What is a key characteristic of
this risk-taking environment?
Comaford-LynCh: You must be
able to fail forward. If you’re terri-
fied of failure, you won’t take the risk.
When things fail, smart entrepreneurs
flip that failure. They don’t label it as
a failure; they treat it as progress and
evolution. This is just how innovation
works. If you haven’t been rejected,
or haven’t failed before, you simply
are not taking enough risks. You aren’t
stretching yourself.
Using your 20-20 hindsight, what
would you have done differently
in your businesses?
Comaford-LynCh: I would have
invested more in people earlier on. I’ve
come to realize that energy equals eq-
uity. The more energy we put into our
team, the more emotional equity they
develop, the more they care about our
business, the more engaged they are, the
more they innovate, are accountable,
take risks. People who are emotionally
engaged thrive.
The more you embrace the attitude
of the entrepreneur, the more agile you
are. It’s so important not to have happy
ears, hearing just what you want. You
need to keep your ear to the ground and
pay attention to what’s going on with-
out being pessimistic. The sooner you
catch a problem, before it snowballs, the
sooner you can be a quick-change artist
and avoid a potential disaster. Recognize
the warning signs, and you react more
quickly. It gets really expensive in terms
of money and morale to rigidly stick to
the plan. It’s easier to get a new budget if
you have to change; it’s harder to repair
morale. When you have that increased
agility and no fear of failure, it’s easier
to do the reality check.
Success often has been attributed
to “who you know.” Do you agree?
Comaford-Lyn Ch: It’s not always
“who you know,” but what they will do
for you. The reason you will know the
right people is because you learn to love
networking. And, the reason they want
to help you is because you have built
emotional equity with that individual.
Emotional equity is far more valuable
than financial equity will ever be. It is
personal when they really want you to
succeed. They will introduce you to the
right people, get your projects fund-
ed. First, you have to learn to network
and to make that a career-enhancing
strategy. The No. 1 way to network is
to ask people about their business and
its goals and then offer to help. Net-
work “palm up” offering assistance, not
“palm down” trying to grab benefits for
yourself. The more you help others, the
more others will help you.
Barbara Parus, managing editor of Speaker
magazine, writes on health care, human
resources, business, high technology and
now, NSA speakers. She can be contacted
at barbara@nsaspeaker.org.
to Be A SucceSS
NSA Foundation Seminar
Saturday, August, 2, 2008, 9am–12pm
Elvis did it. The Beatles did it. Led Zeppelin, Janis
Joplin and even The Cowsills did it. We’re talking
about breaking the rules and succeeding in ways
that others never imagined. You will walk away
from this seminar with hundreds of mind-blowing
dynamite ideas to help you think differently, act
decisively and take your speaking business to a
whole new level of success.
Nido Qubein, cSP, cPAe:
Nido has gone full circle from
starving student to president
of High Point university.
Dan Janal: From award-winning
newspaper reporter to internationally-recognized speaker, Internet
marketer and best-selling author.
christine comaford-Lynch:
renegade entrepreneur, author
of The New York Times best selling book, Rules for Renegades
don’t miss this one-of-a-kind, pre-convention event!
Space is limited, so sign up now at MyNSA.org!
