Bo Burlingham is a contributor at Forbes magazine. Previously he worked at Inc. magazine for 33 years, first as executive editor, later as editor-at -large. His most recent book is Finish Big. He also wrote Small Giants and co-authored, with Jack Stack, The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome, and also with Norm Brodsky, Street Smarts.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Jack Stack
- Danny Meyer
- Fritz Maytag owner The Anchor Brewery
- Anita Roddick
- Sir Richard Branson
- Frederick Smith
- Steve Jobs
When business started difficulties overcame:
“when I was starting out the challenge was to earn a consistent living… At first I found that very hard because I ran into this problem which is that I would get a job someplace writing… I was freelance in the 1970s and that’s feast or famine, and mainly famine ”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All Book by Jim Collins
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t Book by Jim Collins
- Jim Collins Books
- Tom Peters Books
- Michael Lewis Books
- In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies Book by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman
- Thinking, Fast and Slow Book by Daniel Kahneman
- The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story Book by Michael Lewis
Favourite Quote:
“a man must take part in the great events of his time or run the risk of being judged not to have lived at all”
Recommended Online Resources:
Farnam Street FS helps you understand how the world works, make better decisions, and live a meaningful life The topics span history, philosophy, science, mental models, and more
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“really strive to learn about and then implement the mechanisms that other companies have used to get the most and the best out of the people that work for them. Basically the best companies other ones that have everybody in that company thinking and trying to do the same thing and working toward the same goal. And then if you really want to build a successful company, no one build a successful company alone or a good company alone, it’s always done with other people. And the better those people are in the more that all of the members of the team are in fact working towards the same goal the more successful that company is going to be. And that’s an important thing to understand and always keep in mind”…[Listen for More]
More About Bo Burlingham:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.” Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
Other Quotes From the Chat with Bo Burlingham:
- “What is the higher purpose of business? It is not just to make money, making money is a by-product of doing lots of other things”
- “there are some mistakes in terms of people and some mistakes in terms of projects. They were mistakes in terms of doing things without really knowing what I was capable of or what I could do. When I look back I think those are all pretty normal, unfortunately there was nobody telling me that at the time… I think it would have been very helpful to have somebody telling me that”
- “culture is critical but culture comes out of the relationships between people in the business. It’s sort of the way they go about doing business”
- “I think that choosing your mentors is very important”
- “you learn from your mistakes and your failures”
- “wise people learn from other people’s mistakes, smart people learn from their own mistakes. So you really want to be wise rather than smart”
- “entrepreneurship is eternally fascinating and you sort of never reach a point where you feel like you know it all because you never do. And there is always something new to learn about that you didn’t know before and I find that very energising and I enjoy that part of very very much ”
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