Live from the Medicine Ball Session: Day 3

December 10th, 2011 — 6:30am

As the title suggests, this is continued from days 1 and 2. :) The biggest ideas I took with me…

Many people want to raise money from investors so they can do the work they love. In reality, raising money from investors means promising to make more money with that money, so you can quickly pay it back plus more. Making money is a different goal than doing what you love, so it’s really important to be clear about which one you are setting out to do.

Every business is a mix of abundant/cheap things, and scarce things. The scarce part is what people can’t easily get elsewhere. The scarce part doesn’t have to be cheap, and that’s a chance to avoid the race to the bottom.

Every business will be put out of business sooner or later. If you can think ahead to the things that would put you out of business, and list them, it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and do those things yourself rather than waiting for a competitor to do them.

Written goals have more power to create change than perhaps anything else.

Personal P.S: Seth closed the third and final day of the event with an intimate personal appeal to the 40 or so of us in the room. With visible emotion he told us we are better positioned to go out and make a difference than any other group of people he knows. He said sometimes we think it’s selfish to go out and shake things up or arrogant to think we can, but he disagrees.

He closed by saying “We need you to lead us.” This was so moving to me. As the attendees milled around saying good-byes and getting books signed, I was too choked up to speak. For me his words had the feeling of a father’s blessing on my deep desire to make a big difference. Here’s to powerful words like that.