Bassam Salem
A career is a living novel consisting of written chapters that capture the past, a current chapter being written, and future chapters with endless possibilities. Each chapter is meaningful because it’s enabled by the preceding one and makes the next one possible. And each chapter eventually comes to a close so the next one can […]
I have paid a high price over the past six years. I used to think of myself as a sometimes flawed but generally well-intentioned person. Those who knew me well would agree that, even though I was (and still am) very ambitious, I was paradoxically not competitive at all. I felt that I had few […]
While I’m not an economist by training, I’ve grown fond of contemplating and simplifying complex economic concepts so as they make sense to me. As I consider how to understand the scale of our economy (or of any economy, for that matter), I’ve realized that the answer is the product of three simple variables: working-age […]
One activity has gotten me closest to a sense of calm and collected peace: early-morning writing, usually with a cup of something hot next to me. I’ve never described myself as a writer, as it wasn’t a skill on which I was academically trained. However, just as I used to get incredible mental gratification from […]
There is an inner conflict that exists in Founder/CEO/Owners that wasn’t clear to me 10 years ago. The three roles/titles may sometimes be conflated when, in reality, each represents a different stakeholder perspective that must be reconciled with the others. The CEO is an employee; she is hired by the shareholders/owners to hire and manage […]
I love cars. I always have. Fundamental to a car’s performance is its engine. As business leaders, do we spend enough time identifying our engines? Do we ask ourselves these five questions? Who on my team delivers more than they promise? Who on my team lightens my load? Who on my team steps up when […]
It’s a question that troubled and pained me earlier in my life and career. Even as a young child, I suffered from Imposter Syndrome; I felt like I wasn’t as smart as adults thought I was nor as strong as my karate sensei believed. In college, I was enamored by the incredible intellect that surrounded […]
In my experience, the most common obstacle holding back highly intelligent people from achieving their potential is that they’re so smart that they always think they’re right, but not quite humble enough to realize that they’re frequently wrong. It took me a long time to understand this, but it was a pivotal epiphany that changed […]
I’m once again in a bit of a contemplative mood thanks to a thoughtful coffee discussion with a good friend this morning. I’m more convinced than ever that, while it’s been the most tragic event of our lifetimes, we’ll exit this epidemic in a dramatically better place than we entered it. First and foremost, we […]
This is meant as an economic, non-political post reflecting on my thoughts as to the interplay between the public and private sectors. As early as four decades ago, my father, a political scientist and economist (with a PhD in each discipline), used to describe to me how society would eventually find a healthy balance between […]