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The Difference in Ideas & Opportunities
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Contrary to what many aspiring entrepreneurs believe, the key to a successful startup does not rest upon having a unique, one-of-a-kind idea. Don’t get me...
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Facing Fear | Gaining Courage
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth… things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape. The fear we sometimes feel is like getting into a very small boat and setting out on...
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Traits | The Startup Leader
Everyone thinks that being a startup CEO is a glamorous job or one that has to be a ton of fun. That’s what I now refer to as the “glamour brain” speaking aka the startup life you hear about from the...
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Power | Economic vs. Political Power
The difference between economic power and political power: Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised...
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To Live | Reason Purpose & Self Esteem
To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which...
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The Media | Image of the Entrepreneur
It is curious the way that entrepreneurs and their motives are commonly misunderstood by the general population, the media, educators, investment advisors, and even experienced psychologists. It is a...
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Thinking About an MBA?
Thinking about getting an MBA? Then you better know why you're willing to spend the time (AND the Money) to do so. And the reason for getting an MBA needs to be your own. Perhaps you want to broaden...
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Startups | The Right Mindset
In this ever-changing world of ours – we are constantly forced to reinvent our businesses and ourselves. This reinvention process requires an entrepreneurial mindset. Developing an entrepreneurial...
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Mentoring | Advising The CEO
Advising CEOs sounds like a dream job. The executive office is viewed as the center of power, home to some of the most charismatic men and women in business. But, over the past decade of helping CEOs,...
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Google Demo Day | Invision Heart
We are all really proud of Josh Nickols and the team at Invision Heart. They successfully completed our Jumpstart Foundry program in 2013 and have been working since then to launch their mobile EKG...
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CEO Focus | 7 Must Do’s
7 Things CEOs Should Focus on Every Week At face value the following principles for CEOs appear rather intuitive. However, they’re not so simple to follow. Regardless of how "big" you've become,...
View ArticleEntrepreneurial Mindset
To stay ahead of the competition, it’s vital that we constantly reinvent our businesses and ourselves, and the only way to accomplish this is by having an entrepreneurial mindset. Developing an...
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Can This Founder Lead?
Can this Founder | CEO Build and Successfully Lead a Young Business? From my 20+ Years as a leader and 10+ years as an early-stage investor, here are the 5 things I look for in CEOs of young companies...
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Source of Jobs | New Companies
The Source of Jobs | New Companies In America between the years of 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs were created by firms that were five years old or less, according to New York Times...
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Basic Ingredients of Leadership
So You Want to Be a Leader There are two basic reasons why leaders are important: First, they are responsible for the effectiveness of organizations. Stock prices rise and fall according to the...
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Focus | Think About Strengths
As entrepreneurs, we understand that focus is a extremely important, and anything you can do to narrow your focus helps drive success. But I find very few young startup entrepreneurs who really...
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Leadership is Hard
So You Want to Be a Leader There are two basic reasons why leaders are important: First, they are responsible for the effectiveness of organizations. Stock prices rise and fall according to the...
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My 6 Core Values
Each of us have things we value in life – some more than others. While not an “All Inclusive” list, here are the things I value as an individual. Hope you enjoy reading these: Professionalism - I...
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Thoughts on Perseverance
I’ve been thinking this week about the elements of Entrepreneurial GRIT. Although the role of the entrepreneurial leader requires a broad set of skills, one of the fundamental qualities required for...
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7 Things CEOs Should Focus On
At face value the following principles appear rather intuitive. However, they’re not so simple to follow. Regardless of how "big" you've become, following these principles will keep you grounded in...
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Send The Elevator Back Down
There is a phrase in the entrepreneurial world called "paying if forward" - the notion that each of us who have had some degree of success likely had individuals who gave us our break; who believed in...
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09.11.01 vs. 09.11.14
If you’re like me – you know exactly where you were and what you were doing on 09.11.01 – the day terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and attempted other similar acts in DC and...
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Powering Your Mojo
What differentiates truly successful people from everyone else? In my view – it’s a relatively simple answer. Successful people spend a large part of their time engaging in activities that...
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3 Rules for Building Engagement
Engagement | 3 Rules to Build Successful Engagement Employee Engagement, Patient Engagement, Community Engagement. What really works? What causes people to become "engaged" in a cause or mission?...
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Founder to CEO
As a business grows from idea to an organization of impact (changing the world) - there are 3 leadership roles that shape the organization: Founder, CEO and Board Chair. In some rare instances, the...
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Human Care
I had the distinct honor of attending the Third Annual Oliver Wyman Health Innovation Summit in Chicago this week. The atmosphere was charged with the expectant energy of 500 industry leaders and...
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Innovation in Care ManagementThe care management models in use by most health...
Digital health innovations - from wearable sensors and portable diagnostic technologies to telemedicine tools and mobile health care apps – all have the potential to transform our country’s health...
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Learning to Thrive After LossThese are my lessons of hope. My lessons of...
After losing my son, I was completely swallowed in the fog of grief. An emptiness that filled my lungs and heart - constricting my ability to think or breathe. After a lot of research, counseling and...
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Care Management 2020The underlying business model of most of today’s care...
Care Management is the simple idea of assisting individuals and their support system to become engaged in a process designed to manage health conditions more effectively. In an ideal environment,...
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Advice for MBA StudentsI wanted to share some insights I picked up through...
Thousands of new MBA students are a few weeks into their 1st year of classes, and thousands more are beginning the B-school application process. With that in mind, I wanted to share some insights I...
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The Valley of DeathIn reality, financing the "Valley of Death" tests the...
From Forbes, written by: Mark Zwilling The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup,...
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The Secret of GreatnessIf great performance were easy, it wouldn't be rare....
None of us become great without hard work. It’s nice to believe that if you find the field where you’re naturally gifted, you’ll be great from day one, but it just doesn’t happen. There’s no evidence...
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Why I Love To TeachI had an interesting question from Ben McIntyre, a Belmont...
I had an interesting question from Ben McIntyre, a Belmont University student who is becoming a vibrant part of our entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Nashville. I wanted to share our conversation....
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Lessons in LeadershipThe difficulty in understanding leadership may lie in...
In his book Leadership, James MacGregor Burns presents a simple and clear definition of leadership: Leadership is leaders acting – as well as caring, inspiring and persuading others to act – for...
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Feedback on Your Business IdeaWhen you’re trying to build a business,...
5 Tips for Evaluating Feedback on a Business Idea When you’re trying to build a new business, everyone around you seems to have all the answers to your most perplexing challenges. You’ll meet with...
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Creativity & Corporate CultureWork cultures have their own unique method of...
Why do some organizations feel energetic and creative while others feel stale and stagnant? Why do some businesses feel almost frenetic with activity with little to no sense of cohesion or direction?...
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Meaningful Patient Engagement7 ways healthcare organizations should think...
Patients, with more choices and more of their own money at stake, are demanding a more customer-friendly experience, and payers are rewarding providers for keeping patients satisfied. Plus, more...
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Disruption in Home HealthcareIt is time for disruptive innovators to vastly...
Home health care began in the 1880s and has survived, largely in its original form for over 100 years. This legacy healthcare model has remained a cottage industry (with a few large players), the...
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Healthcare DisruptorsConverging trends are causing healthcare's incumbent...
The convergence of powerful trends - new technologies, the demand for value, a growing health economy, and the government as an influencer - is changing the traditional US health care market. While...
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Liberty, Life, HappinessThere are certain universal truths that should not be...
1. Democracy is not a "Christian" Concept. Democracy is a form of government. America's founding fathers worked very hard to separate church and state. Thomas Jefferson wrote many papers about the...
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Future of ObamaCareFew insurers will want to remain in a wobbly market with...
Congressional Republicans had tried to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), his health-care law, more than 60 times. Donald Trump’s election victory means their efforts will no longer be in...
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Doors of OpportunityAnd should you get lucky - and find yourself in a place...
Over the years, we will each know many moments of happiness and well-earned achievement. We will also experience our fair share of challenges, unexpected changes, sadness, negative outcomes and yes,...
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Wonderful - But Not InfallibleMay our Country continue to be a place where...
Our government is - in the words of Abraham Lincoln - a government of the people, by the people and for the people . It derives its powers from the consent of the governed (that means us, the...
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BecomingWe are placed into this world not as a finality, but as a...
Thought for the Day We all have two creators, God and ourselves. Our first creator furnishes us with the raw material of our life. We are each a collection of unique attributes, as diverse as the...
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Disruptive InnovationLaw of Disruption: People change incrementally -...
Law of Disruption: People change incrementally - technology changes exponentially. Disruptive innovation brings new technologies to market, new business models, and offers customers new options. And...
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My 4AM - The DreamBut at the end of the day, it doesn't come down to who has...
Kobe Bryant while on stage accepting the 'Icon Award' at the ESPYS had this to say. He was addressing fellow athletes: “We’re not on this stage just because of talent or ability,” Bryant said. “We’re...
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Living With GratitudeI am learning that living with a grateful heart unlocks...
I am learning that living with a grateful heart unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough. Gratitude turns a house into a home; a stranger into a friend. It opens our eyes to...
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I. You. We.Leadership begins within the individual, as a process of relating...
In leadership, what we see is not necessarily what we get, and what we get is not necessarily what we see. We think we know leadership when we see it. But, if we were to evaluate our experiences more...
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It’s The GRINDWhen building a company - It’s not just the climb, it’s the...
It’s not just the climb, it’s the grind. It’s the getting up while other people are sleeping. It’s the walking by your TV and not letting it suck you in. It’s the ignoring what you’d like to do...
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Human Right vs. Human WrongHealth care may not be a human right, but the lack...
Health care may not be a human right, but the lack of universal health coverage in a wealthy democracy is a severe, unjustifiable, and unnecessary human wrong. If Americans will come together and...
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