Business owners are like little kids going to the beach, resource in hand: Shovel? Check. Bucket? Check. Rake? Check. We plop down in the sand with focus and determination and begin building! Some kids have a plan, some don’t. Others have help from family members (investors) others start with nothing. Some share the project with friends or siblings, others prefer to work alone. Some build really extravagant structures, others are rather pedestrian. In the end all sandcastles seem to succumb to one of these fates:
– Kids get discouraged, distracted or run out of time and the project fails before completion.
– There is a fight between the partners and they destroy the project probably at the climatic point.
– Workers go on strike and choose to go swimming rather than build the sandcastle.
– Some big kid (conglomerate) comes in and stomps all over your castle and takes your space.
– You finish creating your sandcastle and it looks awesome! You leave to go home satisfied.
What you don’t know is that over time the tides of mother nature will erode your castle and return it to the beach it was before, leaving the sand for the next child to build his great castle creation.
Name one business from the Roman era that is still in existence today. One of the greatest countries ever, with incredible businesses, none survived. Name five in existence from 200 years ago and you will have a very difficult time. Many governments do not last that long. The business which I created at age 20 lasted until I was 35. Hardly the sustaining force that I thought it would be. However the values gained are an investment that will last a lifetime.
About five years after Janelle and I got married we built a nice home out on two acres in the country. It was a corner lot in a neighborhood with only 20 lots in it. Our lot backed up to 40 acres which made it feel like there was nobody else around. Separating our property from the 40 acres is a pond, which my kids and I use regularly to pitch rocks into. Behind the pond is a large stony and wooded hill which fills the landscape.
One afternoon my son Will and I were out gathering rocks in our yard and throwing them into the pond. He was almost three years old at the time so we stayed around a small patch of dirt not too far off our back porch.
Will was crouched over at the knees, his little hands sifting through the hard clay for small pebbles. I heard him mumble something which I didn’t understand so I asked him to repeat it. To this day I can still see him straighten his body, look at me and state “Daddy, these are hard times”. To him they probably were hard times. Here his little patch of dirt was nearly void of pebbles because we had already spent the afternoon collecting them.
When he said it, I started laughing and pondering simultaneously, because behind the pond was the hill with enough stone to fill the pond four times over! The difficult times were only his perspective of the situation, not the reality he lived in. This conversation between Will and me found new meaning as I walked out of my beloved business, final paycheck in hand, in December 2005. I was the one staring at stripped land now. I had removed all the pebbles from the small patch of clay through 15 years of business dealings. I needed to look up and see the mountain on the other side of the pond and realize that although this business patch was empty, I had a whole world in front of me waiting to be conquered.
This book is about the journey of discovering life lessons learned and perspectives gained that would become the building blocks for my next venture. I’ve written this for entrepreneurs and those who wish to become one. It is a book that I hope will help form your perspectives on where you are today as well as where you may be heading.