I know some entrepreneurs with successful businesses, and others who seem to have a great relationship with their family, but I can’t think of many who have both. Some people would argue that these two successes are mutually exclusive, but I’m not convinced.

Individually, they both take focus, commitment, and a variety of skills, all the strengths of a good entrepreneur. Assuming a person wants both a family and a business, the challenge is to achieve a balance that can satisfy both.

Have you ever experienced a situation where one person trusts you when nobody else does? And what happens next?

In very little time a strong relationship can build between the two of you, sometimes at a remarkable speed. Why does this happen, what are the forces at play and how can you apply this experience and knowledge to your own entrepreneurial journey?

Hitch Hikers constantly seek one person who will believe in them. And I’ll never forget how countless drivers passed me one autumn afternoon as I grew increasingly desperate in the fading light for a lift to get me home. Rejection followed rejection but eventually a car pulled over.

“Where are you going mate?” The driver leant over from his seat and looked up at me shouldering my rucksack and holding the passenger door open.

“The Lake District!” The prospect of a lift always added an eager tone to my voice.

“Better get in then… but I’m only going to Harrogate, so I’ll have to drop you there.”

Investors in River Cities Capital Funds made $41 million in recent months as the downtown venture capital firm outperformed its rivals in fueling young businesses that are growing and creating jobs.

Since September, River Cities has sold its stake in five portfolio companies – generating returns for investors of 2.6 to 8 times the dollars put into those companies. Results are so strong that the firm is considering raising a fifth fund later this year or early next.

“We’ve been bucking the trends,” says Dan Fleming, one of seven managing partners at the 17-year-old firm.

It sure beats a spare room in the basement.

Entrepreneurs at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s Business Incubator here say that one of the biggest advantages they get from the program is an end to the isolation they had in a home or garage office in their companies’ earliest days.

Businesses at the incubator sell products as disparate as custom-decorated dog tags, specialized computer training and vehicle-mounted tents and cargo carriers.

Does it feel like there are too many little things nibbling at you to actually get any real work done? Just when we settle in to work on the Johnson project, Facebook needs updating, Instant Messenger goes off and there’s that email from your partner in Dallas. How are we supposed to get any work done? We need to rebuild our attention spans.

Too many of us spend our time working like Dug, the dog from the movie “Up”. We get distracted at odd moments (SQUIRREL!) and find it hard to focus. By becoming aware of our tendencies and setting support systems in place we can regain our focus.

Tony Schwartz, the author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, has some ideas. In a recent Management Exchange blog post, he offers 6 tips for regaining the focus we once had.

Navy SEALS are not allowed a bad day at work, and they certainly can’t let stress degrade their performance.

Stress reduction, or brain resiliency, can be learned, and you don’t have to be a member of an elite fighting force to do it, according to medical researchers who spoke at at a recent Harvard Medical School symposium on “Resiliency and Learning: Implications for Teaching Medical Students and Residents.”

George Everly, an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has studied Navy SEALs and other groups that work under high stress. He said that people most likely to have developed an immunity to stress have a social support network, are optimistic, are persevering with a stout work ethic and value responsibility and integrity.

In speaking with a friend about the Creative Director role at their agency, we exchanged ideas about what makes a Creative Director. I made some notes for her and thought you’d like to see them… The ideas go beyond that of just a Creative Director.

* Understanding not just what someone states they need, but to look further to what they really need.
* Is multi-lingual… they understand can speak, and translate: design, brand, and client.
* Understands how to make it work – the words, the art, the vehicle.
* Helps people see things from other perspectives.

To become truly creative, a city must see beyond its arts community, a U.S. Arts researcher told a national summit held in London Wednesday.

To become creative, a city must ask all of its citizens what creativity looks like to them.

"Until and unless a community can see its own creativity reflected back to it, it will not see itself as a creative place, and cannot fulfill its potential," San Francisco-based arts researcher Alan Brown told delegates at the creative city summit.

Cities, he said, should ask their communities what creativity looks like to them and start websites where people can upload examples of their creative output and build positive "social norms" around creativity.

The idea: Green enthusiasts take note -- these Windowfarm kits will let you use window space in your house as a hydroponic farm. Regardless of the weather, temperature, or time of year, you'll be able to grow food inside.

Whose idea: Britta Riley

Why it's brilliant: Concerned foodies know exactly how their food was grown and city inhabitants can grow some of their own food year-round. The educational aspect of Windowfarms means that many schools will be interested in buying kits as well.

Even the most decisive manager can be thrown into despair when faced with a high-stakes matter. We make decisions every day without noticing, but a career-making (or breaking) challenge requires thought and deliberation. It's unlikely that a single approach will serve you every time. However, there are key factors you should consider to ensure you reach a sound conclusion.

What the Experts Say
People respond to the pressure of big decisions in different ways. As Michael Roberto, the Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University, said in his 2001 HBR article "What You Don't Know About Making Decisions," "all too often (decision-makers) rush to a conclusion or else dither endlessly and decide too late." Finding a middle ground is difficult, agrees Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and co-author of "Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions." "When there's more at stake, you have to take more time (but) how much time really depends on the magnitude of the decision," he says. Whether you are inclined to take shortcuts or stall out sorting through options, what's most important is to be aware of the hazards that might befall you, and how to avoid them.

This afternoon in Boulder I'll be on a panel as part of the White House Startup America Roundtable. If you weren't invited to the event, there is a web site called Reducing Barriers to Innovation that you can participate in.

Over the past few years, I've spent some time thinking about how the government can help entrepreneurship. It started with my role as the co-chairman of the Colorado Governors Innovation Council which was my first involvement in any formal way with any government initiative. More recently, I've focused my energy on the Startup Visa movement and the Startup America Partnership.

These days you would be hard pressed to find a leader who does not know that a large part of his job is to coach his employees. Nor is it hard to find evidence that the companies with the strongest leadership cultures are those that develop people at every level.

And yet you don’t have to look too far to find managers who ignore this vital part of their job description. Why? The culture in which they work may not insist on it, and many managers also find the idea uncomfortable. The idea of talking one on one to an employee about how she is doing and what she could be doing better makes them uneasy. So they develop rationales for not coaching.

Here are the most common excuses I’ve heard, and my rebuttal to them.

There is a science to site selection. But rarely do the specifics of science itself so directly impact a location choice.

In late April, one day apart, new protease inhibitor drugs developed by both Merck & Co. and by Vertex Pharmaceuticals to treat Hepatitis C in combination with other drugs were to be reviewed by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel. Both companies expect a final decision by the time school’s out for the summer. Hanging in the balance, contingent on the FDA decision, is Vertex’s non-binding letter of intent, signed in January with prominent Boston developer The Fallon Co., to relocate its headquarters to twin office towers in a new US$2-billion downtown Boston waterfront complex called Fan Pier. Backed by incentives from the state and the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the project has been in the works for well over two years, delayed in part by Fan Pier’s tenant and financing challenges resulting from the credit crunch. Fallon first broke ground on the overall development in 2007.

The word "innovate" can be traced all the way back to 1440. It comes from the Middle French word "innovacyon," meaning "renewal" or "new way of doing things".

Exactly what innovations actually happened in 1440 (rounder oxcart wheels?) is anybody's guess, but whatever they were, it's likely they improved the quality of life for more than a few people.

These days, the "innovation thing" is something of a no-brainer. Every company worth its low-salt lunch has identified innovation as a core competency needing to be developed.

Who in their right mind (or is it right brain?) can deny the value of improving things? Isn't this what human beings, those grand inventors of the microchip and the chocolate chip, are supposed to do?

Just last month, the U.S. State Department announced that it was shutting down www.America.gov, the website launched to provide cultural and policy content to the world. Instead, the State Department will focus on using social media to get out its message. The aim is to communicate in a more interactive way with today’s networked audiences around the world—like those blogging Egypt’s revolution from Tahrir Square or documenting Syrian unrest on YouTube.

Shutting down your website to communicate solely through social media channels might seem like a crazy idea for any large organization. But then again, there is some logic to it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Starbucks receives over ten times as much traffic to its Facebook page (19.4 million unique visitors each month) as to its corporate website (1.8 million). For Coca-Cola, the divergence is even starker: 22.5 million visitors on Facebook vs. just 270,000 to its website—over 80 times as much traffic.

To some of you this will be totally elementary, but it's still good to get a refresh.

Via a Deutsche Bank report, here's a breakdown of bank revenues based on the industry average.

Obviously, the biggest source of income is Net Interest Income.

Here's Deutsche's definition:
The largest component of a bank’s revenue is net interest income (NII)—which accounts for about 65% of revenues on average. NII is the dollar difference between the interest earned on a bank’s earning assets (i.e. loans, securities and other interest earning investments) and the funding cost of a bank’s liabilities—which consists of deposits and borrowings. NII is driven by volumes (i.e. assets) and spreads (net interest margin).

It has been said that in order to be an entrepreneur a person has to be selfish and self-centered so that they can achieve their goal. While success in any field requires dedication and focus it is disingenuous to tar all wannabe entrepreneurs with this rather outdated brush.

The truth is somewhat different. In reality, to become successful a person has to develop a number of characteristics that are all positive and will in fact help that person become a more rounded human.

The bottom line is that becoming an entrepreneur can assist personal growth in a number of ways that are key not just to successful business but also to the enhancement of an individual’s standing.

1. "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi

2. "The Wright brother flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility." - Charles Kettering

3. "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carroll

4. "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd." - Miguel de Cervantes

5. "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do." - Henry Moore