The Execution Factor: The One Skill that Drives Success

9

Never Completely Submit to the Dark Side

My dad spent 30 years in Portland, Oregon, chasing his dream of rehabilitating housing to restore neighborhoods to the family communities they had once been. He built 300 homes, which together would be worth close to $100 million today—if he hadn’t sold all of them over a 15-year period to fund his new vision for changing the face of elder care.

Unfortunately, that elder care venture proved to be more difficult and costly than he had originally planned. A long-term vision often requires a degree of faith and risk to go with your pain and suffering, especially if it involves creating or reinventing a market for a product or service. The lesson is that my dad’s passion blinded him to this risk. Just as ...