I have always believed that most people only scratch the surface of their potential.  Each us of has so many talents and opportunities that we just need to focus on them and work smart (and hard) to achieve more.  If everyone maximizes their talents and moves towards their dream and ideal life, they are happier and also contribute more to family, friends, and community.

I also believe that growing companies is critically linked to growing and improving the people within them. Like a great sports team, talent takes you so far and then synergy, common goals and vision need to guide companies higher.

About three years ago, a great friend of mine, Krista Green took me through an exercise to determine what some of my personal culture and philosophy was. Like most people, I had an idea of my values but had never really thought about a “personal philosophy”.

So from that day we created a list of words that defined some of the things that
summarize what is important to me:

Family
Not just my immediate family but friends, also the people I work with, my employees and people that have impacted me over my life. Overall the people I love to be surrounded by.

Kaizen
The Japanese term for “constant and never ending improvement” defines how I like to live, not always at Mach 2 but always looking to enrich and improve my life.

Quality
From the shoes I wear to the food I eat, I like quality in everything. That’s not to say drinking a cold beer at times in an old pair of Levi’s isn’t quality.

Impact
I like the initiatives I take to provide value and create impact. If we are going to do
something in work then its got to impact clients and people. If we volunteer time its got to impact the cause. To me this lets me know my efforts aren’t wasted.

Vision
I like actions and projects to have some vision for what they will achieve.  I believe that if we can always increase the vision we have for our lives and our adventures then we can really make a difference and also live big!