16 Rules for Success in Business & Life

Happy Monday!

For several years, I have been a GoDaddy key account customer due to the fact that I have several hundred domains in my account.  GoDaddy is an incredibly well-run company, thanks to its founder and CEO, Bob Parsons.  Growing a successful company is really hard work, and Bob strikes me as the quintessential internet marketing entrepreneur: fast talking, fast thinking, fast implementing, and fast failing.  Jack Welch was like this too, seeking the highest-possible velocity for ideas and assets in his GE companies.  If you have never read Welch's process for topgrading an organization, please do so.  Very Darwinian.

Anyway:  Recently, I happened upon Bob's article "16 Rules for Success in Business & Life in General," which is now available as a poster.  At least three of the rules (#5, 9, 10) make me want to order it for my office.  See what you think.  Because it's my nature to armchair quarterback, my own thoughts are in italics ...

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
2. Never give up.  I dunno.  I kinda subscribe to the Seth Godin "Dip" theory that sometimes the only intelligent thing to do is quit, regroup, rethink, retool, and reboot.  Bob probably agrees, although it's simpler to say "never give up."
3. When you are ready to quit, you're closer than you think.  I suppose this is true, if you are thinking about success as an outcome.  I tend to think about success as an ongoing process - so I will arrive at my destination when I'm dead.
4. Accept the worst possible outcome.  Yessirree.  Pray for humility.  God will give you that one.  This rule reminds me of my own favorite, "Trust in God and tie up your camels."
5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
6. Take things a day at a time.  Inch by inch, anything's a cinch.
7. Always be moving forward.  Like, duh.  Sorry Bob.  Just messing with you.
8. Be quick to decide.  Yes, or as Richard Sloma put it: "Make little, reversible decisions very quickly.  Make big, irreversible decisions more slowly."  Fools rush in, etc.
9. Measure everything of significance.  This is the money quote.  Or as my dad used to say: "People won't do what you EXPECT.  They will only do what you INSPECT."
10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.  Another money quote.  Or as Tom Peters used to say, "What gets measured gets done."
11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing.  AKA, "stick to your knitting," except that Bob's rule is a bit more deliberate.  Bob seems to be saying "figure out what creates value for customers, and do those things better and better."  I say this because I have been a GoDaddy customer for years, and they were never the cheapest.  But they are the best, especially if you have a ton of domains to manage.  In particular, their account reps are amazing.  The domain transfer process from one registrar to another is VERY complicated, as is the process for changing the c-name on a domain.  GoDaddy's reps are great at explaining the ins-and-outs of SEO, domaining, name management, etc.  I could inventory my domains somewhere cheaper -- but some things are too important to be about the money.
12. Never let anybody push you around.  Or as my dad used to say: "Life is a contest of wills: You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate."  Right.  Of course, the way to succeed long term is to be able to do these things in a way that is hard on the issues and soft on the people.
13. Never expect life to be fair.  I don't expect life to be fair, but what goes around usually comes around -- if you stick around long enough.
14. Solve your own problems.  I go through this with my teenage son every day.  This saying is the essance of the math teacher's "show your work!" mantra.  How else are you supposed to learn??
15. Don't take yourself too seriously.  But what if I'm really smart and really handsome?? 
16. There's always a reason to smile. ;-)

"The above rules for survival are included with the permission of Bob Parsons and are Copyright © 2004-2006 by Bob Parsons.  All rights reserved." The same cannot be said of my editorial comments.
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