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Good morning everyone, Michael the maven here. Today, we are going to talk about the danger of arrogance and in some cases this is going to be really obvious. However, it is a trend I have seen time and again both small and big businesses is that with success; arrogance often increases not always but in most cases. Its human tendency that when we have huge amount of success, there is a level of arrogance that raises and that begin the demise of the company. Believe it or not.

So, I’m going to say something her that I probably regret and that is in almost all cases. Success is temporary.  So, no matter what we’re talking about; success wise it is temporary whether in sports, businesses even if you’re looking at governments in some cases; if you look at the Roman Empire. I am sure that there was a time that everyone taught there’s just no way that this will fall, ever!

Now, take for example, some of the biggest companies that we have today: Amazon, GE, Microsoft, Exxon, and Apple. These are some huge companies. Wallmart used to be huge. It’s half the size of Amazon right now but at some point these companies were in a very frail state. If you look at Apple and on how huge Apple is right now. Apple almost died when they fired Steve Jobs. There were several years there Apple is really struggling, they were on the ropes near about to go out and it was after Steve Jobs came back basically revived the company. Seemed to be doing very good now with Tim Cook. Hopefully, they can sustain it.

If you look at Wallmart at one point that Wallmart was, there was probably a time when everybody taught, hey! You know what Wallmart is going to be the number one retailer forever and you look at what Amazon has done to retailers now. So, there were always these ebbs and flows of success. If you look at it a very long time successful company: GE which is doing phenomenally well. They’re really good example of a long time successful company but the truth of the matter is.

Facebook is another one, if you look at before Facebook there was MySpace. There was a time that MySpace was so successful; nobody would have ever thought that they would, you know, be of nothing today. We see this time and time and time again are that there is incredible growth and incredible success and then overnight in some cases the company is close.        

So, what I am saying is it is going to be to your advantage, to your benefit to embrace the idea that all of your success is going to be temporary because we are going to die that pretty much guarantees it. So, your health, your career, different kinds of relationships are going to fail at some point. So, maybe that’s morbid in a pessimistic view. I think there are many people who might not like me for saying that but this is how I motivate myself to not waste time is that if failure in the case of [wife dying] is inevitable, how am I using my time now to extend the success and happiness that I’m having.

If you look at the camera industry, I think Canon, I’m a little upset with Canon right now because they’re not really pushing innovation. They have it for many years but it feels like they are stretching out the product wave, product life cycle and they’re enjoying tremendous success by not out innovating themselves but they really, I think they are on kind a [slow] counting. They got to do something. They got to stay competitive and stay innovative. Sony is coming on so strong, Panasonic even Olympus is numerous cameras and so I think what Cannon is trying to do is to extend their product cycle and to extend how long that success is lasting but if they don’t innovate and count for something new. They’re going to be finished as well. Guarantee it and Cannon is a gorilla in the digital imaging industry. They were forty, last time I checked I think it was like forty or forty-three percent; which is the biggest piece of the pie owned by a single company. What I’m trying to point out is just know, at least keep it at the back of your mind that if you are having a phenomenal success in whatever it is. There is a very real threat that this is going to end. It is going to be limited and no, it is not going to last forever. Prepare for that accordingly. Try to extend the success that you’re having as long as possible and whatever way, legal way you can do it and it’ll be much more efficient in trying to rebuilt from scratch when that end does come.

I know it’s a pessimistic view but I think the arrogance in believing that you will not fail ever without due diligence is by far a greater weakness in psychological flaw. So, maybe that’s not great news, you know, maybe that’s not a really  good thing but I think in the long run it is going to serve you very well. Success is limited. Try to extend it as long as you can and beware of arrogance.

In any event that is your tip for the day from the Maven Nation. Have a great day today guys and I will see u next time.