You Can’t Take It With You

I was perusing my social media feed and happened upon this interesting post from a good friend:

I spoke with a founder who successfully exited their company recently who outlined that to succeed as an entrepreneur one needs to be arrogant. I rejected that outright — be confident, tenacious, humble and empathetic and don’t break things…make them better! The words we use — however subtle the intentions behind them might be — matter. We must teach the principles of what it means to be good and successful and arrogance is not one of those nor is the mantra of “move fast and break things”. Move fast…leave it better than you found it…

I’m going to keep my “violent agreement” comments on the above short because the post itself is the takeaway. But as a professional unpaid blogger I simply must toss out a few thoughts. It’s in our bylaws.

1. The only thing you have in your career is a reputation. Companies and jobs come and go, but reputation follows you around. In this era of social media, it’s pretty easy to track down people who behave poorly.
2. You can’t take it with you. This old adage is a reminder — as the Stoic philosophers knew — that we will all return to dust. Willie the Wimp might have been buried in a Cadillac coffin with $100 bills stuffed between his diamond-wearing fingers, but it’s unlikely it did him much good.
3. So if you can’t take it with you, then…..
4. Choose generosity
5. Seek abundance
6. Demonstrate kindness
7. Be patient
8. Accept responsibility

These aren’t new ideas. They’re timeless, which is why they are true.

Good luck!

Originally published at Michael Diamond.