A Mantra for CEOs Scaling a Business with John Driver

Intro: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team, and your business.

Matt Blumberg: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, co- founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with John Driver. John is the CEO of Lynx Technology. He's also a board member on several for- profit and non- for- profit corporations. He's based in my hometown and one of my favorite places on the planet, San Diego. John, it's great to have you here.

John Driver: Thank you, Matt. It's a pleasure to be here.

Matt Blumberg: John, one of the things that I always talk about with entrepreneurs when I'm mentoring or coaching them is the difference between a sprint and a marathon. The reality is, when you're an entrepreneur, when you're a founder, there are times where you are sprinting, but you really have to approach the job as a marathon. Maybe it's some interval training in there, but it's going to be a long journey and you got to be trained for it, and you got to buckle up for it. I know you run into this too. I believe you have a specific mantra that you like to say around how CEOs and founders need to be successful with the sort of stamina and tenacity required to run that marathon. What is your mantra and why, and how do you use it?

John Driver: Right. It's tough for me to get through a week without using a sports analogy, so I think it'll be consistent. I agree it's a marathon and I'll switch to basketball. Even though I've never played basketball, I have run marathons or triathlons so I do definitely agree with that analogy, but mine is keep hanging around the hoop. Keep hanging around the hoop is a basketball term, and that is that if someone makes a shot, they may miss it, and if you're close by, you may be able to get that rebound and pass it to a teammate or shoot it yourself but you have to be ready when that opportunity presents itself. But if you're not around the hoop and you've already left, then you will not get that opportunity. It's really about just staying in there, staying in that fight, not in a Captain Ahab way of obsessing, but in a way of putting yourself in the situation to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

Matt Blumberg: Yeah, it's a really good one. I think you can never overstate the importance of luck and timing in success in business. You can have a great strategy and you can execute well, but if you're not in the right place at the right time, luck doesn't present itself. Those two things really go together and hanging around the hoop is kind of the embodiment of that.

John Driver: Right, and you're right in being there and also being ready for it. Having the skills, having the experience, have the team behind you and at least have thought through those scenarios beforehand. I think sometimes an entrepreneur or people in general in business get into a situation expecting it to turn out a certain way, and they get very binary in their thinking. " Oh, well it didn't work, so it's over." Entrepreneurs cannot think that way. Entrepreneurs have to think, " Okay, I got in there, I took a shot, that shot didn't work, but maybe there's a different way for me to approach this." There are often ways that you can approach things that are differently if you give yourself the opportunity and the time to consider them. You sometimes may find out through dumb luck that what you ended up doing as a result of failing the first time ended up better. But again, if you pull the ripcord too soon, you will never know. You should definitely put some parameters around, " How long will I stay in here?" But as long as you have those parameters of, " As long as these things are achieved, it's again, not the what or the how, it's is it getting to my ultimate goal?" If it is, then you need to push on.

Matt Blumberg: That's right, so it's good to hang around the hoop, but you can only do it while the game is still going.

John Driver: Very good. I'm going to have to add that part.

Matt Blumberg: Once the janitor is sweeping up underneath you...

John Driver: Yes. It's too late.

Matt Blumberg: Yeah.

John Driver: Yes.

Matt Blumberg: All right, John, Driver, hanging around the hoop. Thank you so much for being here today.

John Driver: Thank you for having me.