I tell my clients the same thing in nearly every strategy session: There are only a handful of things a true business leader must obsess about. Your customers, of course. But just as critically, trends. The future. The shape of the world that is coming, even when it has not yet arrived.
Most leaders are consumed by the tactical. The everyday decisions. The hiring, the pricing, the cash flow, the fire that needs putting out this afternoon. All of that matters. None of it is optional. But the leaders who build empires do something more. Alongside the daily grind, they cultivate an almost obsessive fixation on what lies ahead.
The obsession that builds empires
That is the obsession with trends. To always live with one foot in today, and with another in the many different tomorrows. The world’s greatest business leaders, especially those who founded empires, have all cultivated it. They develop what I can only describe as a third eye, a sixth sense for trends, constantly scanning the horizon for the next wave before anyone else sees it forming.
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