“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”  Maya Angelou

For Maya Angelou, the answer to the question above is, Courage.  What is that answer for you?  What is it for your family?  What is the answer for your company?  Whether you own the company or not, you still can have a hand in deciding what is Number One for any entity that you are involved in, or employed by.

As a child, I watched my six older siblings grow up in front of me; and I watched them make decisions, both good and bad.  I vividly recall early in life realizing that for me, my number one was Simplicity.  After my dad died when I was 13-years-old, there was a ton of chaos in my family.  I realized that all of the decisions that we were making collectively, had consequences.  I also realized that, often times, when anyone in the family made a decision that was not aligned with our values, then we had problems, sometimes big problems.

 

My antidote to that was very simply (no pun intended) to embrace the value of Simplicity for the rest of my life.

 

Everything that I do in life must first be put through the “test” of Simplicity.  I ask, “Will this decision I am about to make in my business, my family, my (fill in the blank)…make things more simple?”

 

Sometimes I get in trouble because I ignore this important test, and I do things that don’t pass the test of Simplicity.  It’s always a learning process for me.

 

I often get teased because I don’t participate in social media, or because we have only one computer and one TV in our home, or because we have no iPads or laptops around the house.  The truth is that I am NOT against technology…I am FOR Simplicity.   We use the heck out of technology, but only the technology that satisfies Simplicity, if that makes any sense.

 

It seems like Steve Jobs himself, the inventor of hundreds of millions of devices in the world today agrees.  (see link to “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html).

 

If I didn’t embrace Simplicity, then I won’t enjoy a consistent, weekly date-night with my wife; and I wouldn’t enjoy dinner with my family each night; since technology has been intruding on family time for a long, long time.

 

What is your Number One?

Respectfully,

Rick Sapio


Join Rick at the next Business Mastery Bootcamp! www.DallasBMI.com

 


Rick Sapio has been involved in more than 100 companies, as either a founder, investor, owner, or operator, over the past 30 years. Rick has realized that by using a principle-centered business approach, one can radically increase the success of virtually any business. For the past 22 years, he has been CEO of a financial services/healthcare holding company.

Go to www.BusinessFinishingSchool.com to learn more about his 12 Foundational Principles of Business.