Blog Article 

 9—Shareholders 

Michael Santos

Michael Santos

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The best business leaders clearly understand what mission they’re striving to achieve. They communicate that vision to the shareholders of the company. It’s how they define success. Then, they lay out a plan, showing shareholders what to expect. That’s how they document their strategy. By regularly communicating with shareholders, business leaders invite their shareholders to hold them accountable. 

By reading about corporate structure, I learned a great deal about overcoming the challenges of a lengthy prison term. Rather than complaining or allowing time to define me, I could act as if I were a CEO. 

A CEO creates strategies to overcome problems. By living as if I were the CEO of my own life, I could prepare to solve problems that I anticipated facing in the future.

As a person who would be in prison for decades, I anticipated many problems. The world would advance, but in a sense, time would stand still for me. A series of incremental action steps could help me overcome challenges. But I would have to think about all the stakeholders in my life. In a sense, they would be the equivalent of my shareholders.

  • Shareholders could include people that I knew and people that knew me. In this category, I’d place my family and friends. I had to think about what steps I could take to prove worthy of the trust, love, and support I felt from them.
  • Shareholders could include people that I knew but didn’t know me. I could think of the staff members who oversaw me in this category. They had a duty or a job to do. The more I understood about the purpose of their career, the more brinksmanship I could bring to my interactions with them.
  • Shareholders could include people I didn’t know and didn’t know me. In this category, I’d think about the people who would influence my life later—employers, potential business partners, lenders, and investors. By thinking about those people, I could put plans in place to win their favor when the time came.
  • Shareholders could even include people that knew something about me but that I didn’t know. For example, some people around me may form perceptions that I never considered.  

If I genuinely executed my goals, my influence or reach would grow. After all, I intended to write for publication. That means people would read some of my ideas. Some of those people could form an opinion based on what they read. Their views could open opportunities, or they could threaten my progress. I had to think of those people as being shareholders, too.

If I were to act as the CEO of my life, I would have to think about all those shareholders. They had a stake in my life and could influence my prospects for success. By thinking about those people and projecting how I could prove worthy of their support, I could engineer better adjustment strategies.

  • What steps have you taken during the past year to show you’re committed to proving worthy of your shareholders?
  • What do your shareholders expect of you?
  • What steps can you take to bring new shareholders into your life?
  • In what ways does the perception of your shareholders differ from the impressions of the people closest to you?
  • How are you empowering your shareholders to open new opportunities for you?
  • If your shareholders understood your activities over the past month, would they want to reinvest with you?
  • How are you bringing more value to the life of your shareholders?

Word of the day: brinksmanship / Define brinksmanship:

Use brinksmanship in a sentence:

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