Next Year, Resolve to Set Goals

A study at Dominican University tracked goal achievement in five groups of goal setters over a four-week period. The results indicate that taking the following simple steps may increase your likelihood of success. Write your resolutions down. Whether your resolutions this year involve getting more organized or preventing a...

Adopt the Attitude of Gratitude

Most of us will express some form of thanks on Thursday, thanking hosts or companions for food and company or thanking companions for celebrating with us.  It’s helpful to have a day set aside to remember gratitude and rituals in place to express it. What about the other days? ...

GMATTERS

Susie says that she gets a lot of questions about the GMAT from prospective Acton MBA students. This makes sense to me—why would a school as unique as Acton require a standardized test? After all, nothing at Acton is standardized. If you’re applying to more than one school as...

Lessons Learned: Pay Attention to Red Flags

So, you’ve recently finished an extremely intense year and earned your MBA at Acton. A company in your chosen industry with whom you have been corresponding since the end of first semester has raised several hundred thousand dollars in order to launch and has asked you to become its...

Lessons Learned: Don’t Worry About Being Happy

Acton students cement their learning throughout the year by cataloguing “Lessons Learned” and “Lessons Not Learned.” These lessons are pooled wisdom into which the entrepreneurs can dive as needed in their future endeavors. The Lessons Learned column invites alums to share the moments when those lessons surface in their...

Mirror Mirror – Use Self-Evaluations To Stay On Track

Have you taken an honest look at yourself in the mirror lately and evaluated your progress towards your calling? Do you even have criteria for self-evaluation? What does success mean to you? Jeff Brenzel, the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale, wrote an imaginary commencement address (Bill Clinton gave...

Entrepreneurs Share Their Advice At Commencement Ceremonies Across The Country

Want entrepreneurial wisdom in bite-sized pieces? Red McCombs, Muhammad Yunus, George Foreman, and more gave some great tips in their graduation speeches. Now that it’s June, graduation season is almost over (our Acton MBA students graduated on May 2). For the past several weekends, happy grads everywhere have been...

Do You Have The Valuation Instincts Of A Master Entrepreneur?

At a recent Acton MBA information session, one candidate expressed a deep need for a better understanding of cash.  This led to a brief discussion of Bill Sahlman’s “Four Rules of Cash,” taught in our Cash and Valuation course. Sahlman’s “Four Rules of Cash” are general guidelines for maximizing...

The Power of Powerful Assessments

Assessments are a powerful tool to use when having your own business. Whether you give criticism or affirmation, you want to do it right. Follow these tips by Master Teacher Ed Perry. Entrepreneurs learn that managing people is usually the most difficult part of entrepreneurship. As your business grows,...

Be Unusual To Be Successful

You want your company to stand out against all of the other companies that are just like yours. What do you do? Ed Perry comments on how to garner more word-of-mouth marketing. Sunday morning I sat in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on South Lamar in Austin, Texas...