RULE 9 Know Where You Add Value

I once had a brainstorm that was so great it nearly bankrupted me. In fact, if my concept hadn’t been quite so good, I wouldn’t have found myself facing the worst financial crisis of my life.

In 1984, I came up with an idea that was strong enough to convince me that I could ignore my training business. All that really mattered, I told myself, was “working the kinks” out of my breakthrough new idea. These days, I will certainly try out new ideas — but I can promise you that there will never be another working day in my life when I forget to work in an area that I know from experience I can use to add value to someone else’s operation.

What was the idea that broke my routine? Well, at the time, very few of the thousands ...

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