Doug’s Blog

27 Jun 2016

Who is the Hero In Your Story?

By |2017-04-03T11:09:16-06:00June 27th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales, The Good Men Project|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Who Is The Hero in Your Story

Great leaders and businesses have a story to tell. The best understand who the hero should be.

Many men have lost their place in the bigger story. We bought into one narrative that has not worked out and are now struggling to find a new one as the world rapidly shifts underneath us. Some are looking for a hero, and some are seeking to become one again. We […]

31 May 2016

Attempting to Control Disasters in a Random World

By |2017-04-03T11:10:01-06:00May 31st, 2016|Categories: Doug's Blog|

Grass Fire - Controlling Disasters

We can’t anticipate or control everything, but we can prepare our businesses and lives for dealing with crisis with a little less stress.

This past Saturday (in April 2016), a neighbor was cutting their long grass with a lawn tractor. It has been a dry winter and spring here, and the parched grass caught fire under the mower. The young man sat on the tractor trying to swat the growing flames out […]

24 May 2016

How Having Momentum Behind Money and Ego Can Suck Out Your Life

By |2017-04-03T11:10:13-06:00May 24th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Man At Airport

Sometimes you can take a path in your business that isn’t right for you. Your choices matter.

I know more than a few men who’ve started what they thought was the perfect business for themselves. Once momentum kicks in it can get hard to change direction. The biggest trap ends up being the one we make in our heads.

One example is the expert industry. There are variations, but the formula is pretty straight forward. You start […]

16 May 2016

Finding Balance On The Road To Competitive Advantage

By |2017-04-03T11:10:29-06:00May 16th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Elephant on Tightrope - Balance

Businesses must walk a fine balance between innovation and standardization.

I don’t usually mention this, but I initially studied to be an engineer before circumstances sent me off on a different path. Maybe that training causes me to notice things or maybe seeing patterns is just a part of me.

Quite a few years ago, I observed something about Calgary road designs. It seems like every major intersection project was an […]

9 May 2016

The Secret to Great Leadership is Letting Others Win

By |2017-04-03T11:10:39-06:00May 9th, 2016|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Winning-Competition-Leadership-and-Goats-Butting-Heads

Being competitive can be good or it can be dysfunctional. Effective entrepreneurs learn the difference.

Most entrepreneurs are competitive by nature. Being a competitive man isn’t a bad thing.

Sometimes, we watch some men take competition to the extreme. Every interaction is a death match to prove they are winners, and everyone else is a loser. I watched a documentary about well-known billionaire developer who always had to win, even against other accomplished businessmen. In making […]

2 May 2016

Be Careful What You Ask For On the Internet

By |2017-04-03T11:10:50-06:00May 2nd, 2016|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales, Technology, The Good Men Project|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Polar Research Vessel Naming Contest

You probably wouldn’t let the Internet name your baby. So what could go wrong in naming your $289 million polar research vessel?

What happens when you are building an expensive new polar research vessel, and you want to generate some visibility for the project? Why of course, you hold a public naming contest on the Internet.

This is exactly what the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) did.

◊♦◊

The new ship, […]

11 Apr 2016

Being Self-Aware Enough to Know Your Value is the Path to Creating Exceptional Value

By |2017-04-03T11:11:02-06:00April 11th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Team of Self Aware Business People - Startup

With people walking the Earth claiming to be the “greatest” at everything, it is easy to lose sight of your personal potential for greatness.

When I think of personal greatness, I don’t mean the narcissistic “look at me, look how great I am” of an adult child clamoring for constant approval. A little limelight is good for the soul. Tying your sense of self-worth to the […]

5 Apr 2016

Going High to Access Alberta’s Ocean

By |2017-04-17T13:22:16-06:00April 5th, 2016|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|

Imagination, Innovation and a Boy in Box

Alberta wasn’t always landlocked. Now is the time to reimagine our competitive advantage.

Alberta wasn’t always landlocked. Anywhere from 600 million years ago until 85 million years ago, give or take some rounding errors, the salt water of the ocean covered Alberta by varying degrees.

Then for 2 million years, Alberta went through about 80 glacial cycles. The last ice age finished about 10,000 years ago, bringing us to relatively modern times.

The federal government got elected […]

28 Mar 2016

Stuck? Begin With the Start in Mind

By |2017-04-03T11:11:26-06:00March 28th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, The Good Men Project, Working on the Business|

Begin with Start - Writing Business Ideas

Are you excellent at picturing the end-solution and then working backwards? There are times when that approach fails.

As an entrepreneur, I can imagine, in great detail, a lot of possible things I could do or build. I’ve run into plenty of others in the same boat. Ideas are rarely in shortage.

Call it chasing the squirrel or the shiny blue ball syndrome.

The solution in most cases is to […]