Jay Steinfeld, former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, is the guerilla marketer whose garage start-up became Blinds.com. Home Depot eventually acquired Blinds, now the world’s leading online retailer of custom window coverings. Steinfeld teaches readers a lot about building a business. He offers numerous useful tips and explains his four core principles: “Evolve Continuously,” “Experiment Without Fear of Failure,” “Express Yourself” and “Enjoy the Ride.” Steinfeld credits these ideas with helping him overcome tragedy on his road to entrepreneurial stardom.
Core values are vital in both life and business, yet most people pay them only lip service.
Core values don’t get the respect they deserve. In business, they often end up as unread platitudes on lunchroom bulletin boards or on the back pages of annual reports. In life, core values are those solid principles parents teach and clergy members preach in sermons that many congregants seem to forget quickly.
Instead of dismissing core values, recognize that they are the internal drivers of your most important, most fateful actions. Your core values are the controlling, behind-the-scenes concepts that guide what you do, how you act, what you think and how you present yourself to the world. Consider your values with care, and distinguish between those you say you believe in and those you actually live. The latter constitute your moral compass and the foundation of your inner strength.
The “four Es” are solid core values for any person or organization.
Given the role of core values as the basic principles of life and corporate governance, you want to make sure you and your company are relying...
Jay Steinfeld, founder and former CEO of Global Custom Commerce, serves on company boards and is a director of the public company Masonite. He teaches entrepreneurship at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.
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