I have given birth to one child and helped launch at least 6 start-ups. I might have a few illegitimate start-ups out there that I don’t know about but we’ll save that for another post. I had a blinding moment of delusion recently with my current start-up where I experienced the exact same feeling I did as the mother of a toddler. It was a day where one microscopic sign of progress overshadowed months of endless challenge, preparation, and self-sacrifice. How can that be?! How can the joy...

1. Use only a few well-defined categories. For most people, strategic plans top their list of “most boring documents to read.” If you hand your employees 20 pages of text, they are unlikely to read it. If they do, they are not likely to retain it. Instead, clearly define a small number of categories to provide a framework that is easily remembered and relevant to your employees’ daily activities.

2. Make a clear differentiation between you and your competition. Your strategic plan should set...

One of the things that great companies do is they hire the best people. These successful companies aren’t afraid to recruit the best candidates from other organizations or pull talented people from other industries. There are three attributes that are most important to an organization when hiring: attitude, competency and mindset.

Attitude. An employee has a passion for the organization and what it is trying to accomplish and is excited about being a part of the organization.

Competency. ...

I shared this message with Target’s team members moments ago. As I told them, the truth hurts, but it can also set you free.

To say that the last five months at Target have been difficult is an extraordinary understatement.

The data breach we suffered rocked consumer confidence and ignited a nationwide discussion about phishing, cyber-security and the realities of living in today’s data-enabled world. Thanks in large part to social media, it looks like this will have been one of the most...

For those who seek positions of business leadership or self-employment, it’s easy to feel duty-bound to your aspirations even when you’re off the clock. Career-driven people tend to spend their free time doing things that contribute to their professional goals, such as networking, reading business books, learning a work-related skill or keeping a business blog.

But is this singular focus really a good thing? Many studies seem to indicate that challenging your mind in different ways may...

Procrastination gets a bad reputation, especially in business. Experiences with chronic procrastinators can lead to labeling them as “lazy,” “unproductive” and “unreliable.” Even on a personal level, all of us have procrastinated before, and most of us beat ourselves up over it. But are all forms of procrastination bad for work?

In actuality, we all procrastinate, but the trick is leveraging that procrastination to complete productive and innovative work. How is this possible? Let’s find...

Whether they're battle-tested veterans or fresh-faced newbies, entrepreneurs undergo an intense learning process when establishing and launching a business. Even those who've been through it before typically face a certain amount of uncertainty. That's why it's critical that they learn as much as possible about their specific area of business as well as entrepreneurship as a whole. Probably thousands of books offer business, leadership or startup advice, but we've narrowed it down to just 14. ...

Its amazing how much free advice you get when you inform someone that you are starting your own business. Most of it is stupid. Here are favorites... 

1. Quit Your Day Job / Don’t Quit Your Day Job Deciding to dive headfirst into a new venture is a huge decision. Some people will encourage you to quit your day job right away, explaining that you won’t succeed unless you commit yourself fully. Others will caution you that 90 percent of startups fail, so you had better keep it a side project...

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst,...