Business
Paul Schlumpberger is an experienced business executive in charge of managing five businesses. He joins Jared Siegel to discuss time management, overcoming fear, building an efficient and effective team, and juggling the professional and personal demands of life. Here are a few highlights from their conversation: Paul has developed an acronym for what he believes are the five sources of fear: SURF-T, which stands for Success, the Unknown, Rejection, Failure, and Time. He uses this acronym to categorize fear whenever he experiences it. Entrepreneurship is different from intrapreneurship, Jared says. Starting from scratch as a standalone entity is not the same as innovating within a preexisting entity. Oftentimes for intrapreneurs, the status quo has a tendency to smother innovation. The entrepreneur’s challenge often lies with a lack of teammates whose strengths may compensate for the entrepreneur’s weaknesses. Paul prefers to illustrate plans via a whiteboard to better visualize them. He shares an experience in which he created a graphic of a complicated ten-page document. Employing the right people with the right attitudes is fundamental to creating your desired culture, according to Paul. Rather than qualifications, he interviews potential hires for character, asking questions that gauge the type of person they are. Most issues in businesses do not happen with the individual doing the final assembly but instead occur upstream, Paul says. He encourages open communication between every function of a business in order to achieve maximum performance, as everyone has a unique contribution to make that will benefit someone else. Time is a finite resource, but we can control it by what we choose to do and what we choose not to do, Paul urges. He talks about his personal and professional five-year plan and how he delegates his time. One observation Jared has made is that success begets success: as you climb in your career, opportunities, experience and talent increases. Jared asks Paul what the core values are that he and his wife want to pass on to their sons. Some major ones are: to love and honor God; the importance of physical health; winning and losing gracefully; and the value of money. He discusses how he teaches his sons to work for what they want and how to use money wisely. You’ll be the same person in five years that you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read, Jared quotes. The power of books is such that you can gather decades worth of insights synthesized into 200-300 words that took someone 30 years of experience. Resources The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Multiple Streams of Income by Robert G. Allen