#WiseUp

I started my entrepreneul journey back in 2008, when I made the wildly unpopular decision to leave the safe and boring confines of my corporate, Midwest job to pursue, well… not a safe and boring corporate Midwest job?

Yep, that was it.

Back then, there wasn’t a person on earth who would place any value on what I had to say about anything.

Advice from Riley?

Pssshhh.

Today, things are a little bit different. The primary function of what I do is help entrepreneurs and business leaders solve complex issues with technology and intelligent workflow. Ironically enough, after 10 years of failures (lots of them), achievements (a few of them) and everything in between, the whole advice from Riley thing is actually a marketable skill.

People typically ask me very specific questions that pertain to challenges they have in their business, technology or workflow. However, I found myself relatively stumped when I was recently asked the following question:

Umm, offer about what?

Nope. That’s it.

No obvious context.
No direct specificity.
No subject matter.

There was something uniquely uncomfortable about the ambiguous nature of such an open-ended question. It challenged me to think beyond situational problem solving and dig a little bit deeper.

It even inspired me to pose the exact same question to some well-respected people I’ve worked for, with and alongside during the last decade. Over the next several weeks, you’ll hear how my friends and colleagues – across multiple and diverse industries – responded to that awkwardly open-ended question:

What’s the single best piece of advice or wisdom you have to offer?

It’s amazing the type of wisdom that comes from people when you don’t place limitations or expectations on their answers. I think you’re going to really enjoy these…

And for those of you wondering how I would answer the question, here’s the long answer.