When you interact with someone who makes his/her business look easy, they did not wing it. Likely, they spent hours, weeks, and years (behind the scenes) modifying and improving their approach to doing business.

Behind the scenes, people who are successful work hard on getting better. They think, evaluate, and plan their business approaches. Over time, they think critically about their progress, reflect on their experiences, and re-evaluate their strategies.

In other words, they practice and improve to become the best. As a result, they make it look easy.

Have you ever heard of the 10,000 Hours Rule?

It has been described by Seth Godin and written about by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers (great book by the way), and others. In simple terms, most remarkable people spend about 10,000 hours doing something before they become the best at it.

I do not know who said the following quote, but it perfectly characterizes the essence of this blog post:

“Champions don’t become champions in the ring – they are merely recognized there.”

When you succeed in the “ring” of life or business consistently, generally, it is not because of chance or luck, but rather because you prepared well.

Many factors (including genetics) predispose individuals to certain qualities. However, people are not born awesome public speakers, skilled artists, landscapers, or website developers. They work at it when no one is watching, until they become the best.

Behind the scenes, when no one is watching, are you working hard to improve, become the best, and make it look easy?

From a business standpoint, there is a lot that can be learned from the Seattle-based chain. One of these great lessons is how this company grew despite the fact that they have not spent much on advertising. They rely on their brand awareness, which is associated with high quality coffee drinks, a higher quality customer service and experience, and, as a consequence, customer loyalty.

Personally, I have never been helped by a “grumpy” Starbucks barista. Have you? On the flip side, I have consistently heard that Starbucks is an awesome company to work for, because it treats employees well, values them highly, and treats them like partners instead of just disposable employees.

Beyond a doubt, the way Starbucks treats its employees leads to happy employees and a positive customer service experience. As Mark Henricks concludes his forward to the February 2007 issue of Entrepreneur, “effort made to create happy and motivated employees creates happy and loyal customers.”

Karl Eller is an incredible business individual, who has been inducted in the Advertising Hall of Fame by the American Advertising Federation in March of 2004.

Last Friday (April 20th, 2007) I have a very unique and amazing opportunity to have breakfast with Karl Eller (a world-renowned CEO and entrepreneur) along with 10 other individuals at the University of Arizona.

Over breakfast, Mr. Eller shared some of his childhood stories that prepared and set him on the right path to become a successful entrepreneur. He talked about work ethic, discipline, and integrity. He could not emphasize more the importance of integrity, as it has helped him recover from a crisis that followed his CEO-ship of Circle K. It was a very inspiring story! His year-old book Integrity Is All You Got captures his strong belief of the significance of integrity to the success of any entrepreneur, or any individual, for that matter.

I kindly asked him to autograph my copy of his book, and he gladly accepted. It was a pleasure and inspiration to meet him.

Thanks Alaina for arranging the opportunity to have breakfast with Karl Eller.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to participate as “Scientific Facilitator” in the “Exploring the Entrepreneurial Dimensions of Science and Technology” workshop, which was conducted at the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Arizona.

The purpose of the workshop was to familiarize the incoming students into the entrepreneurship program with some of the issues, concerns, and questions they should consider when working in the development of an emerging technology-based venture. Essentially, the workshop allowed the entrepreneurship students to realize that collaborating with scientists on high-tech ventures is, not only feasible, but within their reach.

These ambitious entrepreneurship students are expected to partner with other students and take an idea from conception all the way to a business plan. Those who are interested in biotechnology and drug discovery projects will likely work with a patented idea developed by a University of Arizona faculty member to generate a business plan that can be presented to angels or venture capitalists for funding. Alternatively, these students can start from scratch on an idea or a project that reflects their own knowledge or research interests.

Throughout all the years I have been involved in scientific research, I have been always encouraged to establish mutually beneficial collaborations with other scientists. Recently, however, the importance of another level of mutually beneficial collaboration has been strongly emphasized. It is crucial for scientists, who would like to translate their research from the lab into the marketplace as a drug or an invention, to seek out and rely on those who understand the business to help them develop their scientific ideas and patents into successful companies.