It’s a topic that keeps cropping up in my circle of friends/business acquaintances.

Startups, startups, startups.

It’s an obsession with some people. I’ve noticed it a lot recently. There are startup programmes at all the universities. There are incubators. There is funding to do it. There is support. There is a whole legion of people in Scotland who are obsessed with the notion that startups are the thing to focus on. The only thing to focus on. The holy grail of business.

(seriously, if you listen to some people you’d swear that startups can simultaneously cure AIDS, end poverty, make David Cameron less of a shitty prime minister…the list goes on).

I’m not buying it. Startups mean nothing to me. Sustainable businesses, on the other hand, do.

Look, starting up a business is easy. You can do it in about five minutes. All it takes is a credit card and a name. You register it at Companies House and BAM – you’re a director. There is nothing special in that. There is nothing holy or impressive.

Now building a business – that’s hard. I know from first hand experience. There are sleepless nights, hard choices and a lot of ups and downs.

But I think it’s deeper than that. It’s also about the kind of business you want to build.

When I started Designate, an exit strategy never occurred to me. Nor did a fall back plan. I was determined to build a business.

I was also determined to build my business. The business I wanted to work in. The business that could be a great company, with great people and great services. I wanted to build the best team. I wanted to make the best environment. And yes, I wanted to make the best money as well. Work hard, play hard – you know how it all goes.

But the majority of startups I see nowadays don’t seem to focus on that.

It’s a quick in and a quick out. We’ll build this up and sell it on in five years. We have an exit strategy.

What are you focussed on if that’s the case? Are you trying build a business or are you trying to follow a business plan? Are you trying to make the best products/services or are you just trying to get to the end?

I know that some of this is driven by the investment community we have in the UK. There is a huge focus on quick exits. In and out. We need an exit return after three years. Or maybe five. And I understand that investors need to be able to make their money and their profits. It’s how the whole thing works. But how much are building a false economy here?

What’s the shame of having a sustainable business that grows over twenty years? Or thirty? Have our businesses really gone the way of our construction industry – we build them cheap and they last a short period of time. Is this really the business world we want to create?

I’d like to see us focus a little less on startups and more on building lasting companies that grow. I’d like to see us concentrate less on the short term win and more on the long-term growth. I’d like to see less incubators promising “FREE FREE FREE”, and more support for growing and building a business.

As I said at the beginning: Startups mean nothing to me. Sustainable businesses, on the other hand, do. And I think we need to concentrate more on building great companies than on obsessively starting up companies doomed to fail.

- J

(Scratch that. October WAS a long month, and now we get to see how November pans out. Here’s hoping eh?)

So yeah, it’s been a long month. A long month of ups and downs. A lot of time spent reflecting. A lot of time spent searching. Even some time spent selling.

The past three months my company has been working on a new game plan. We’ve been refining a couple business models (and opportunities) over the past couple of years, and we’ve finally been in a position to execute. It was a tough slog. There were times when I had to really hold my nerve and go after what I knew to be true.

Sometimes everyone believed in me.

Sometimes nobody did.

But I believed, and I held my nerve and, well, here we are.

November. Almost the end of the year.

So how’s it going? Pretty well thanks.

It’s all down to focus.

I don’t know how many times I have seen businesses stagnant because they lack one key ingredient: focus.

Focus is everything.

I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day. Their business is doing, well, what their business always does – they reel from crisis to crisis, from boom to bust, like a drunken sailor staggering from one end of the pub to another. It’s not a pretty site.

It also drives me nuts. He’s got a pretty good offering. He’s pretty good at what he does and his team is pretty good at executing. They have all the opportunity in the world to build a solid platform for their business.

The trouble is – he’s not interested in a solid platform. Solid platforms are boring aren’t they? He wants the win. He wants the whale. He wants the big ticket that makes him a star.

And he doesn’t want to wait.

Let me ask you a question. When did being Entrepreneurial become code for being stupid? When did being a risk-taker become synonymous with taking stupid risks? It doesn’t impress me when he does that. It doesn’t make me admire his spirit or willingness to fail.

It makes me think he’s an idiot chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

And so many businesses seem to be like that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a risk-taker by nature. But I’m about calculated risks.

When I look at business, I look for good, stable strong profitable income streams. You can build those. You can build whole cities on those.

But he’s too busy looking for the big win that he doesn’t even realise the potential that he has. He has no focus. He has no structure.

If he ends up winning (and as a friend, I hope he does) it will be in spite of all of his efforts. It will be down to dumb luck and circumstance.

Let me put it in simple numbers.

By being focussed in his approach, and by being focussed on the right type of business to develop, I reckon he has a 75% chance of turning his business into a £1-2M business within 5 years.

By shooting for the whale, I reckon he has a 1-5% chance of having a £20M buy-out within the same amount of time.

Which would you rather have?

I’m going for option 1, thank you very much.

-Jordan

But early this morning, as I checked my Twitter feed on the iPhone that always lies next to my bed, the news of his death did cause me to do something.

I started to think a bit about his technology.

I admit it. I am unashamedly and unabashedly an apple fanboy. I love their kit. My office is full of iMacs. I carry around an iPhone and an iPad. I want an iPad2.

(Scratch that: I need an iPad2)

It’s always been a bit of a battle-ground for me and some of my friends. They hated Apple’s products for a variety of reasons. Too restrictive. Too much arrogance. Too pretty. No command lines. Whatever. We’d battle it out on a fairly regular basis – never coming to any agreement, but always willing to waste a few minutes (hours? days?) almost coming to blows. I’m not sure any of us really cared that much about the companies involved (I mean, they HATE Microsoft) but there did seem to be a fundamental difference in the way we saw the technology. They thought I was a follower in some weird cult. I thought they needed to have more curiosity about the world.

I have a confession to make. I’ve recently been testing a lot of non-Apple products. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that. My girlfriend has been looking at the HTC phones, my flatmate needs a cheap laptop…it’s not really me (I swear) that’s interested, but it’s me that needs to find out more and give the advice. I promise.

So recently I’ve played with a lot of different kit. I’ve tried five or six other tablets. I’ve tested three or four netbooks. I’ve fiddled with six or seven other phones. And this morning it finally crystalised, for me, where the difference truly lies.

Apple’s products are aspirational. The other products are not.

What does that mean?

Sometimes you can’t put your finger on it. Is it how a line is drawn exactly right. Is it the curve of a corner? Is it the blend of perfect design with perfect interaction? It could be any one of these things. It could be all of them.

But there is a much more important ingredient: Apple’s products are trying to be the best they can be. The others aren’t.

Test me on it. Go out and try some of the other tablets out there. They are a response to the iPad. That’s it.  They have no life on their own. They weren’t dreamed up. They were made. They weren’t designed. They were spec’d. They exist because a market was created and a company wanted a piece of the action. That is their reality. That is their dream. The iPad wants to be more. It wants to be the best device it can be.

Aspirational products change the world. They change how we work. They change how we live.

I can’t think of a better tribute to Steve Jobs than that.

Can Aspirational Be The New Exit?

My early morning thoughts about Steve Jobs and Apple also stirred something else in me. Something that has been stewing in there for a long time.

Is this the problem with the majority of new technology start-ups in Scotland?

How many times have I sat through an “investor presentation” over the past six years and heard more about the market opportunity and exit plans than I have about the company’s aspirations for the future? Ninety percent of the time?

(To be honest, how many times have I been the one asking them about their exit? I’m just as guilty.)

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t think about the hard-nosed financial realities of business. We should. In fact, I think a lot of times, particularly at universities, we don’t think enough about it. We don’t give the reality check of commercial viability.

But a lot of the times, we spend most of our time taking the aspiration out of these businesses. And that’s not what I got into business to do.

Maybe it’s down to who is in the room. Nine times out of ten the main people who get involved in these projects at an early stage are lawyers and accountants. Can you think of a better way of killing off innovation and aspiration than surrounding them with lawyers and accountants? Seriously.

But it’s not all the lawyers and accountants’ fault. We do it to ourselves.

I was at an event a couple of weeks ago and had a really enjoyable conversation with a professor from some university in England. We laughed a lot about the shoddy way universities handle IP and commercialisation, and we talked about some of the good bits that happen in other countries. I spoke about my experience working with some biotech VCs who install a professional business team to run the companies, and let the technology guys do what they do best – create technology.

We were joined by someone from Scottish Enterprise. She said an astounding thing: “We don’t have the appetite here for that.” Are you kidding me? This is coming from someone who is supposed to be fostering innovation and growth? Her take on it was simple – be happy with what we have. Don’t rock the boat. We can’t do that. It won’t work. We can’t succeed.

With her it was all “No, no, no, no and no”.

What a load of tosh.

I look around in Scotland and I see nothing but interested and enthusiastic people. I see innovative thinkers and hard workers. I see risk-takers and salespeople. I see entrepreneurs and leaders.

But give it five minutes and someone will pop up and remind us all that it can’t happen in Scotland. We don’t have it. We don’t have the risk mentality. We don’t have the appetite. We’re doomed to fail if we try.

Is that aspirational?

I’ve been in business for almost six years. In that six years I’ve seen success and I’ve tasted failure. I’ve been up against the wall and I’ve thought I was untouchable.

I’ll let you into a wee secret. I didn’t get into business to make billions of pounds. I started a business because I wanted to build something – a team, an idea…I’m not always sure what. But I know it when I see it.

And if I stopped believing that? I’d quit. It wouldn’t be worth it.

Back to Steve. The quote you’re most likely going to be bombarded with over the next few days comes from his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. If you haven’t seen it yet, go look it up on YouTube. Seriously. It’s a great speech. The quote most people will be throwing around on Twitter and Face book is :

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

But that’s not my favorite part of his speech. My favourite part comes at the end. He talks about the Whole Earth Catalogue’s final message to their readers: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Now that is aspirational.

- Jordan

The hospitality industry thrives on customer service. Some get it right, others get it disastrously wrong. Here are two places in Edinburgh that I love, and I love them (in part) because of the attention they pay to their customers.

(and yes, the food is awesome too)

Mark Greenaway
Last night I took my girlfriend out to visit Mark Greenaway‘s restaurant on Picardy Place. I go there all the time on business, but last night was the first time I got to experience the restaurant in a relaxed social occasion.

(as Nicola, the Maitre’D, said to my girlfriend “whenever he’s here he’s always talking, never eating”)

Now if you haven’t been there at lunch. Go. Stop reading this and call them (0131 557 0952) to book a table. Do it now. This is the steal of the city. £16.50 for two of the nicest courses you’re going to find. You can’t beat it. It’s insanely good value. I mean almost criminal. I bring a regular business group here every month and everyone who comes is amazed at the food and the value. It’s quite simply the best place in Edinburgh to have a business lunch (we get a private room for our lunch meetings – makes it even better).

Back to last night. My girlfriend has some food intolerances. You know – Gluten, nuts, some dairy – that sort of thing. I talked to Nicola and Mark beforehand and they assured me they could handle everything. And boy did they. From start to finish they did a lot of little things that made our evening pretty special. To start with, the ‘amuse bouche’ that everyone else (including me) got had some cream in it so, without any fuss or mention, they brought out a special one just for her. It looked awesome. I was slightly jealous.

Bread is another thing. It’s one thing not to give her any bread (most places) but they went a really nice step further and brought her some rye bread (which she can eat). That was awesome. I could eat my bread without stealing guilty glances at her.

Now the food. Ohhhh the food. Just unbelievable. I had scallops as my starter and she had langoustines. Both were amazing. Now I go diving for scallops, so I’m an old hand at cooking scallops and I always judge a place pretty harshly on the quality of their scallops. These were stunning. Fresh and perfectly cooked. The taste combinations were amazing. Yum.

Without any fuss, they modified the dishes to suit my girlfriend’s intolerances. Nothing was a problem, and they were more than flexible. That meant a lot to both of us.

The mains were the same way. I had a stunning beef dish which may have been topped by her duck, which was sublime. I loved the beef, but that duck was good enough to make you cry.

(On a side note, they had put aside some of the purple mash and made it without cream so she could have that if she wanted. Nice touch.)

Dessert was a tough one. She can’t have cream or gluten, so most of the desserts were out. They put together a lovely summery eton mess (minus the cream)  for her and gave me one of the nicest chocolate fondants I have ever had. Seriously. I almost had to get a room so I could be alone. I’m not kidding. Have it. Bring a hanky.

At the end of the meal, Mark came out to say hi. We’re going back in a couple of weeks with some friends, so he offered to put together a special dessert for my girlfriend so she could enjoy some chocolate too.

Sum it up? The food was sublime, but the business moral is even better. There were a lot of little things they did to make our evening special. A lot of little things that meant my girlfriend could have an amazing meal without worrying. That doesn’t happen at a lot of places. And it’s a great advert for what makes good customer service. Attention. You have have to pay attention. It doesn’t have to be big things, in fact, the little things matter even more. Mark Greenaway delivered in a huge way. On every level.

(and guess what? I’m back there for lunch today. I’m spoiled…)

Illegal Jacks
Slightly different from Mark Greenaway. Just a bit.

I love Jack’s place. I’m an official #jackaholic. I just don’t have the t-shirt yet.

But anyway, let’s get to the point. Illegal Jack‘s has a pretty big  following in Edinburgh. They do a lot on social media and they get a whole lot of repeat customers. There is a reason for this. And only part of it is the food.

The food is awesome. I personally can’t tell you how many times I have had a craving for an Illegal Jacks’ burrito that went almost to the physically disabling point. I mean, what the hell do they put in their burritos? Is this another Coke thing? Should I be worried? If you haven’t tried Illegal Jacks yet, let me give you some advice. Beef/Pork burrito is the only thing you will ever need (their chicken wings and nachos are great too). Get a burrito. Load it up with pinto beans, beef, cheese, sour cream and salsa. And good luck. They are a susbstantial meal, but I have never failed to eat it all. I can’t stop myself.

The food is only half of it. Jacks really love their customers. And it shows in everything they do. Again it’s the little things. I reserved a table for my birthday and they always print out a nice reservation notice with your twitter handle on it. This time, it mentioned me as the “Birthday Boy”. It made me laugh. If you have anything you need that’s special or you want to do something a bit different for someone, they are up for it. They are there all the time for their customers. They want to engage. They want to hear from us.

And that’s what makes it special. Yes the food is awesome, but you feel like you’re a part of Illegal Jacks. You feel like it’s your place. It’s like Cheers, with no Norm. Well, maybe not exactly like Cheers, but you get my point. They pay attention to their customers. They pay attention to the little details. They make their customers feel special.

There it is. Two fantastic places to eat in Edinburgh. Two places with amazing (albeit very different) food. Two places that really care about their customers and understand that customer service is about one main thing: paying attention to the little details.

(and now, after all of that, it’s 08:42 in the morning and I’m absolutely starving)

-j

This came back into sharp relief for me over the past two months. Someone I know fairly well (and even odder, someone I actually like and rate as a business person) has had to close his doors.

I couldn’t help him. He asked me to. But I had to tell him no.

That’s not me being a prick, by the way. If I could have helped him, I would have done whatever I could have for free. It wasn’t about fees or money. It was down to a simple problem. The business was sunk. It needed to die. It didn’t have any life left in it.

All I could think of was this: why didn’t you come talk to me a year ago? We could have fixed this.

And that’s the sad moral of today’s story. It’s not nice, but it’s something I have seen time and time again. You can’t wait until the ship is sinking before you start to plug the holes….it’s too late at that point.

Back when my company did a lot more campaign-based work, I used to get approached by businesses all the time who were looking for quick wins. They needed cash in, so they wanted a cheap campaign (ie. they had no real budget to pay us) that would bring in some quick cash.

Now, I’ve never been interested in that sort of work, so I’d listen politely and send them away, normally with the best advice I could give about how they could create their own campaigns for free. They didn’t have the money, they didn’t have the opportunity and, even worse, they were spiraling down anyway. The ship was sinking….

What was that moral again? Oh yeah. You can’t wait wait until your business is at the brink before you take action to increase your marketing. You can’t wait until the water is lapping over the sides before you figure out where you need to focus you efforts. If you wait for that long, you’re probably not going to be able to get out of the hole in any meaningful way.

So for my friend’s benefit (who is doing OK and starting up again) and for all those others who have come to me in distress, I’m going to remind them of some fundamental marketing rules they should be stapling to their foreheads.

It’s Honest Assessment Time

What’s working? What isn’t? Do you know how many businesses I have seen that, somewhat pigheadedly, continue down the same bad paths they have gone down before? It’s insanity. You’ve got to have an honest assessment of where the best and most profitable income is coming from and focus on attaining that. Stop reaching for those projects that never come off, and stop doing the ones that don’t pay you any money. Why the hell are you in business if not to make a strong and sustainable profit? Look at where you are focussing on and make sure it’s the right direction.

Cover Your Home Bases First

Any time you talk to one of those cheesy ‘business coaches’ about marketing they normally spout a lot of drivel, but they do say one useful thing: it’s easier to sell to your existing customers. That’s very true. It’s also easier to leverage the contacts and connections (from customers to suppliers, families to neighbors) you already have than to go after people who don’t already know you. There is normally a ton of business on your doorstep (either literally or figuratively) and it drives me nuts when I see businesses ignore that.

Stay Active, Not Passive

Active marketing is a lot better than passive marketing. You want to be actually reaching out to people. That can happen in a lot of different ways, both directly and indirectly. Passive marketing is when you throw something out there and hope you get a response. Take that ad in the Chamber of Commerce calendar? Well why not? I’ll tell you why. It’s a waste of money. Spend that £400 on directly and actively reaching out and taking business.

Keep Your Eyes Open

Do you know how many good marketing ideas are basically just tweaks of existing campaigns? All the best ideas are copied, are changed, are tweaked and are improved. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel at every step. You don’t have to come up with something startling or brand new. You don’t even have to do something drastically different from your competitors. If something works, use it.

That’s it. Four simple things for my mate (you know who you are) to keep in mind.

And a simple request – don’t wait until you’re hurt before you ask for my help. You know where to find me (and what whisky I prefer).

;-)

- j

In some ways I’m going to have to tip the old hat in @craig_mckenna‘s direction. His latest blog about the responsibilities that consultants have to their clients played out in my mind as I have been working with a new client.

How many businesses suffer because they don’t actually go out and get the help they so badly need?

Rough guess? I can’t even make a stab, but from my experience it’s a lot of them and it can be the death blow.

I don’t actually mean consultants either. This can be legal, accountancy, IP….you name it.

Let me give you a scenario I have seen recently:

The company is launching a new type of offering that they will be taking out across the UK and, if all goes well, to the rest of the world. They are spending considerable time (and money) in developing their new product. They have spent hours working on it. They have spent thousands developing it. They are speaking to my company about launching it.

This is not an insignificant investment.

What is the one thing missing?

Protection. They haven’t budgeted, or really even addressed, the specific intellectual property areas of concern.

And it’s keeping me up at night. IP is a big area for our work. Most of what we do in the technology field is about launching new technology products. I can tell you right now that these projects will fail if the IP isn’t protected adequately.

So why do these companies not look for advice sooner? It’s not that they are all just massively ignorant and don’t understand that these are issues that need to be addressed – most of them know this very well.

As always, it normally comes down to cost. “We can’t afford it” and “We’ll deal with it later” are the stock answers I get told when I dig a little deeper.

Really? I think that’s a bit of bollocks. It normally costs nothing to put a plan in place. Why are you waiting?

I do a lot of work Harper MacLeod across the UK. I was having a drink with one of their partners the other day and I asked him about when I should look to bring him in on my projects. My worry, as I put it, was in bringing him in too early, when the money may not be there to do all the work.

His answer may surprise people. He would rather be brought in early and help the company understand the best direction for them (in a legal and protection sense) so that the company has a full understanding of where the dangers and opportunities are. His rationale is no different from my rationale – if we do a good job and build a good relationship now, we will stick with these clients for life. That’s good business from everyone’s perspective.

I’ll put it another way. Rather sad to admit this, but back when I first started my company I wasn’t necessarily the best at dealing with HMRC. If I got a bit behind with them, I tended to ignore the letters for months. What a stupid way of dealing with a problem. Bury your head and hope it goes away. What I found, to my surprise, was that they were very willing to help me out if I came to them early and explained the situation.

OK, that’s a bit of a different situation, but the principle is the same. If you’re in business and you need help, why are you waiting to ask for it? Most companies are willing to talk without you handing over a cheque, and if you detail what the problems are, you’ll be surprised at how many companies will point you in the right direction. The worst thing you can do is put it off.

(and if anyone needs a good lawyer, give me a call ;-))

- j

Capacity. My old friend. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and not just because of our current, short-term, capacity loss. I think of it almost every day when I think about our clients.

Capacity. It’s such a strange word in so many ways. So few companies really think about their capacity. Most companies think getting more. They want more sales, more profit, more customers, more staff, more turnover, more expansion.

More, more, more, more….

And more is good! More is excellent.

But it has to be twinned with something else – the ability to deliver.

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the key problems any business faces when the look to expand – the ability to deliver at the same level of quality and expedience. It’s so often the last thing that business owners think about when they think about expansion. It’s so often the last piece to enter into the equation, often after the fact, when the problems are already there.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but when we’re developing a strategy for a company, we look at several key areas of their existing setup:

1. Sales – the way they interact with clients, their sales process, their client base, their sales tools, their sales teams.
2. People & Personalities – key people, personality dynamics, weak performers, hierarchies, behaviour types
3. Marketing & Profile – PR, advertising, target markets, databases, crm systems, collateral, social media
4. Financials – pricing structure, cash-flow, overheads, marketing budgets
5. Products & Services – competitors, key benefits, market analysis, opportunity analysis
6. Capacity – current capacity & roles, desired capacity & roles, required capacity

It’s the last one that most people are surprised by. “Hey, you’re a marketing company! What are your looking at that stuff for?”

Why wouldn’t we?

Let me tell you a little secret. You want to know what the number one reason companies fail to achieve the growth they want? It’s not because of the market – it’s because they don’t execute properly. It’s down to them. You already hold all the keys…the real question is always: what are you going to do with them?

Who’s going to manage the relationships? How is it going to work when you have doubled the client base? What about tripled? How long will it take to train up new people? Where are you going to find them? When do you need to start looking?

Capacity is so important. It’s also personal to me, at the present moment, because I’m dealing with it all over the block. First off in my own business, but also with a number of my clients.

I promise you it’s going to be a lot more important than you think…so think about it….sooner rather than later.

- jordan

I had a great break. It was a much needed break. And I really took the opportunity to switch off. I didn’t take any work home with me, and I spent almost every day in the sun out on the golf course. It was wonderful.

I’m back now, and I’m raring to go. This year should be exciting. We’re going to be working hard on the various groups I’m a member of  (The High Growth Group, The Franchise Gap, The Retail Gap) and we’ll be seriously pushing forward some new work in high-tech companies, franchises and software development.

Lauren (you can check her blog out here) forwarded me a very cool new HTML 5 project from the chaps at Arcade Fire. Check it out: The Wilderness Downtown.

Have a great 2011.

-j

It’s, well, a MacBook pro. Normal wear and tear applies after three years of love. It was top of the line when I got it (3 years ago) and is still very quick. I’ll wipe it and install a clean copy of OSX 10.6 (I’ll even throw in a copy of iWork 09).

Main Specs:
15.4″
2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
150GB Hard Disk
Superdrive
Includes Projector Cable & Power Cable

It cost about £2200 when new. I’ll take a reasonable offer. Collect in Edinburgh.

- j

This week we’ve had a new girl start with us. As a sort of ‘getting to know you’ project I asked her to look at my company’s marketing. A nice opportunity to get a fresh pair of eyes on what we’re doing, right? Naturally what has happened is that she’s exposed some areas where we are, quite frankly, doing a pretty shitty job at practising what we preach. It’s hard to see that from where I’m sitting. Like all business owners – I’m just too close to it all.

I wasn’t surprised by this. It’s exactly what happens when we’re brought in to companies. Being on the outside lets us take a completely neutral look at what is really going on, and look to help fix it.

A fresh pair of eyes can be invaluable to you in business. True, they have to be the right pair of eyes, but they can help you see clearer, farther and wider than you’ve ever had a chance to see before. Don’t be afraid of that. Honest evaluation is the cornerstone of making the right decisions.

It’s good to remember that, because it’s easy to forget it.

- j