A little introspection

One of my favourite clients has a saying that came to my mind today whilst I was working late.

"Keep the main thing the main thing."

I got to thinking about, and trying to figure out when exactly this saying isn't true. When is it not important to keep the main thing most important?

After about an hour, I couldn't think of any place where this saying does not apply... and how many times I've seen people (and myself) drift from the "main thing."

One of the biggest dangers in business is to lose focus of your goal; I know for a fact our success multiplied when we focused back on what we started out to do as an organization, directly in the face of what many people said we should do. But we did the research, we know which way the wind is blowing... which reminds me of what my grandmother taught me and had in her apartment:

"One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go."

People love to say no. It's always easiest to say no. It's always easy to come up with an excuse.

Surround yourself with people who don't take the easy route in this respect.