Microbusiness Mentor

David Troy tells us how entrepreneurship really works, and I am especially pleased at how he strips down the phenomenal successes of mega celebrity entrepreneurs (Gates, Branson, Buffet) into the reality and the hype!

This also explains a few paradoxes that I have observed in my own entrepreneurship path, for example:

I take risks – yet I see myself as risk-averse.

OK, quitting a $100,000+ job without a solid Plan B is taking a risk. This was what I did in 2004, when I could not sit back and watch the industry I worked in (pharmaceuticals) conduct itself in questionable business practices.

Not having a completely written out business plan is a big risk. Not having customers already lined up (well… I wasn’t sure WHEN I would be quitting, or even IF I would be quitting, to be fair) – that is a big risk.

Yet I had taken a calculated risk, by saving up enough money where if I made absolutely nothing for 365 days, our financial position would not be dramatically affected. We’d be delayed a bit – we were saving up to buy a house and this was during the astronomically priced housing bubble years – but our lifestyle would not be affected much.

I dislike the uncertainty of not knowing what the future holds – yet I love the freedom to design my own future.

I can’t say that I have gotten used to the revenue flux, especially when I drive a lot of the changes in this flux, by restructuring my business model and testing entry to markets, etc.

Not to mention my stubbornness to expect to generate a 6-figure revenue by working no more than 10-20 hours a week so I do not miss out on my son’s newborn – now toddler – years. I made a 6-figure business by working 40+ hours a week – but can I do it in half – less than half – that amount of work time?

Yes, I face uncertainty as an entrepreneur, but I am also responsible for deliberately creating “controlled adversity” for myself.

Maybe it’s because I keep thinking that I can be like a microorganism (I was a microbiology undergraduate major in college) – if I push my limits and plunk myself into a hostile environment – I might just pick up a few plasmids (skills, adaptations) that allow me to grow where and when others cannot.

I learn from the best – yet I am the person who makes it happen with my personal best.

I have worked with many business coaches and have enough “data points” to know this:

If you want to make incredible things happen – you’d better learn from the best – people who have skills or insights that you need to make incredible things happen with your talents…. But this is not enough!

I know so many people who boast about investing a ton of money in their own education and professional development, like that says something about their results. It does say something about their commitment to learning and improving themselves – and this is all.

(Then I begin to wonder if they are using learning as a procrastination device against actually doing.)

Your results is what speaks for your ability to make incredible things happen using the tools, skills, insights you’ve gained.

I have had 4 different coaches using diverse coaching approaches who have worked with me and told me that the results I have demonstrated ranked in the upper 1-5% of their clients’ results.

I thought maybe I was “just lucky” after the 1st or 2nd time. But now I think it’s less mystical than that – I simply DO things with what I had learned.

If these coaches’ clients all DO things at the level that I had done, they may very well experience just as much – maybe even more – results and success as I had experienced.

What entrepreneurship “paradoxes” have you seen along your journey?