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The Grand Canyon Principle

Wisdom for Today

• Over time, water is stronger than rock. A steady and relentless stream of water will eventually wear away the strongest stone. Likewise, entrepreneur who are confident of their mission and who persist and persevere, even though the most trying of times, will ultimately wear down all obstacles
• When you’re in the Grand Canyon, you may climb many smaller mountains and hills, but the fact remains that you’ll still be in a hole. Successful entrepreneurs must recognize that it is not enough to win the “little battles” in their journey to canvass the canyon or achieve their major goals in business. They must become proficient at scaling the smaller mountains as they keep in sight the larger and grander objective

• You cannot jump over a canyon with a series of small bounds. When you leap you must make it count. An entrepreneur must take great care in planning and determining how to commit time and resources to achieve the objectives that really count.

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The Hannibal Principle
Wisdom for Today

• Don’t look at the bars but instead look beyond them. All of us have paradigms that dictate how we view our world and ourselves. Unfortunately, some of our paradigms have been built on inaccurate data and often become psychological bars that tend to incarcerate our minds and disrupt the creativity of thinking. Some of the obvious bars we construct include racism, sexism, classism, physical attributes, perceived wrong, past injustices, or lack of education, to name a few.  Our tendency to focus on the bars serves only to empower them, thus diverting valuable human energy from more productive entrepreneurial tasks such as defending our market niche, developing a winning business plan, and identifying sources of capital for our ventures.
• Learn to expect great things from yourself and others. The starting point for any human achievement of value is your belief in and desire to achieve the object of your dream. You become what you think about. If you think that all is lost and that you cannot win, you will achieve what you focus on.
• Assume full responsibility for your economic well-being and prosperity. Whenever you disown a problem, you relinquish all power to solve it. No one in America has the desire or conviction to fix the economic problems of the minority community but its members. Although the economic quagmire they find themselves in today is not totally of their own doing, the solution and dedication to resolving their perplexing issues must and will come only from within that community.
• Aggressively seek to build win-win relationship with other minority firms and with mainstream firms. Very few companies today can stand by themselves for long. Some experts predict that the successful companies for the new millennium will be those that develop strategic and mutually beneficial teaming relationships with other companies.  Minority and women entrepreneurs must not limit themselves to teaming only with businesses of similar ethnicity and gender. They should instead follow a parallel track and develop partnerships with any groups that seek to achieve common goals. Above all, make sure that the relationship is a win-win one so that becomes a lasting and rewarding experience for both parties.

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The Roach Principle
Wisdom for Today

• The bad news for minority and female entrepreneurs is that like the roaches, they are constantly under attack and must fight for their business lives every single day. Many will become casualties of these efforts to reduce their ranks, by the good news is that a critical mass will survive and become even stronger by going through this weeding-out process. The secret here is to survive the screening and become a member of the critical mass.
• As businesses and industries go through the natural process of survival of the fittest, the key to being a survivor is to know your business and the industry and to do what you do extremely well. Maintain a passion for success and master your trade.  

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The Focus on What Matters Principle

Wisdom for Today

• Too often entrepreneurs focus on details that do not add value to the process of realizing business opportunities. They pay too much attention to the type of suit they wear, the type of briefcase they carry, the type of car they dive, and the type of neighborhood they live in, believing that these factors will determine their level of success of failure.
• Such items may have a bearing on someone’s impression of you, but it is doubtful that they will dictate your level of success. Your time and resources are better spent focusing on matters that will add value to your entrepreneurial process.
• Value-added tasks might include spending more time on market research, hiring a number cruncher to help you hone financial projects, or investing in a quality color laser printer so that your proposals are cleaner and crisper. It could mean investing in a state-of-the-art phone and teleconferencing system that shows your client and prospects that you are a professional, sizable, and well-run company with which they can confidently do business.

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The Principle of the White Angel
Wisdom for Today

• Business in Americas is conducted through relationship. There are exceptions to this rule, but new entrepreneurs must learn to leverage relationships with established members of the business network they are trying to break into. Someone with an inside track will frequently sponsor a promising entrepreneur.
• Some say that “power is never given; it must be taken.” Conversely help can be given only when it is accepted. Learn to recognize when you need help. Be willing to accept it. No one is a self-made success. We all benefit from the support of others throughout the ventures we take on in life.
• Minority and women entrepreneurs cannot ang must not restrict themselves to doing business only with other minorly and women business people. You must be the white business commentary. A win-win business proposition exists for those brave enough to change to and who change the status quo.

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Wisdom to Take Away
The Principle of Diminished Expectations

• The term “glass ceiling” is often used to describe to resistance to advancement that minority and female executives experience as they work to advance in and organization. The world of entrepreneurship has a “concrete ceiling.” I use the image of concrete because, unlike glass, concrete offers no chance to see what could be achieved. This resistance is often in the form of diminished expectations. Some decision makers, unfortunately, still have a preconceived view that businesses owned and operated by blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women are not of the same quality and do not have equal capabilities as firms owned and operated by white males.
• The key to benefiting from the principle of diminished expectations when you’re faced with this situation is focus your resources on dramatically exceeding the expectations of your client. If your client insists on lowering the bar, you’ll find it that much easier to far exceed the expectation and score points for you firm.

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“If we can change a woman or man’s thinking we can change their outcome.”

The “No True Meritocracy” Principle
Wisdom to Take Away

• Many Americans believe that our country is a true meritocracy-that the best and brightest always rise to rise to the top and earn their just reward. This view fails to take into consideration the effects of racism, sexism, and classism. These “isms” act as brakes, slowing down the recognition and rewards that should be realized by talented minority and female entrepreneurs.
• If you are a person of color or a woman, you no doubt understand and appreciate that America is not yet a true meritocracy. We have no true system whereby true meritocracy. We have no true system whereby the talented are chosen and moved ahead solely based on achievement. Leaders are not always elected or appointed based on abstract intellectual criteria. The meritocracy principle dictates intellectual criteria. The meritocracy principle dictates that minority and female entrepreneurs must work twice as hard and become twice as intellectually agile as their counterparts in order to realize the fruits of their labor.
• By working to be twice as good, entrepreneurs will accelerate the time frame required for them to receive their just reward and position themselves for even more exciting entrepreneurial opportunities.

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The Principle of Trustworthiness
Wisdom to Take Away

• Trust is one of the most important qualities in business. In other words, entrepreneurs must be worthy of someone’s confidence and trust.
• Many theories exist about how to build trust and confidence, but there are some common themes that an entrepreneur would be wise to remember:

The Invisible Sixth Man Principle
Wisdom to Take Away

• Experience has shown that successful entrepreneurs cannot and do not accomplish any great entrepreneurial feat alone. They must become proficient at team building and convincing others to work with them building and convincing other to work with them and for them. Entrepreneurs sometimes tend to build a team based solely on the technical skills (e.g., accounting, engineering, marketing) that an individual can bring to the team or on the individual’s credentials. Technical skills and credentials are necessary and important, but there are other factors that are just as important.
• Qualities such as teamwork, loyalty, values congruence, and commitment to the company’s vision will often energize the team to become more than the sum of its various parts. This sum is the sixth-man principle in action. Everything else being equal, these intangible qualities are the tiebreakers that determine if a company will become a consistent, dependable, long-term winner.

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