How to be successful

I listen to a fair number of talks on entrepreneurism and effectiveness and the like, and I've noticed that there a few themes that keep repeating themselves as the keys to success from all these disparate people.

• Be truthful. I think Stan Christensen gave the best advice on this one: Wherever you are on the truthful scale, try to move just a little bit more toward the truthful side. I think this makes it easier to implement. I have been doing this, and it's harder than it sounds, mostly because you usually are not truthful when you screwed up, and so you have to put your ego aside and have some humility.

• Apologize. Randy Pausch summarized this well: an apology has 3 parts:

1. Say you're sorry
2. Take responsibility for screwing up
3. Ask what you can do to fix it.

This one is closely tied to the truth one. Pay attention, most people will try to hide their screwups and won't try to fix them. Steve Young talked about following this framework in his marriage. That's a great place to practice it since it's all upside, no risk in getting it wrong. It really works, and it works in the workplace too. If you apologize and ask to fix it, people will really let you off the hook. Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart could have benefited a lot from listening to this one!

• Work hard and do the right thing. This one comes in many different forms, but I hear it consistently. If you just work hard and try to do the right thing - you know what that is - then you will have success. I think that Google's "do not evil" company culture is a good manifestation of this. Facebook seems to be trying to make their app platform's rules actually enforce this, which has the double benefit of helping their company, which I find very cool. This one is why I don't like contracts all that much - if I have to pull out a contract after I've done business with someone, then probably they're not someone I should be doing business with anymore. I'd rather do business with someone who is honest and dependable, will do the right thing, and not later screw me on a deal.
  

OK, go out and be successful!