4 Buffett Rules; 1 Key Influencer; 7 Lessons from Dad; Young Inventor’s Mom

"…insights for scale-ups"

HEADLINES:

Grit Score — Have you ever wondered how much grit you or your teen have? Now you (and your children) can take the Grit Scale Test to find out! Scores on this test have been closely linked to success and have proven to be a statistically significant and reliable indicator of performance at a wide range of institutions including West Point Military Academy. I'll report out some composite scores from insight readers (I'm guessing you're higher than average).

7 Precious Business (sp!) Tips From Dad — Notes Steve Sergi, founder of Warriors Recruiting, "I brought my 12 year old daughter Mary and 13 year old son Mason to work yesterday. They sat through several meetings, poured coffee for my team and even checked the mail. Instead of going to school, I asked them to simply keep a list throughout the day of 5 things they learned about business. I thought I'd share, using their spelling, because after reviewing their lists I thought it was timeless simple advice on how we should all run our businesses."

"Business Tips Learned Today with Dad":

1. Be on time. Actually be early.
2. Dress Nice
3. When you go to a meeting and meet someone you got to shake their hand and look them in the eye.
4. Ask the person what she does before you talk about yourself or Warriors. See if they would be a good business partner.
5. Listen close
6. Talk to your team a lot and tell them what's going on. Problems and good stuff too.
7. Warriors Recruiting recruits smart people who need a computer job. (That's actually pretty darn close to accurate!)

Steve, love the idea and the list – thanks for sharing!

4 Rules Working With Buffett — if you want to survive as a CEO working with Warren Buffett, here are four rules highlighted in this FORTUNE interview of 3 Berkshire Hathaway CEOs:

1. Don't mess with the brand – above all else protect your reputation
2. Here's the pool, swim! – expect to run your own show, but Warren's available
3. Don't worry about tomorrow – it's about the next quarter….century!
4. Don't make me angry – refer back to #1

Four good rules for children to follow as well (do you have family values – never too late?)! Take 2 minutes to read through the details and view the interview.

1 Key to Influence — "After 12 years of teaching communication skills, I am pretty sure this is the single most important ingredient that you must learn in order to be influential," notes serial entrepreneur and IESE professor Conor Neill. As I've mentioned before, I listen to, read, and pay attention to what Conor says. And as he explains in this 3 minute video, you can use this idea at home! FYI, this excerpt was from a presentation he made to 800 leaders in Bucharest, Romania speaking along with a full orchestra. "It took a lot of preparation to mix the speech with the music!" exclaimed Conor.

1/8th the Wealth of the World — Named by Life magazine as the single most important individual the past thousand years, Thomas Edison received his first patent at age 21 and went on to hold 1093 patents and launch 14 companies including the present day GE. It's been calculated that one eighth of the wealth of the world can be traced back to his inventions (fun fact). Notes this Real Leader article:

Another good parenting point! Thanks to Matt Levy with Credera for pointing me to this fact-filled article.

Age 14 Goal — Jordan Spieth became the second youngest winner of the Masters golf tournament (a few months shy of Tiger Woods), smashing many tournament and PGA records in the process. Not surprisingly, it was a goal he articulated when he was 14 – not just to play in the Masters but to win it. Note in this short video the important role his coach plays — we all need a coach!

Meet Up for Scale-Ups — safe travels to Orlando for the Leadership Summit next week – you'll be in great company with over 650 CEOs and senior leaders of scale-ups from around the world – our best attended Leadership Summit to date (though always room for more if you can make it last minute!). The fall Growth Summit is Oct 20 – 21, Dallas – block your calendar.

COACHING:

What is the value of working with a Certified Gazelles International Coach? There are four key roles a coach plays in helping your company Scale Up…listen here to learn.

TECHNOLOGY:

Better Book Club — What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Align Dashboard — Want to keep track of your plans and progress in the cloud? The complete Growth Tools and Rockefeller Habits disciplines in a SaaS offering.