As a young man in 1986, I scrawled twenty-four words onto a folded piece of paper.
Three short sentences… ‘principles’ if you will… that would greatly influence how I would spend my days for the next fifteen years.
Please allow me to share them with you now, as I wrote them down twenty-two years ago:
“Past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior.”
“Your people are your greatest assets.”
“Everybody needs to feel a part of something good.”
Ah, yes…profound indeed! But lest I digress, here is what I love about such ideas… what I love about business and entrepreneurship… what I love about America.
From these simple thoughts, and much dedication and hard work by others, a great company was born. Ameristaff USA, rooted in the hurried thoughts of a typical weekday afternoon, would directly touch the lives of over fourteen thousand wonderful people and their families. Incredible.
Thinking about it today, it is evident that much water has passed under various bridges since then; many things have changed. But not the principles; not the ideas. To the contrary, the years since have revealed deeper insights as to how important they still remain.
In the next few posts, I’ll relate what these thoughts meant to me when I first wrote them down; how following them impacted our business and relationships along the way; and what they mean to me today, over two decades later.
Question:
Can you think of circumstances in your life, business, or relationships where these principles worked either for or against you?
Photo Credit: