How High-Performing Owners Operate in a Down Market. Down markets have a way of exposing things. Not just weak balance sheets or overextended growth plans, but leadership habits that were quietly propped up by good conditions. When markets are strong, almost everyone looks competent. Demand covers mistakes. Growth hides inefficiencies. Momentum forgives poor decisions. In those environments, it’s hard to tell whether performance is coming from skill or simply from timing. A d
The calendar says the year is almost over. Most people treat that as permission to slow down. To ease up. To “wrap things up.” But the truth is simple: your business doesn’t care what the calendar says. There is no finish line in business. There’s only carryover. How you finish one year is how you start the next. And what you do in the final quarter determines whether you enter January in motion or trying to make up ground. The fourth quarter is not the end of the year.