WorthABillion posted a comment to my Thoughts on Building a Business, part 2 blog entry which I'd like to follow up here.WorthABillion commented that the questions I was posing (and am continuing to pose at this point in time) are "...really a double-edged sword," that people need to have their eyes wide open, have a full understanding of what's involved, but shouldn't consider everything because they won't start a business if they do.
WorthABillion's comments are good ones that I kind of agree and kind of disagree with. Here's why...
My response involves leading things a bit because where I'm going with this arc is that there's nothing more indomitable than the human spirit. I'm a strong believer in human potential and agree with Henry Ford's statement, "Whether you believe you can or you can't, your right." Nothing creates success more than the drive for success, nothing promotes failure more than the willingness to fail. If someone views these things as overwhelming, they are. If they are viewed as "I need more information" then you're on the road to success.
People thinking of starting a business need to recognize that realizing they shouldn't start a business is a success, not a failure. Knowing what you're good at and not good at is a key to being successful. I knew I wasn't a good CEO and spent much of NextStage's first three years finding one. People going down this road truly need to know their own strengths and weaknesses.
I took a seminar with Blair Enns a while back. One of the statements he made was "Successful people do the undesirable thing to get to the desirable outcome. Unsuccessful people do the desirable thing and live with the outcome." This statement is truly valid, I think, and I recommend people thinking of starting a business take time to appreciate its full meaning.
Todd Sullivan, Esquire and Partner in Hayes-Soloway and NextStage's IP attorney and one of our trainers, once told me that he appreciated that I had done things to make NextStage successful that I didn't really want to do but that I felt were necessary in order for NextStage to be successful.
One of the things I hope to explain as this arc proceeds is that I truly don't believe your experiences must be identical to mine in order for you to be successful. This is very different from many people I talked with who told me that if I didn't do exactly what they did, I would fail (this included the fellow currently on wife #2. That really gave me pause. He could be on wife #3 by now for all I know).
What I do know is that people considering starting a business need advice and good counsel and that they need to be very finicky about where they find it. I also know where they find it might not be from me, from WorthABillion, Blair Enns, Dan Sobotincic, or anybody else I know of or can imagine.
The first advice and good counsel must come from inside. That's my thinking, anyway, and thanks to WorthABillion for sharing his. - Joseph
» Thoughts on Building a Business, part 7 from BizMediaScience
Adventures in Small Business Management across the 8th Dimension, Part 7 [Read More]
Tracked on: December 30, 2006 8:31 AM | Permalink to Trackback