“Our ambition should not be to win, then, but to play with our full effort. Our intention is not to be thanked or recognized, but to help and to do what we think is right. Our focus is not on what happens to us but on how we respond. In this, we will always find contentment and resilience.”
The importance of the internal compass can’t be overstated for so many different areas of life, not least in business. The number of times I see CEOs of SMEs heading down one path (e.g. planning for a sale) not because it’s what they actually want to do, but because everyone in their peer group is doing it (and competing on it).
The number of people advising your company to do good because it will probably come back to you, rather than simply because it is the right thing to do…
The Daily Stoic is a great book – a summary and modernisation of Stoic philosophy with daily thought provocations.
If you get it from this link, you’ll be supporting local independent bookshops. It is also an affiliate link, and the full commission, all £1.02 of it, will top up our microloan fund for female business owners in the developing world.
Will 2022 be another year of a strategy at best vaguely met? Of being a CEO unable to step back from the day-to-day to do the things your company needs to meet it's ambitions? Of having a purpose and values that don't directly connect to everything you do? We're looking for an intimate beta group of CEOs (10 to 40 employees) to join us on this upcoming webinar to talk through our Build on Purpose framework for making strategy, purpose and values happen.