach writes from Berlin that "the events in Cologne on New Year's Eve have turned the rhetoric in Germany on its head. Conceit and complacency have given way to searching self-doubt, as if waking up with a nasty hangover on New Year's Day." From London, Bonny Brooks worries that "left-wing apologism" over refugees is "fueling right-wing populism." "In our reluctance to face up to the painful -- yet credible -- reports of migrant involvement in these horrific Cologne attacks," she writes, "we have unwittingly given succor to those who would deny haven to any refugees at all." Ahmed Agdas, a young German politician from the Christian Democratic Union, writes, "we can get over Cologne." "The truth is we need time," he continues. "Time for an orderly process and for integration. Time for our state's rule of law. Time for reflection and differentiation. Time for our civilized character."
Writing from Tunis on the fifth anniversary of the toppling of former President Ben Ali, Amira Yahyaoui further deflates the hopes of the Arab Spring in the one place it seemed to have worked. "When dictatorships fall, the political vacuum that ensues is quickly filled by political activists from the anti-dictatorship opposition," she says. "Unfortunately, what these figures have in legitimacy they lack in competency and experience. They are unable to take on the task of reforming the state. As a result, a counter-revolutionary discourse emerges almost organically: 'it was better before.'" Soumaya Ghannoushi sees Tunisia today as "the only glimmer of light" in the "raging sea of civil strife, disorder and resurgent tyranny" in the Arab world due in large part to political compromises that have nonetheless given "a chance for the old guards to reposition themselves within the new system." At the invitation of HuffPost Tunisia, several Tunisians share their memories of the Jasmine Revolution five years on.
Ali Al-Ahmed argues that the Saudi execution of the Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr earlier this month, which set off open confrontation with Iran, could mark the beginning of the end of the Saudi monarchy. Tony Badran says the Obama administration is engaging in a dangerous gamble by embracing Iran and dissolving its traditional relationship with Saudi Arabia as the pillar of U.S. Mideast policy. Asma Afsaruddin describes how she explained to a student how Islam is not monolithic. Antonia Blumberg lists 11 must-read books by Muslim authors from "The Essential Rumi" to Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran." Noting the recent anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack, philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy writes from Paris that the West is facing an "intellectual emergency" in its weak defense of the Enlightenment.
Writing from Jakarta in the aftermath of the ISIS-claimed attack there this week, Wimar Witoelar assesses the situation. "There is a base of support for ISIS in Indonesia," he says, "But public declarations by a thousand or two people do not represent active support for ISIS. Islamic terrorism and professions of support for it in Indonesia remain curiosities. The conflict in Syria and its geopolitical implications has captured the imagination of the public because of empathy for the suffering of Middle East Muslims -- which have a distinctly different cultural base from eclectic Indonesian Muslims."
As the world enters 2016, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sums up the bleak global situation, with particular attention to the Mideast and the refugee crisis, by quoting William Butler Yeats: "'The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'" Futurist Jeremy Rifkin scores the idea of a "Fourth Industrial Revolution" characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres as the organizing theme of the World Economic Forum convening in Davos next week. Rifkin sees this as premature since what he calls the "Third Industrial Revolution" is only just underway. "The evolution of digitalization has barely begun to run its course," he writes, "and its new configuration in the form of the Internet of Things represents the next stage of its development."
Daniel Robelo argues that the recent capture of 'El Chapo,' the Mexican drug lord, is a sensational distraction from the failed drug war being waged by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Vocativ tells the story of Twitter users who accused Mexican authorities of using the 'El Chapo' capture and Sean Penn interview to turn attention away from the serious social ills facing the country. In an interview, Steven Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, a group that tracks organized crime in Latin America, talks about how Guzmán's capture is likely to impact the Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's drug war.
As U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union address this week, Lawrence Jacobs writes that Obama is "the most consequential second-term president since the Second World War." Ahead of the Taiwan elections this weekend, J. Michael Cole reports from Taipei that voters are as concerned with domestic issues such as air pollution as they are with relations with Beijing. WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan tells the story of 55-year-old Beijing resident, Zou Yi, who has taken a photo of the skyline from his window every day for the last three years and posted them all on social media as a way to document pollution. U.S. Representative Matt Salmon argues that America should no longer accept China's denial of government-sponsored hack attacks. Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden look at how China's cooling economy is sending a chill through Africa.
In our Singularity series this week we consider the crisis in cosmology over how to experimentally confirm the existence of dark matter. Finally, looking at pop culture, Fusion this week names the three countries where Adele's "25" did not top the charts.
WHO WE ARE
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Imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t have to worry about money.
Just imagine.
No longer do you have to lay awake at night worrying about paying the bills on time.
Or affording quality childcare or the kids’ college tuition.
Retirement is no longer a pipe dream.
People love to use the cliché money can’t buy you happiness.
But I disagree.
Money provides you with the freedom to make choices that would otherwise remain closed to you.
And women who refuse to insist they get paid what they are worth do themselves, their families and their companies a disservice.
Here is an excerpt from my soon to be released book titled: “Money Can Buy You Happiness: Secrets Women Need to Know to Get Paid What They Are Worth!”
“Maybe you are aware of this fact: Ten years into their careers, women earn twelve percent less than their male colleagues, according to research done by AmericanProgress.org. This pay discrepancy between men and women continues at the graduate school level, where “Catalyst research found that women MBA(s) were being paid, on average, $4,600 less in their first job than men.”
Are you going to allow yourself to be one of those women?
Listen to these theories that researchers suggest explain the ongoing gender wage gap:
*Women traditionally take on more of the household responsibilities than men.
True.
*Women tend to interrupt their careers more than men to have children and/or take care of their elderly parents.
True.
*Women are more inclined to work part time than men.
True.
*Female-dominated professions, such as teaching and nursing, tend to pay less than male-dominated professions, such as engineering and financial analysis.
True.
Given the considerable validity to the above reasons explaining the gender wage gap, why is it that according to AmericanProgress.Org, “forty-one percent of the wage gap is still unexplained by measurable factors”?
I’ll tell you why. Because women like you, and thousands of others I’ve worked with over the years, are afraid. Money is a dirty word. Asking for what you want and deserve is hard. The gender gap continues because you are under the influence of a societal bias, true. Even if men and women hold the same job and have the same background, with all other things being equal (which of course they never really are), the gender wage gap remains alive and well for modern American women across the board.
How long will you pay the extremely high cost, both financial and emotional for your financial ignorance? In modern American society, two-thirds of you are the primary breadwinner or co-breadwinner for your family. You aren’t only working because you enjoy it, your mortgage, the kids’ school tuition, the groceries that go on the table are being paid for from your hard work. You aren’t just earning “extra spending money” or mani-pedi money anymore. You are bringing home the bacon, and the whole meal, and it’s about time you got a grip on what’s holding you back from being paid what you deserve and/or charging what you are worth.
Why does this societal norm of paying women less than they are worth continue?
Look for my new book: “Money Can Buy You Happiness: Secrets Women Need to Know to Get Paid What They Are Worth!” on Amazon on Tuesday, January 26, 2016.
If you are serious about taking personal responsibility for closing your own gender wage gap – and insist you get paid what you are worth- and deserve, this book is a must read.
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When I was turning 30, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next in my life, but I knew one thing for certain: I needed change. And change is exactly what I did. I left my successful eight-year advertising career in Tokyo, and decided to pursue business school 7,000 miles away from home.
Yes, I did a 180-degree turn. I guess that's just how I roll. When I decide to do something, I dive in, 100 percent.
After I earned an MBA from Yale, I landed an envy-worthy job.
I strategically sought out positions I believed would impress future employers. I chose my positions based on how useful I believed they would be in the future. My main concern was how good a position would look on my resume.
At first, it was exciting. I learned new things, met new people and moved up the ladder.
Then, the company I worked at went through a major merger, and I watched many of my colleagues leave.
I was promoted to a new position and I got a raise. I was happy about that.
But slowly, I began to realize the position wasn't a good match for me. Looking back, it's so obvious to see that my mind and heart were unaligned, and it made me miserable.
The only way I knew to get through it was to work harder, push harder. I would say YES to almost everything that came my way, even when I really wanted to say NO.
Every time I said YES to something I didn't want to do, my stomach actually cringed. My body was trying to tell me something was wrong, but rather than listen, I would put my head down and get back to work.
I basically became the walking, stressed out doormat.
Mornings became exercises in getting out of bed and crying in the shower to wash my misery down the drain.
I wasn't myself, and I felt so lost and alone. I was too exhausted to see my friends, and when I did, all I wanted to talk about was how dismal I felt at work.
But, I couldn't tell my friends the truth. I was too proud to share how low I'd become.
I felt that telling the truth about how bad I felt would be the same as admitting I had failed.
The only thing I looked forward to was the glass of wine when I got home at night. My dinners back then consisted of wine and Pringles.
I didn't like the person I had become. Nozomi had always been the hopeful, engaging, energetic person in a group.
I hardly recognized the unhappy woman staring back at me in the mirror.
What was even more frustrating was that I wasn't performing at the level I knew I could. I wasn't doing my best work and I felt completely disappointed in myself.
I was at the end of my rope, and I couldn't figure out how to climb back up.
Fortunately, that low point was like a wake up call. I slowly began to realize that I was responsible for my own happiness, and the only way to make things right was to take back control of my own life.
That's when I decided to set my pride aside and say NO to the way I was treating myself.
Set your pride aside
I was afraid for others to see me as a failure.
My pride blocked me from talking to other people about the challenges I was facing. I kept it all to myself. In retrospect, I can see I should have opened up and constructively discussed my feelings and overwhelm with my boss, a friend, a colleague or a coach before it became critical. Too often, those of us whose identities are tied to being a smart, responsible person forget to check our pride at the door when we fall into trouble. Our egos take over and we get stuck in a rut.
The truth is, there will be situations in life where you can't fix them on your own. You need support to get a fresh perspective, to come up with unique solutions, or to give you a soft place to rest while you get your bearings.
Regardless of what ultimately happens, you are never a failure, no matter what you do. Every situation is an opportunity for learning and growth. You attract challenges to your life so you can grow stronger and become better.
But, if your stubborn pride is in the way, you will never learn the lessons you need so that you can move on.
Does your pride get in the way of your professional (and personal) learning and growth?
Share your story of overcoming pride here.
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Nozomi Morgan, MBA, is a certified Executive Coach and the Founder and President of Michiki Morgan Worldwide LLC. Addition to coaching, she speaks and trains on leadership, career, professional development and cross-cultural business communication.
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