The Power of Focus

In the past 30 years, this author has been involved in 3 successful start-up companies and each became a leader in its niche.

He says he went through many peaks, valleys and learned many lessons along the way. So, in writing You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School he distilled all he learned into 28 simple truths of leadership.

Enjoy this chapter titled: "If You Chase Two Rabbits, Both Will Escape."

An excerpt from

You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School
by Mac Anderson

At Successories in 1997, I learned about the power of focus the hard way. I didn't - and I paid the price. Golf was the hot sport because Tiger Woods had just come on the scene. We decided to purchase a small catalog company called British Links, a leader in golf art and golf gifts. The logic was simple:
1. We understood the specialty catalog business, and were already mailing 20 million catalogs a year.
2. We understood the wall décor/framing business. Successories had become one of the largest framers in the country and half of the British Links' sales were from framed wall décor.
I won't bore you with the details of why this venture flopped, but within three years we sold the golf company for next to nothing. However, the most devastating part of the deal was not the money we lost from the sale of British Links, but the momentum we had lost growing Successories, our core business.
In hindsight, I was an idiot! It was like Ray Kroc saying, after having opened twenty McDonald's, it's time to get into the pizza business. Many other businesses - like Starbucks and FedEx - focused their way to success. Repeat after me,

LESS IS MORE,

LESS IS MORE...

You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School is loaded with stories that are shared in a brief, but engaging way. Because I truly believe that many times it's not what you say, but how you say it that turns the switch from "off" to "on."

For more information, to look inside this book or to view the 3 minute inspirational movie, just click here.