Three Steps to Greatness - Deron Quon (Chairman, California Teleservices Inc)
Deron Quon is Chairman of California Teleservices Inc. and co-founder of menus.com and Datassential, a research company focused on the food industry. In addition, he is my classmate at MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program. Deron shared with me an interesting three-part Paper Napkin Wisdom: To Be Great:
Do great things.
Inspire greatness in others.
Teach others to be great. Being great is a quality Deron sees tremendous value in because, for him, being great is about achieving our highest potentials. He feels very positively about human potential and believes that we each have a lot to contribute to our families, communities, and businesses. By working not just with ourselves but with others to be great, the net results will be substantial. In terms of achieving greatness, Deron’s Paper Napkin Wisdom lays out his three-part process. Each component is key and the order is not arbitrary. Let us take a closer look at each step.
Do great things. Deron emphasizes that “do” is the key word here. We cannot simply wish or want to be great. We must act. A lot has been said about the value of taking that first step but Deron takes the thought further. We must not just take the first step – we must take successive steps to gain momentum and make our growth habitual. It is the difference between merely taking action and taking action with commitment behind it. In order to do that, however, we must first identify, on an individual basis, what being great means to us. Deron notes that we each know what mediocre output for our time and efforts looks like. Thus, we must also know what stellar output looks like. We must look to our highest potential to find our definition of greatness and that will likely look different from one person to the next.
Inspire greatness in others. Deron looks to the adage that no man is an island. To achieve what we want, we each need a support base of people rowing in the same direction. And the way we get people rowing in the same direction is by infecting others psyches with that of our own – by inspiring people through our thoughts and actions. Deron says we often sell ourselves short. We do not need to be billionaires to be inspirational. Something that may seem little to us may be a huge achievement to someone else. He points out that we can all attain our highest potential but that, “sometimes, we just need to see that role model or example to know that it’s really tangible.” [Tweet "Sometimes, we just need to see that role model or example to know that is really tangible"]
Teach others to be great. This is about taking inspiration to the next level and adding a more personal connection. It is Deron’s belief that, to be a fully well-rounded person, we must be able to give back and teaching does just that. For Deron, the first step of teaching others to be great is helping them to formulate what great is for them. This means providing the principle, the how-to guides, and the key questions but it also means being there to give feedback. The most effective teachers are the ones who have the same overall lesson but are able to apply it to different people while preserving its core values. Listen to the conversation with Deron here:
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