Recently I left the world of being an employee to start my own company and in essence become my own boss. It was quite a gigantic step in my life and I still don’t exactly know where I will end up but as I live and breathe my new realities I am learning so many lessons about People, Life and Business.
For one, their is this perception that its an entrepreneur’s responsibility to be this chief everything officer or do a little of this and do a little of that?? From past businesses I was a part of, I used to agree with this theory but that has since changed. I think that one of the keys to success is understanding on a very deep level what you are good at and what you will provide the most value for at your company at and then it should be your job to continually create execution plans based around getting tasks done that are continuously leveraging this skill set of your’s on a daily basis.
I used to think that it was imperative that I start a business that I am supremely passionate about as I used to think that happiness is derived from what you are doing on a daily basis and not from your thought patterns ,where you are at in life, and being productive in your daily tasks. Mark Cuban hit a home run and put it best “Don’t Follow your Passion, Follow your effort”. Productivity builds passion this was a tough lesson to learn but when you feel productive you become more passionate about what you are doing.
I got off to a fast start from a financial point of view and made really good cash online in my teens and I had no clue what I was doing. When I was younger I never thought about any high level business plans, revenue modeling or any other slang terms that so called “business people” use, I just did it. The reason I never thought of all of that because I was never taught it, I never went to business school in my teens all I did was go to high school and play football, then come home and make money on the computer. Life was easy.
In essence, I learned that speculation or over critiquing of any business model can lead to the downfall of great entrepreneurs. I understand the concepts that these great business schools teach you,
Step 1- Plan
Step 2- Plan
Step Plan- Team
Step 4- Execute
The only stage you learn from is Step 4 or actually doing. I believe that some entrepreneurs “lack of doing” and “fear” coming from their mind prohibit them from “doing”. This was my down fall, I couldn’t control my mind and my thoughts and I didn’t execute on anything. Bottom line, I hate business models, hate discussing business models, I hate revenue models, hate planning. Life is tumultuous I can’t predict the future if I spend all day planning, I won’t spend no time living.
I love collaboration, love working toward a vision and love being productive.
Lastly, in a sense I know what I am after, its not building multi gazillion dollar businesses, I am after an “exploratory lifestyle”. Living a life with challenge, travel, meeting new people and going about my life on my terms is what I am after. I am still and will always be a person who hates authority and will always question authority. I can’t explain why or how but I am a guy who will go to extreme length’s to win at all costs, my ego forces me to never give up and even go ten miles farther than my competitor just to prove in my mind that I could do it. It’s the thing that forces me to always guard the best basketball player on the other team when we play 5 on 5 team.
My new quote is “if your not doing your losing”. The way you will stay happy is by being productive. Productivity is a key element to success however you define you choose to define success.
