Posts by Fran Tarkenton
The Harder I Work, The Luckier I Get
One of the original owners of the Minnesota Vikings was H.P. Skoglund, who grew up in northern Minnesota—humble origins in a tough, cold place—started an insurance company, and built it into a huge success. Bemidji is a Minnesota town famous for three things: giant statues of mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe,…
Read This Article
Sometimes You Have to Scramble
Making sure you have a plan is important. But what’s even more important is being ready to adjust and change your plan when you encounter reality. The same scrambling ability that helped me in my football career has proven its worth again and again in my businesses, too. Consider this: At every snap of a…
Read This Article
5 Key Hiring Tips to Build a Winning Team
The fantasy football draft is an entrepreneur’s dream. Who wouldn’t want to hand-select their all-star team to form an impressive roster? But no one has perfected every trait you need, so adopting the fantasy sports mindset isn’t a sustainable approach to building your business. For most of us, at least, your lineup can’t change every…
Read This Article
What Makes a Top Performer?
Way back in dinosaur days, when I was drafted to play in the NFL, I was a third-round draft choice coming out of University of Georgia, a big football school. Tom Brady, in his time, was a sixth-round draft choice; Joe Montana was a third-round draft choice; and Johnny Unitas was a free agent. And…
Read This Article
Is Your Mindset Holding Your Startup Back?
Startups are risky ventures — so much so that three out of four fail. But really, failure is part of life. Everybody fails, and business is no exception. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough. But the failure itself isn’t the important thing. What really matters is how you handle those mistakes. Take…
Read This Article
Reinvent Yourself Every Day
A key trait of successful businesses—and entrepreneurs—is a willingness to reinvent themselves every day. The world is constantly changing, including our competition, our customers, our workers, and our market conditions. For a business to be able to grow, it needs to be flexible enough to adapt to these changes in real time. It is very…
Read This Article
The Limits of Your Knowledge
I don’t know everything. That might sound like an obvious statement, and I would hope that every other person would be willing to admit as much, too. But even after acknowledging the limits of your knowledge, what are you doing about it? Because I don’t know everything, I make it a priority to keep on…
Read This Article
We All Need Mentors
Mentors play such an important role in our lives. I know that my mentors made a huge impact on me, in both football and business. And even now, at 76 years old, when I’ve started more than 20 companies on my own, I still have people I go to for insight and learning. It never…
Read This Article
The Inspirational Tom Lounibos
I’ve known Tom Lounibos a long time. He was a ball boy as a kid, and I threw footballs to him in the Rose Bowl before Super Bowl XI against the Oakland Raiders in 1977. In the 1980s we worked together in business. He is one of my favorite people, and he has gone on…
Read This Article
Becoming a Peak Performer
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at an event for our newest partner, EO Atlanta, one of the largest chapters of the global Entrepreneur’s Organization. I was interviewed by Thor Conklin. Thor is the host of the Peak Performers Podcast, whose goal is to present “the tools, strategies and psychology to not only break…
Read This Article