Hundreds of books have been written on the importance of setting goals. And having a clear focus is important in any entrepreneurial venture, no doubt about it. But as crucial as it is to know where you want to go, even more important is knowing how you\u2019re going to get there. A universal trait of RMITs is the ability to execute, to get across the goal line without dropping the ball. What also sets RMITs apart, however, is the ability to adapt to new circumstances, and even change the goal when necessary. Dan Duncan, the richest man in Houston, told me that he runs his businesses, Enterprise Products Partners and Duncan Energy Partners\u2014not to mention his five-thousand-acre Double D Ranch and his considerable philanthropic contributions\u2014according to one piece of advice his grandmother gave him: \u201cJust get up every day and do the best you can that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDaily incremental improvement is the surest path to great success and a great fortune,\u201d Duncan told me. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to execute every day.\u201d Having a goal is important, but as David Rubenstein, Washington, DC\u2019s RMIT, pointed out, no one can predict the future. \u201cThe obsession with goal setting and worrying about the future will only take your eye off the ball,\u201d he said. Ross Perot, who sold Rubenstein his copy of the 1297 Magna Carta, also emphasized the impossibility of following a business plan saying, \u201cLife is not an organization chart. Life is more like a spider\u2019s web. Things happen in strange ways.\u201d Like the Magna Carta, any plan has to evolve and adapt while adhering to its core principles. Which is not to say you should start over from scratch every day. Rather, you should build on what you\u2019ve achieved, and you should not focus exclusively on what you hope to achieve. <\/p>\n
This seems like a dull, conservative view, but by executing well and building a strong foundation for your business, you actually make yourself far more nimble and adaptable, and better able to take advantage of new opportunities and innovations. As with any other journey, the key to reaching RMIT-caliber success is not in mapping out the route in advance; it\u2019s in regular tune-ups, keeping the gas tank filled, and checking the traffic and weather reports. Watch the road, not the horizon, and you\u2019ll get to your destination much faster\u2014even if you decide to take an alternate route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A universal trait of RMITs is the ability to execute, to get across the goal line without dropping the ball. What also sets RMITs apart, however, is the ability to adapt to new circumstances, and even change the goal when necessary. Dan Duncan, the richest man in Houston, told me that he runs his businesses, Enterprise Products Partners and Duncan Energy Partners\u2014not to mention his five-thousand-acre Double D Ranch and his considerable philanthropic contributions\u2014according to one piece of advice his grandmother gave him: \u201cJust get up every day and do the best you can that day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301,114,153,157],"tags":[288,183,291,290,289],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":767,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}