Category: Enterpreneurship

This is an article about emotional intelligence and language. It might be the timeliest one I’ve written on the subject.

It’s the kind of practical analysis you’ll find in my free, 115-page ebook: Improving Emotional Intelligence 2021—an empowering strategy that can help you deal more easily with difficult people.

Because let’s face the truth. We’re all encountering more of them lately: people whose nerves are shot, whose patience is at an end, whose anxieties are through the roof, and whose behavior, as a result, is sometimes fraught.

Know anyone like that? The good news is that if you can learn to differentiate quickly among five related emotions that difficult people like this might be experiencing, you can create strategies to respond, and maximize your happiness and success.

Let’s go to the five emotions, along with their summarized Merriam-Webster definitions.

First, fear

Heading into 2020, the startup scene never seemed more vibrant in places outside of the coastal investment hubs of Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. Colorado, for instance, attracted $2.5 billion in funding in 2019. Then the wheels came off the startup bus because of the pandemic, as businesses everywhere struggled to adjust. 

For Rise of the Rest (ROTR), the middle-of-America seed stage investment fund created by AOL co-founder Steve Case, there was an actual bus involved. Since 2014, ROTR, part of Case’s Revolution investment company, has conducted annual bus tours to cities such as Des Moines, Omaha, and Kansas City as it looks for companies to fund and spreads the message that the middle matters. In 2020, ROTR had to park the bus and go virtual like everyone else. 

But that doesn’t mean the movement stalled out. In its newly published 2021 Ecosystem Playbook, ROTR

Transformation is a word you often hear when talking about the future of businesses and industries. However, it’s not just a business buzzword — it’s a relevant point because customer needs and behaviors are constantly evolving. So, as a small-business owner, how are you staying ahead of expectations to grow your business?

January is a time to refocus attention — on our goals, our habits, and our resolutions. So, as you reflect on the opportunities ahead and how you may transform, here are three tips to consider as you plan.

Now, I know this may seem simple, but most of us aren’t doing it enough.

Your customers are your customers for a reason. Do you know why they are coming to your business instead of going to your competitors? Ask them how well you are serving their needs. Is there anything your business could do

As a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Hunter Walk, a partner at seed-stage venture fund Homebrew, tweeted: “don’t be putting Jared Kushner on cap tables when this is all said and done.”

Walk‘s call to peers to not accept money from President Trump’s son-in-law got nearly 200 retweets, many of them by other investors. One was by Upfront Ventures’ Mark Suster, who’d already tweeted four times during the riot himself, including: “I say this without hyperbole, if we don’t accept the legitimacy of elections we don’t live in a democracy.”

The high-profile VCs’ remarks came amid a moment of reckoning that had already seen even the most buttoned-up executives take rare dives into the national political conversation. A letter signed by close to 200 CEOs Monday urged Congress to accept the election results and ensure “no further delay in the orderly transfer of

Even though no less a thinker than Adam Grant argues that procrastination can be helpful — one New Year’s he resolved to procrastinate more, not less — still: For many of us, starting fast and finishing slow isn’t always the best route to take.

Research shows that chronic procrastinators tend to earn less money, experience higher levels of anxiety, and even run a greater risk of cardiovascular disease.

Constantly putting things off not only means you get less done, it’s also really stressful. 

With all the downsides, why do so many people — and by “people,” I also mean “me” — procrastinate? Turns out math is involved.

According to Piers Steel and Cornelius Konig, your motivation for a particular task can be calculated using the following formula (this is the simple version):

Motivation = (Expectancy X Value) / (Impulsiveness X Delay)

• Expectancy: How likely you