While I promised to share some thoughts on lessons learned after working for a few years, I’ve struggled with a way to share them that wasn’t so vanilla.

Tonight I was flipping through the channels and came across the WWF. For some unexplainable reason I watched, totally transfixed, for a few moments.

That’s when it hit me.

The main lesson that I’ve learned can be explained perfectly with the help of the WWF.

I don’t watch wrestling, but that’s okay, wrestling isn’t about wrestling.

And business isn’t about business.

Wrestling is about the people and the personalities.

So is business. Business isn’t about business - it’s. about. the. people.

Execution? Innovation? Commercialization? The Superfly Splash?

Nothing without the right people.

The best ideas are as useful as the worst if you don’t understand the people and the personalities you’re pitching (and life, like wrestling, revolves around pitching).

Working with the best people can make a terrible job appealing and working with terrible people can make the best job unappealing.

Success in wrestling doesn’t come from wrestling. It comes from being an individual. By having a personality.

Personality (and understanding it) brings value.

The same holds true in business.

If you try to be a successful wrestler based solely on wrestling you turn out to be just another nobody in a funny outfit.

The same holds true in business.

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